Troublemaker (Goode Boys Book 1)

by Sean Ashcroft

  “What did it say?”

  “It said Carter’s mother is going to do her level best to drive you insane this week. Think there’s anything to that?”

  Carter looked down at his coffee, turning the cup in his hands. “She hasn’t said anything yet. Like, at all. About you.”

  With anyone else, I might’ve taken that as a good sign. With Carter’s mom, like with cats and toddlers, silence meant trouble. I didn’t have to know her as well as Carter did to know what he was worried about.

  She was a tinderbox, and I was a lit fuse.

  Thing was, I didn’t mind fireworks on my end. I could handle anything, brush it off. No one could touch me anymore.

  But Carter was different. Carter was the human equivalent of a turtle that’d been flipped onto its back by the side of the road. Vulnerable and not in a position to protect himself.

  “I can slip away quietly,” I offered. It was the last thing I wanted, especially since I was so sure Carter was peering out of the gap between the closet doors right now, testing the waters of coming out to himself, and I didn’t want him to fall back into Narnia.

  He was right on the edge of something important, and abandoning him didn’t seem like it’d help.

  But if it was too much stress for him to handle, I didn’t want to make things worse by staying. If I left now, he could explain it away as me being an asshole and just travelling this far with him so I could head on to a tattoo convention or something.

  It wasn’t as if any of them would check.

  “I don’t want you to go,” Carter said, so soft it was barely more than a breath. “You’re the only sane person here,” he added, louder.

  I laughed at that. “The guy covered in tattoos is the only sane one?”

  “Damien might qualify as sane,” Carter allowed. “I don’t know him all that well. Mom likes him, but I’m not sure he likes her.”

  “He does actually seem okay. He’s not… like, I wouldn’t intentionally hang out with him, but he does seem like an okay guy. And he loves your sister.”

  “He does,” Carter agreed. “Inexplicably.”

  I laughed again, draining the last of my coffee. “Don’t be mean to your sister,” I said. “She’s only got the one older brother. You’ve gotta take care of her.”

  “I’m the only person who’s allowed to be mean to my sister,” Carter said. “Sibling privilege.”

  I went to say something else—nothing important, just whatever would keep the conversation flowing—when Carter’s phone vibrated loudly on the nightstand.

  I cleaned up the box while he was handling whatever it was, the warm glow of just being with him sinking into the depths of my soul. Damn he felt good.

  If I wasn’t leaving, I wanted him to walk away from this wedding knowing a little more about himself. Carter deserved to be happy, and comfortable in his own skin, and free. Free like he’d had a hint of the first night, when he’d just let everyone believe, without bothering to explain himself, that he was dating a man.

  Because it wasn’t his family he had to come out to. Not really.

  It was himself.

  What he needed was a bisexual fairy godmother to make out with him and give him a couple of great orgasms so he got over his nerves about being different.

  I was happy to volunteer for the job.

  11

  Carter

  “There you are,” Mom said as Aiden and I finally found the spot we were supposed to be meeting the rest of the family.

  Which, as it turned out, was the middle of nowhere.

  “I was about to call,” she added, wrinkling her nose disapprovingly.

  “Better late than never,” Aiden announced, grinning at my mom.

  She looked right through him.

  Behind her stood Hallie, Damien, my dad…

  And Mandi.

  I wasn’t even surprised. I’d expected this.

  The schedule only told us where to meet, without any hint of what we were out here doing.

  The walking trails provided a clue, though.

  “I thought we should all have a little fun,” Mom chirped, grabbing a small stack of folders from the picnic table we were all gathered around. “There’s a great little company here that sets up games for groups out in the forest.”

  My stomach sank.

  “So they’ve set us up a little scavenger hunt!” she enthused. “We’re all going to split into teams and find everything on our lists. Isn’t that fun?”

  It was not fun. My idea of fun was sitting in front of the fire with my boots drying by the door, sipping a finger of scotch, catching up on some reading. Maybe an audiobook, with Aiden.

  This? This was torture. This was the kind of torture out-of-touch managers inflicted on their staff as a team-building exercise, which I was pretty sure this was intended to be.

  But it probably wasn’t specifically intended to torture me. To my sister, this was fun.

  And it was her wedding, and I’d deal with it.

  Maybe I could convince Aiden to sneak back to the car with me once everyone else was out of sight.

  Although, maybe not. He was grinning from ear to ear, like this was actually the most fun he could imagine having.

  Right. Kieran had always been outdoorsy, too, and Devin clearly was. It made sense that Aiden would have some of that.

  Sometimes I’d felt like I was the only person in Slow Falls who didn’t love going on long walks in the woods. I’d only seen the actual falls once in my life up close, on a school trip.

  Kieran had told me once that he made out with Louise Sanders under them during homecoming week. I was probably supposed to think that sounded romantic or exciting, but it mostly sounded wet.

  “Your folders will tell you who you’re teaming up with,” Mom said, passing a folder to Mandi, then me, then Hallie and Damien, then Dad and Aiden.

  I opened the folder to find a bright yellow band at the top of all my information sheets.

  Aiden’s band was pink.

  My stomach sank.

  Mandi caught my eye, waving her yellow-banded team sheet over at me.

  I got the feeling the deck had been very carefully stacked to make sure this was how things would go down.

  “I’ll be running things from here,” Mom explained. “Once you’ve found everything on your list, you make your way back. First team back gets a romantic dinner for two tonight.”

  Of course they did.

  Mom hadn’t been planning to run things, she hadn’t accounted for Aiden at all. She’d planned for me to wander off into the woods with Mandi and hopefully come out eager to give things another shot.

  Which only showed how little she knew about me. If she’d known me, really known me at all, she would have known that I was more likely to get eaten by a moose than get back together with my ex in the woods.

  Were there moose this far south? Probably. I had no idea what the migratory habits of moose were. All I knew was that they were as big as a car and no mammal needed to be that huge.

  “Pink?” my dad spoke up, waving his team sheet.

  Aiden, despite everything, laughed delightedly. “Mr. K! We’re totally gonna win this and I cannot wait to have a romantic dinner with you,” he said.

  “Carter better watch out,” he joked. “I could woo you away from him.”

  Aiden laughed again, but then he turned to look at me. I knew it was just for show, just to spite my mother, but the look on his face was…

  No one had ever looked at me like that, so open and soft. This was the more intense version of that most incredible thing in the world look. This was a look that said I like you, and I want you.

  And also, somehow, the sex would be incredible and you know it.

  It wasn’t impossible that I was projecting, but my imagination was only so fertile. Some of that, at least, was real.

  Probably the sex part. Aiden had more or less told me outright last night that he actively worked on being good in bed.

&nbs
p; “No,” Aiden said, soft and breathless.

  I knew it was an act and even I was buying it, a swarm of butterflies taking flight in my stomach as he held my gaze.

  “No, sorry,” he said. “No one could.”

  I swallowed, eyes stinging.

  From the cold, I told myself. I wasn’t tearing up over Aiden pretending he was so into me he wouldn’t look at anyone else.

  Even if the anyone else in question was my dad.

  That would’ve been ridiculous.

  “Okay,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Guess I’ll see you later, then.”

  Aiden grinned at me. “We’re on opposing teams now,” he said, leaning over and brushing his lips against the ridge of my cheekbone. The world’s softest kiss, but it was still enough to make the back of my neck itch as blood rushed to my face. “Don’t think for a second I’ll go easy on you.”

  “I don’t,” I said, and I really didn’t. I knew Aiden had a competitive streak. He wouldn’t have had all those awards if he didn’t.

  “Take pictures,” he said. “I wanna hear all about your adventures tonight.”

  Another subtle way to lay claim to me. You can have him for the day, but I’ll have him tonight.

  The faintest little shiver ran down my spine at the thought.

  “Come on,” Mandi said, offering me her hand. I glanced at Aiden, who’d already bounced off and was huddled with my dad, discussing strategy over their maps and instructions.

  “Sure,” I said, taking her hand out of fear of seeming impolite. “Sorry in advance for holding you back.”

  Mandi laughed, dragging me toward the gate to the walking path without even pausing to look at the map.

  “Aiden looks at you like he’s seeing the face of God,” Mandi said once we were out of earshot, well and truly hidden among the trees.

  My stomach turned over. The last thing I wanted was to get into a fight with her out here. I’d never find my way back to the parking lot by myself.

  “Does he?” I asked, trying to step carefully.

  Mandi laughed. “What, you haven’t noticed?”

  I haven’t noticed because it’s bullshit.

  “Umm…”

  “Carter, it’s fine,” she said.

  What?

  “What?” I said aloud, looking up at her as she paused to look at the scavenger hunt list.

  “It’s fine,” she repeated, glancing up from the papers to look at me. “Honestly kind of a relief. I thought there was something wrong with me.” She paused, eyes widening. “Not that there’s anything wrong with, uh… you know…”

  “Being gay?” I asked.

  No. That word tasted strange in my mouth.

  I remembered Aiden’s bi-furious pin, and a distant bell rang in the back of my head.

  “That,” Mandi agreed. “It’s fine. Great, even. You always seemed… I dunno how to explain it. Like you could never show anyone your whole heart. Made it kind of hard to really connect with you.”

  My head spun. Was it me? Was I the problem between the two of us?

  I thought back to Aiden asking me if I’d ever wanted to kiss someone. If I’d ever tried to find out with someone else whether or not I liked kissing boys.

  Thing was, I knew the answer now. There was at least one boy I’d really liked kissing, even if he had taken me by surprise.

  I had a choice, here. I could pretend it’d never happened, that last night had been a blip and this morning had been some combination of stress and temporary insanity, or…

  “Anyway, he likes you. I get that he’s experimental, but you seem… happier, honestly. I’d like to see you with someone you can really connect to.”

  “He’s not experimental,” I said, bristling. “I know you’re all looking at him and thinking he’s not good enough, but trust me. We’re not good enough for him. None of us.”

  Mandi raised an eyebrow. Probably because I’d never really talked back to her before.

  “Wow,” she said, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “You’re really into him, huh?”

  I…

  No?

  Was I?

  He’d kissed me once and we’d huddled together for warmth last night. There wasn’t a whole lot to be really into.

  Except there was more than that. He’d agreed to come to this ridiculous destination wedding, for a start. Out of the kindness of his heart, he was doing me a favor. A favor he’d had to reschedule a week’s worth of clients for.

  He’d sat and talked to me last night, really talked, and more importantly, really listened. No one had ever listened to me like that before, aside from Kieran, maybe.

  But not about those kinds of things. Not about the stuff I didn’t even talk about to myself.

  And this morning he’d brought me coffee and breakfast just because. I hadn’t even needed to sleep with him for him to treat me like a goddamn prince.

  Those were all things I could be into.

  Those were all things I was into. And those things? They were real. The relationship might’ve been fake, but all the nice things Aiden had done for me had been while we were alone. It wasn’t an act.

  “I can see you’re thinking deep thoughts,” Mandi said. “Care to share?”

  “I…”

  I hesitated. Mom and Mandi were in each other’s pockets, but she was… different, right now. Like she really did want to listen to what I had to say.

  “How honest do you want me to be?” I asked.

  Mandi shrugged. “It’d be a novelty to hear what’s in your heart for once. What you’re really thinking.”

  Shit. Maybe I was the problem.

  “I have no idea what I think,” I admitted.

  No one had told me what to think about Aiden. There was no roadmap. I had to figure it out for myself and all I had to go on were a bunch of feelings.

  Feelings I didn’t entirely understand.

  “I’m not gay,” I added. “I like girls.”

  But I liked Aiden, too. The more I thought about it, the truer it was.

  Not that it mattered. I’d asked him if he had a crush on me and he’d flat out avoided the question so he wouldn’t hurt my stupid feelings.

  “And boys?” Mandi asked.

  “I dunno,” I said, chewing my lip. “Maybe?”

  You jerked off to the thought of Aiden this morning and you’re going with “maybe”?

  “So yes,” Mandi said.

  “Yes?” I blinked at her. How the hell did she know if I didn’t?

  “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be thinking about it. People who aren’t attracted to men don’t spend a lot of time asking themselves if they are.”

  Well, when she put it like that…

  “I knew you were faking it,” she added.

  What? How? I hadn’t even told her that, although the look on my face would definitely give it away now.

  “You couldn’t believe someone like Aiden would kiss you,” she continued. “He is hot, by the way. But if you’d already been dating you wouldn’t have been so surprised. I’ve seen that look right after kissing you myself.”

  Right, of course she had. Mandi had made all the moves and I’d…

  I’d been too polite to say no, and she was pretty, and it’d made my mom happy that I was dating.

  Aiden wasn’t about making my mom happy, though. This whole idea had been about making her unhappy.

  And now it’d gotten out of hand and I had no idea what to do about it.

  “Pinecone,” Mandi said, all of a sudden.

  Pinecone?

  Was I having a stress-induced stroke?

  “Pinecone,” Mandi repeated, pointing down.

  At a pinecone. Right. The scavenger hunt.

  “Oh.” I blinked at her, then the cone, and then bent down to pick it up.

  “No!” Mandi hissed. “Just take a picture of it. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints. Rule number one of enjoying nature.”

  I raised an eyebrow, but got my
phone out and took a picture as instructed. “Since when are you Miss Outdoors?”

  Mandi shrugged. “I’ve been hanging out with your sister a lot in the lead-up to the wedding. We’re going camping in the summer.”

  “You’ll die,” I said. I would have died, too, so I didn’t mean it as an insult. Just a statement of fact.

  “Or I’ll have a fantastic time and meet a cute park ranger and go live in the wilderness and leave all of this behind.”

  My phone vibrated in my hand just as I was about to tuck it back into my pocket.

  Aiden: having fun?

  I wasn’t sure what the answer to that was. Especially since Mandi had just told me she wanted to run into the woods and never come back.

  “You wanna talk about how much stress you’re under at work?” I asked, meeting her eyes.

  A flash of telling Aiden I felt free now that my parents thought I was gay—or dating a man, at least—came back to me.

  Now that Mandi knew some part of the real truth—as much of it as I knew, anyway—everything was suddenly easier with her. We could actually have been friends, maybe.

  I paused to text Aiden back.

  It’s been an experience. Tell you about it later. Dad okay?

  “Not really,” Mandi said. “I think you just heard it, anyway. Maybe this sparkling career life isn’t everything it was cracked up to be.”

  I’d been starting to have the same thought myself. I was twenty-seven and I’d found a gray hair last week. Just the one, but…

  Mandi worked twice as hard as I did. All she seemed to do was work.

  Aiden: your dad’s fantastic and I love him.

  I smiled at that. At least they were getting along.

  “For what it’s worth, coming from someone who’s miserable? I think you should be happy.”

  Mandi’s face softened, a tiny smile turning up her bright coral lips. “Thanks,” she said, shoving her hands in her pockets, sweeping snow aside with boots that would’ve been better suited to a Charlie’s Angels movie than a woodland walk. “I think you should be happy, too.”