by Con Riley
“See, this is why you need me, Aiden. You will not admit it, but you do.”
Aiden kept his head down.
He needed Marco like he needed another hole in his head.
Putting up with him and his ridiculous, excitable Italian ways was an unfortunate byproduct of sharing a house and sharing the same circle of friends, that was all. The sooner Marco went back to Milan, the better.
“You should relax more, Aiden. If you let me help you here, then you could let go a little. This work is too much for one person.” Marco went on and on and on. “Frowning hides your dimples—a shame when you they make you so handsome. I worry about your stress levels. No wonder you get heartburn.”
Aiden bit his tongue. Marco had brought nothing but stress into his life for the whole month they’d lived together. Coming home every evening to someone who walked around the place half-naked, showing off his trim, tanned torso whatever the weather, and who thought nothing of climbing into his bed—talk to me, baby. I’ve been on my own all day—left Aiden in a constant state of . . . . He didn’t even know how to describe the inner turmoil that living with Marco caused.
“But what is this?” Marco asked, his head buried in one of the open cartons, sounding suddenly delighted.
Aiden huffed, still angry that he’d wasted so much time chasing the infuriating Italian, who had nothing better to do than get on his nerves, all around the mall. Marco should start acting his age. Wasn’t he over thirty? Someone so compact and lazy shouldn’t be able to run so fucking fast. It wasn’t right. The only thing Marco ever exercised was his mouth.
“Is this another shipment of things you didn’t order, tesoro? Why won’t you let me help you when you make international deals? Or ask Morgan? Between the two of us, we speak enough languages to help you.” His voice lowered, and Aiden felt Marco’s hand on his thigh as he knelt at Aiden’s side. “Let us help you, yes? These translation mistakes could be avoided.” He removed his hand, leaving behind a scrap of pink, silky fabric—panties, ordered in error, expensive, and impossible for Aiden to return without losing money.
Aiden couldn’t look away, transfixed by Marco’s slim fingers as he smoothed out the fabric across Aiden’s wide thigh. Those fingers traced the swirls in the pattern slowly, making Aiden shiver.
“These are so beautiful, Aiden. Feel them. Touch them for yourself. Imagine how they would feel against your skin. It is a shame they aren’t your size.”
Aiden gritted his teeth and tried not to move a muscle. His housemate needed no encouragement. This much he’d learned already.
Marco sighed and stood again. He picked up the panties, fingering the lace that edged them.
“Maybe they weren’t a mistake.” He held them against his own narrow hips, made a small sound of approval, and then stuffed them into his pocket. “Perhaps I will model them for you after dinner.” He bent, pressed a kiss on Aiden’s cheek—another example of European behavior Aiden thought best to ignore—and walked away. Before he left the stockroom, he turned and asked, “Do you believe me now that you have blind spots in the store?”
Aiden grudgingly nodded.
“And do you agree that moving the cameras will help?”
He nodded again.
“I shall reposition them for you before I leave, yes?” Marco didn’t wait for Aiden to agree, but before the stockroom door creaked fully open, he added, “And you have another blind spot, Aiden. I watched your clerk closely this morning. Maybe you should look more closely at him too.” Marco paused, taking in the sudden shift in Aiden’s previously masklike expression before crossing quickly back to his desk. “I’m sorry. It is so sad when people let you down, I know.” He squeezed Aiden’s hand and then leaned over the desk, whispering, “I would never do that.” Marco lingered for a moment before walking away.
Aiden waited until Marco left and then typed a code into his PC that revealed the feed from the camera above the register. It only took a few minutes to speed through that morning’s footage. He watched as the recording approached the time when Marco had arrived at the store. He must have suspected right away what Aiden hadn’t even noticed. No wonder none of the receipts he added so carefully at the end of every day corresponded to the register totals lately. Their discrepancies had frustrated him for the last few weeks.
His dad had always said that a good manager knew instinctively whom he could trust. He’d be so disappointed in Aiden’s lack of judgment.
He viewed the recording, feeling too sick and tired to be angry as he watched Levi fail to close the register fully after a transaction, quickly removing a handful of bills the moment the customer walked away. Aiden slowed the feed until he could watch, frame by slow-moving frame, as Levi pushed the cash into his pants pocket.
He should have noticed this shit himself. Instead he’d been distracted by the envelope that still lay unopened on his desk, as it had for the last two weeks.
Aiden slumped behind his too-small desk in the far corner of his carton-strewn stockroom and rested his head in his hands.
Chapter Two
Aiden was only halfway through mowing the lawn that curved in a wide, lush green swath around his mother’s home when the mower’s motor started to labor. He cursed under his breath, urging it to keep going. His forward momentum helped some as the lawn swept down around the front of the classic white colonial home. Although the slope took some of the strain off the motor, its continued erratic noises sounded ominous.
“Come on, come on, come on already.” Aiden’s urging made little difference. He babied the mower, taking it slow as he steered carefully. Right when the motor finally sounded steadier, and he began to think he might get to finish his final chore for the day, a sudden, rapid knocking noise, along with a cloud of blue fumes escaping from the engine casing, signaled game over.
His pale gray T-shirt, sweat-darkened after an hour’s effort, clung to his back as he bent over the mower, cursing in disgust. When he stood upright, the low evening sunlight made him squint as he thought through his options. Pushing the mower onto the driveway so he could reverse over it with his beat-up old pickup a few dozen times, leaving it in a heap of twisted pieces, probably wasn’t his most mature choice. But right then, after the day he’d had, crushing something sure seemed like it might take the edge off his bad temper.
His mother’s faint voice sounded worried. “Aiden? Is everything okay?”
He tensed, straightening his shoulders as he turned so they formed a wide wall blocking her view from an open upstairs window.
“Everything’s fine, Mom. I’m just taking a call.” He pulled out his cell and smiled up at her.
She pushed her gray-streaked hair from her eyes. “You want some pop, honey? It’s still warm out. You must be thirsty.”
Aiden shook his head and then turned his back with his cell clamped to his ear as an excuse to cut short their conversation. If she brought him a drink, she’d stop to watch him mow for a while. A broken mower was nothing he couldn’t handle, but his mom would latch onto its breaking as an excuse to worry, and his mom’s version of worrying was something he could do without.
From his vantage point on their elevated plot, Aiden could see the uniform neatness of his mom’s neighbors’ yards. Although the style of homes varied in the gated community that they’d moved to when Aiden was a kid, all the front yards were similar—huge, unfenced, sweeping lawns, divided by driveways and subtle, low-level decorative planting. The only difference the passing of twenty years had made was how sterile the neighborhood looked now. There were no kids’ toys littering lawns anymore or homemade skateboard ramps at the bottoms of the steepest driveways. All the kids had grown up and moved on, and now the houses were too expensive to appeal to young families.
In comparison to the uniform front yards, Aiden knew the backyards were all different. Some of the neighbors had swimming pools he’d been allowed to use as a teen in return for lawn-boy duties. He’d taught Evan to swim right after he came to live with them.
Jesus, what an epic task that turned out to be—eleven really was late to learn. They’d spent the long, idyllic summers before everything went to shit mowing pretty much every sunny morning, hoping to score an afternoon of cooling off in shimmering pool water.
He hadn’t minded hanging with his new brother rather than with his friends back then. He’d liked it. He still did. His dad had been right—two had been way better than one.
So their old neighbors had grown used to the sound of Evan directing his brother, telling him what to do as he mowed, even though Aiden had been more than old enough—and experienced enough—to get shit done on his own. But he’d taken orders from Evan, and he’d liked it, smiling as he mowed, happy to have some company.
Now, ten years after Evan’s adoption, Aiden didn’t know any of the neighbors by name anymore. If he did, he’d borrow a mower to finish up his almost-too-late-in-the-evening chore, but the neighbors here were all strangers to him now. His mom was the only original homeowner left on their street, living alone in their spacious five-bedroom home.
For a moment, he considered talking to her. Perhaps she’d gotten to know the new next-door neighbors well enough to ask a favor since they’d moved in. Then he shook his head, scrubbing wide fingers through sweat-darkened hair, guessing that asking her would be a bad idea. Aiden knew a simple problem, like the mower dying, could send her into a tailspin. It would start with her worrying about calling someone to come take a look at it and would most likely end with her weeping over his dad’s death all over again.
Dad used to take care of everything for her. Now that was Aiden’s role.
He huffed and slipped his phone back into his pocket, ignoring the chime of a voicemail notification. He might not want to talk with his mom right now, but he absolutely, categorically didn’t want to speak with Marco either. The man had been calling for the last couple of hours, starting not even a half hour after leaving Aiden at the store. His messages—How are you? I’m sorry. Maybe I was mistaken about your boy—had filled Aiden’s text-message inbox. But the one telling Aiden not to blame himself had made him angry, and he’d ignored each subsequent call, text, and voicemail.
He’d blame himself for employing a thief if he wanted.
Trusting Levi had been on him alone. It smarted badly that his judgment had been so off. Levi had seemed like a good kid, and his work ethic had matched Aiden’s. He might have been on the small side, but Levi sure put effort into making Aiden’s store look better than it ever had. He would arrive early, often before Aiden, and look for things to do. Then he’d be reluctant to leave. Oh, he’d been nervous around Aiden, but he’d been quick to learn and even quicker to ask for more shifts. Shifts where he’d probably helped himself to more cash Aiden couldn’t afford to lose.
Grumbling, calling himself a fool, Aiden started to push the mower onto the driveway, heading toward the garage that was set back from the house. He skirted the side of his mom’s late-model car parked in front of the double garage doors, intent on following the path to the storage shed behind the building. A wolf whistle stopped him in his tracks.
“No way. No fucking way.” Aiden groaned, his shoulders slumping again as another whistle sounded, long and low and, from anyone else, sexy. He closed his eyes.
“Ciao, baby.”
Aiden started walking again as he heard Marco jog up the driveway behind him. He didn’t stop until he reached the storage shed set behind the garage, out of sight from the house. Marco’s hand was instantly on his shoulder, tugging at him, encouraging him to turn.
Marco sounded breathless. “Why didn’t you take my calls?”
Aiden let go of the mower and rammed his hands in his pockets before turning to face his housemate, standing as straight and tall as he could to avoid the ever-present threat of an Italian kiss of greeting. He watched Marco’s gaze flicker over his face as he wet his lips. Aiden ignored the fleeting expression of disappointment that slid across his features—he’d already snuck in enough unwanted kisses for one day.
Aiden knew he sounded abrupt. “What do you want? How did you know where to find me?”
“I was waiting at home for you. I thought you’d be back by five.” He shrugged. “I called your brother. Joel answered, then came by to give me a ride.”
Fucking Joel.
Aiden had left Joel and Evan at the store after firing Levi, wanting nothing more than to knock back a few beers and relax in the apartment he’d shared with his brother for the last two years. But since the middle of July, Aiden had instead been house-sitting for Peter, someone he barely knew, with a demanding, noisy Italian stranger as a housemate. Relaxation was the last thing he’d find with Marco in his borrowed home, and for that he blamed Joel.
Moving out of the apartment had seemed a great idea at the time—a temporary deal while he got his head around the way Joel seemed to have moved in. He’d had trouble adjusting when Evan got serious about his first boyfriend. Spending some time in Oregon with both of them at the start of the summer had made it pretty clear that Joel wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. That had left Aiden feeling out of place and awkward in his own home.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want Evan to be happy. Far from it. And it wasn’t that he’d been surprised when Evan came out to him after meeting Joel, either. Aiden had been pretty sure that Evan, too, was gay for a long time—maybe always—even if neither of them was in any hurry to make his orientation public. It was just that he’d felt a sinking sense of I can’t have that whenever he came home to find them wrapped up in each other.
Aiden was pretty sure he couldn’t manage to hide a love life, hold the family finances together, and keep his emotionally brittle mom on an even keel. He’d guessed it was beyond him, especially during the first awful years after his dad’s death, so he hadn’t even tried. Joel moving in had made Aiden’s carefully constructed world—the one where he held everything together, and no one had to know the truth about the mess his dad had left behind—feel like it might shake apart at any moment.
Peter, a relative stranger, had only taken a few hours to figure out that Aiden badly needed some space. The offer of Peter’s empty house had come at just the right time.
Maybe he would have thought twice about moving in if he’d known what sharing with Marco would be like. Keeping Joel and Evan’s relationship on the down-low had been difficult. Keeping Marco, who thought nothing of demonstrating physical affection toward Aiden, off his mom’s things-to-worry-about radar would be impossible.
Behind the garage, out of sight of the house, Marco stepped a little closer, reaching out to hold Aiden by the wrist. His expression shifted from concern to disappointment as Aiden shook him off and put some distance between them.
“Go away. I’m busy.” Aiden knew he sounded like an asshole. Something about the way Marco frowned as he wrapped his arms around himself almost made him feel bad for a moment.
“Why didn’t you come home?” Marco’s brow furrowed, making him look so much like his late older brother, Ben, that Aiden couldn’t make himself speak.
It still baffled him how Marco could look so much like Ben, who had been Aiden’s first and longest-lasting crush, and yet be so dissimilar to him. Aiden had fallen hard for Ben when he was just sixteen, at one of his dad’s company Christmas parties. Ben had been in his forties then—way out of Aiden’s league—but the incredibly hot Italian had shown nothing but kindness to him and Evan, who had been freaked out over meeting so many new people. He’d given them chores—fetching wine and finding empty glasses—keeping Evan so busy that he’d forgotten to be his eleven-year-old version of a moody, defensive little shit.
Marco’s brother, who had died two years ago, had been gorgeous inside and out. He’d been half of the first openly gay couple Aiden had ever gotten to know, right when he was figuring things out for himself. Theo—who had worked with Aiden’s father—and Ben being so happy together made being gay seem okay, despite what Aiden’s dad had said.
It wasn’t that
his dad had been intentionally homophobic. Aiden had had a lot of time to think about things in the five years since he’d passed away, and homophobic was far too strong a term. No, it was more that he’d paid attention to negative stereotypes. His dad would read headlines about HIV and assume that being gay made getting it more likely by default. Even knowing Theo and Ben so well hadn’t made his dad more open to any potential for long-term happiness. Instead, he’d smile sadly after watching them at company picnics. Ben loved kids, who were drawn to his warmth and patient good humor. All Aiden’s dad could see was how sad it was that they’d never have a family of their own, as if that were a guaranteed side effect of homosexuality too.
He said, over and over, that the only thing he wanted for his own boys was a normal, happy life.
Normal.
Aiden had come to hate that word. His dad had been fond of it, using it whenever Evan acted out or when Aiden had questions about his birth parents. He told them, in his well-intentioned way, that although they’d had unconventional starts, they were part of a normal, loving family now. Their part of the deal was to leave the past behind, to enjoy normal lives, and to have happy families of their own.
It was ridiculous that his dad’s words, meant well and spoken without malice, were what Aiden still heard in his sleep. He’d replay his final conversations with his father, who had told him to always put family first, and feel waves of unresolved anger and sadness. Aiden stayed closeted, and maybe that was due to his dad saying so many times that he knew Aiden wouldn’t let him down.
In hindsight, those words had been cruel for so many reasons.
Whenever he felt lonely, Aiden had consoled himself by rationalizing that if he couldn’t have someone like Ben then there was no point in pursuing relationships. He’d built their few meetings into something much bigger in his imagination, recalling their conversations and the few times he’d caught glimpses of how Ben was in private.
