Fortitude Smashed

by Taylor Brooke

  Aiden returned with a cat slouched in his arms—and not just any cat. Mercy was all long tufts of cream fur sticking out from her well-fed body. Her eyes were tiny slits set deep in a smashed face. The tip of her tongue stuck out below a fan of bent white whiskers. She meowed, grating and low, and her frizzled tail swished back and forth. “Mercy, Detective Wurther—Detective Wurther, Mercy.”

  “Shannon,” he corrected. He couldn’t help but smirk at such a ridiculous creature, especially when it was held in Aiden Maar’s arms. “It’s Shannon Wurther. You don’t have to call me detective.”

  “Oh, so you really aren’t here to arrest me?” Aiden teased. He set the cat on the floor. Mercy waddled to the couch and jumped on the middle cushion. “It’s Saturday. You’re at my apartment. I’m not even going to ask how you got my address…” Aiden paused to sip his too-sweet coffee. “And you brought me a caramel macchiato. What can I do for you, Shannon?”

  The way Aiden said his name, drawn out between his teeth as if it meant something, pulled Shannon’s gut into his throat. He glanced at his feet, unable to come up with a good reason to be there. He’d looked up Aiden’s address, followed his instincts downtown, turned right on Ocean Avenue and parked in the lot by the liquor store, across from Bluebird Beach Apartments. He didn’t know why he’d searched for Aiden or why he kept thinking about the gallery, about the parking structure, and about how warm Aiden had felt pressed against him in the driver’s seat.

  Aiden cleared his throat.

  “I wanted to see you.” Shannon closed his eyes. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to say a damn thing. “To talk,” he added quickly. “And get to know you.”

  “Really?” Aiden drew out the word, letting it linger for far too long. Shannon gnashed his teeth. “Well, all right then.” Aiden slid the balcony door open and gestured to a small round table and a pair of chairs. “We’ll talk.”

  They sat for too long staring at each other. Well, not quite staring. Shannon tried to look elsewhere, while Aiden didn’t bother. A salty breeze kicked up, tossing around Laguna Beach scents—coffee, wildflowers, aloe, cologne, sun block. The distant sound of laughter mingled with buzzing honey bees and rustling palm trees.

  “I’ll go first.” Aiden leaned back in the woven wicker chair. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.” Shannon’s gaze darted from the edge of balcony to the man sitting across from him. “You’re twenty-two. What’s your favorite type of food?”

  “Thai or Japanese; yours?”

  He was tempted to say Southern comfort: Mom’s fried chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, and sweet, almost-burnt cornbread. But Shannon skirted it, because he didn’t want to get into his family, or his hometown, or let the accent he’d worked to cover over the years slip out. “I’m not picky. A burger and fries will do, or spaghetti. I’m easy to please.”

  Birds squawked and sang. Mercy sauntered over and meowed from the doorway. She flopped on her back on a patch of sun-warmed carpet.

  “Your turn,” Aiden said. Held up by his elbow propped on the armrest, his fingers were splayed over his face and his thumb rested beneath his jaw.

  “Why’d you drop out of high school?”

  “You have my file. You should be able to figure that out, Detective. Why’d you decide to be a cop?”

  Shannon rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. “I wanted to help people.”

  “So, it had nothing to do with your daddy being a detective, too? That’s convenient coming from the youngest cop on the force with passing scores on the agency exam.”

  “How do you know about my father?” Shannon scoffed and sipped his lukewarm coffee. “That’s not my question. Why do you steal shit?” He winced at the cold bite in his voice. He hadn’t meant to be brash—which was ridiculous since it was the truth. Aiden Maar was a thief, a proud one at that. It shouldn’t be a hard question to answer.

  Aiden’s eyes narrowed. He sucked the inside of his cheek between his teeth and chewed on it, much as Shannon was chewing on his lip. His glare was a challenge, how dare you rang loud in the tense silence. He snorted; a wry smile crossed his lips. “Why’d you kiss me back?”

  Great. Shannon’s chest tightened. He deserved that. He should’ve seen it coming. He looked at the floor and then settled on the phoenix. Its feathers curved over Aiden’s hip and its widespread wings stretched up his side and his back to touch the very tip of his shoulder. He was lean: the body of a scrapper. Toned muscles were carved across his abdomen, faded scars littered his skin, and his arms were slender, but capable.

  Aiden cleared his throat. “Did you hear me, Detective Wurther?”

  “I don’t know,” Shannon blurted. He looked up and saw Aiden’s eyebrows pulling toward the bridge of his nose. His lips parted, he shook his head, and finally he looked away.

  On some level, Shannon did know.

  He knew that his expectations didn’t match the outcome. He’d expected a sweet-tempered school teacher, a mild-mannered botanist, someone safe. He’d prepared for that, he’d settled on that. But buried under what he’d expected, was what he wanted: an undefinable, monumental something.

  Deep down, where no one could see it, Shannon had wished for magic. And he thought he might be looking at it now.

  Mercy hopped on Aiden’s lap. He scratched behind her ears and stared at the skyline; his eyes focused on the glittering seam where blue met blue, air met ocean. “You should go enjoy your Saturday. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than spend your time with a high school dropout who steals shit.”

  “Aiden, c’mon—”

  “Don’t say my name like that, all right?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like it’s something important,” Aiden muttered. “You were probably right. The Camellia Clock made a mistake. We should go back to you trying to bust me, and me getting away. Sound good? Wonderful.”

  Bitterness turned Aiden into stone. He didn’t look at Shannon, not once. His flexed jaw hollowed the space below his cheek, and he rubbed his fingers against his thumb. Shannon thought there was something terrifyingly beautiful about him, like a poisonous flower, or the view on the edge of a cliff. The sun was on his face, and he was something Shannon wanted to touch.

  But he didn’t. Shannon stood up, grabbed his coffee, and walked away.

  Aiden didn’t say a word when Shannon opened the door. He didn’t turn away from the horizon, or rise from his chair. He cooed at Mercy and stroked her head—such a loving thing for those villain hands to do.

  Shannon scolded himself all the way down the stairs.

  6

  A week and a half passed. Aiden didn’t know whether he was relieved or anxious.

  Shannon hadn’t been back. They hadn’t run into each other at the beach, or in a coffee shop, or at the grocery store. It made him ponder fate and its ridiculous ins and outs—how a clock beneath his thumbnail could define the rest of his life and make the executive decision to tie him and Shannon Wurther together.

  Handcuff them, actually.

  Not that they had to listen; they certainly didn’t. Stories surfaced from all over the world—Rose Road blatantly ignored—Couple defies fate—Camellia Clock strikes out—but Aiden knew he wasn’t in one of those stories. There was no getting around it, not after Shannon pressed invisible marks all over his body and left Aiden’s mouth impossibly empty. The Camellia Clock could be wrong. It happened sometimes; he was aware of that.

  But this time it wasn’t.

  Mercy purred, rolling around on his chest as he lay in bed contemplating what came next. Whose move was it after the terrible-coffee date? Was the ball in his court? Was there even a fucking court to play in? Aiden scooped Mercy up and walked into the living room. Sunlight poured through the sliding glass door. Gray masked the sky’s usual blue, broken up by thin, low hanging clouds, hovering just above the ocean.<
br />
  “Hey!” He dropped Mercy, wrenched the glass door open, and waved his arm at a seagull. “Go to hell!” The seagull perched on the balcony screeched. “Don’t eat my ferns!”

  He inspected a basket planter in the corner. A few long arms of his wilting greenery were torn off. Aiden swiped at the air until the seagull squawked and flew off. He turned his bitterness to the mound of white fur sprawled on one of the chairs.

  “You’re a cat, you know. It’s in your blood to hunt birds. Ever consider helping me out?”

  Mercy yawned and rolled over onto her back. She was talented at dismissing Aiden and she wasn’t the only one who could effortlessly ignore him.

  Okay, he wasn’t relieved. He was anxious. Despite his erratic sleep schedule and pitiful eating habits, Aiden was confident in his ability to stay sane. He was only plagued by thoughts of Detective Shannon Wurther nineteen out of the twenty-four hours in his day—perfectly manageable.

  “Mercy, tell me what to do. Should I make an account and message him on Facebook, or is that weird?”

  Mercy licked her nose and lent a polite, “Mrow?”

  “Okay, what if I try to find him? He showed up here without any warning. That means I can show up at his house, right?” He fumbled with his lighter and cursed.

  Mercy purred. Her tail swung to and fro.

  He pinched the butt of a cigarette between his teeth. “You’re right, that’s a terrible idea.”

  Mercy chirped.

  It was torture going to bed, and it was torture waking up. When Aiden woke, Shannon was there, the imprint of his lips was sugar on Aiden’s mouth. When he slept, Shannon was a voice that Aiden couldn’t discern, another ghost, another nightmare, another dream that shook him awake. Consciousness put him back together in the witching hours, the twos and threes and fours, when the rest of the world slept, but Aiden couldn’t. He hadn’t expected Shannon to grow inside him, tangle in his ribs, sprout between his vertebrae.

  Aiden dropped into the chair across from Mercy and ignored the nagging scrape in the back of his mind. He was plagued by thoughts, assumptions, and daydreams: sometimes Shannon looking at him on the other side of a bed, sometimes bare feet and the smell of freshly brewed coffee, sometimes a smile and the brush of fingertips across his shoulders, sometimes an almost-kiss and how was work. But every time, Aiden was stitching together a scene he’d never live out, not in this life, not in the next.

  The daydreams about Shannon Wurther were nothing but daydreams and, in the end, that’s what they’d continue to be, images mirroring a fresh memory.

  Mercy meowed again. She stretched her paws from the chair to the tabletop and rubbed her head against his wrist. Aiden stared at the horizon.

  Daydreams. Nightmares. Dreams. Shannon was all around him.

  Aiden stubbed out the cigarette and trudged inside. He dressed: black pants, white shirt, leather jacket, boots, and helmet. He kissed Mercy on the head.

  A strong buzz prompted him to scramble for his phone. Hoping it might be Shannon, he almost tripped down the last couple stairs. It wasn’t, and Aiden couldn’t hide the disappointment from himself.

  Marcus Maar 10/5 3:22 p.m.

  Hey, we should get dinner soon.

  Marcus Maar 10/10 6:09 p.m.

  How’s the new job?

  Marcus Maar 10/12 11:46 a.m.

  Where are you? I wired you this month’s rent.

  Marcus Maar 10/14 7:05 a.m.

  Aiden answer me

  His fingers hovered above the keyboard. Another buzz. Another text.

  Marcus Maar 10/14 7:08 a.m.

  Fine. When you want to talk about it call me.

  Aiden gritted his teeth. He shoved his phone into his pocket without responding to his brother. He tugged his helmet on, fastened the chin strap, gripped the handlebars, and took solace in the smell of gasoline and the powerful growl of the bike as it surged beneath him.

  Fog held the heat in, which was inconvenient. It was misleading for the weather to play tricks. Shannon shrugged off his heavy pea-coat and slung it over his shoulder. Karman stomped beside him. Her polished black flats beat the sidewalk.

  “Warm for October,” Shannon said. He glanced over just as Karman shoved the corner of a supersized burrito into her mouth.

  “Always is.” She smacked her lips, and her face suddenly lit, as if she’d remembered something important. Shannon was sure a look like that meant she’d figured out his secret-not-secret. “Wasn’t there something you had planned this month? Birthday? Deadline?”

  He closed his fist around his thumb. She hadn’t figured it out, which was a relief as much as it was a burden. A part of him was on the edge of his seat, waiting for her to put two and two together, but another, larger, deeper part of him wasn’t sure of his readiness for that. She shrugged and tilted her head, fitting more of the burrito into her mouth. That was that.

  What happened at Aiden’s apartment wasn’t all his fault, was it? Aiden was as violently hostile as he was handsome—an unsettling observation, but one that made the situation difficult. Parts of their brief interaction left a shameful taste in his mouth: the leaving part, the bickering part, the being-too-guarded part. Everything else left him wanting: the coffee part, the Aiden’s smile part, the him-being-a-cat-person part. Those parts were only fragments of what stole Shannon’s focus throughout the day. The rest was like the weather: foggy and too hot to be considered anything but inconvenient.

  “So, first things first. Warrant for the drug bust at the house in the Hills comes through today, right?” Karman wiped salsa off her chin as they waited for the crosswalk to change from the flashing red hand to the fluorescent white GO. “Then we’ve got the inside job for the boutique downtown, you know, that one real expensive place that sells the abalone jewelry? Owner thinks she’s got someone on her team that’s stealing, been recording ‘em for weeks now.”

  “First things first, we stop by my place. I need to ditch this jacket and I forgot my bag.”

  “You? Forget something?” Karman hooted. “What’s with you? Been sleepin’ all right?”

  Shannon shook his head. “No, actually, I haven’t been.” It came out brittle, a snap of his teeth.

  Karman’s head lurched back, and she smiled thinly. “Whoever put salt on your lollipop, I don’t wanna meet ‘em.” She held up her hands in surrender, dropping the conversation where it started. “But let’s take your jolly ass to your apartment and then grab your car. I don’t feel like walking the Hills today.”

  They turned right on Fourth and headed inland. Two blocks up, parallel to Main, and five blocks from Aiden’s apartment, was Shannon’s loft. It was situated over a seasonally-staffed bakery. During summer, June through September, they made smoothies, cupcakes, juices, and pastries. The rest of the year was quiet, and Shannon appreciated the privacy. Even during the busy months, the only bother was heat that rose through the vents from the bakery’s ovens, and living in a building on a main road. Traffic was terrible, so was parking. Summer in general was obnoxious.

  Two flights of cement stairs led to an entryway with one door. He opened it, darted inside, ignored Karman’s noise of disapproval, and grabbed his bag.

  “You need a maid.”

  “No,” Shannon growled. He tossed his coat onto a medium-sized couch he’d picked up at the swap meet. “I need to do laundry. It looks messy because I haven’t picked up my clothes.”

  “It looks messy because it is messy, Wurther. You sure you’re okay?” She slapped the back of her hand against his forehead, checking for a fever. “The Wurther I know doesn’t do messy.”

  He ducked away from her and rolled his eyes. “Just a weird couple of weeks, Cruz. C’mon let’s go.” He locked the door behind him and followed Karman down the stairs.

  They hit the sidewalk. A horn blared. Shannon looked up and froze.

  At the
green light across from him, a bike idled: thick tires, sleek black body, engine revving hot. Its rider had his head turned, observing Shannon. He knew that leather jacket, those combat boots. The car behind Aiden Maar honked again, but he didn’t budge. Finally, when Shannon thought his chest might burst from holding his breath, the bike’s engine roared, and Aiden sped off.

  Shannon swallowed. He forced his legs to move, walking after Karman as she continued down the sidewalk without him.

  Just like that, in the blink of an eye, Shannon’s day was wrecked. His thoughts would consist of nothing but Aiden Maar: the smell of gasoline; the hesitant brush of his lips, long fingers on Shannon’s face; the depth of that damn kiss; his helmet, black as night; the twist of his smile, distracting and vicious and too perfect to be real.

  “Hey, you good, Wurther? Cindy’s got the warrant for us at the station; let’s get a move on.”

  He tried to nod. His throat was scratchy and dry. “I’m good, yeah. Let’s go.”

  Aiden Maar kept him awake, and Aiden Maar kept him on edge, and Aiden Maar was everywhere.

  7

  Okay, maybe he didn’t make the greatest decisions in the world. Nobody’s perfect.

  Aiden stumbled against the concrete stairs that led to what he assumed was Shannon’s front door. He dug the heel of his palm into the wet, warm spot above his hip. The knife hadn’t been a big one—well, it hadn’t been big enough. But that didn’t stop it from hurting like a bitch when it was rammed through Aiden’s jacket.

  He probably shouldn’t have made a bet with the drunken out-of-towner from Vegas, nor should he have “accidentally” spilled his entire beer on said out-of-towner’s date. He hadn’t been looking for a Friday night bar fight, but he’d been looking for something—a distraction, a lullaby.