“It might be better if we go in separate cars,” Lily—who had insisted on coming too—said. “That way everyone can just take off afterward. But you know, I was thinking. If we get through this and we all want to grab a beer to, y’know, celebrate…” she trailed off at her own poor choice of words, both Harrison’s and Aidan’s eyes on her. She shrugged. “I don’t know. You guys are doing something really great today, don’t you think? If anything ever deserved a drink…”
“I wouldn’t be opposed to a drink,” Enrique, said. He was young and very handsome—dark-skinned, dark-eyed—and kitted out in designer clothing. “But all she did to me is shove money in my pants. Jill didn’t really say, but I’m guessing some of you guys had it worse. Maybe drinks would be crass.”
Jill looked at her brother, who looked back at her and they both shrugged in what would have been comedic unison on any other day. “It’ll depend how Harry feels afterward,” Jill spoke for him. Aidan felt another pang in his gut. Jill was Harrison’s Nadia—the extrovert, the advocate, the protector.
“I don’t know,” Aidan muttered. The whole drinks plan sounded stupid and just then, with his nerves threatening to buzz him right out of the room, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go down to the station at all.
“Lily?” Jill asked, “You riding with Aidan and Patrick or do you want to come with us?”
Lily looked at them, but Patrick waved her on.
“Hey, c’mere, love,” Patrick murmured into his ear, guiding him quietly from the room and into the hallway.
The second they were alone, those stupid pitiful tears began to flow and as much as Aidan tried to knuckle them away, he couldn’t keep them from falling. The most he could manage was keeping his sobs from carrying into the living room where the other men were waiting to leave.
It was too much. It was all too much. This whole stupid situation. The vile woman. Himself. Especially himself. Idiotic Aidan. Stupid, moronic, idiotic Aidan. In that moment he loathed himself for ever agreeing to go up to her room, but it had been…
It had been…
“Paddy,” Aidan whispered as Patrick kissed away his tears. “T-there’s something I didn’t tell you.”
Patrick pulled Aidan close and whispered in his ear, “Do you want to share now?”
“I…I have to. Before I get to the police station, I have to tell you. I…”
“Shh, it’s all right, my love. Tell me.”
“The night we…the night Ms. Ashmore…” He shook his head. Stupid, weak, useless Aidan. You let her down, Aidan. You fucking let your sister down, you useless whore! Gone was the strength from that morning when he’d admitted to saying no. Gone was his acceptance of what had happened to him. He looked up at Patrick, knowing surely Patrick would hate him as much as he hated himself once he said it. “It was on the anniversary of Nadia’s death. I accepted the invitation because I didn’t want to be alone.”
He held Patrick’s gaze for another second before trying to tear away, but found himself locked tight in arms that exuded love. It was too much. He didn’t deserve them. Not at all. He was shit. He had done this to himself and now they all wanted him to go down to the station and admit he’d been assaulted.
You were assaulted.
Yes, but it was my own stupid fault.
No one has the right to do that to you.
“Aidan,” Patrick said and moved slightly, so that Aidan couldn’t help but look at him. “All that means is that you remember the exact date.” His lips were sweet and cool as they pressed against Aidan’s. “You can get through this. You’ve me and your sister to see you through it.”
“Nadia’s not—”
“Nadia’s always here.”
<<< >>>
Her name was Officer Hart and despite the gruff expression on her weathered face when they entered the interview room, she was actually quite kind. She listened to him attentively and took extensive notes on her yellow steno pad. Even when she asked him to repeat himself, or questioned the order of some of the things that happened, she made it very clear she was only trying to get down the exact details. Never once did she make him feel like he was a liar or less of a man for what had happened.
Patrick sat right beside him as his advocate, his hand out on the table for Aidan to hold or not hold as he saw fit. And during the almost hour-long ordeal, Aidan grabbed blindly for it several times, squeezing with everything he had. His other hand, he left on his knee under the table, curled into a little half-grip as he imagined that Nadia held on, too.
Chapter Thirty:
Leaving
“Okay, Aidan.” Jill collected his new work schedule from the printer and handed it over the reception counter. “That’s the best I can do.”
Aidan scanned the sheet of paper and passed it to Patrick. “Thanks for this,” he said, looking up at Jill.
“No problem. They arrested her yesterday afternoon, but she was back here by nine, declaring to anyone who’d listen that she was the victim of a dreadful misunderstanding.”
Aidan grunted in quiet disbelief.
“And yes, Aidan, I could tell from her face she was threatening you this morning. She’s running scared. All you got to do is hang in there, okay?”
Aidan nodded uncertainly. “How is your brother feeling?”
“Honestly? He’s a wreck. He’s called four times already today to say he’s taking back his statement.”
“Do you think he will?” Patrick asked.
“I hope not, but he’s not as strong as you, Aidan. He depends on other people to fight his battles for him. Sometimes I think maybe he just needs to be left to stand on his own two feet.”
Aidan didn’t offer a response to Jill’s compliment; Patrick subtly watched his boyfriend, who was looking away. He glanced back at Patrick and offered an unconvincing smile, his eyes that were still red once again filling with tears.
“All right, so,” Patrick checked the schedule in his hand. “Tomorrow afternoon’s your next shift. Shall we head home?”
Aidan’s head jerked up sharply. “Home?”
“Ah, sh…” Patrick blushed and scratched his head, embarrassed at accidentally exposing one of his deepest wishes.
“Come with me,” Aidan said firmly to Patrick, grabbing him by the hand and starting to move away. He called back to Jill, “Thank you for fixing my schedule. Tell Harrison to be strong. We can’t allow that bitch to manipulate us like this.”
Patrick shrugged at Jill and followed Aidan down the narrow hallway to his apartment. Like he had any other choice: the grip on his hand was painful, and when Aidan stopped to unlock the door, Patrick noticed a rare flash of anger that turned his eyes hard as steel. Aidan flung the door open and marched into his apartment, throwing his keys at the budget two-seater sofa. He rounded on Patrick.
“See this place? I’ve lived here for almost three years. It might not look much to you, with its crappy linoleum and cheap furniture, but since Nadia it’s all I have. It’s my home.”
Patrick kept watching Aidan to make it clear he was listening, but he didn’t answer. It’s all I have—those were Aidan’s exact words. Not it’s all I had before you. An unexpected and appalling swell of jealousy took him over. Aidan didn’t need him; he needed Nadia, but Nadia wasn’t here, and Patrick was nothing more than a poor substitute.
Aidan cleaned invisible dirt and tidied non-existent mess, his back turned. There was no use in this; they were both angry and watching him made Patrick angrier still. Aidan was hurting and for the first time since they met, Patrick didn’t have it in him to offer comfort. He felt too guilty, for his jealousy and because he had made the judgment Aidan accused him of. He had thought the apartment was crappy and cheap, and that what he had to offer was something better. A poor substitute. He decided to head home and give them both time to cool down.
As Patrick reached the door, he turned back, but Aidan still wasn’t looking his way. “I didn’t mean to insult your apartment, Aidan. If that’s how it came acro
ss, I’m sorry.”
Aidan offered no response, so Patrick left, quietly closing the door behind him.
<<< >>>
“I thought I might find you here.”
Patrick glanced sideways. “Lily.” He stayed as he was, crouched next to the headstone, scrubbing clean circles into the moss-covered marble with soapy water which had been hot when he started out.
“I didn’t think you worked Saturdays,” Lily said.
Patrick shrugged. “I had nothing else to do.”
Lily stepped along the other side of the grave; she crouched opposite Patrick. “What happened?”
“Nothing. We just need a break from each other to calm down. Why? Has Aidan spoken to you?”
“No. Just that you’ve been together every possible moment, so I figured something had happened.”
Patrick dropped the brush back into the water, sloshing suds over the side of the bucket. “I was acting like an eejit, Lily, and he doesn’t need that.”
“He needs you.”
“I’m not so sure. He misses his sister and he won’t let go, not that I’m expecting him to forget about her, but he just needs to move on a little. I thought he’d let me in, but then yesterday we were at The Grand Heights and I was all set to ask if he’d consider moving in with me. Instead, he lambasted me with all kinds of accusations, and the sad thing is he was bang on. He deserves so much better. He really does. But what can I do? I’m not Nadia.”
“Of course you’re not,” Lily snapped impatiently.
“No, you misunderstand,” Patrick said, but Lily raised her hand to stop him.
“I don’t, Patrick. I understand all too well. Three years I’ve grieved Nadia and Poppy on my own. Aidan has done exactly the same. He keeps pushing it away. He’s not ready to face it, and on a good day I can see it from his point of view—he has suffered the greatest loss. I don’t have to agree, but I can appreciate that’s how he feels. But since he met you he’s changed. This sexual assault, for example. It happened before you were in his life, yet he did nothing about it. You give him purpose, a reason to try. Nadia…”
Lily smoothed her wife’s headstone, gleaming white from Patrick’s meticulous care. “I loved her so much, she was my everything, but she wouldn’t let Aidan live his own life. She told him to go to med school, even though he always loved the little jobs he did for their neighbors more than school. And it’s what he’s good at, but it was never enough for Nadia. He’s great with his hands—so skilled, steady—she told him to train as a surgeon. I swear the boy has healing powers, and he’s a sympathetic listener too—perfect for dealing with patients and their families, Nadia said. The night Poppy was born it was Aidan who held it together, and I could almost hear her telling him, ‘Calm in a crisis, just like a doctor should be.’
“Nadia was right; Aidan would be a great doctor, if he wanted to. Until he met you he was caught in a limbo, free to make up his own mind and live for himself, and lacking the will to do either. It would be absolutely the worst thing for him to have another Nadia in his life. Well, other than losing you, because I think, maybe, you might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”
Lily rose to her feet and held out her hand to Patrick, across her wife’s grave. For a moment Patrick hesitated, remembering the last time he and Lily had shared a comforting moment in the cemetery. He must have sensed Aidan’s presence, for he was standing by the gate, watching them, yet looking past them. Patrick turned back to Lily and accepted her hand. They were family now, after all.
“I’ll go,” Lily said. “You know where to find me.” She released him and walked away, back along the path to the other gate.
Patrick used tidying up his cleaning equipment as an excuse to delay and plan out what he wanted to say, or rather, how he would tell Aidan. First he needed to say he was sorry for undermining the importance of Aidan’s apartment and his job at The Grand Heights. Then he had to make sure Aidan knew he loved him and how much he wanted to share his life with him, be that in the apartment over the gym, the broom cupboard under the stairs, a two-man tent in the middle of nowhere—wherever Aidan would have him, he would be.
“I missed you again.”
Patrick had delayed long enough for Aidan to make the first move, and he slowly turned and met his boyfriend’s resolute gaze. “I missed you too. I’m sorry, my love. I was unfair and jealous, and if you can find it in yourself to forgive me I promise I won’t take over, or boss you about, and I will always try to do whatever is best for you.”
“Whatever is best for me?” Aidan asked. “I don’t know what that is.”
Patrick moved toward Aidan, tentatively stepping within arm’s reach, but he didn’t attempt to touch him. The next move had to be Aidan’s. Patrick smiled at him hopefully.
“If you will permit me, I will gladly stay by your side while you work it out.”
Aidan took a step closer, staring straight into Patrick’s eyes. He reached out and took both of Patrick’s hands, and said, “I permit you, very much.”
Chapter Thirty-One:
Meeting Nadia at the Fun Boy
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Doe said with a smile. “Figured that big purchase a few months ago might have been your last. Glad it wasn’t. So what’s it going to be today?”
“Lilies,” Aidan said quietly. “I want every lily you have in the shop.”
Doe’s eyes went a little wide, pushing the wrinkles up on her forehead. “Every lily?” she asked and Aidan nodded.
“Every single one. If you’re not saving them for a funeral, I want them.”
“Can’t offer you much in the way of a discount.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Aidan replied, biting the inside of his lip. “I’ve got my credit card.”
<<< >>>
Aidan parked his car on the side of the old bridge, absentmindedly tapped his fingers along the steering wheel. It was snowing beyond his windshield, but he’d come to this place purposefully and a little snow wasn’t going to keep him from doing what he’d meant to do. He hummed along with the radio—some song he and Nadia used to sing in high school—he only half remembered the words now.
Where was Patrick? He glanced at the clock. Oh, not too late. He’d said to meet him at noon and it was only five after. He probably had to stay a few minutes late and the Switzer Bridge was farther from the cemetery than it was from The Grand Heights.
Aidan shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
He’d been doing a lot of thinking since their fight. (Also known as the night he’d acted like a total jerk and flipped his shit about something that was, frankly…well…a non-issue.) Patrick calling his apartment their home? Any other day, Aidan would have melted into a gooey puddle on the floor at the sheer romance of the notion. It was just with Ashmore out of jail so soon…and… But it didn’t matter. Not really. The heart of it was Aidan’s problem.
Today, he’d come to talk to his sister at their oldest hangout. They used to walk home from school together when they were kids and stop on the Switzer Bridge, dangling their legs over the side and chatting about life and the future. This was the place he’d imagined seeing her the night she’d died. It only seemed right that he should come to her when… Well, he wasn’t quite sure what he would say, but he knew he wanted Patrick nearby when he did it.
Climbing out of the car, Aidan carefully carried the boxes of lilies along the slick walkway. Sleet had coated every surface, leaving the bridge gleaming with ice. Aidan had to stop a couple of times and regain his balance to keep from tumbling right on his ass.
When Aidan reached their old spot, he stopped and leaned over the railing to look down at the slowly moving river, choked with ice floes. It was beautiful.
“Hi, Nadia,” he whispered, a little embarrassed to be talking to her here. It was natural to talk to a headstone; almost everyone did that at one point or another, whatever their belief about the afterlife. But talking to a bridge? That was odd. He picked up one of the bouquets of
lilies and tossed it over the side, watching as it tumbled over and over, leaves and petals tearing loose and scattering in the wind. “I miss you.”
He had to dig deeper than that. He knew he did.
He watched the flowers until they disappeared from sight. If he was just a little bit braver…
Dig, Aidan.
“I reported Ms. Ashmore for what happened. For what she…did to me.”
Better.
He grabbed another set of lilies and fed them to the river, hoping that wherever Nadia was, they were reaching her. He hoped he was showering his twin with lilies. He hoped she was smiling.
“I think Patrick wants me to move in with him.” He smiled then, privately, embarrassed. “I lost it on him. Poor guy. It’s stupid, Na-Na, because I’d like nothing more in the whole world than to move in with him, too. I just…”
He swallowed hard, this was what he’d come to say, this was what he’d hoped Patrick would be here for.
“If I move in with him, I have to quit The Grand Heights. Maybe. I mean, I guess I don’t, but it feels sort of natural that I would leave and—oh shit!” He’d bent down to grab another bouquet and knocked the box over, sending lilies sprawling across the road. Getting down on his hands and knees, he tossed them quickly back into the box, and was glad he had worn gloves. But as he turned to grab the last ribbon-wrapped bouquet, his foot slipped and shoved the second box sending it skittering.
Aidan didn’t think, he just went after it. When he did think again, he realized he was on the outside of the railing, arm crooked over one of the bars, the half-empty box in hand. There was a sinking terror in his gut to be teetering on the edge of the bridge, he tossed the box back up and slowly—very slowly—twisted around to try and climb back through.
No go. The ice was so thick on the side that one of his legs went one way, the other twisted under him, and he desperately grabbed for the railing, losing his balance so that only a knee and the one hand (quickly losing grip) held him.
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 19