by Con Riley
“Is this about your papà?”
Aiden nodded. Everything was about his dad. Every single fucking thing.
“And your garage?”
He nodded again, feeling his face crease like a little kid trying so hard not to cry, totally unable to control it. Marco’s hand gripped the back of Aiden’s neck, pulling his head down to Marco’s shoulder. That was better. Now he couldn’t see a thing.
“Tell me what happened.”
The words stuck in Aiden’s throat, swelling there, flooding his mouth with their hot and bitter flavor. Even the smallest words seemed too big. He wasn’t sure they’d ever make it past his lips. He wasn’t sure he wanted them to. They’d been wedged in too tightly for years. Talking about this was impossible.
Marco’s lips brushed his cheek and ear before pressing against his neck. His arms tightened further, and he rubbed Aiden’s back, the flats of his palms moving slowly and steadily upward. He alternated rubbing with patting, and Aiden found his own arms wrapping around Marco too, hauling him closer until Marco crawled up onto the couch and straddled him. For once, his cheek kisses didn’t make Aiden want to shove him away.
His words still did.
“You can tell me, Aiden.”
Aiden couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. All he could do was keep his eyes shut as Marco wondered aloud how to help him until he couldn’t bear to hear any more. Aiden found Marco’s mouth and covered it with his fingers. Then he slid his mouth across Marco’s slightly stubbled cheek, breathing in the spice and warmth that Aiden smelled everywhere now, and he slowly moved his hand away.
Marco’s lips were as soft on his as he remembered from earlier that evening. For a moment, they sat there, both of them perfectly still and silent in the darkly shadowed room, breathing into each other.
So close.
Marco held Aiden’s face still, his voice a whisper. “Please.”
Instead of forming roadblocks, words—years of them—began to slip into alignment, easing their way out as Marco’s hands held him steady.
Marco wet his lips, his tongue tip fleetingly touching Aiden’s mouth as words dripped out between kisses that started as the slightest of brushes. Aiden told Marco about his dad, one word at a time, and about racing home from college to the lingering stink of cordite in his garage, to his voiceless mother, and to Evan’s still-shocked, bone-white face.
“He was a kid. It was right before his sixteenth birthday. He shouldn’t have been the one to find Dad.”
Marco caught Aiden’s words in his mouth and kissed him softly, sweetly, telling him he was so sorry. His hands tightened on Aiden’s face when he heard words like suicide and money and I should have come home when Mom first asked me—words Aiden hadn’t said to anyone, not to a single soul, in five long years. Marco’s kisses petered out. He lifted himself up onto his knees so that he was taller than Aiden, and he controlled the way their mouths met, holding Aiden’s face as he looked down on him for a moment.
His gaze was intent and darkly focused, and Aiden wondered how Marco saw him now.
Marco’s own words were a whisper—so sorry, so strong, so stupidly stubborn. Aiden could hardly stand to hear them either, so he pulled Marco’s face down and kissed him to make him stop.
Somehow, he could still hear the words of the police officers who had stood in his backyard, calling his dad a fucking coward for taking his own life. He could hear them very clearly, even after so much time. He held onto Marco and pushed his hips up, letting friction help drown out their judgmental voices. Marco’s back stiffened, and he clutched Aiden’s shoulders as if to stop his movements.
“I need . . . .” Aiden didn’t know how to continue.
Marco slowly relaxed, sinking onto his lap again, hips faintly echoing Aiden’s desperate movements. Then he wrapped his arms around him, kissing him again, telling him that he could take whatever helped him.
Aiden quit thinking, shoving his hands under Marco’s clothing, his palms dragging over warm skin as Marco rocked a little, still nowhere near fast enough. Marco’s belt proved tricky to unfasten with hands that were shaking. Aiden yanked until it came loose, then tugged at Marco’s pants button.
Marco’s words sounded shaky, asking if Aiden should perhaps slow down.
Slow was the opposite of what he wanted.
Stilling his thoughts was Aiden’s sole aim at that moment.
Aiden said, “Please let me . . . help me,” and Marco did, unfastening Aiden’s own pants and sliding his hand inside them. Soon all Aiden heard was the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears.
Marco’s sudden cessation of movement, right before his back stiffened again under Aiden’s hands, surprised him into stillness. Marco pushed away, squirming as Aiden instinctively held him tighter. The pounding in his ears got even louder, and the light changed in the room.
Joel stood in the doorway, hallway light flooding in behind him as Evan shoved the door open wider. The keys he dropped looked like Marco’s—had he left them in the front door when he’d helped Aiden inside?—and they hit the floorboards with a clatter.
Aiden blinked. He didn’t even have time to think his usual fucking Joel. In the seconds it took him to grasp that Marco must have called them while he was in the truck, Evan had taken a few steps forward. He was white-faced, looking like the scared, eleven-year-old group-home kid he’d been when they first met, only this time he asked, “Aiden, what the fuck are you doing?”
The sound of the ducks at the nearby pond woke Aiden far too early the next morning. He scrubbed at his face and then pulled a pillow over his head. Seconds later he shoved it away, groaning and sitting up, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
His mom used to stand at the bottom of the stairs at home and yell to wake him in the morning for school. He’d slept deeply back then and could drop off anytime, anywhere. She’d yell, but she’d smile too, making him stand by the kitchen doorframe so she could measure him whenever he had a particularly sleepy growth-spurt week.
“Two inches, Aiden. In a month!” She’d complain about her grocery bills—to anyone who would listen—but she sounded proud while she did so, as if Aiden’s height was something she’d had a hand in. Her “He takes after his father” was what he’d grown up hearing, and although his adoption wasn’t a secret, his height had somehow become a Daly trait that his mom took delight in measuring.
It used to make Evan grumble.
Evan had grumbled last night too, especially when Joel hauled him out of the living room, surprisingly telling him to mind his own business. Marco had been silent for once, blinking as he turned back to Aiden. He brushed the pad of one thumb over Aiden’s lips before fastening their pants and sliding off his lap. He’d sat on the floor when Aiden left the room to find his brother, and he’d still been there when Aiden walked back in a half hour later, only by then Marco had been deep in conversation with Joel.
Seeing them talking quietly in the still-dim living room, with their heads so close together, had left Aiden feeling uptight. He’d stood by the door while Evan stammered out an apology to Marco. His brother’s embarrassment was evident, but he’d apologized for barging in when no one had answered his worried knocking at the front door. Marco had simply nodded before turning back to Joel.
That was enough for Aiden.
He was done.
He couldn’t think about how he’d lost himself somewhere between his mom’s place and here or how he’d told Marco stuff that he should have kept to himself. He’d stood in the kitchen with Evan and shrugged when his brother had asked if he really had a thing going with Marco.
Evan’s face had been red, looking hot as he explained to Aiden that it had been a surprise, that was all. He thought Marco was a fun guy, but was Aiden sure? Really? He wondered if Marco was a player, and was Aiden down with that?
Aiden and Marco had been living together for over a month. If Marco was a player, Aiden hadn’t seen any evidence of it. Yes, he flirted a whole lot, but he generally seemed to aim tha
t attention toward Aiden. Maybe that was why Aiden had eventually said so much to him.
He’d been weak.
He should have kept his mouth shut.
The thought of Marco discussing private family business with Joel was too much to handle. He’d put himself to bed so he didn’t have to hear it happen.
As dawn light streamed in through the gap in the drapes—bright and clear and far too early—Aiden thought about everything he had to do that day. First, he had to return a call to the cops. The officer assigned to his case after he’d reported Levi’s theft had left a message that Aiden’s piece-of-shit phone had only just alerted him to. He needed to call him back with some firm facts and figures. He’d do that later, once he found someone to cover all the man-hours Levi used to fill.
Clerks had stolen from him before, but never so blatantly. It was still a punch to the gut. Levi had seemed better than that. In fact, he seemed to have really loved his work. His nervous side diminished whenever he helped Aiden put out new merchandise, and he’d been full of questions. Aiden had felt proud telling Levi how the store had come about, like he’d done something good instead of something desperate.
It had been tough translating the online store that he’d started as a college course requirement into a viable business. But building something for his family out of bricks and mortar had been important. Besides, he’d badly needed the income a successful store could generate. He didn’t have the luxury of years to climb a corporate ladder. With Dad gone, the clothing store had seemed like an investment in his family’s future.
It had been his biggest gamble ever.
Gambling still made him feel sick.
Levi had sat on the corner of his desk for ages after clocking out one evening, acting as if he was fascinated when Aiden had showed him his original college project. He’d initially based his business model on selling specialty gear for outdoor enthusiasts—climbers, hunters, and hikers. Levi had nodded when Aiden explained how he preferred sourcing things himself and selling them online to people who shared his interests. But he’d compromised because bills had to be paid, and selling more-mainstream clothing in a busy mall meant a more-regular income.
His clerk’s deep sigh and mumbled, “I guess we all have to do stuff we don’t really want to,” hadn’t pinged Aiden’s bad-news radar back then, but it sure did now. He wondered for a fleeting moment why Levi had stolen from him, and then he scrubbed at his face again. The why really didn’t matter. How much stock he’d have to sell to make up for Levi’s theft did.
It was a shame, that was all.
Levi had been so useful. He already knew the ropes in more detail than any of the other clerks. In a relatively short period of time, he’d become invaluable. It wasn’t only that he’d take on extra shifts, arriving windblown and pink-cheeked, carrying his skateboard only minutes after Aiden called him. He’d shown real interest and enjoyment, and that was what brought patrons back.
Levi’s excitement whenever new stock arrived had been contagious. If he had a fault—prior to helping himself to cash from the till—it had been his desire to try on every single item in the store. Just the week before, Aiden had walked into his office to find Levi pulling off yet another new-season shirt, his back a narrow tan stretch of skin marred by three big, ugly bruises. Aiden had scolded him, as he used to scold his brother, and told him to wear a helmet if wiping out on his skateboard was a regular occurrence. Then he’d spent the morning trying in vain to balance his register totals.
Levi had been the reason his books wouldn’t balance.
That thought made him sick.
Aiden had had enough of thinking about Levi. He swung his legs out of bed and nearly fell over his brother. Evan was curled around a pillow on the floor, sleeping near Aiden just as he had for the first month or so after his adoption. He’d go to bed fine—he loved having a room all to himself—but at some point in the night, he’d come find his brand-new brother. His visits in the middle of the night tapered off after a while, and that had been a sign, Aiden thought, of how well Evan had settled.
Finding him by his bed this morning was another sign.
This was the opposite of looking after his brother as he’d promised his dad.
Evan’s pale gray eyes blinked open, crinkled for a moment as he smiled sleepily up at Aiden, then closed when he figured out where he was. Aiden hauled him up and sat cross-legged as Evan crawled under his covers.
“Don’t go back to sleep.”
Evan blinked at him before he shut him out again, closing his eyes tightly.
“I mean it.” He shoved Evan’s shoulder. “Sit up and talk to me.”
Evan sat with the comforter pulled around his narrow shoulders.
“What’s up?”
“What’s up with me?” Evan sounded incredulous. “What’s up with you? Jesus. What happened last night?”
It was a valid question, Aiden guessed. But it wasn’t one he intended to answer. There was no point dragging up the past.
Evan sounded pissed off. “Tell me why Marco called me. Tell me why he said you’d lost your shit in the garage. What the fuck were you doing in there, anyway?” His hair fell forward as he looked down and mumbled, “I thought we agreed. I thought you said it would stay locked. You promised.”
“It was an accident. It won’t happen again.” Aiden paused before asking, “Did you have a nightmare?”
Evan pulled the comforter tighter around himself. “Last night? Yeah. I did. We stayed so late talking with Marco that Joel fell asleep on the couch.” He traced the pattern on the comforter, avoiding eye contact. “I still have a lot of dreams. Joel says . . . . He says I should talk about them with someone.”
What was it with Joel and talking shit out? Aiden thought about the letter his mom had given him the night before and the identical one in his office. Rehashing the past wasn’t going to help any of them.
Evan scooted closer. “What do you think?” His brow creased, and he looked at Aiden as if he still had all his answers. “Do you think I should talk to someone about my nightmares?”
“I think I should put another lock on the garage.”
“Another lock? Are you serious?” Joel’s voice from the doorway, where he stood holding two cups of coffee, sounded incredulous. “A lock won’t help anyone. When will you get that through your thick fucking skull?” He slammed the mugs on the nightstand, slopping their contents onto its surface. “Jesus, Aiden. Evan wakes up screaming. Your mom lived in fucking la-la land until she started therapy. You won’t let anyone near you. Ever. Then the moment someone does get past your defenses, you shut them out just as soon as you can.”
He stepped closer to Aiden’s bed, and his voice shook with frustration. “Marco wanted to talk to you last night. I heard him knocking on your door after you went to bed. We both did. When we first got here, you were making out with him like crazy. Then you ignored him. Would it have killed you to talk to him? You need to start sharing your shit, Aiden, before you drive everyone away.”
Aiden got out of bed and hauled on a T-shirt before turning back. Evan stared, white-faced again, while his boyfriend glowered from his place near the bedroom doorway.
“Why would I want to talk to Marco? I’ll do that when I want the whole world to know my business. I don’t need to share anything at all, thank you very much. Especially with him.”
Maybe his words were harsh, but damn, he was so over other people knowing what was best. Joel didn’t know a thing, no matter what Marco had told him. “This is private family business.”
He shoved past Joel and pulled the bedroom door wide open.
They all watched as Marco turned from where he’d stood out in the hallway, hand poised to knock, and walked quickly away.
Chapter Five
Later that day, Paul Morse’s old-fashioned wooden-handled hammer was a warm weight in Aiden’s palm. He hefted it again as Paul held another plank in place, and he counted his blessings that Paul had chosen today to wor
k on the backyard fence he was building for Peter. These thin strips of lumber seemed endless, and that suited Aiden just fine. Standing in the midday sun, mending a never-ending fence, seemed like an apt penance.
He’d gone to work very early after leaving the house in silence, and he’d had more than enough of his desk by the time Evan arrived at eleven. His brother had been silent too as he’d taken over, only nodding as Aiden gave him instructions. He’d covered Levi’s shift without Aiden asking and without Joel tagging along for once.
Aiden had bitten back the urge to ask him where his boyfriend was. After what he’d said that morning, not seeing Joel was probably for the best. He took a moment to wipe sweat from his brow as Paul positioned another strip of wood on the frame he’d built during the last week. The sturdy backyard fence was coming along slowly but steadily. It was hot work.
He spoke to Paul, and his voice was low and bad tempered. “You know they sell ready-made fence panels, don’t you?”
Paul’s smile was small. “Yup.”
“It would save a lot of time.”
“I’m in no hurry.”
Aiden hefted the hammer again, switching hands to rub his sweat-dampened palm on his jeans. “It would save a lot of effort.”
“Maybe so.” This time, Paul removed the plank he’d been holding ready. “I like doing things properly. Always have.” He shrugged. “Besides, this is for Pete. I want him to know that building this for him is worth doing right.” He turned and looked at Aiden, his eyes as bright blue as his son’s, and added, “I don’t know if Pete and Sean will ever live here, but this is a chore that needed doing. I’m not the best with words, but I want him to know that anything I do for him is worth taking time over.”
He placed the plank back on a pile of similar-length strips, studying Aiden for a moment. “You want to take a break, son? You haven’t stopped since you got back from the store.”
Aiden looked at his watch. It was only a few minutes after one. Jesus, wasn’t this day over yet? Maybe he should have stayed at the store—Lord knew there was enough to do there—but the walls had started closing in on him every time he thought about the apology he owed Marco. Coming home had been one step. He hadn’t managed yet to make himself take the next one.