Troublemaker (Goode Boys Book 1)

by Sean Ashcroft

  “Uh huh.”

  After a quick ink swatch, I screwed the lids back onto the pots of ink I’d been working with and set the mixed colors aside, less excited than I could have been to be back at work.

  “So you didn’t tell him,” Morgan said.

  “What makes you think he didn’t reject me after I told him?” I asked.

  “He didn’t reject you. If he’d rejected you, you’d be sad. This is angry. Angry means you’re mad at yourself, because you don’t get mad at other people.”

  “Oh, I thought about decking his mother,” I admitted.

  Carter hadn’t deserved that. And maybe if his mom hadn’t been such an ass, things would be different.

  Maybe we’d both still be curled up in bed, trading kisses and promises.

  “I said people. Mrs. Kowalski isn’t people.”

  I snorted. “You can be such a bitch when you wanna be.”

  “She started it.” Morgan shrugged. “I don’t like her. Never got why you liked Carter, considering what she was like.”

  “He’s… more like his dad,” I said, thinking back to Mr. K and how nice he’d been to me. Always, but especially this week.

  Without Carter’s mom, they could’ve been a nice, happy family. Maybe they’d still get the chance.

  “I didn’t say you weren’t allowed to like him,” Morgan said. “Did say you shoulda told him.”

  I watched him sip his coffee, wondering if I could risk a mouthful, too.

  “He’s better off without me. It’s not like he can take me to fancy business mixers or nice dates in places with black marble bar tops or even… I dunno, introduce me to his friends.”

  “You’re his best friend’s brother. Anyone else can talk to me if they don’t like you,” Morgan said. “You really think he enjoys fancy business mixers? Because I gotta say, I think you should stop fucking him if he does. That’s disgusting.”

  I snorted at Morgan’s wrinkled nose. Neither of us were exactly corporate high-flyer material.

  “I think they’re a part of his life,” I said. “I think he enjoys… reading quietly on the couch. Sitting down to eat with people he likes. Fresh pastries. Cuddling. Having someone actually care about him for once.”

  A low whistle from Morgan warned me that I’d said too much. “You’ve got it bad for this guy.”

  I curled my hands around the coffee he’d brought, fighting the urge to toy with the lid. Keeping my hands still wasn’t easy at the best of times, and under this much stress it was nearly impossible.

  “I love him,” I said softly. “Before it was a stupid crush, a fantasy I’d never fulfilled, but… he stood up for me. No one…”

  “No one ever stands up for you because they figure you can take care of yourself,” Morgan said.

  Yeah. He got that, too. We’d always stood up for each other, but having Carter do it…

  That was the moment, I realized. The moment I’d gone from harmless crush and having a little fun fulfilling a teenage dream to actually caring, to wanting Carter to like me all over again.

  Before that I’d been playing, afterward I was serious.

  “Yeah,” I said, risking a sip of the coffee. My stomach protested at first, but there wasn’t anything physically wrong with me.

  This was what a broken heart felt like.

  “You should just… call him and tell him.”

  “Sure,” I said, meeting Morgan’s eyes. “You can call Devin and tell him first.”

  Morgan looked away, scratching the back of his neck. Normally, I wouldn’t have used his adorable crush on Devin against him, but this was a special case.

  “He’d freak out,” Morgan said.

  “Right. See? Same problem. Carter isn’t ready to be bi. This was a low-stakes test run. He had no idea how badly his mom would take it, all he wanted was for her to stop trying to push him to get back together with his ex.”

  His ex who he was probably going to end up back with anyway. But on his terms. He understood himself now, and she’d understand him better, too. That was the main thing. He wouldn’t have to live like his father had.

  I’d done a good thing and I should’ve been proud of myself.

  “But Devin wouldn’t freak out,” I added after a moment. “He’d be flattered. He thinks you’re cool.”

  “He does not think I’m cool, and we’re not changing the subject,” Morgan said. “This is about you being an idiot. We can talk about me being an idiot some other time.”

  “I’m not being an idiot,” I said. “Well, I am, but not the way you mean. I just need to get over it. I will get over it. Gimme a break, it’s early.”

  Morgan snorted. “Early.”

  “Early is relative. A state of mind,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee. “I’ll get over it.”

  “Mmhmm,” Morgan hummed. “Come over tonight. Ice cream, beer, B-movies. Won’t even mention it if you cry.”

  He wouldn’t, either. Morgan would’ve let me cry all night and just… been there for me. He was a good friend to have.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, figuring it couldn’t hurt to spend a few hours with my best friend. “It’s a date.”

  I’d get over it.

  27

  Carter

  The last thing I wanted to see as I walked out of Kieran’s little townhouse was my mother standing on the sidewalk, leaning against her car with her arms folded.

  “I don’t wanna hear it,” I said, barely glancing at her as I headed for my own car.

  “Honey, wait,” Mom called after me.

  Honey.

  I knew I was being manipulated, I knew it, but that didn’t stop me pausing. Affection from my mom was rare, and I’d learned to treat it like gold dust.

  Even knowing that it actually wasn’t worth anything now wasn’t enough to override the part of me that was still just a kid who didn’t understand why he spent most of his life feeling unloved.

  “Hallie told me everything,” she said. “About you and Aiden. About you bringing Aiden along so I’d stop bothering you about Mandi. I’ve been thinking about it.”

  Even knowing it was a mistake, I turned back to her. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to hear, or what I planned to say, but I was rooted to the spot.

  This was my mom. She’d raised me, even if it hadn’t been the best parenting job ever. Ignoring her was hard.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  If we’d been in a cartoon, my jaw would’ve hit the pavement.

  “For making you feel like your only option was to pretend to be gay to get me off your back. I see now that Mandi wasn’t everything I thought she was. You must’ve been so miserable.”

  Now I really didn’t know what to say.

  “I should’ve known it was Kieran’s idea. That boy always was trouble.”

  I blinked. Mom loved Kieran.

  Didn’t she?

  She’d loved that he was an honor student and captain of the football team, at least.

  But then, I’d heard what she said about Aiden’s mom. She didn’t think much of the entire family. She’d just been willing to set that aside for…

  Shit. For someone she thought was useful. Someone who’d help her fulfill her ambitions for me. Kieran was popular and well-liked and I was lucky he’d so much as given me the time of day, let alone the years of friendship and support I had to thank him for.

  Mom saw him as a rung on the social ladder.

  Like everything else. She saw people as things. Either useful or useless.

  “It must’ve been so awful for you, having to put up with that boy all week. Which made me realize that Mandi was never right for you. You’re too soft and sensitive for a girl like her. She never cared about your hopes and dreams at all, did she?”

  The thing was, I would’ve said the same at the beginning of the week.

  But I knew better now. I knew that while Mandi and I weren’t exactly meant to be together, the reason she didn’t care about my hopes and dreams was that I d
idn’t have any. Not of my own.

  Last week had been the first week of my life when I’d really, truly felt free. The moment I introduced Aiden as my date, I’d felt like I was shedding a set of chains I’d been weighed down under my whole life.

  Because it was something I was choosing for myself, whether or not Mom liked it, or approved, or was even still willing to talk to me after.

  “I wish you would’ve talked to me about it,” Mom continued, apparently oblivious to all the noise in my head right now.

  Aiden cared about me. He’d cared about showing me who I really was, letting me explore what I really wanted in life. I was still wearing the badge he gave me inside my coat.

  I wanted him.

  The whole time we’d been apart, I’d been miserable.

  I…

  “I love Aiden,” I said, and it was almost as much a surprise to me as it was to my mom, judging by the look on her face.

  But it was true. I’d thought it before, in the haze of happiness I felt while I was around him, when it was just the two of us and no one else in the world got to render an opinion.

  It was just as true now as it had been then, and just as scary.

  Scary, but true. What was the point in pretending otherwise? I’d lived a lie for years and Aiden had shown me what it’d be like if I wasn’t. Dad had been miserable most of my life, and I’d seen what he was like when he wasn’t, now.

  I loved Aiden.

  For everything he’d done for me, and for everything he was, and for everything the two of us could have been together.

  I loved him, and I was letting him get away because…

  … because I’d lost my mind.

  “Honey—”

  “No,” I interrupted. I’d talked back to my mom more in the last seven days than I had in the entire rest of my life, and I was just now realizing that wasn’t a bad thing.

  I couldn’t bow down to whatever she wanted for the rest of my life.

  “Don’t honey me,” I said. “You haven’t earned the right.”

  “I’m your mother,” she said, mouth hanging open, eyes wide.

  “You’re supposed to love me!” I said, louder than I meant to. A woman walking her dog on the other side of the street glanced at us, but then kept walking without saying anything.

  “You’re supposed to love me,” I repeated, quieter, defeat sinking into my bones. Supposed to wasn’t the same as did.

  Reaching inside my coat, I unpinned the badge Aiden had given me and closed my hand around it, drawing strength from knowing what a kind-hearted, sincere gesture it’d been. From knowing how proud of me he was, how excited he’d been to share my real self with me. “You’re supposed to love me even if I screw up, even if I do things you don’t approve of, even if I don’t turn out exactly the way you pictured. Even if I fall in love with the troublemaker from the family next door who’s been kinder to me than anyone else in my entire life.”

  “It’s okay if you like men,” Mom said, voice shaking. No, it wasn’t, but she was recalibrating her worldview because even she realized there were some things she couldn’t change.

  Now probably wasn’t the time to explain about bisexuality. She’d get the wrong idea.

  “Just not this man?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “He doesn’t deserve you. You can do better. Marlene Wilkinson has a son your age, he works for one of those big tech companies out in Silicon Valley, I bet he’d love to meet you.”

  “I’m sure he would,” I said, drawing on the last reserves of confidence Aiden had given me. “I’m great. He’s probably great, too. But I want Aiden. And there is no better. I’m lucky he even looked twice at me. I’m nobody, I have nothing to offer him other than myself, and I’m not even sure he’ll accept that. He’s incredible. I don’t deserve him.”

  I paused, taking a breath.

  Aiden was incredible, and I didn’t deserve him, but I’d spend the rest of my life regretting it if I didn’t try.

  Dad didn’t think he deserved Trent, either. That was probably the kind of poisoned thinking my mom had left us all with.

  “But I’m gonna go beg him to let me stay anyway,” I said. “Whether you like it or not. Because he’s the only person who’s ever made me feel loved for who I am, because he makes me feel like I’m worth something even if I’m not perfect or successful or particularly likely to run for President one day. He likes me the way I am.”

  And I was so, so stupid for throwing that away. For not trying to grab it with both hands, even if I wasn’t sure he’d actually want me.

  “And I don’t care whether you like it or not. Because you are my mother, and I’m your son, and you can’t change that. You can either accept it, or you can leave me alone.”

  Mom opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was, I wasn’t about to stick around to hear it.

  Shoving my car keys back in my pocket, I turned on my heel and headed for town as fast as I could walk.

  I had to tell Aiden how I felt.

  28

  Aiden

  “So, you need to leave it covered for twenty-four hours,” I explained. “Keep applying your balm, don’t let the skin dry out, and drop in some time next week so we can check the healing. If you’ve got any questions or you’re worried about anything, don’t hesitate to come in or text me. It will itch, and you’ll be cursing me in an hour or so over it. You can also text me to yell about it.”

  “Why do I feel like you laugh when people do that?” Aisha—my nine a.m. client—asked.

  I grinned at her. “Because I do. But I also wince in sympathy, if it helps. I’ve been there, trust me.”

  “I’ll take all your advice and whine to you about the itching,” she promised. “Thank you so much. Your work is beautiful and totally worth the wait.”

  “You’re so welcome,” I said, glancing over at a shadow by the door.

  My stomach dropped to somewhere around my ankles.

  Carter.

  I watched, mouth hanging open, as he sidled his way through the door, carefully so the bell wouldn’t ring too loud.

  Aisha looked between the two of us. “That him?”

  I hadn’t told her the whole story, but I hadn’t been able to avoid explaining my obvious misery, and she’d been a good listener. Carter, to her, was the guy who walked away.

  Which was true.

  But now he was back.

  I nodded.

  Aisha nodded back. “I’ll leave you in peace. Thanks again, I love it a lot.”

  “Take care,” I called after her, watching her glance at Carter on the way out.

  He watched her go, and then without a pause, turned to me. “I want a tattoo.”

  What?

  “Come again?”

  “I want a tattoo,” Carter said, taking a half-step toward me.

  “Why?”

  Was that really what he’d come here for? After everything, was he really wandering in here for a tattoo consultation?

  “Because I told you that if I ever lost my mind, I’d come to you for a tattoo,” Carter said. “And I’ve clearly lost my mind.”

  I had no idea what to say to that. I knew where I wanted this to be going, but it felt like wishful thinking.

  “I had the opportunity last week to be with the kindest, most generous, patient, thoughtful person I’ve ever known. He was so good to me that I didn’t know what to do with it half the time, it just seemed like too much. Like I couldn’t possibly deserve it.”

  I swallowed. Was this going where I hoped it was going? It sure was starting to sound like it.

  “And then I threw it away. Because I kept telling myself that it wasn’t real, that I couldn’t have it, that this was all a temporary situation. Because I’ve never had it before and I couldn’t imagine what it’d look like for someone to actually care about me for who I was, even while I was in the middle of it.”

  “Carter—” I started, then paused as he raised a hand, eyes pleading.


  “Let me finish?” He licked his lips nervously.

  “Of course,” I said.

  I wanted to go to him and wrap him in my arms and promise him that it was all real, that I was here, that he could come back to me whenever he wanted. But he had more to say, and he needed the chance to get it off his chest.

  Not many people really listened to Carter.

  “I ran into Mom on the way out of Kieran’s place this morning,” he continued. “Apparently Hallie told her it was all fake, and I guess in the beginning it was, but it doesn’t feel that way anymore. Not to me.”

  Breath caught in my lungs. It’s not fake for me, either, I didn’t say, determined not to interrupt him.

  But it wasn’t. It hadn’t been. Every minute I’d spent with Carter had made me feel like I’d found everything I’d been looking for my whole life. Someone who’d look at me and not see a screwup.

  “She told me you didn’t deserve me and I’ve never heard a more ridiculous thing in my life. I walked away because I know I don’t deserve you, I know I don’t have anything to offer. But you cared about me anyway. Only someone who’d lost their goddamn mind would be stupid enough to let someone like you go without… without telling you…”

  Carter paused, reaching into his coat pocket. It took me a second to figure out what he was doing, but when I saw a flash of the badge I’d given him, I understood.

  My heart swelled as I watched him pin it to his lapel, for everyone to see.

  “I love you,” he said, meeting my gaze. “And I think that’s the first time I’ve said that and really meant it.”

  Happiness welled up all of a sudden, spilling out of my throat as laughter while I closed the gap between us, grabbing him by the other lapel and sliding my fingers deep into his impossible hair.

  Carter gasped, lips parting, a tingling wave of joy washing over me from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes as I kissed him deeper. Every feeling I had for him poured into the kiss, every nice little thought on the tip of my tongue as it flicked at his lips.

  His hands settled on my waist, squeezing gently, thumbs rubbing circles just under my ribs.