“Wurther!” Karman appeared out of nowhere, as if she’d sensed Shannon’s instability. Her fingers latched around his wrist. His index finger twitched on the trigger. “Put it down and get Aiden out of here. Deputies are on their way.”
Shannon didn’t move.
“Shannon!” Karman’s fingernails dug into his wrist. “Don’t do this to me tonight. Get your head in the game and get it together. I need to take Daisy to the emergency room. You need to get your Rose out of here, now.”
Shannon lowered the gun, clicked the safety on, and holstered it. Karman nodded and pointed toward the Jeep.
Aiden was talking to Carver in 101’s cluttered back room. He dabbed at his nose with a wet cloth, adjusting his bloodied septum jewelry. It was apparent he hadn’t seen what Karman had, and that was a relief. Shannon put his hand low on Aiden’s back. “We have to go. Now.”
“It was self-defense. I saw it,” Carver blurted. “They’ll need my statement, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Shannon said. “Stay put, Barrow will be here soon. Karman is taking Daisy to get checked out.”
“Do I still have a job?” Aiden mumbled, wiping blood off his face.
Carver didn’t miss a beat. “Sure do. Take tomorrow off. See you this weekend.”
“Let’s go.” Shannon took Aiden’s hand and pulled.
36
Shannon didn’t know what was sore and what wasn’t. Aiden wouldn’t tell him. He dabbed the cut on his brow and tried to bottle his annoyance when Aiden jerked away. The welt on his cheek was darkening into a bruise, and he licked the dried blood on the edge of his top lip.
“Stay still,” Shannon said, keeping his tone as placid as he could.
“I’m fine, Shannon.” Aiden looked away.
“Don’t...” He breathed out the rest of what he wanted to say. Don’t lie. Don’t pretend. Don’t turn to stone. “Let me do this.”
Like a tripwire, Aiden snapped, “I said I’m fine!”
“You aren’t, Aiden!”
Aiden shook his head. His weapon was silence, and Shannon couldn’t stand it. He pressed the damp cloth against his brow, then the top of his lip, following Aiden’s movements as he tried to dip one way and lean another. Shannon put his hand on Aiden’s waist to keep him still, but Aiden gasped. He yelped, squirmed back on the counter, and shoved Shannon’s hand away. Aiden’s shaking palm gripped his side; a pained expression twisted his face so fast Shannon almost missed it.
“What is it? What…” Shannon’s voice trailed off.
Aiden’s nostrils flared. He rolled up the edge of his shirt and displayed a nasty bruise on the left side of his belly button, vibrant reds swirled with blackened violets, blotched and spread out among a city of broken capillaries.
Shannon’s breath caught.
“He got a knee in,” Aiden mumbled. “It’s fine, it’ll go away in a few days.”
“You should’ve called me,” he whispered, unable to tear his gaze from the mark on Aiden’s body.
“Oh, okay,” Aiden snarled. He pushed off the counter. His feet hit the floor, first right then left. “As soon as I saw a guy with his hands around Daisy’s throat, my first inclination should’ve been to call you. Sure, Shannon, when hell freezes over.”
“What if he had a knife? Or a gun?” Shannon had no idea why he was arguing, or why his voice raised, or why a pit opened in his gut.
Aiden favored his right side as he walked down the hallway. Mercy circled his feet. He paused to hoist her into his arms. Shannon wasn’t used to Aiden’s slow movements or seeing him bite back a wince.
“I would’ve taken it from him,” Aiden said, glancing at Shannon over the curve of his shoulder. Confidence matched his level of restrained fury. His mouth tightened, and he took a sharp breath, absently stroking Mercy’s head. “You see the bad guys from a good guy’s perspective. I see them from their own. You have no idea what he would’ve done to her. The thought of it makes me wish he had pulled a knife, because I would’ve—”
“Killed a man? Or gotten yourself killed?” Shannon’s eyes widened. He tore his gaze away from Aiden and pointed it at the ceiling. “Good plan, Aiden. Fantastic.”
“Look, I know you think reciting Miranda rights and flashing your badge is the way to get things done, but sometimes shit happens. Sometimes there’s no fucking time for playing cop. I watched someone grab Daisy by the throat and shove his hands…” Aiden’s voice gave out. Shannon didn’t look at him. “I watched my friend get assaulted,” he finished stronger than he started, words crisp and even. “I’m not ashamed of beating the shit out of the guy who did it.”
“I’m not asking you to be ashamed, I’m asking you—”
Aiden groaned and shouted, “Arrest me, Detective!” He slammed the bathroom door before Shannon could finish.
It took an insurmountable level of control not to follow him into the bathroom. Shannon had more to say, he had more to bitch about, more to throw in Aiden’s face. Every rational part of him—and most of Shannon was rational—screamed to leave it alone. Aiden wasn’t at fault. He was hurt, but he wasn’t hurt. He’d done the right thing in a situation that called for drastic measures. Aiden was hurt, Shannon reminded himself, but he wasn’t hurt. He heaved a sigh, frustrated with himself and with Aiden and with his job. Mercy waddled over and wound through his legs.
“Mercy, why am I like this? Why am I such an asshole?” He looked down, and she looked up, seated in front of his shoes, yawning.
Talking to animals was a habit Shannon picked up from Aiden. He could probably use more of Aiden’s habits, now that he thought about it. Not that Aiden was the most level-headed man in the world, but at least he went away to be angry. Shannon shouted it, threw it against the wall, stomped his feet, and laid blame, even when there was no blame to dish out and no reason to be angry. Control was a fixed point in Shannon’s line of sight; any blur around the edge and he was whipped into a cacophony of emotions he lacked the software to process.
The top of his hand brushed his holstered gun, and flinched as if he’d touched an open flame.
Aiden wasn’t the one Shannon was disappointed with.
Twice he’d pulled his gun, and twice he’d been reminded how easily he could pull the trigger.
He walked past the bathroom and took off his belt. The gun went under the bed with his badge, his shoes, by the foot of the bed, his shirt wherever it landed.
Mercy’s bowl was empty; he filled it. Aiden’s bed was unmade; he made it. Dishes were in the sink; he washed them. Half an hour went by. The pipes continued to groan, and the water continued to run.
00:00
Aiden had a towel draped over his shoulders and a pair of gray sweats on when Daisy opened the front door. He stopped in the middle of lighting a half-smoked cigarette he’d found in his ashtray and tried to meet her eyes.
Daisy cleared her throat and said, “Miss Cruz is here with me. Can she come in?”
“Cruz?” Aiden stepped inside and leaned on his right foot, peeking past the cracked door. He said her name again, louder. “Karman?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Karman pushed the door open and closed it behind her. Her head turned one way and then another. She was much more cop than Shannon. Her curiosity was a search, and every item she looked at was a clue.
“He’s asleep.” He tried to straighten his back, to look confident in his own home. “Everything okay?”
Karman’s faded-plum lips pressed in a thin line. She swallowed and jutted her chin toward the patio. “Can we talk?”
“Is there hot water left?” Daisy interrupted meekly. She twisted the sleeves of her sweater around her hands and pushed her knees together. A doll, Aiden thought, but stronger than she looked. He’d seen it, caught the fire in her helplessness. How she’d tried to stop him. Stop! You’ll kill him! As if Aiden was a better brand of monster. You’re better than t
his! Daisy’s strength was in her ability to look at tragedy and give it a prettier name, to reign in nightmares and call them dreams.
He nodded. “Yeah, I left towels for you. Are you going to bed right after?”
She went from pulling her sweater down to rolling it up, shoving the sleeves to her elbows. A blue hospital band circled her wrist. “I was going to, yeah. Can I have Mercy tonight?”
“Of course.”
Daisy examined the bruise on his side, inches below his rib cage. She lifted her chin and stared at him. Trembling lips clamped together. She gave a curt nod, a wordless thank you. “He didn’t actually… Just so you know, he didn’t…” Daisy stopped and swallowed. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
He nodded again. Daisy’s fingertips trailed across the bruise as she walked by. They felt frozen, the touch of a corpse. A tight smile, soft and sad, accompanied fluttering nonsense. She might have said, “Thank you for everything,” or “You’re so fucking stupid,” or “You didn’t have to,” but he didn’t know. It was probably a mix, everything coming out at once. She stood on the tips of her toes and her arms felt frail around his shoulders.
“He might’ve killed me if you hadn’t,” she whispered, and that part he did hear.
Aiden squeezed her, such a tiny thing, and watched her walk down the hall. She took small, quick steps, and glanced into Aiden’s bedroom as she went. Once the bathroom door was closed and the pipes started howling, he turned his attention to Karman. She was already fixed on him. Her lashes flicked from his bare feet to the tip of his nose.
He lit the stale half-smoked cigarette and closed the slider. It was an unfamiliar burn now. His lungs shriveled, his muscles relaxed, and his heart beat faster. He gripped the wall and looked out over the horizon where black sky met black water. “If you’re here to lecture me, you can skip it. Shannon beat you to it.”
“He put his gun to that man’s head, Aiden.”
Karman stared at him, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of staring back. He looked at the water and chewed on his bottom lip. A fern tickled his shoulder.
It wasn’t unbelievable. Shannon was more than capable of letting his anger win. But the image that pieced together in his mind—Shannon’s eyes changing from worried to vengeful, Shannon holding the barrel of a gun against the side of someone’s head—made his stomach flutter. Aiden was glad he hadn’t seen it.
“Why are you telling me this?”
She worked the bottom of a navy blouse out of high-waisted black pants, unfastened her pony tail, and ruffled her mane of curls. “You two are different brands of the same, you know that?”
“Again,” Aiden gritted out, “why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to think about that, Aiden Maar. My partner and I had a hell of a day today. He almost shot a man, rightfully so, but couldn’t.” She held up her hand, telling him not to interrupt. “Then he almost killed a man tonight because of his feelings for you. And not almost, if I hadn’t been there, I’m just about positive he would’ve. You don’t think that’s something you should know?”
“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty—”
“You’re misunderstanding me,” Karman muttered impatiently. Her tone dropped, the rough and calloused rasp fell away. “That man loves you,” she stressed. A warm hand rested on Aiden’s arm. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Aiden glanced at her, catching the wide-eyed, slack-jawed face of a woman who protected everything but herself.
“And one more thing, Aiden,” she said. He turned, settling his gaze on her. “What you did tonight was brave. I’ve got a daughter at home waiting for me right now, and I feel safer knowing there’s people like you in the world.”
Responses built, assurances that he wasn’t brave, he wasn’t like her, and he wasn’t like Shannon. But he couldn’t get the words out. Karman’s gaze stayed on him for a moment longer. He was a clue that she’d keep, Aiden decided. Karman tilted her head. Maybe she was trying to trust him. Maybe she was trying to scare him.
“Take the compliment,” she snapped.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Aiden hissed.
Neither one of them excelled at admitting when they were wrong. Aiden was wrong about Shannon. Karman was wrong about Shannon, too. They were both wrong about each other.
00:00
The bed dipped. Shannon opened his eyes, dangling between asleep and awake. Karman was gone; he’d heard her leave. Daisy finished her shower a few minutes ago; around the same time, Aiden had walked into the bedroom and closed the door. He saw the bow of Aiden’s spine through the dark, saw his head resting in his hands. The pale expanse of his shoulders lifted around a weary sigh. Shannon knew that sound, exhaustion and nervousness and static energy. He knew when Aiden was too tired to sleep.
“You’re awake,” Aiden said.
Someday Aiden’s observant behavior might be unnerving. But for now, Shannon took comfort in it.
Shannon sighed. “So are you.”
Aiden set his hands on the bed and braced, sliding in beside him. A gust of air left him, snuffed out as soon as Aiden realized it was audible. The angry bruise on his side rippled under the strain of his flexed abdomen, and he muffled a long exhale as his body relaxed against the comforter. He was as quiet as a storm that passed in the night—raindrops on the roof, cracks of thunder too far away to rumble.
“Is Daisy all right?”
“No, but I think she will be.” His gaze followed the twirling ceiling fan.
“I think so, too.”
Quiet drifted over them again. Aiden’s chest rose and fell; Shannon turned on his side to face him. All the places on Aiden that Shannon was convinced might hurt to touch, never did. He realized it then, as he examined the bridge of his nose, the round shadows beneath his cheeks, each curve and dip of his mouth, what used to scream danger, danger was overshadowed by staunch regality. There were few things in the world that Shannon appreciated in their rawest form, but Aiden was one of them.
Busted fingers stretched across Aiden’s stomach. Layers of skin peeled up in patches on his knuckles, marking his hands deadly for all to see. Shannon took one of Aiden’s hands, brought it to his mouth, and trailed his lips across the peaks of his knuckles.
The rise and fall of his chest paused, and Aiden lolled his head to the side. He watched Shannon through half-lidded eyes, buoyant gaze hovering around Shannon’s mouth.
“I don’t think the world will ever forgive you for loving me,” Aiden said, hushed and gentle.
Shannon kissed the side of his hand, and then his palm, his wrist. He’d been waiting for the right time, as though there ever would be one, to tell Aiden that he loved him. He was going to make a speech out of it, Shannon decided, a proclamation that Aiden couldn’t deny. As they ate sushi on the beach, or walked home from 101, or in bed as they tried to catch their breath. He’d thought about the ways he’d tell him, long-winded, pouring his heart onto the floor and hoping none of it spilled on Aiden’s shoes, or straight-forward, saying it just as he should’ve months ago. A simple I love you, Aiden Maar, please don’t argue with me over it. That would’ve done the job.
It wasn’t warm, or new, or bright, or great, but it was enough.
“I don’t recall ever asking the world’s permission,” Shannon said.
Aiden laughed. A reverent smile curved his lips. “So, it’s true then.”
“What is?”
“You love me.”
He’d thought of a million ways to say I love you without ever saying it. “How could I not?”
Both eyebrows shot up, and Aiden grinned, daring Shannon to let him form a list.
“Yes, Aiden, I love you.”
His grin faded, and he dragged the tips of his fingers along Shannon’s lips. “That’s a reckless thing to do.”
“Sometimes I think yo
u want it to be more reckless than it is.”
“You’re probably right.”
Shannon curled over Aiden’s torso, avoiding the bruise on his side, and gripped his cheek. Aiden searched for Shannon’s lips in the dark.
“The world’s never loved me, but I’ve loved the world. I think I love you more than anything else in it,” Aiden said. “Sometimes I think you are it, sometimes I’m convinced you’re what I loved about the world before I knew you, and now that you’re here, I get it. I understand what I loved during all those years it never loved me back.”
The barbs of Aiden’s words sank in and pulled, anchoring Shannon to the bed, and to Aiden, and to everything else that encompassed the two of them. He sucked Aiden’s bottom lip between his teeth, kissed him the way he deserved to be kissed—patient and deep and unhurried.
“The world loves you.” Shannon sighed against his mouth. “And if it ever stops loving you, remember that I do.”
37
Aiden shooed a seagull and brushed his fingertips across the wide pink and cerulean leaf of a potted caladium. The succulent in the middle of the table needed water, and the hanging basket of begonias hadn’t bloomed yet, but when it came to his makeshift balcony garden, Aiden was pleased. The seagulls had only destroyed one of his ferns, and the rest hung over the balcony wall, fronds of emerald and jungle green.
He watched Daisy shuffle around the living room. They hadn’t talked about it yet, but he was sure they would. Daisy was good at deflecting, almost as good as he was, but it’d been a week, and she couldn’t keep skirting past the subject.
She cleaned the coffee table with orange oil, folded her mountain of clothes into a decent pile next to her suitcase, and arranged her shoes along the wall. Aiden stepped inside, closing the slider behind him.
Fortitude Smashed Page 27