Troublemaker (Goode Boys Book 1)

by Sean Ashcroft

Women like it, I remembered.

  While we’d been driving, Aiden had mentioned men and women he’d been with, and on the one hand it made all the sense in the world—of course he could have anyone, regardless of gender. He was funny and clever and there was a kindness about him that ran deep.

  On the other hand, the thought had been surreal. Like even though I knew intellectually that it happened all the time, my brain was still struggling with the idea that it was allowed.

  “That’s uh. I mean, no judgement on your love life, but have you never wanted to kiss anyone?”

  I had no idea how to answer that. I must have, right?

  I liked being kissed. This was like the ice skating all over again. I didn’t have a specific memory of it, that was all. It wasn’t that I’d never really wanted to kiss anyone. It couldn’t be.

  For once in her life, my mom came to my rescue, waving eagerly at the car as Aiden pulled into the hotel parking lot.

  “Brace yourself,” I said. “Family incoming.”

  Aiden laughed as he got out of the car.

  6

  Aiden

  I could feel Carter practically vibrating with nerves as we got out of the car, his mom’s face falling as she approached, a crease forming between overplucked brows when she looked at me.

  One thing to come out to your family, another thing entirely to come out to your family when you weren’t actually queer in the first place.

  Hell, I hadn’t even needed to come out to my mom. She’d sat me down and told me my feelings were okay before I’d even thought to wonder if maybe they wouldn’t be.

  Carter’s mom was not going to be like that.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, stopping in front of us in the biggest scarf I’d ever seen. Mrs. Kowalski was slight and short, but there was a reason few people ever crossed her.

  “You don’t recognize me, Mrs. K?” I asked, grinning at her. We’d had more than one run-in in my life. The shirt incident barely even scratched the surface of her long-running disapproval of me.

  If Carter’s aim was to piss her off—and I thought it was, even if he hadn’t said so in as many words—then I was the perfect man for the job.

  She blinked at me a couple of times, like her brain needed a moment to recalibrate before she could accept that her son had brought the neighborhood delinquent to a family wedding.

  “You remember Aiden, mom,” Carter said. She did. She obviously did.

  She was just still processing the fact that I was here.

  “I… yes, but…”

  Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed Carter’s hand. “The invitation said and guest,” I said.

  I hadn’t actually seen the invitation, but that seemed like a reasonable assumption to make. Besides, this was her son. They weren’t going to throw his guest out of the wedding.

  Even if it was me.

  “Carter,” another voice boomed from behind us. “Aiden?” Carter’s dad asked as we turned to look at him. “Is that you? I remember you being shorter.”

  Carter’s dad, on the other hand, I liked. He’d let me help him around the yard a few times, raking leaves or pruning plants, that kind of thing.

  As a kid who still missed my own dad, it’d meant a lot.

  “Had a growth spurt recently,” I joked.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be fifteen years old?” Mr. K grinned at me. “No, sixteen, I remember your birthday party. You gave me a soda.”

  Carter glanced at me, obviously surprised. My relationship with his dad had probably gone unnoticed by him.

  He’d never really noticed me at all. That was what made him noticing me now so special. Even if it was just because I was useful.

  I thought we were getting along, though.

  “I can still do that magic trick you showed me,” I said. “With the coin.”

  Mr. K’s whole face lit up like I’d just told him he’d won the lottery. “You’ll have to show me later. Let’s get you boys room keys instead of freezing our asses off out here, hmm?”

  He was taking this… well.

  Maybe he hadn’t put two and two together yet?

  We followed him inside to the much warmer reception, and I took a moment to appreciate how beautiful this place was. All the outer walls were made of glass, and the ceiling, too, so there was a full panoramic view of the snow fields outside.

  But it wasn’t a big glass cube, either—no, the doors swept up like something out of a medieval cathedral, and while the ceiling wasn’t quite that spectacular, it was structured with a big glass spire in the middle that probably provided a lot of heat and light even when it was overcast outside.

  The stained glass details at the very top of the walls must have looked incredible in the summer.

  The part of me that loved beautiful things was very, very happy right now.

  “Aiden’s here as my date,” Carter said as his dad marched us to the central desk, glowing with warm yellow light.

  “I know,” Mr. K said. “I’m old, Carter, not stupid.”

  Okay, so… he was just… taking this incredibly well. That was a surprise.

  He didn’t say anything else about it while we checked in, the upbeat receptionist handing us two sets of keys and directing us to our cabin.

  Not room. Cabin.

  I’d forgotten the kind of money Carter’s family had. I hadn’t grown up in poverty or anything, but mom had been raising three kids on one income, plus whatever we could make doing summer and after school jobs.

  I couldn’t remember Carter ever having an after school job, but I did remember him having his own, new car.

  And this was a resort hotel in the goddamn middle of Quebec. Only the rich came here.

  I turned that thought around in my head as I followed Carter back out to the car, passing him the keys because I’d been too busy marveling over the architecture to listen to the directions.

  The cabin turned out to be one big room with an open fireplace and a comfy-looking bed as the center of attention, with a plush leather couch that looked like the grown-up, expensive version of the one I had in my office.

  It was definitely the kind of couch you could fuck on.

  “This is…” Carter paused to look around, eyes falling on the wide but definitely only bed.

  “Romantic?” I offered cheerfully.

  “Well, yeah. I guess it would be.” Carter scratched the back of his neck.

  He hadn’t thought this all the way through. I’d known, I’d had the general feeling that he hadn’t worked out all the details, but I was only now realizing how little he’d thought about this.

  Clearly, he’d been panicking so much about running into his ex that nothing else had entered his head.

  “I’ll take the couch,” I said.

  Carter ignored me, and when I looked at him, he was staring up.

  I turned to look, too, and the whole world seemed to stop around me.

  Oh.

  This? This was nice.

  “Glass ceiling,” he said, still peering up at the cloudy sky above us. “I remember Hallie mentioning it, but I didn’t give it any thought at the time. The chapel’s meant to be like this, too. You know her, she was outdoorsy. Wanted to get married in the woods. Mom talked her down to this.”

  “This isn’t down from that,” I said, still staring. “Oh my gosh.”

  “Oh my gosh?” Carter looked at me, that tiny, crooked smile I was quickly getting addicted to on his face again.

  “Habit,” I said. “Quit giving your loving boyfriend shit.”

  “Dad took it well.” Carter looked up again, transfixed by the slowly-swirling clouds overhead, awe shining on his face.

  He was stunning.

  “Yeah, noticed that,” I said. Still wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I’d filed that information away for later.

  Mrs. K didn’t seem to have quite registered what was going on yet.

  “How do you feel?” I asked. “Being fake-out to your family, I mean?”r />
  “You know,” Carter began, glancing at me before looking back up again. “I expected to feel like a fraud, but I feel…”

  “Free,” I finished for him.

  I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I thought I was coming to understand some things about Carter. Things he maybe wasn’t clear on himself, yet.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, turning his attention to me instead of the ceiling. He held my gaze for long moments, drawing breath as though he was on the verge of saying something, but then letting it out without a word.

  He looked up at the swirling clouds overhead again, face unreadable.

  “Yeah,” he repeated after another few heartbeats. “Free.”

  7

  Carter

  Aiden looked like a goddamn angel napping on the couch, hair tousled, hands resting on his belly, curled up in his dad’s too-big leather jacket with a pin that said bi-furious on it and another one that something in the back of my brain told me was a bisexual pride flag.

  His eyeliner was smudged where he’d rubbed his face in his sleep.

  Maybe he should have looked like he was passed out drunk, but he didn’t. There was the tiniest smile on his face as his chest rose and fell, like he was the most content he’d ever been in his life.

  It was a shame to wake him, but I had to show up to this family dinner, and if I was gone when he woke up he’d probably freak out.

  “Aiden,” I murmured, not wanting to shout or touch him if he didn’t need that to wake.

  His eyes opened immediately, bright emerald green ringed with gold, impossible to look away from in the handful of heartbeats he held my gaze for.

  A warm, soft smile broke over his face. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever been so happy to be woken up, especially not by me. I’d had pillows thrown for less.

  “I did not mean to fall asleep,” he said, blinking and yawning as he sat up. “Is it super late?”

  “Six-thirty. I have to go meet my family for dinner, didn’t want to leave without telling you.”

  “Am I not invited?” Aiden frowned, still not entirely awake.

  He was so much softer than I’d ever seen him right now, sleepy and mussed. Not that I was exactly intimidated by him normally, but he seemed a hundred times more approachable when he’d just woken up.

  “Uh. It’s not that you’re not invited.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Just thought I’d save you the ordeal.”

  “Wasn’t the whole point of bringing me to save you the ordeal?” Aiden raised an eyebrow.

  I licked my lips. Maybe? The more I thought about what I was doing, the less I understood it.

  The original plan had involved Kieran. My best friend, someone who I knew where I stood with.

  Aiden was completely different, and I hadn’t planned for any of it.

  Not, if I was being honest with myself, that I’d planned particularly well to take Kieran with me. It was more that…

  “Gimme five minutes,” Aiden said, interrupting my thought process—which, to be fair, probably wasn’t going anywhere useful. He stood, stretched so that his t-shirt rode up and revealed a few dark hairs peeking over the waistband of his underwear, and then marched off to the bathroom while I was still staring.

  I sat heavily on the couch, finding it still body-warm from Aiden, and played nervously with my phone.

  It was just that I didn’t quite understand where I stood with Aiden. Which was stupid. He was treating me like a friend, and I should have been doing the same. Different as he was from me, I had no doubt he was a good friend to have.

  “Will I do?” Aiden asked all of a sudden, startling me as I finished my seventh round of the match-three game on my phone that was there for when I was waiting nervously.

  My mouth fell open.

  Aiden had washed his face and slicked back his hair, and I couldn’t tell if he was wearing a thin ring of eyeliner or if his lashes were just that dark and thick naturally.

  He’d taken off the worn leather jacket and shrugged on a fitted blazer in a washed out navy. Same jeans, same t-shirt, but he could almost have been a completely different person.

  “Wow,” I said before I could think of anything less stupid to say.

  Aiden’s whole face broke into a bright, warm smile. “What, you thought I was gonna spend the whole time letting you down?”

  That was exactly what I’d thought. Not exactly that he was going to let me down, but that he was going to be the neighborhood problem child the whole time and my family was going to have to deal with it.

  This was so much better, though. Now they’d have to deal with my hot, put-together boyfriend who’d won dozens of professional awards and scrubbed up really, really well.

  And wouldn’t take any of their shit, unlike me.

  A little thrill of excitement bounced around the pit of my stomach.

  If this had been for real, Aiden would have been completely out of my reach. He wouldn’t have looked twice at me, Kieran’s theory about him having a practically-lifelong crush notwithstanding.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Aiden grinned, eyes sparkling as he offered me his hand. “Come on. We’ll be late if you stare any longer.”

  I was still staring as he helped me up, marveling at the little nautical star on the knuckle of his index finger.

  If Mom had put two and two together by now—or if Dad had spelled it out for her—this dinner was sure as hell about to be interesting.

  “I didn’t catch what it is you do, Aiden,” Damien—Hallie’s soon-to-be husband—asked in the middle of an icy silence that had fallen after yet another pointed remark from my mom to my dad.

  Damien was trying really, really hard not to run screaming from my family and had latched onto Aiden as a possible source of sanity.

  “I’m a tattoo artist,” Aiden said between mouthfuls, without a single shred of shame. Not that he had any reason to be ashamed.

  At a table full of lawyers, bankers, and managers, he might’ve been the only one of us with a soul.

  “I also do piercings, but that’s not nearly as much fun,” he added.

  Damien laughed, and I couldn’t tell if he was uncomfortable or if that was just… the way he laughed. I hadn’t gotten to know him all that well.

  For Aiden’s sake, I hoped it was just the way he laughed. For Hallie’s sake, I kind of hoped he was uncomfortable. I couldn’t have lived with a laugh like that.

  “He’s got walls covered in awards,” I said, because at least Aiden had done something with his life.

  “I remember you in school,” Hallie said. “You used to hang out with the art teacher, Mrs… wow, what was her name?”

  “Mrs. Martinez,” Aiden said without missing a beat. “We still talk. She came in and had me do a paintbrush on the inside of her left forearm with a whole rainbow of paint spilling off the bristles. Meant a lot.”

  Every time Aiden said something about his life I felt like he was peeling back another layer for me, letting me closer and closer to the core of who he was.

  It wasn’t even that he intentionally hid it, I thought. It was that no one had ever bothered to look.

  Or that I hadn’t bothered to look. Aiden probably had dozens of intimate friends who knew him as well as they knew themselves. But for me, this was a whole new world.

  And it was more than a little magical.

  “She was a lesbian, wasn’t she?” Hallie asked.

  Aiden smiled. “Never asked her exactly how she identifies, but I did go to her wedding. She’s married to a really nice hairdresser now.”

  He’d been close enough to the art teacher for a wedding invite?

  But then, of course he had been. Even I knew that people picked on Aiden. He didn’t let them get away with it—he’d handed out more than one black eye in his time—but it must’ve been stressful all the same.

  Better to hide where he knew he was safe.

  I should’ve done something about that, I realized with a guilty pang. I’d only been
a kid, too, but I’d been older, and at least younger kids would have listened to me. Two years was a huge gap at that age.

  Not so much anymore. If anything, Aiden felt more mature than me. Better travelled, further along in his career…

  Happier.

  But then most people weren’t as happy as Aiden was, or as comfortable with themselves. I definitely wasn’t.

  The dinner conversation turned away from Aiden’s life choices and back to the wedding, but not before he offered me a tiny, warm smile that curled around my heart.

  Aiden was doing his best for me, it only seemed fair that I repaid him in whatever small way I could. Even if it was only playing the proud boyfriend.

  We walked out of the restaurant shoulder-to-shoulder, my face hot from the glass and a half of wine I’d swallowed down while I was trying to avoid getting involved in any topics that I knew would go badly if I spoke my mind on them.

  In contrast, Aiden had been the peacemaker. Not even peacemaker, he’d been the diplomat who neatly avoided a conflict breaking out by steering people away when he sensed tension in the room.

  From me, probably.

  I winced as the headlights of an approaching car swung around and hit me right in the eyes, the otherwise dark parking lot suddenly lit up like midday by the ridiculous high-beams of an equally ridiculous SUV.

  My mom ran over to the latecomer with an excited squeal while my eyes were still recovering enough to see anything. Aiden’s body pressed close to me was the only thing stopping me from stumbling and losing my balance.

  “Mandi!” Mom enthused, shrill in the snow-banked quiet.

  My stomach swooped.

  Aiden shuffled a little closer to me, though I wasn’t sure if it was protective or seeking protection.

  I wouldn’t have blamed him. One or the other was bad enough, but Mandi and my mom together were a force of nature.

  “I’m sorry I’m so late,” Mandi’s familiar voice called from the other side of the car, where I still couldn’t see her. “Some of the roads were closed. It’s been snowing like Armageddon the whole day.”