by Cari Z
Tyler put his fork down. “I’ll come with you.”
“No.” Aaron forced a smile. “Stay. Please.” Please don’t make this into a thing. Stay and be friendly and charming. Stay so they don’t think about me. “I’ll be right back.”
Tyler, to his credit, just nodded. “Okay.” Both Chrissy and Zach sat there like deer in the headlights, which made leaving that much easier.
It was a little cooler outside, but the sun was just going down, and the air hummed with mosquitoes. Aaron walked down to the car, got into the front seat, and just sat there for a long moment. He was being a drama queen, and he knew it. Of course Zach had had a good childhood—anyone could tell that from the way he acted and the things he posted online. Chrissy had been good for him, and Aaron didn’t resent her for that. He only resented that he hadn’t been a part of it. He hadn’t let himself be a part of it, and that was all on him.
Aaron leaned back against the headrest and stared at the roof of the car. It smelled like Tyler’s gross snack foods in there, and a little like feet, but Aaron felt way more comfortable alone in the car than he had a minute earlier eating dinner. Despite how weird it was to be there and see everything he’d missed out on, he couldn’t bring himself to regret how things had turned out.
There was a gentle tapping on the driver’s side window. Aaron glanced over and saw a girl he didn’t know with a face he recognized. She waved a little, and he opened the door.
“Hey,” she said, sounding friendlier than he probably deserved. “I’m Becky. You must be Aaron.” When she smiled, Aaron almost had to smile back. “You’ve got the same chin as Zach.”
“Poor him.”
“Personally, I think it’s cute. So.” She glanced around casually. “You want to keep hanging out in the car for a while or maybe come inside and have some more food before Zach and your enormous boyfriend eat it all?”
“Oh.” Aaron shook his head. “No, he’s not my boyfriend. Tyler’s my best friend, but we’re not… together.”
“Okay. I still recommend coming inside over stifling in here.” She winked. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
Aaron half wanted to ask what she thought he needed protection from, but then, he was the one cowering in the car. Maybe she had a better handle on the situation than he thought.
“If you say so.” He got out and managed not to jump when Becky looped her hand around his elbow, something he would have thought a little presumptuous from almost anyone else, but with her it just felt… natural for some reason.
“So!” Becky said as they walked in the front door and turned into the kitchen, where three worried faces greeted them. “You better have saved me some lo mein, otherwise there’ll be hell to pay.” She turned to Aaron. “China King is a little hole-in-the-wall place, but they have the best lo mein I’ve ever tasted.” She shrugged. “Not that I’ve ever been out of the continental US, but still.”
“Here, baby.” Zach handed her a carton a bit cautiously, and she disengaged from Aaron long enough to take a bite. It brought a moan to her lips, and if Aaron had been even remotely straight, he’d have been smitten. Tyler certainly looked entertained.
They sat down together, a little crowded around such a small table, but as Becky pointed out, the dining room table was already taken.
“I can’t believe I let my sister talk me into personalized candy,” she grumbled.
Zach stared at her. “Are you kidding me? Seeing my name printed on an M&M is the best thing about the whole wedding! Except for, like, the marrying you part of it,” he added belatedly.
Becky shrugged. “They’re cute, but we’ve got a hundred guests coming to this thing and every one of them needs a sachet of candy, and we’ve got five pounds of candy, which translates to about twenty-five hundred M&Ms, so we have to make sure everybody has no more than twenty-five apiece, and honestly it would have been so much easier to just do… what?”
Zach wasn’t quite meeting her eyes now.
“What?”
Zach looked down at the table. “We don’t have quite five pounds anymore.”
“You started eating the wedding candy? Seriously?” At least she didn’t sound truly pissed about it.
“I had to taste test them! Just to make sure they’re as good as the usual ones. I only ate a few handfuls.”
Becky sighed. “Fine. So twenty-three apiece or something. It’s still a pain in the ass, and I’ve got another fitting in the morning and my dad’s parents are flying in after that, so I’m not sure when I’m going to get around to putting it all together.”
“We can do it.”
If Aaron was a little surprised he’d spoken up, that was nothing to the looks he got from everyone but Becky, who just seemed pleased.
“Really? That would be great. I’ve already bought all the sachets and ribbons, so you’ll just have to bag ’em and tag ’em.”
“Kind of like working in a morgue,” Tyler mused.
Becky nodded. “A candy morgue. Wrapped up all nice and pretty before being sent off to their final resting place—in this case, in the bellies of our hungry guests.”
“It’ll be a massacre.”
“Oh yeah, no survivors.” They grinned at each other, and Aaron knew he wasn’t the only one feeling a little relieved. If they could just hang out with Becky as much as possible for the rest of the trip, he might get through this thing all right.
“Does that mean I can’t eat any more?” Zach asked, and Chrissy smacked the back of his head again.
“Honest to God, go buy yourself some M&Ms if you want them so bad.”
“But these ones are Royals colors, and they’ve got my name on them. Eating them is a highlight of my life so far.”
Aaron looked at Becky and murmured, “Now you have a plan for anniversary gifts for the rest of your life. Birthdays too, maybe. You’re lucky he’s so easy to please.” She laughed, and he felt like he’d accomplished something.
“Was he this into candy when he was a little kid?” she asked, and for once there was no hidden meaning or way things could be taken differently, no potential insinuations of giving him too much candy or withholding it from him. She was just curious, and Aaron appreciated that more than he could say.
“Yeah, but back then Skittles were his favorite. He’d make himself sick on them if someone wasn’t watching him.” That someone being me. “It really did make birthdays easier, though. Fifty cents and I was the best brother ever.”
“I’m sure you were anyway.” She went back to eating before Aaron could freeze or, worse, ask for clarification.
Dinner was followed by an invitation to go out to a bar with all of the wedding party that was assembled so far, but Aaron declined and Tyler followed suit. Chrissy decided to stay home and catch up on her TiVo, and so by seven in the evening, Aaron had basically relegated himself and Tyler to their bedroom in an effort to stay out of the way.
“Sorry about this.”
“For the fifth time, stop apologizing.”
“You know, you could have gone with them,” Aaron said, fiddling with the rotating fan in front of the window until it hit just the right arc. He flopped down on the bed and glanced over at Tyler, who’d gotten the Wi-Fi password out of Chrissy and pulled out his laptop to get some more work done. “Just because I’m being a hermit doesn’t mean you can’t go out and have a good time.”
“Dude.” Tyler stared at him, and for once there was almost no humor in his expression. “No offense to your brother or Becky, they’re both great, but I didn’t come here to hang out with them. I came here to be with you. You want to stay in, then I want to stay in with you. I’ve got no interest in doing otherwise.” He shrugged. “Besides, how good could a bar here be? What, they gonna feed me corn nuts and piss-colored light beer before we go cow-tipping or something?”
Aaron grinned. “Snob.”
“You know it.”
Chapter Eight
SHARING a bed in Chrissy’s house wasn’t exactly nove
l for Aaron when it came to Tyler. He’d slept on the same mattress with him before, usually when Tyler had chosen to crash at Aaron’s place when he was home from college on the weekends. Aaron couldn’t have kicked him to the couch, not as short as it was compared to Tyler, but he wasn’t about to make himself uncomfortable over it either. So they’d slept together, usually both on top of the covers, and in the mornings it had been a slow, bleary race to see who got the bathroom first and who had to make coffee.
It was different there, though. The room itself was uncomfortable, new in a way that Aaron’s subconscious mind really didn’t seem to appreciate, because no matter where he looked in the place, he couldn’t really find something he liked. The mattress squeaked, the sheets were polyester instead of the soft cotton that he’d spent years breaking in, and every time Aaron closed his eyes, the Royals emblem was engraved on the inside of his eyelids like it was just waiting to ambush him in his dreams. So was it any wonder that during the night he gravitated toward the one reliable, familiar thing the room had to offer and woke up holding on to it for all he was worth?
Aaron’s face was pressed to the back of Tyler’s neck, his hand resting on the curve of Tyler’s tricep—not quite pulling him in, but not even close to maintaining the comfortable foot of distance between them that they’d started with. When he realized Tyler was still asleep, snoring gently, he sighed with relief and carefully pulled back until there were a few body-warm inches between them.
It wasn’t that Aaron thought Tyler would react badly to being inadvertently cuddled. Tyler was just about the most open-minded and accepting person Aaron had ever met, and he’d almost certainly crack a joke or pretend it hadn’t happened at all, and things would go back to normal. The problem, and Aaron knew this about himself, knew it ever since Tyler had come to visit him by himself on his first school break, was that Aaron had to be so, so careful to keep their relationship normal. Especially when a huge part of him didn’t want to.
If Aaron could wave his hands and remake his life in whatever image he wanted, his status quo with Tyler was one of the first things he’d change. Not because it wasn’t a great friendship, but because there was the potential for so much more on his side. Tyler was Aaron’s polar opposite in a lot of ways, but he loved how well they worked together, how fun it was just to be together.
If they hadn’t met when Tyler was still in high school, if Tyler’s parents hadn’t basically been Aaron’s biggest emotional supports through college, if Tyler didn’t think of him more like a brother than a potential boyfriend… if a hundred impossible things could change, then Aaron would have gone after more with Tyler. Even now, five years after the thought had first occurred to him when Tyler had said no to a weekend with his folks so he could hang out in Aaron’s dump of an apartment and get put to work proofreading his graduate thesis, Aaron was struck occasionally with a sense of longing that almost knocked him down. Thank fuck he was already on the bed, or this might be one of those times.
Ah right, he was lying on the bed. With Tyler, who shifted in his sleep and rolled onto his back so that his shoulder pressed into Aaron’s chest, his handsome, sleep-softened face partially obscured by the mess of his blond hair. It was hard to look at him like this, hard to feel him pressed so close, and not want him.
Aaron eased away from Tyler and out of bed, wincing as his feet hit the ground a little harder than he was intending. Tyler didn’t wake up, though, so he took advantage of the fact that he was the only person awake—or more likely, the only person other than Tyler who was still around, given that it was almost nine―and monopolized the bathroom for a while.
Chrissy was sitting at the kitchen table when he got downstairs, nursing a cup of coffee and texting. She looked up and smiled when he walked in. “There he is. Did you two sleep well?”
“I slept great, thanks.”
“Good! I’ve been meaning to replace that mattress for the longest time, but Reggie never complains when he’s at home and there’s always something else that’s a little more pressing, you know?”
“Definitely.” Aaron cast his sights around for the coffeepot and some more mugs.
“Right-hand side, above the cutting board,” she said. “Creamer’s in the fridge, if you like it.”
“Thanks.” Aaron opened the fridge, then immediately reached out and stopped a teetering carton of leftover Chinese from toppling over. Every shelf was packed with food, most of it sealed up tight in plastic wrap and tinfoil. Chrissy sighed and reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table.
“Most of that’s from Becky’s folks.” She rolled her eyes as she lit her cigarette up. “She’s been living here going on six months, ever since they got engaged, and her parents are still worried she’s not eating well enough. Like anybody in this house has ever gone hungry. Which they haven’t, and that wasn’t always easy considering I had three teenage boys with stomachs like black holes at home.”
“Parents aren’t always rational,” Aaron offered up when it seemed like she’d run out of things to say. That was enough to get her started again.
“It isn’t like their baby girl is marrying down, even if that’s the vibe her folks give off. They’re, what, wheat farmers? And I’ll say nothing against them. God knows we need people who know how to work the land, but that doesn’t mean they’re more honorable than anyone else who works to provide for their family. And Zach has a good job, and he’ll get another good one in St. Louis when they move there, and he loves that girl better than baseball, better than the Royals winning the World Series. You both had it rough as kids, no question about it, but look at you now.”
She gestured toward Aaron with her cigarette. “You’re a college graduate, you’re giving back and making things better for other kids like you, and you’ve got a great guy in Tyler. It’s not—it’s not the way I wish it had gone, you know?” There was something vaguely pleading in her voice that made Aaron uncomfortable. “I’ve never quite gotten over what happened with you, but it wasn’t all bad in the end. Right?”
Aaron knew what she needed to hear. Hell, maybe he even needed to say it. “You were just what Zach needed. You might have been what I needed, but I wasn’t ready to accept help back then. And where I ended up….” He took a sip of his coffee as he thought about how to phrase it. “It’s everything I need now. I’m happy there.” Huh. He really was, workaholic schedule and all. “And Tyler is a great guy, but we’re not dating.”
“Oh.” Chrissy looked surprised. “You shot him down?”
“No. He’s—we’ve never dated.”
“Well. I’d never have guessed from the way he looks at you.” She finished her cigarette, then smushed it into the ashtray and stood up. “Zach’s already making a run to the airport for some of Becky’s people, and Becky left half an hour ago to do brunch with her girls before their final fittings, but she left an example of how she wants the favors on the table. Want to see?”
“Sure.” He followed her to the dining room, where a bag full of lacy gold sachets sat beside a bag of blue and white M&Ms, clamped firmly closed with an enormous binder clip. “She wants them to look like this when they’re done,” Chrissy said, holding up the only bag that was tied shut, held together with a curly, powder blue ribbon.
“Got it.” It looked simple enough.
“Great. Thanks for helping her out. She was fretting something fierce before you two arrived.”
Aaron shrugged. “It feels like the least I could do.”
“No, hon.” Chrissy shook her head. “Zach wasn’t expecting more than a card, maybe something off the registry if you were paying attention. He’s been so excited since you told him you were coming, it’s all we could do to hold him in one place sometimes. Becky was worried you two wouldn’t get along.”
“Oh.” Aaron felt like he’d been caught flat-footed, tripped up over an invisible obstacle. “She doesn’t need to worry about that. I’d never cause Zach trouble, especially not right before his wedding.”
&
nbsp; “I knew that,” Chrissy assured him. “But then I got to see you both as boys. Becky’s never gotten along all that well with her own family, so it makes sense she’d be a little uncertain. You being here is a good thing, Aaron. Trust me.”
Aaron didn’t have much to say to that. He just nodded, and Chrissy looked satisfied. “Now, I’m going to head down to the salon, but there are eggs and cinnamon rolls in the fridge, and plenty of bread for toast if you’re hungry. Simon’s flight comes in at four, so they’ll be back home in time for supper, but I think the boys have some sort of bachelor party thing planned for tonight.”
“Yeah?” Aaron held back a grimace. A bachelor party. Awesome.
“Yep, so don’t fill up here. Owen is running things, and that boy’s got plans.” Chrissy shook her head a little, but she was smiling. “Come on down if you run out of things to do and I’ll give you a haircut,” she added as she headed for the door, Norman following at her heels.
“Thanks.”
Ten minutes later, Aaron had a fresh cup of coffee and a warm cinnamon roll next to him as he got started on filling tiny bags with candy. Chrissy had a set of measuring cups, and a shallow quarter cup seemed to net him about the right number of candies, so he went with it. He had twenty of them filled and tied off before Tyler joined him, looking surprisingly perky for someone who’d slept as long and deep as he had.
“Ooh, candy!” He reached for the big bag and Aaron smacked the back of his hand.
“We’re already low on them thanks to Zach. Don’t make the problem worse.”
“I’m a guest at the wedding, though, right? Like, they’ve factored me in, so I could eat the candy I’m supposed to get then now, and it would all even out.”
“And then you’d pout at the wedding and expect me to share my M&Ms with you.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said with a grin. He batted his eyelashes and pushed out his lower lip. “Would it work? It would, right? It would totally work! You’re a sucker for these big brown eyes. Admit it.”