Call the Bluff: Aces High, Jokers Wild Book 2

"Might need to get the commander on the roster, too," Yvonne snickered, throwing an arm around her wife’s waist. "He’s drunk."

"Look who’s talking!" Sarah giggled as Yvonne ran a very insistent hand over her breasts. "Looking for something, hon? This maybe?" She pulled the taller woman in for a long kiss. Yvonne hummed happily against her wife’s lips. "Mmmmhmm."

"Okay Maureen." Kevin called over, pulling the joke from a movie Aidan had found and everyone had fallen in love with.

Yvonne gave him a goofy grin. "Ouoooooot tonight!" she wailed off key.

Kevin covered his ears. "Wrong note and wrong character, dear girl."

"Kissing? We’re doing kissing now?" Aidan muttered with a grin, his words slurred. He made a stumbling turn and kissed Kevin hard, hands holding tight to his boyfriend’s jacket collar. Kevin swallowed an amazed squeak, shocked at Aidan’s boldness. Aidan, kissing in public? He really must be drunk. But Kevin wasn’t about to complain.

"That’s it!" Liza’s laughing voice shouted, "Everybody get a room!" 

"Finally, an order from her I don’t feel obliged to disagree with," Kevin murmured into Aidan’s hair. Taking Aidan’s shoulders, he guided him down the hall. Aidan stumbled beside Kevin, still wearing that infectious grin.  Kevin couldn’t help but smile in turn.

"That song is going to be stuck in my head for a week." he murmured laughingly as they slipped together into his room.

"Sing somethin’ else and you’ll forget that one," Aidan mumbled, chuckling to himself. "I mean, you know like a million. Do one of the bugs ones."

"I think you mean the Beatles."

Kevin let Aidan flop down on the bed, knelt and pulled off the other man’s boots before he undid his own. He set his glasses aside and snuggled down beside Aidan.

The lights gleamed through a lovely fog of inebriation and nearsightedness. Kevin smiled lazily, taking in Aidan’s face. Seen like this, he seemed to have a halo.

Aidan half-opened his eyes, his messy pageboy-cut hair fanned out around his face. "What?"

Kevin smoothed his hair back. "You look like a saint in this light."

Aidan chuckled, reaching up to cup Kevin’s cheek in his palm, thumb stroking his cheekbone.

"You oughta let Damian do your eyes. Your sight’s all kinds of messed up."

"No, really. Saint Jude. Patron saint of lost causes." Kevin leaned in, kissing Aidan’s throat. He breathed the words of a song into Aidan’s ear.

"Hey Jude, don’t make it bad,

 just take a sad song and make it better..."

Aidan laughed, rolling clumsily into his arms.

"You’re drunk."                                                                         

"I’m drunk? Pot and kettle." Kevin tapped Aidan’s nose. "For your information, I’m tipsy. You’re drunk."

Aidan closed his eyes, a grin on his lips. "Okay," he managed, tripping over the words. "I’m drunk."

He snuggled down against Kevin, resting his head on Kevin’s chest. "Mm. I love you."

Kevin’s breath caught in his chest.

I love you. Aidan had just said that. He’d really said it.

He forced himself to give a laugh, though it sounded tinny in his own ears.

 "I…" He swallowed hard, forcing the words out. "I think I love you too. But given that you’re drunk, I doubt you’ll remember."

Aidan chuckled and pulled him back in for another kiss. "Shuddup an’ kiss me."

"With pleasure," Kevin agreed, rolling them so that Aidan was on top of him and kissing him long and softly. He made a point of keeping the kisses easy, asking nothing from a man as drunk as Aidan was.

Eventually, Aidan closed his eyes and lay draped bonelessly, his breathing slow with sleep. Leaning tipsily on the edge of sleep himself, Kevin let himself bask in this moment: the warmth, the contentment, the feeling of Aidan’s chest rising and falling against his. Smiling softly, he slid his hand under Aidan’s shirt and unzipped his binder. Aidan would sleep more easily with that pressure off his chest.

Pulling the covers over them both, he let his eyes fall closed.

Aidan had actually said those words. I love you.

Said them while drunk.

But he’d said them.