by Con Riley
They’d talked for a while, the doctor taking notes as Aiden described how he’d been feeling. “I’m pretty sure it’s stress related.” Aiden shrugged. “Things have been getting easier, and lately I feel a whole lot better.”
“I am glad to hear this also.”
“But I said I’d get checked out, so I thought two birds, one stone.” He shrugged again.
The doctor told him which tests he would schedule for Aiden if he were a patient in his general practice, then gave him his card. “I only work one shift a week here. Why don’t you come and see me at my regular office so we can run them for you? Put your partner’s mind at rest.” He wrote a prescription for a stronger antacid than Aiden had been using and said that he hoped he’d see him again soon. Aiden smiled, committing to nothing—visiting this clinic was the most he’d spent on his own healthcare all year.
Aiden left the clinic after his first results came back clear—the others would take a little longer—and headed back to his truck. His spur-of-the-moment decision had taken up nearly the whole afternoon. He switched his phone back on as he got in, calling Levi at the store before he started the engine.
“That took longer than I expected. How are things going there? Do you need me to come back to help you close up?” He half expected Levi to tell him no, so when he answered sounding weird and uptight, Aiden paid attention.
“That might be a good idea, boss.”
“What’s up?” It wasn’t like Levi to ask for help. Maybe he’d been super busy.
“N-Nothing. Forget it. Everything here is fine.” He paused, and Aiden wondered what he was missing. Levi rushed on before he could ask what was on his mind. “Did Marco catch up with you?”
“No. Why? Did he come to the store?” Maybe he hadn’t picked up Aiden’s errand-running message.
“No, he called. He didn’t exactly make sense. He was mixing up his words. But he was definitely trying to find you.”
That was strange. Marco’s command of English was amazing. He’d spoken it even before Theo had joined his family, and he only struggled with vocabulary now when he was agitated.
“What did he say, Levi? Tell me what you can remember.” Aiden looked around, mentally calculating the quickest way to get home. Great. Rush hour. Traffic was hardly moving.
“That’s the thing. He didn’t really say much. Just asked where you were and why you weren’t answering your phone. Only he said it all in Italian first, I guess. Then he sounded pissed when I didn’t understand him.” Levi drew in a quick breath. “He talked really fast.”
Yeah, that definitely wasn’t standard Marco behavior. He put the truck in gear and indicated that he was pulling out. Around him, traffic didn’t budge.
“He hasn’t called me.” Aiden held his phone away and peered at its screen. “Nope, he didn’t even leave me a message.”
“Hey, it’s probably nothing. I’m just telling you what happened. Anyway, that was a few hours ago, so I expect he’s waiting for you at your place.”
Aiden thought the same. He said good-bye after checking that Levi was really okay to close later on his own. This time he ignored his inner warning that something might be up at work. Levi would ask for help if he needed it now, wouldn’t he?
Finally, he started to make some headway. He crawled, bumper to bumper, along the busiest downtown streets, and while he was still virtually stationary he tried Marco’s number. Marco’s voicemail kicked in right away again. He shoved his phone back in his shirt pocket and concentrated on getting home instead.
His phone chimed a few minutes later. He hauled it out for a quick look.
MARCO: Call me as soon as you can.
His phone chimed again.
MARCO: I need to talk to you right now.
When the phone suddenly rang in his hand, he nearly dropped it in the footwell. He answered quickly. “Marco, what’s going on?”
“It’s me. Where are you, son?” Paul Morse’s voice was unexpected, confusing Aiden for a moment. “Aiden, are you there?”
“Paul, what’s up? I’m on my way home. Have you spoken with Marco?”
“Tell me where you are now.” Paul sounded calm and focused, the way he had when he last saw Aiden lose his shit.
Aiden looked around him and told Paul his exact location.
Paul’s sigh was audible. “You need to turn around and head for Sea-Tac. Marco said he’d wait until the last moment before going through security. I think you’ve maybe got an hour, so you need to go now if you’re gonna try to get there.”
Aiden rubbed his forehead. “Wait. What? He’s where?”
Paul spoke very slowly. “You need to get to the airport. He really wants to see you before his flight leaves for Milan.”
“His flight?” Aiden was reduced to repeating the last words that Paul said, his brain stalled completely. “Milan?”
“Aiden.” On the phone, Paul sounded just as he did face to face—sincere and kind and patient. “Marco has to fly home today. Right now. He couldn’t wait any longer. He was frantic trying to get a hold of you.”
His next words hit Aiden like a punch.
“They’re not sure his momma’s gonna make it.”
This time Aiden gunned his truck’s engine, pulling out into traffic regardless of whether there was a gap long enough to fit his vehicle, leaving a dark cloud of smoke behind him. He pulled a U-turn that was most likely illegal, ignoring horns and raised middle fingers, calculating the best route to take. Shit. None of them would be fast at this time of day.
He unclamped his phone from between his cheek and shoulder. “You sure he’s flying out right away?”
“I dropped him off myself. Listen, get off the phone, son. Why don’t you call me when you get done? You can still make it if you put your foot down.”
Maybe he could, at another time of day.
Maybe he could, in a better vehicle.
He drove aggressively, though the traffic kept him from going nearly as fast as he’d have liked.
Just as he was making the merge onto 518, his old truck finally quit.
It broke down, making a grinding noise that sounded terminal, leaving Aiden struggling to guide it to the side of the busy highway. He didn’t even try to restart the engine. He wasn’t sure if it was steam or smoke seeping out from under the hood, but there was an underlying smell of something smoldering. He got out and stepped over the roadside barrier, putting some distance between himself and his vehicle, and then tried Marco’s number unsuccessfully again, only connecting with his voicemail.
Finally, he called Paul and asked him to come get him.
By then his voice was raw with agitation.
He stood as vehicles roared by, with his phone clamped to his ear, and tried Marco’s number again. This time he heard it ring, and then he heard Marco pick up. He turned his back to the passing traffic and covered his other ear.
“Marco.”
“Ciao, baby.”
That was all Marco said for a moment.
Aiden listened to him swallow.
Marco’s voice sounded husky. “I’ve been calling you all day. Your phone really is a piece of shit.”
At that, Aiden snorted. Then he cleared his throat and spoke. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I just kept getting your voicemail. You will probably get all my messages sometime next week.”
“I meant your mom. Your mamma. What happened to her, Marco?”
“Pneumonia. That is what the doctors think. She is having trouble . . . .” His voice cracked. “She has a machine helping her to breathe.”
His next words were distorted by the sound of an airport announcement.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you?”
“I said I have to go now.”
Aiden puffed out a huge breath. “Of course. I hope she’s okay.”
“Yeah. I know. Me too.”
Aiden listened to the faint sound of Marco breathing until Marco said, “Goodbye, Aiden Phillip.”
It wasn’t until their call ended that Aiden thought of all the things he could have said to make Marco feel a little better. Instead, he watched planes take off in the distance, wishing he’d been faster.
Chapter Twenty-One
To say that Aiden was in a bad mood by the time Paul dropped him back at the store was an understatement. Paul didn’t it, especially not after helping him get his truck towed and acting as if the way Aiden could barely speak was completely normal.
Aiden silently fumed. Replacing his truck would be a nightmare. How the hell was he going to get to and from work without begging for favors or paying for cabs?
His phone—temperamental at the best of times—had cost him a chance to see Marco before he left. Maybe some of the tension evident in Marco’s voice could have been avoided if Aiden had received his messages when he sent them. Instead, message after message arrived as he waited for Paul and the tow truck. It had been awful listening to Marco sound increasingly agitated, and each time Aiden’s voicemail chimed, his temper had flared higher.
When Paul turned toward home, Aiden was curt.
“No. Don’t take me back to Pete’s place. I don’t want to go there yet.”
Paul had hesitated at an intersection while other drivers honked their horns behind them.
“Where are we headed, son?”
Right about then, Aiden didn’t have a preference. He just knew he couldn’t face going back to the house yet. The significance of Marco saying good-bye instead of ciao still weighed on him.
It had sounded like an ending.
“Son?” Paul looked over at him, face creased with concern.
“Work. Take me back to work.” Aiden opened the truck window and flipped off the drivers behind them. “Please,” he added belatedly before scrubbing at his face. “I’m sorry. It’s been a difficult day.” One that had started off so well. He should have guessed it would turn to shit.
“No need to apologize. You should have heard Marco on the way to the airport. Talk about high strung. He couldn’t sit still for a minute.”
“What do you mean?” When he’d finally managed to talk to Marco, just before his flight was called, he’d sounded sad but calm.
Paul drove steadily, looking dead ahead as he negotiated the early evening traffic.
“He was waiting outside the house when I got there, and the first thing he wanted to do was drive exactly where we’re headed now. He was certain you’d be at the store, even though I heard Levi tell him on the phone that you’d left already.”
He paused, glancing in Aiden’s direction. “Where were you, son? I thought we’d see you for lunch as usual. When neither of you showed up, Jack and I assumed you’d found something better to do together.” His cheeks reddened. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”
That comment almost had Aiden smiling.
“I had an appointment. I thought Marco was already with you. My phone wasn’t exactly helpful, so I guess we all missed each other.”
“Well, your Marco Fortunato wasn’t happy leaving without seeing you. I gotta say that I was wrong. When you two first moved in together, I was pretty sure he was gonna drive you crazy.”
Aiden couldn’t speak. The amount of time—hours and days and weeks—when he’d found Marco hard to deal with now seemed like such a waste. He rubbed his chest instead of speaking, letting Paul continue.
“He’s very taken with you. He kept saying that he really wanted to see you one last time before he left.”
One last time.
Aiden closed his eyes.
That sounded like Marco wasn’t planning on coming back.
He swallowed, staring out the passenger window.
“And he kept going on about this being a real bad week for him to leave the country. What was that about? It’s not like he can’t do his work from wherever, right? What’s so important over here to make him so uptight?”
Aiden didn’t answer, sure he couldn’t talk right at that moment. Hearing that Marco had thought about Aiden’s problems as if they were his own just made him feel worse.
“Anyway, his phone was ringing off the hook, and he was yelling at his brothers. They’re in real trouble when he lands in Italy.” Paul added, “Keeping his mom’s illness from him wasn’t a great plan. I guess they thought he would only worry, what with being so far away. They had no way of knowing she’d go downhill so fast.”
Paul approached the mall parking lot. “For a little guy, he’s quite scary. I don’t envy whoever collects him from the airport. It took a while to talk him down, but when I left him, he seemed much calmer.” He pulled up by the delivery entrance where Aiden asked him to stop. Then he said good-bye to Aiden, asking again if he wanted him to stick around to give Aiden a ride home later.
“No. You’ve done enough for me already.” Aiden turned in his seat and said, “Thank you. For . . . .” His words trailed off. He took a breath and tried again. “Thank you for making sure Marco was okay. He’s very close to his mom.”
Paul nodded slowly. “Seems like he’s pretty close to you too. It’s hard to guess what he wanted more—to get to the airport in a hurry or turn around to find you.”
Aiden was thinking about Paul’s words as he headed toward the delivery entrance, playing over exactly how Marco sounded the one time they’d managed to speak.
He must have been exhausted by then.
Lord knew Aiden was now.
Sitting behind his desk at work wasn’t appealing. Going home on his own wasn’t either. At least here, at work, he could try to get his head straight while he caught up on his paperwork. Arriving an hour after closing time, Aiden expected the store to be empty, so hearing Levi's voice echoing along the alley that led to the delivery entrance threw him for a minute.
“No!” he heard, and the desperate edge to his clerk’s voice almost made Aiden stumble.
“No! I’m not letting you in, and I don’t know the safe combination, so let go of my fucking arm.”
Those words made Aiden run.
Some guy had Levi shoved face first against the wall, his right arm twisted behind his back.
“Kas, that really hurts. How much have you had to drink?” Aiden heard Levi ask as he ran closer, then heard his moan as his arm was shoved up even higher.
Levi’s attacker had one hand in Levi’s back pocket. He let go in surprise when Aiden slammed into him. Then he collapsed to the ground. Dollar bills scattered as he let go of the wallet he’d been about to steal from Levi.
Aiden was on the thief in a moment, one hand around his throat, holding him in place, the other pulled back in a fist. This guy was so much bigger than Levi. The tension of the day reached a breaking point as Aiden hauled off to hit him.
Levi grabbed his wrist.
“Get off him!” He sounded pissed.
“What?” Aiden looked at the slim fingers wrapped around him.
“Get off him. Don’t you dare hit him.” Levi was tugging now, yanking at Aiden fiercely.
“Wait. What? He was hurting you.” Aiden glanced down at the man who stared into space, looking dazed. “I saw everything. He wanted to get into the store. I’m guessing he wasn’t looking for some new dress pants.”
“I know.” Levi sounded exasperated. “That doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have let him in, no matter what he tried. I never have before.”
“What?” Aiden sounded like a broken record.
He loosened his grip on Levi’s attacker’s throat before letting go entirely when the guy made no move to escape. Mumbling incoherently, the guy looked pretty out of it.
“Run that by me again, Levi. Has this guy jumped you before?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just get off him. You’re heavy. I don’t want you to hurt him. Did he hit his head when you shoved him?”
“No. Wait. What?” This time Aiden yelled. “I saw him attack you! I saw the way he had you shoved against the wall. He could have broken your arm. What the hell is up with you coming to this asshol
e’s defense?”
Levi rubbed at his shoulder, avoiding direct eye contact.
“Is this guy the reason you always look so banged up?” Jesus, he must be. Every time Aiden saw Levi on his skateboard, he was struck by how effortlessly he moved. He wasn’t some novice skater who wiped out all that often.
“He is, isn’t he? He’s the reason you don’t like to carry cash.” He spoke as he came to that realization. Levi was bruised just about every single week. Aiden pulled his fist back once again.
“No!” Levi yelled. The sound echoed in the alley, making Aiden's ears ring. “Get off him now.” His voice was shaking as he tugged at Aiden until he moved off the man he'd pinned to the ground. “Kas? Can you get up?”
Aiden sat back on his heels, watching in confusion as Levi pushed the hair from his attacker’s eyes, leaning close to check him over. He picked up Levi’s wallet and his scattered dollar bills. “Is this why you sounded uptight earlier, Levi? Is he the reason those kids came to the store? Were they warning you that he was gonna try to rob you?”
Levi took his wallet, refusing to answer Aiden’s questions, directing his own at the prone man. “Does your head hurt, Kas? Come on. Try to sit up. I’ve got you now. I’ve got you.” Levi took the guy’s weight as he sat up, then slowly helped him to stand.
Acrid fumes made Aiden’s nose wrinkle as they passed by. Aiden stood too, following as Levi put himself under the man’s shoulder, helping him out into the loading bay. They all stood together in the last of the evening light. Out here, it was pretty clear that the guy was wasted. He slurred abuse at Levi, who stood, face flushed, making no eye contact with Aiden.
“Levi—” Aiden didn’t know what to say. This whole incident was surreal.
“Don’t,” Levi interrupted. “Don’t ask, because I’m not going to tell you. This is private family business.” He adjusted his stance, squaring his narrow shoulders as he supported the taller man. As they headed off, his expression was a weird mix of defensiveness and exhaustion. “I’m taking my brother home.”
Aiden spent a long time at the store, sitting alone in the stockroom thinking about Levi and his brother until hunger drove him out. The house was dark when he got home. He paid his cab fare, then hesitated at the front door.
