by Cari Z
Aaron felt like he’d never heard Tyler quite like this before—drunk and driven to the point of being more forthright than they usually were with each other. They stared at each other in silence until Tyler finally dropped his head.
“Hell. Don’t listen t’me. I’m an idiot.”
“None of that was idiotic.” Passionate, and maybe kind of unwise, but not idiotic. “You know I appreciate the support, Ty, but I really can take care of myself.”
“Yeah, but you don’t do it as well as me.” Tyler chuckled. “Weren’t you listenin’? You put everybody else first. I’m the only one’ll put you first.”
Something in Aaron’s chest got uncomfortably tight. Tyler was drunk. He was so drunk. Aaron wasn’t going to take advantage of what he said when he was like this.
“I think I need to put you to bed, Ty.”
“Only if you come with me.”
“Of course I’m coming with you.” Aaron opened the passenger door for Tyler and helped him in, made sure he was buckled, then got into the driver’s seat and started up the car. They pulled out of the parking lot just as Zach and his groomsmen beat a hasty exit from BAZOOKA ALLSTARS, and Aaron was glad they missed the chance at another fight in the parking lot. The wedding was going to be awkward enough as it was.
They got back to Chrissy’s just before ten, and the quiet of the house told him that Chrissy and Norman had already gone to sleep. Aaron got Tyler into the bathroom, made him some toast, set a big glass of water on the nightstand on his side of the bed, and waited quietly for him to get back.
Being put first wasn’t something Aaron had a lot of experience with. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been put first in his entire life. He’d been born addicted to drugs, small and malnourished. Zach had been the same. It was almost a miracle they’d both recovered as well as they had, considering their care for the first years of their lives. What would it be like, to be with someone who got, really got, why Aaron didn’t experiment? Why he was a wet blanket at parties, why he was no fun out on the town?
Maybe Tyler had already answered that question.
The man in question was bleary-eyed and tired when he got back into the room. Aaron handed him the water and toast, then brushed some of Tyler’s hair back from his face and winced.
“You’re going to have a bruise.” He ran his thumb just beneath Tyler’s left cheekbone, where a purple splotch the shape of Owen’s knuckles was starting to appear. “I’ll get you some ice.”
“S’fine. I just want to sleep.”
“Okay.”
Tyler finished half the water, didn’t touch the food, and crawled underneath the covers as soon as there was space. Aaron ate it instead, brushed his teeth, and joined Tyler again a moment later. This time, Tyler didn’t even front at putting space between them—he rolled up to Aaron’s side and curled against him with a ragged sigh.
“Life sucks sometimes.”
“Yeah.” Aaron didn’t ask for clarification, just rubbed the top of Tyler’s shoulder until his eyes closed. He was asleep in under a minute. It took Aaron a lot longer to finally join him.
Chapter Ten
AARON was completely unsurprised that he was the first person up again. Well, apart from Norman, who was standing at the back door looking anxious as Aaron came down the stairs.
“Okay, I get it.” He let the dog out, then went to set up the coffee. By the time it was brewed, Norman was back inside and being surprisingly affectionate—at least until Aaron figured out he was still waiting for breakfast and put a scoop of dog chow into his bowl. Norman happily ignored him after that, and Aaron cleared the dishes in the sink and pulled a cinnamon roll out of the fridge. He hadn’t eaten dinner the day before—none of them had, maybe that would have come after the strip club—so the pastry wasn’t going to hold him long, but it was a decent start.
He didn’t expect Becky to show up at the front door a few minutes after he’d sat down at the table. He especially didn’t expect her to show up dragging Zach in her wake, who looked pretty miserably hung over.
“Good morning!” Becky said brightly as soon as she saw him. Zach winced.
“Can you keep your voice down, babe?” he asked faintly.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Am I being too loud for you?” She was smiling, but there was a sharp edge to it. “I guess I wasn’t sure what volume you preferred, since you and your groomsmen managed to crash my bachelorette party rather loudly last night! They basically fell out of a cab and onto my parents’ living room floor,” she said for Aaron’s benefit. “And let me tell you, my stripper wasn’t happy about having his show interrupted.”
“Can we not talk about strippers?”
“Sorry again! You want me to definitely not talk about how Jolene’s boyfriend texted her in the middle of pin the macho on the man to tell her that you guys got into a brawl at that goddamn strip club? Is that it?”
“It wasn’t a brawl,” Zach said, turning pleading eyes on Aaron. “Right? It wasn’t a brawl.”
Aaron shrugged. “I don’t think two people can be a brawl.”
“They can when they’re two damn giants, apparently,” Becky snapped. “And Owen’s got a huge black eye and he broke one of his fingers, so he’ll be wearing a splint for all the wedding photos!”
Oh, damn. “How did he break a finger?” Aaron asked. Did they need to be worried about Owen pressing charges for assault and battery? Although witnesses would say that he was the one to start the fight….
“Not on Tyler,” Zach assured him. “He kind of—punched the wall on the way out. Broke his pinkie. Oh, shit, wait. Is Tyler okay?”
His worry sounded genuine enough. Aaron relaxed his shoulders a little. “He’s a little bruised up, but it could be worse. And at least we won’t have to be in your pictures.”
“Shit.” Zach sat down at the table and slumped over onto his forearms. “I’m so fucking sorry about last night. Owen was awful. He’s not usually that bad, I swear, but he lost his job a few weeks ago and it’s been screwing with him.”
Aaron shrugged. “We’re big boys. We can take care of ourselves.”
“I know. I’m still sorry. Especially for the faggot stuff, that was—”
“The what stuff?”
Zach groaned again. “Baby, c’mon. Owen’s an idiot. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Becky put her hands on her hips. “He’s aware that one of my bridesmaids is a lesbian, right? And that her girlfriend is coming to the wedding? If he corners her and calls her a dyke or asks how they like to have sex and whether or not he can watch, so help me God—”
“I’m going to make some breakfast,” Aaron interjected. Zach looked pathetically grateful. “Scrambled eggs with cheese okay for you guys?”
Becky bit her lip. “You don’t have to cook for us. You’re the guest here.”
“I’d like to. You guys are going to have a busy day. Tux pickup, right?”
“And cake pickup. And getting ready for the rehearsal dinner tonight. And—”
“Then you could use a break for breakfast.”
“Thank you.” Zach pressed slowly to his feet. “I’m gonna go get a shower.”
Becky smiled at him, showing all her teeth. “You could use one.” He skulked up the stairs, and Becky took his place at the table. “You sure I can’t help you?”
“I’m fine. You look like you could use a break.”
“Thanks. The pan’s in the cupboard next to the fridge.” She took the cup of coffee he gave her and added cream and sugar on her own, then watched quietly for a few minutes while he cracked eggs and grated cheese.
“I can’t wait to get out of here,” she said just as he poured the eggs into the pan. “I would have married Zach at the courthouse with only our immediate family around if I could have gotten away with it, but I’m my parents’ only girl. My mom wanted the big wedding and the frou-frou dress, and my dad wanted to walk me down the aisle.” She shifted in the chair. “He’s got congestive heart failure.
He might not be here this time next year.”
Aaron carefully stirred the eggs and hunted for something to say. “It’s nice of you to indulge them.”
“Yeah, I guess. My mom, she wants us to move back here after I’m done with grad school. She wants us to settle in here and have babies here and live right down the street forever.”
“What do you think about that?”
Becky chuckled. “I think I’d rather cut off an arm than come back here to live. It’s not that it’s so… bad here, really. It’s just that nobody’s ever going to see me as anything other than Becky Simpson here, Carl and Jeanette Simpson’s little girl. I could live to be a hundred and someone would still think they know me better than I know myself. And if I have to listen to my parents tell me I’m settling again, I’ll kick someone. Probably them.”
Aaron sprinkled a handful of cheese over the eggs and mixed it in, waiting for her to go on. He could tell she wanted to, and he wasn’t disappointed. “Are you glad you got to leave? I mean, I know it wasn’t under the best circumstances, but now you’re glad, right?”
Aaron shrugged. “At the time, I would have done almost anything to stay. I didn’t want to leave Zach. Chrissy took good care of him, though. He had a good childhood here, and he met you here. And I did well for myself too, so yeah, these days I’m glad.” He pulled down a few plates and served up some eggs. “Bon appetit.”
Becky took the plate and a fork with a nod. “Thanks.”
“Hey, you cookin’?” Tyler came down the stairs looking way perkier than he had the last time he was capable of speech, dressed in loose sweats and a T-shirt. He waved at Becky as he walked over to the stove, then startled as she got up and grabbed his arm, turning him to face her.
“Oh my God, your poor cheek!”
“It’s not that bad,” he said with a smile. And… well, it could have been worse. The bruise had spread across his left cheekbone, but it was fairly localized.
“Should have let me give you ice,” Aaron said as he passed Tyler a plate. Tyler looked at it and made puppy dog eyes.
“Can I have more?”
“I’m saving some for Chrissy and Zach, so no.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“There’s the bread.” Aaron pointed at the twisty-tied loaf on the sideboard. “Make yourself some toast.”
“But it tastes better when you make it for me.”
“Everything tastes better when someone else makes it for you,” Becky agreed, and they shared a grin.
Aaron pointed the spatula back and forth between them. “You two are creepy.”
“Eh, you love us.” Tyler sat down at the table and started in on his eggs. Aaron resisted the impulse to make toast and plated some for himself instead. By the time he refilled his coffee mug and sat down, Becky was filling Tyler in on the way Zach and the other guys had crashed her party last night.
“We had to give up the living room for those doofuses so they could sleep on the inflatable mattress and the couch. Matthew had already given his bedroom up to our grandma, so he and Owen shared the air mattress while Simon got to sleep by himself.” She shook her head, but looked satisfied as she said, “Turns out there’s a slow leak in it. Both of them were flat on the ground by the time I dragged Zach out of there this morning. I hope the hardwood floor gives that dumb son of a bitch a headache.”
“Which one’s the dumb son of a bitch?” Tyler asked.
“Oh, take your pick.”
Aaron was stuck on something else. “You had your bachelorette party in the house while your grandma is visiting?”
Becky grinned. “Are you kidding me? She was part of it! Grandma was the absolute best at pinning the dick on those foldout pictures, seriously. It’s like she’s got a sixth sense for where to put her hand.”
Tyler bent over with laughter. “Pics or it didn’t happen!”
“Oh, you want proof? I’ve got proof.” She pulled up photos on her phone and beckoned them both in. Aaron was expecting… well, he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t a tiny old woman with her hair in rollers wearing a hot pink dressing gown, magenta lipstick, and huge false eyelashes crowing with triumph as she saw that she’d just successfully stuck an outsized penis on a cutout of what looked like a Chippendales dancer.
He grinned. “That’s pretty amazing.”
“You think that’s amazing? You should see her victory dance.” Which, of course, Becky had a video of. By the time it was over, Tyler was almost on the ground and Aaron had to push his plate away so he didn’t faceplant into it, resting his head on his forearms as he gasped with laughter. The video repeated, and with every cackled refrain of “Who’s yo daddy, bitch, who’s yo daddy?” they laughed louder.
“Good grief, you three!” Chrissy looked at them all with wide eyes, finally downstairs and dressed. Zach was right behind her, silently goggling. “What in God’s name is so funny?”
“Gra—gran—” Becky couldn’t quite get it out. She stopped the video and took a few deep breaths. “Grandma at the bachelorette party.”
“I didn’t know you had video of that,” Zach said. He looked at their plates. “Did you save some eggs for me?”
“There’s some for you and Chrissy to split still in the pan,” Aaron managed. He straightened up and did his best to calm down. “Holy shit, that’s funny.”
“I want a grandma like that,” Tyler agreed.
“Can I see the video?” Zach asked in a small voice.
“Maybe.” Becky tossed her hair. “If you keep your doofuses out of my hair by grabbing the tuxes and the cake.”
It was on the tip of Aaron’s tongue to volunteer to help, but he held back. He might not be able to avoid Owen later, but he wasn’t going to actively seek out his company either. “Can Ty and I help with anything else?”
“You guys have done enough,” she said warmly. “Chrissy sent me a pic of the favors, they all look so nice! Although—actually, okay. So, you know the rehearsal dinner is tonight at five. It’s small,” she assured them, “just family and wedding party, so only about thirty of us. We’re having it at the restaurant at Dad’s favorite golf course, and we went ahead and assigned seats just to make life easier. If you don’t mind greeting people at the door and telling them where they’re going to be sitting, that would be lovely.”
Zach frowned. “Why did we assign seats for the rehearsal dinner again?”
“Mostly so Owen wouldn’t make rude comments to the wrong person, Grandpa doesn’t frighten a small child with his smell, and Donnie and Chrissy don’t get stuck next to each other.”
“Good girl,” Chrissy said, polishing off the last of her eggs. “I appreciate that.”
“Who’s Donnie?” Tyler asked.
“My first fling after Ron and I called it quits. One of Becky’s uncles.” She frowned. “He’s a nice enough guy, but we just didn’t connect. I broke things off, but every time there’s a family function, he tries to rekindle the romance.”
“Last time he sang,” Becky confessed. “It was so embarrassing.”
“It was… kinda cute, especially compared to the time he baked a cake and iced it to look like my face.”
“That’s just creepy,” Aaron muttered. “Do you need to file for a restraining order?”
Chrissy laughed. “Oh, it’s just a little infatuation. Don’t take everything so seriously, hon!”
Aaron almost, almost brought up one of the earliest cases he’d ever been given, where the mother of the kid in custody had been stalked by an old boyfriend who didn’t listen to her refusals, only to end up dead in a murder-suicide. The kid had only been a baby when it happened, and once her foster family had adopted her, it had been a relatively happy ending, but… that case still haunted him. He’d always wondered if he should have done more for the mother, encouraged her to get more help, to call the police, to go somewhere he couldn’t find her. But she’d wanted to stay close to her kid, and she hadn’t bothered to report violations of the rest
raining order, and the boyfriend had gone from persistent to insistent to violent in a matter of days.
Bringing up things like this was what gave him a reputation as a downer. Aaron kept his mouth shut, and the conversation moved on to the timing for the rest of the day. He was pretty free himself, while Tyler had some work to get done, so when Chrissy asked again whether or not he was going to let her straighten up his hair any, Aaron surprised himself by saying, “Sure.”
Apparently he’d surprised everyone else as well. Chrissy looked cautiously pleased. “Really?”
“Yeah, as long as you don’t leave me hideously ugly.”
“I could shave all your hair off or dye it blood red, and you still wouldn’t be ugly,” Chrissy said with a smile. “Let me put my makeup on and then we can walk down to the shop. I don’t have any appointments until eleven, so we can do you first.” She got up from the table, and that was the start of the exodus, everyone moving on until it was just Aaron and Tyler.
“Want me to go with you?” Tyler asked after a second.
“It’s a haircut. I think I can handle it on my own.”
Tyler sighed. “I wouldn’t go because I don’t think you can handle it, man. Just if you wanted the company.”
Aaron pressed his lips together tightly as he figured out what he wanted to say. “I don’t mean to be a dick.” Inarticulate, but true enough. “Especially not to you. I’m just a little moody, I guess.”
“And you ain’t even the one got beat to hell last night.”
“You didn’t get beaten to hell. I have it on good authority that you gave better than you got, not that that means much when he loses a fight to a wall right after.”
Tyler grinned. “Yeah, true. All those MMA lessons you give me shit for are payin’ off.”
“Whatever.” Aaron got up, then paused next to Tyler’s chair, reached out, and put a hand on his shoulder. Aaron didn’t initiate touch very often; he almost never had to, when the person he was with was Tyler. He felt muscle bunch beneath his hand as Tyler twisted to look up at him. “Thanks.”