by Tia Fielding
Uncle Will trod up the stairs, leather boots creaking. “Need a hand?”
“Need a fucking leg,” Aaron muttered, reaching for the nearest crutch.
Uncle Will looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, which was how Aaron felt most days. He fussed around grabbing the other crutch instead, and then helping Aaron to his feet. “Come on. I made you breakfast.”
“Breakfast?”
“Yeah, breakfast at ten o’clock in the goddamn morning, and I had to wade through a sea of empty whiskey bottles to do it.”
Well, that explained the breaking glass.
Aaron grunted, and let Uncle Will help him down the stairs. There weren’t many people he would have trusted to do that. Hell, there weren’t many people he’d even let see him like this, but Uncle Will was the closest thing he had left to a parent, and he also didn’t take no for an answer. He’d been turning up to the house at least once a day since Aaron got back to town, bringing booze and food and movies to watch together. Though he’d stopped bringing booze when he saw how hard Aaron was hitting the bottle lately. Luckily Brody was always happy to go to the liquor store on Aaron’s behalf. They’d been friends since childhood; Brody was a good guy.
The scent of frying bacon made Aaron’s dry mouth water.
Aaron sat down heavily at the wonky kitchen table; there hadn’t been one when he’d arrived, so Brody had turned up with a truck full of stuff from the junkyard. None of it was pretty, but it did the job.
“What the hell are you doing sleeping upstairs?” Uncle Will asked as he turned the bacon over in the pan.
“That’s where my room is,” Aaron said.
Uncle Will cut him a look but didn’t say anything.
The house was an A-frame cottage. The main bedroom was at the back of the bottom floor, along with the bathroom. It would have made more sense to use it, but Aaron couldn’t even walk inside. That was his parents’ room. He couldn’t sleep in his parents’ room. Bad enough he was back under this roof with nothing but his memories and their ghosts to haunt him. Hence the whiskey.
The pan sizzled as Uncle Will cracked a couple of eggs into it. “You planning on leaving the house today?”
“Not planning on it,” Aaron admitted.
“So what? You’re just gonna sit around on your ass and do nothing?”
“The lumber doesn’t come until next week.”
Aaron had worked a few years in construction between graduating high school and joining the army, so it had seemed like a good idea to come back and fix the house up before he sold it. See if he could add some value to it and up the sale price a little. Mostly though, he’d wanted something to do, maybe figure all his shit out before he readjusted to civilian life. And to life as an amputee. The future stretching out in front of him wasn’t one that he’d planned for, and he had no fucking idea what to do with himself now. He’d always intended to look into joining law enforcement when he got out of the army, but that was out of the question now. He was too fucking old for college. Not that there weren’t students his age, but Aaron couldn’t imagine anything worse than being a twenty-eight-year old college freshman, surrounded by all those kids partying and living their lives when he could barely even walk up a flight of fucking stairs.
So he’d found another way to torture himself, and had come back to Spruce Creek.
“So what if the lumber doesn’t come until next week?” Uncle Will asked. “I thought you were gonna strip the old wallpaper in the den and paint it? There’s nothing stopping you from getting a start on that before the lumber arrives.”
Aaron shrugged and didn’t answer.
Uncle Will sighed. “I said I could handle selling the house for you.”
“I know you did.”
“Kid, if you came back here to fix the place up, then do it.” Uncle Will crossed the kitchen floor and set Aaron’s plate down in front of him. “Otherwise, what the hell are you doing here, apart from drinking your own bodyweight in whiskey every damn day?”
“I’m doing it,” Aaron grumbled, stabbing a crispy piece of bacon with his fork. “I’ll do it, okay? I’ll get started on stripping the wallpaper today.”
He concentrated on his breakfast so he didn’t need to see the look of worry in Uncle Will’s eyes, and so Uncle Will wouldn’t see the lie in his.
* * * *
Aaron didn’t get started on the wallpaper that afternoon. Instead, he limped back upstairs for a nap and woke up craving a drink. He wanted whiskey and would have settled for beer, but he discovered when he wobbled back downstairs again that either he’d drunk everything last night, or Uncle Will had quietly disposed of his meagre stash.
Will sent a text to Brody, only to discover that he was out of town for the day. Had Brody mentioned that to him? Probably. Between the booze and his pain meds, Aaron wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
Shit. He’d have to go to the liquor store on his own.
Aaron glared at his crutches. He didn’t like the idea of using them, or his new prosthetic, on Spruce Creek’s uneven sidewalks, but he was also still nervous about driving. He’d got a truck with an automatic transmission after coming home, but he still had to focus on remembering to use his left foot on the pedals, instead of trying instinctively to use his right. Still, driving was the better option.
His prosthetic leg was still upstairs. Aaron was supposed to be wearing it but, like the wallpaper in the den, he just kept putting it off. In the hospital, stupidly, he’d been looking forward to getting fitted for his prosthesis. He’d figured he could put on a pair of jeans and nobody would even know, right? Not once he sorted out issues with his balance, at least. Except that was before he learned about just how painful a socket could be, and how much just wearing the damn thing could make him sweat like a pig, and how sensitive the scar tissue was, and how prone to irritation his stump was, and how fucking sore every other muscle in his body got from trying to compensate for the prosthetic. And all this after the prosthetist told him how lucky he was that the amputation was below the knee. If Aaron was lucky, and if he had it better than a bunch of other guys, then shit, he never wanted to feel what they were going through.
It took ten excruciating minutes to leave the house, limping back and forth on his crutches to find his wallet, then his car keys. He already felt wrung out by the time he made it to his truck.
A few minutes after that he was pulling into the parking lot at Bob’s Liquor, and then shuffling on his crutches toward the entrance. The doors were a pain in the ass. They weren’t automatic, so it took some juggling to get them open, and the guy behind the counter didn’t seem inclined to come over and help.
Aaron grunted at him as he moved past him down the aisle. Jesus, after this trip he’d more than earned a drink. A six pack of beer and a couple of bottles of whiskey should do him for a few days. Aaron wasn’t naïve enough to tell himself that his drinking wasn’t a problem—he just didn’t give a fuck about addressing it right now. His life was a mess, and drinking dulled his too-sharp senses, and he was okay with that.
He peered at the shelf of whiskey bottles, and then straightened up so he could see over to the counter. “Hey, can I get a hand over here?”
The guy eyed him narrowly, like he was debating whether or not Aaron’s pinned-up jeans leg was part of some elaborate costume or something. Then he sighed and set his magazine down, and shuffled out from behind the counter to join him in the aisles. “What do you need?”
“Two bottles of Jack,” Aaron said, and then nodded toward the refrigerated cabinet at the back of the wall. “And a six pack of Bud.”
The guy tucked the bottles of whiskey into the crook of his arm, and headed for the beer. Right on cue, the door to the liquor store opened, the buzzer sounded, and Aaron looked up to see who’d just walked in.
His heart stopped.
Quinn MacGregor.
It was Quinn, he thought, though he had short hair nowadays. It didn’t hang in waves down his back anymor
e, like it had when they were teenagers, like it had that night when Aaron had run his fingers through it and—- He shook the memory off. Quinn’s hair was scruffy and mussed up. He looked older than he should have, though Aaron was in no position to judge, and sharper around the edges. His jaw was set like he was expecting trouble, and that mouth that Aaron had once spent a summer kissing was pressed into a thin, tense line.
Aaron turned his back, his heart thumping, and pretended to be interested in the whiskey bottles on the shelf in front of him.
“This what you want?” the clerk asked, shoving a six pack of Bud into his field of vision.
“Yeah,” Aaron said, keeping his voice low. “I’ll be up to pay in a second.”
Whatever Quinn was after, it wasn’t whiskey. Aaron listened as the clerk rang up Quinn’s purchase, and didn’t relax again until the buzzer sounded and the door rattled open and shut again. Only then did he turn around and make his way slowly to the counter, the tips of his crutches squeaking a little on the grimy linoleum floor.
Aaron paid, and glanced out the front window of the liquor store while the clerk ran his card. Quinn MacGregor was still in Spruce Creek? Why the hell hadn’t Brody said anything? Okay, so Aaron hadn’t asked, and Brody hadn’t exactly known they’d ever been a thing, but Quinn’s dad had murdered Aaron’s in cold blood, so a fucking heads-up would have been nice. Of course, Brody was still the same inveterate stoner he’d been back in school, so asking him to wrap his brain around shit was like trying to push water uphill most of the time.
Aaron took his card back from the clerk and tucked it into his wallet. “Thanks.”
It took him a while to figure out how to carry his bags.
“I’ll get the door,” the clerk said. “You’re the old sheriff’s kid, right?”
“Yeah,” Aaron said, wondering which way this was going to go. He wasn’t in the mood to hear about how great his dad had been. He appreciated that the sentiment came from a good place, but ten years later all it did was open those old wounds all over again. “That’s me.”
The guy came around the counter to hold the door for him. He glanced down at Aaron’s missing leg. “Thank you for your service.”
And that was a whole new wound.
Aaron grunted in response, and then maneuvered himself carefully back out into the chill October air.
* * * *
The doorbell rang when Aaron was on his second beer. It took him a while to get to the door. Uncle Will had a key, and Brody usually yelled it was him, so somewhere on what felt like the interminable trek from the couch to the front door Aaron started to panic that it was Quinn MacGregor waiting for him to answer. What the fuck would Quinn want with him? Except when he pulled the door open, his stomach tied in knots, it wasn’t Quinn MacGregor standing there at all.
“Aaron fucking Larsen,” the woman said.
“Charlie,” he said, staring at her face. She was still pretty, but she’d lost that fresh-faced look she’d had in high school. Her face was thinner now. A woman’s face, instead of a girl’s. “Holy shit. Charlie.”
She stepped forward and embraced him. Her red hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She smelled like fryer oil and greasy food. “I just found out you were back in town, you ass. Why the hell didn’t you come find me?”
He’d never been able to lie to Charlie. “Because I’m a fucking mess.”
“Oh, trust me,” she said, “there is nothing going on in my life that puts me in any position to judge.” She stepped past him, a plastic bag swinging from her hand.
“What’s that?”
“Sheriff Henderson stopped by the diner and mentioned that you still couldn’t find your way around a kitchen, so I figured I’d make you some dinner while we caught up,” she said airily. “Oh yeah, remember how I was going to have my first Emmy by now? Well, I never actually got around to leaving for Hollywood, and now I work in the fucking diner. So tell me again how much of a mess you are?”
“Okay,” he said, discovering an unexpected smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I lost my leg in Afghanistan, I have PTSD, I’m drinking way too much, and I can’t bring myself to even start tearing down the wallpaper in this house so I can sell it, because I know my parents put it up when they bought the place, and I feel like it would be spitting on their graves.”
Charlie’s expression softened. “I heard about your mom. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” His voice rasped. “Me too.”
Charlie reached out and curled her fingers around his wrist. “Come on. I still make a mean mac and cheese.”
She headed for the kitchen, and Aaron followed. He lowered himself onto a chair, and leaned his crutches against the edge of the wobbly table as he watched Charlie get to work. The kitchen wasn’t well-stocked, either with ingredients or with utensils, but she dug up a saucepan from somewhere and set it on the stovetop. It was an old green enamel saucepan. Aaron’s chest ached as he remembered his mom using it to cook dinner all those years ago.
His gaze drifted to the back door, and to the way he’d felt back in another life when he’d stumbled through it with Quinn MacGregor thinking they were going to fight, and Quinn had kissed him instead.
“Angry little rabbit, ain’t cha?” Quinn had asked, his mouth tugging into a grin before he had suddenly leaned forward and pressed his lips to Aaron’s.
Aaron had felt as though all the breath had been sucked from his lungs as Quinn shoved him up against the back wall of the house beside the kitchen door and pressed into him. A knee had nudged at him, and Aaron had spread his legs instinctively, and then Quinn’s thigh had pushed between his, and Aaron’s dick had been hard and aching in his jeans. He’d reached up and slid his fingers through Quinn’s long hair. Quinn had moaned, and pushed his tongue against the seam of Aaron’s lips until Aaron had opened his mouth. Then Quinn’s tongue had been inside his mouth, and Aaron had felt like every bone in his body had dissolved into mush. He’d put his other hand on Quinn’s shoulder, feeling the muscles shift under the skin as Quinn had pushed into him. One of Quinn’s hands had settled on his hip, fingers digging in and thumb hooking around the empty belt loop of his jeans.
What the fuck was going on? Weren’t they supposed to be fighting? Aaron had no idea how this had happened—did Quinn know?—but he never wanted it to end.
“Jesus,” Quinn had murmured, his breath hot against Aaron’s lips. “Fuck, Aaron.”
He’d said Aaron’s name like it was a revelation, like it was something amazing, something sacred and profane at the same time, and Aaron’s stomach had flipped. He’d never heard anyone say his name like that before. He’d wanted to hear it again and again.
It had been the hottest and most confusing thing that had ever happened to him, and it had led to the most amazing summer of his entire life, where everything felt big and new, every fresh day like the entire world was created again just for them, right up until it had all shattered in the most horrific way imaginable.
“What the hell happened to us?” he asked softly, his eyes stinging.
Charlie’s smile was shaky. “I don’t know.”
“We had the best summer, do you remember?” Aaron was starting to regret that second beer. It had tipped him over the edge into a maudlin puddle of feelings he really didn’t want to force Charlie to suffer through with him. “You and me and Quinn. And Brody when he wasn’t too high to forget to meet up with us. We were all going places that summer, weren’t we?”
Funny how one single gunshot in the night had destroyed everything. It had stolen more than Dad’s life.
“What the hell happened?” he asked again.
Charlie shook her head. “Life?”
“Yeah,” Aaron said, staring out into the back yard, where the afternoon light was making everything turn golden. He shook his head and snorted. “Life.”
Chapter 3
Quinn replied to a text from his mom while trying to make himself cognizant enough again. He’d slept surprisin
gly well, maybe because the town was quiet and he knew he could take most things it could throw at him.
Besides, he was pretty sure he’d know if Jimmy wanted to try and take him out. The previous day had proved that he could still read his cousin—a thing that had kept Quinn safe that last summer in town. He put his phone on the worn-out Formica table and forced himself to eat the toast he’d made.
Rehab, once he was through the worst withdrawals, had taught him how often he should eat, and it worked somewhat. In a few hours he’d want lunch, and then a snack in the afternoon and then dinner and an evening snack before bedtime. In some ways, rehab had felt like an around the clock kindergarten.
Quinn sighed. That summer. It had been the best couple of months of his life. Nothing had topped it before, or after. The party that had kickstarted it all was one thing—that night when Quinn had gatecrashed Aaron’s party and Aaron had got all up in his face, which had somehow led to Quinn finally giving in to the tension between them and kissing him—but then maybe a week after that, it had gotten much better. Jimmy had been doing tricks on his dirt bike to impress that girl…what was her name? Candy? Cindy? Something like that. Jimmy had been trying to impress her and he’d managed to fuck up a landing so badly he’d spent a week in the hospital and then four more weeks housebound.
It had been the most free Quinn had ever felt. He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. It didn’t matter now. Aaron and Charlie were both gone, most likely. The only person from that summer he thought would be in town was Brody. Even Brody himself had known not to dream big, not with the weed habit and the general aimlessness.
Charlie had had big dreams. Quinn smiled at the thought of the girl he’d known. She’d been his and Aaron’s best friend. In a couple of months, the three of them had become a solid unit that they’d thought could never be broken.
His smile vanished. If only Robert MacGregor hadn’t fucked it all up.
