Best Friends With Benefits

Chapter Twenty Eight

I looked at the digits and fathomed whether to press them into my phone and ring. What would I say?

"What is it?" My brother began to wander over again and I stuffed the paper into my pocket, it would be too complicated to explain the situation since he barely knew what happened with Aiden. Without another word I shrugged it off and headed to my room closing the door behind me. I took the paper out again and leaned against the door feeling my nerves welling up. I wasn't sure whether calling Gale would be a sign to him that I was interested in a relationship. Don't get me wrong, I was interested! But there was always Aiden sitting in the back of my mind, annoying as he was, then again would it be just as bad if I didn't text him at all. I dialled in the number and sent him an innocent 'Hey' and sat on edge waiting for a reply. After a second or so of daydreaming a text came in reading 'Hey'. Excellent, now what was I supposed to say?

'How are you?' Was all I could think of to get the conversation going.

'Good, thank-you, yourself?' The mindless small talk continued for at least five minutes before the conversation turned.  'I wasn't sure if you would text me' I sat up awkwardly and rattled my brain for a reply.

'Why wouldn't I?' My attempt to sound innocent was crossing with unintentional signals. I was subconsciously flirting and somehow didn't regret it.

'You might not be interested'

'How do you know I'm not'

'Because you replied' He was right, if I really wasn't interested and wanted to pursue a relationship with Aiden then I wouldn't of even debated in sending Gale a single text, but I had, I had even waited for his reply proving to myself that I was more interested then I gave myself credit for. It was annoying how Gale knew me better than me. After exchanging texts for an hour or so, Gale rang me and we sat talking for another couple of hours. The conversation was filled with different subjects but never took a flirtatious turn which I was thankful for because I wasn't sure how I was going to react if it did. When the phone call ended I noticed I had several missed calls from Aiden, this would be difficult to explain.

Aiden answered on the first ring. "Pey, are you ok? I have been trying to ring you for ages" He sounded genuinely concerned with a hint of anger in his voice, I had to admit that I loved his protective side.

"Yeah I'm fine, I was on the phone, that's all" I knew Aiden was already processing who I could have been on the phone with for over an hour since it was only usually him.

"Who too?" Aiden said this a little too slowly and full of suspicion which made me anxious to tell him, I could lie to spare his anger but lies only made situations worse.

"Gale" I almost whispered thinking that if I kept my answer calm that maybe his reaction would be calm also. I was wrong, I could almost hear the jealously and frustration through the phone and the silence was definitely deadly, it was killing me. I was glad I couldn't see him because I'm sure his eyes would burn into me. After what seemed like an eternity in silence he answered.

"Cool, what did you talk about for so long?" Aiden almost spat the words out and all of a sudden I didn't insist to continue the conversation on, I wasn't going to make Aiden more jealous then he was, that would only cause him pain.

"Just stuff" I couldn't tell if my vagueness annoyed him more but he didn't question it and soon our conversation was over which was actually probably for the better, I would let him calm down. I didn't know if I liked this, Aiden getting jealous every time I mentioned Gale's name, whether Gale and I got together or just remained friends, he was going to be in my life and that was something Aiden would have to deal with, the trouble was I didn't know if he would choose to deal with it.