Fortitude Smashed

by Taylor Brooke

  He squeezed his eyes shut and panted, then took more painful steps to the landing that led to Shannon’s door. Judging by the amount of blood and the fact that he wasn’t dizzy, he probably didn’t need stitches. No hospital, no hospital bills, which meant he didn’t have to deal with Marcus or insurance companies. But no hospital also meant there was no one to help him get this shit taken care of—this shit being the hole in his abdomen and the blood soaking through his jacket.

  Aiden huffed a laugh. Good thing Detective Wurther lived down the street. Convenience had the potential to be ironic, almost as ironic as two days ago when Shannon had walked down these cement stairs. Aiden thought back to that day, to the shared surprise they’d both tried to cover, and the fake disregard at the sight of each other. Maybe it wasn’t convenience at all; maybe it was exclusively ironic.

  The door didn’t open when he knocked the first time, but he didn’t expect it to. It was almost one in the morning, and it was the weekend. Shannon probably wasn’t home.

  Aiden pounded on the door with the side of his fist. Just when a wave of uncertainty started to swell in Aiden’s chest, the lock clicked. Shannon was home. Aiden didn’t need to call Marcus. Everything was fine.

  “What’re you doin’ here?” Shannon pawed at his eyes with the back of his hands. His short hair, which Aiden assumed was usually groomed to look messy, was actually messy. Sleepiness hung around him in a cloud, becoming visible as he yawned and strained to blink. Black gym shorts hung low on his waist, and his socks were mismatched. Aiden smiled despite himself and the pain biting into his side. Shannon clearly noticed the blood quicker than Aiden wanted him to. He jolted from asleep to awake, quiet and curious, to angry and worried. Aiden hadn’t expected the worry.

  “What’d you do to yourself?” Shannon scolded. He hauled Aiden in by the arm that wasn’t smashed over the wet spot on his jacket.

  “Why do you jump to what I did to myself? Someone else could’ve done this, you know.”

  Shannon wasn’t gentle. He shoved Aiden against the nearest wall and wrenched his bloody hand away from the wound. “Because you’re an idiot,” he hissed. “Take this off.” He stripped away Aiden’s leather jacket and threw it to the floor. Shannon tried to fold his shirt up from the bottom.

  “Fuck you—ow! Shannon, that hurts! God… dammit.” Aiden swatted Shannon’s shoulder, then braced himself against the wall as his ratty T-shirt was peeled away from the wound. Okay, maybe it hurt. Aiden lifted his fist to his mouth and bit his knuckle. Heat grew in his cheeks. His throat felt like sandpaper. “I didn’t do this to myself, by the way.”

  “Jesus…” Shannon turned on the light, leaving Aiden long enough to let him slide down the wall. There was more blood than Aiden had realized. He watched Shannon move through the loft, past a kitchenette, and into the bathroom. A cabinet door slammed.

  His legs stretched in front of him on the tile floor and his hand sealed over the wound again. Stop shaking. Aiden willed his body to calm down. It didn’t work.

  “Hey, stop that.” Shannon crouched beside him. “You’re gonna make it worse if you keep putting your filthy hands on it. Who did this to you?”

  Aiden’s mouth pinched. He straightened his back and winced when the puncture coughed blood. “Some stupid dick at a dive up the road. I lost a bet, and he stabbed me with a switchblade.”

  “You’re telling me that you did nothing to this guy? He just decided that tonight was a good night to stab you?” Shannon’s focus was on the wound.

  He batted Aiden’s hand away and wiped the blood smeared across his stomach. The tips of his fingers, covered by a damp cloth, brushed the gash. Aiden yelped, scrambling against the wall.

  Shannon held him in place. “Almost done…”

  “I didn’t do anything to him! I mean, I lost a bet and I spilled my drink, but it wasn’t a big deal. Some of my beer might’ve splashed his date.”

  “Did you spill your drink or did you pour it?”

  A sheepish grin pulled at Aiden’s lips. “Is there a difference?”

  “So, you are an idiot.” Shannon drew a deep breath, the way an impatient parent would.

  Shannon’s nimble fingers placed antiseptic on the cut, which was embarrassingly small now that it was clean. His face was hard in rapt concentration.

  He had dimples. Aiden stored their image for his fleeting daydreams and nightly stints of sleeplessness. Shannon was also graced with prominent cheekbones, straight from a magazine—Boy Scout handsome, Ivy League handsome, stereotypical cop handsome. He wrapped a bandage around Aiden’s side and taped it down.

  “An idiot who is covered in blood,” Shannon noted while he analyzed the state Aiden was in. Aiden wasn’t fond of being analyzed. “And you reek.”

  “I smell bad?” Aiden looked down at himself.

  “Like alcohol.”

  “Obviously. I told you I’d been at a bar.” Aiden was thankful for said alcohol. It dulled his anxiety and smothered the panic whispering behind his thoughts. Stop breathing. Stop talking.

  Shannon sat cross-legged in front of him. Aiden didn’t understand his ease. If he was a cop, he should’ve been assertive. If he was the cop those articles were written about, he should’ve been overbearing. It seemed he was neither. Shannon sighed and very quietly asked, “How’d you know about my dad?”

  Aiden laughed, one single ha, and said, “I Googled you! How else would I know? They wrote an article about your promotion, youngest detective on the force and all. Several articles. What’d you think I did? It’s not like I can pull your file, Shannon.”

  He nodded, expressionless. “And why’d you come here?”

  It was difficult to choose between being hurt and being pissed. But he didn’t have an answer. Not one that made any sense. He’d dragged his bleeding, sorry self all the way to Shannon’s loft because it was either that or Marcus, and calling Marcus wasn’t an option.

  “Nowhere else to go,” Aiden said. That was the truth, wasn’t it? Aiden didn’t have anybody else. Aiden didn’t even have Shannon. “Guess I just followed my Rose Road,” he added under his breath, glancing at his hands, stained red. He was drunk. He shouldn’t have said that.

  Shannon exhaled Aiden’s name.

  “What’d I tell you about saying my name like that?” Aiden snapped. He stood, stumbling to catch himself when pain burned his side. “I’m sorry I came here, all right? I’m just gonna go.”

  “No, you’re not.” Shannon’s broad chest blocked the door. “You’ve been drinking, you’re hurt, and it’s too far for you to walk. You can stay here—”

  Aiden tried to push past him. “I don’t want to stay here.” He was being irrational and he was well aware of that, but he hadn’t thought this through—not the Shannon part, not the Rose Road part, not the spending the night part. He hadn’t thought about anything except the blood and the pain and the potential hospital bills. Aiden wouldn’t admit that dreams of Shannon caused him to go look for trouble in the first place. “And you don’t want me to stay here.”

  Two hands, the same hands that’d found their way beneath his shirt in the parking structure, gripped his shoulders, and forced Aiden backward. “You’re staying,” Shannon said. His voice was too stern to argue with. Not when Aiden, for once, wasn’t in the mood to fight. “Couch or bed?”

  “Where are you sleeping?” Aiden’s face was extremely hot. He looked past the couch to an old wooden trunk that served as a coffee table. Behind it, pressed against the brick wall next to window after window, sat a rumpled, over-sized bed.

  “Wherever you’re not.”

  That hurt—not the kind of hurt radiating beneath the bandage. It was a hollow ache, a bee sting on his vocal cords. The same jolt of recognition came before being punched: adrenaline, and then anxiety, and then nothing. Aiden should’ve braced himself. He should’ve let it go and never expected Shannon to cons
ider sharing a space with him, especially his own bed. He should’ve never shown up at Shannon’s door.

  Shannon watched the adrenaline, the anxiety, the nothing cross his face. Shannon did it again. He said, “Aiden, wait…” And it sounded like screeching tires.

  “How about you just don’t say my name anymore at all.” He eased onto the couch and curled up facing the cushions, aware that Shannon stood over him. Aiden closed his eyes. His lashes were wet.

  00:00

  Shannon liked to leave the blinds open. That’s the first thing Aiden realized on the bright October morning. Light beamed through the four windows on the street-facing wall, tugging him from hazy sleep. His eyelids might have been tied to cinder blocks. Pain throbbed in his abdomen. He was still covered in blood—dried on his hands, caked under his fingernails, and smeared on his chest. A water bottle sat atop the table-trunk in front of the couch, and across from it the entertainment stand housed a clawed-foot flat screen and rows of DVDs. The walls were blank, but somehow the space still felt warm. Maybe it was the mismatched couch, the exposed brick and hardwood floors, or the lingering scent of Shannon’s cologne.

  Sitting up felt like being stabbed all over again. Aiden looked at the bandage on his stomach and the blood on his jeans and laughed. “I am an idiot,” he whispered.

  “Yep.”

  Aiden bolted to his feet and turned around, wincing as the flesh beneath the bandage stretched.

  Shannon glared at him from the bed. He sat up on his elbow, looking annoyed and very cop-like. Judgment circled like vultures. “You are an idiot. I’m glad to hear you finally admit it.”

  Aiden opened his mouth. He narrowed his eyes, collected a slingshot of curses and insults on the tip of his tongue, and then choked on them. Fragments of their argument the night before flashed through his mind: Shannon saying his name, a chorus of compassion and affection, trying to leave, tears.

  He’d cried. In front of Shannon Wurther. No.

  “Wait! No, you don’t get to—Aiden!” Somehow Shannon managed to get in front of the door before Aiden could grab his jacket and get out. “You don’t get to walk out of here like nothing happened.”

  Aiden’s head pounded. His heartbeat drummed in his knuckles. “Move.”

  “I’m not moving.”

  “Move, or I’ll knock your teeth in.” Aiden seethed. He didn’t mean that, but it felt good to say it. He gasped; a strangled breath was knocked from him as Shannon gripped his wrists and shoved his bare back against the wall. “Shannon,” he warned, forcing his name through a tight, clenched jaw. The wound on his hip throbbed. Red spots dampened the bandage. Within him bubbled a witch’s cauldron filled with hostility.

  “Look at me.” Shannon let go of Aiden’s right wrist and grasped his jaw, forcing his attention. It was too intimate. It was too much of everything. Aiden’s reservations dropped. He tried to breathe. “Why don’t you want me to say your name?”

  He could disappear in Shannon’s eyes: blue like stepping off the shelf at the beach or deep sea diving on a clear day.

  “Aiden, tell me.”

  “Because!” Aiden blurted. “I’ve been waiting for this, too, okay? But when my Clock ran out, it was you in front of me. Detective Shannon Wurther.” He shoved Shannon aside and picked up his jacket, fighting the grating in his throat. “I waited my whole fucking life for you, my Rose Road…” Sarcasm filled Aiden’s mouth, but he was deflated, even a little defeated. He turned toward the front door, away from Shannon’s slack jaw and wide eyes. “Every time you say my name, you say it like it means something, and I know for a fact that you don’t want it to.”

  The door slammed. Aiden rushed down the stairs. His trembling hands searched his jacket until he found the cigarettes hidden in the inside pocket. He bit down on the filter and flicked his lighter until it produced a flame. Smoke filled his lungs.

  It was an exhausting, painful, disingenuous thing, trying to hate Shannon Wurther.

  8

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 11:14 a.m.

  are you doing okay?

  Aiden Maar 10/27 11:15 a.m.

  who the fuck

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 11: 17 a.m.

  shannon

  Aiden Maar 10/27 11:21 a.m.

  i dont remember giving you my number detective

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 11:22 a.m.

  you didn’t

  Shannon stared at his phone for five minutes while the image of three dots undulated where Aiden was supposedly typing. The straw in his massive 7-Eleven plastic cup swirled through ice cubes as he searched out any remaining soda. Karman’s acrylic fingernails clacked against her keyboard on the other side of their conjoined desk. Those three dots kept undulating.

  “Did you finish the paperwork for that traffic accident from yesterday? The one in the canyon?” Karman asked.

  Shannon stared at his phone. “Yeah, I got that done this morning. Any leads on the campus drug bust from last week? Our informant should have something for us by now.”

  “Nada.”

  Aiden Maar 10/27 11:38 a.m.

  creep

  Shannon battled with himself over what to say. He’d been ready for a long string of words, an exaggerated bit of Aiden that would surprise him. But no. A one-word text was all he got.

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 11:39 a.m.

  how are you doing? Is that cut healing?

  Aiden Maar 10/27 11:43 a.m.

  im fine

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 11:45 a.m.

  did you go see a doctor?

  Aiden Maar 10/27 11:47 a.m.

  no

  Shannon dropped his phone and it clattered against the desk. What kind of irrational, stubborn, negligent person would let that go? Aiden should’ve gone to urgent care—at least for a few stitches—or to the hospital, to a doctor who would tell him how to take care of the wound. Not that it was that bad, but still.

  “What’s up with you? Got a salty-ass look on your face, Wurther.”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled, glancing at Karman.

  “Oh.” She dragged the word out the way she always did when she didn’t believe him. She watched him with her brows raised. “Okay then. Well, when you want help pulling that stick out, I’m here. In the meantime, we should do a sweep of the high school. The three-month mark is coming up, right?”

  He glared. Shannon thoroughly disliked being a cactus, especially when it was Karman who had to deal with him. He tried to smile an apology. “Yeah, we’ll need to call a couple canine units and get them ready for it. I’ll contact the school and schedule it for tomorrow.”

  Karman nodded and shuffled through papers on her desk. She held up a manila file and examined it with her head tilted. Her lips pursed. “Maar? Why is this on my desk? I didn’t ask for a file on… Aiden Maar?”

  Shannon scrambled to his feet and reached for the file. “It’s mine. I asked for it. I thought I gave it back to Cindy but I must’ve left it out. It’s nothing.”

  Karman lifted it away and kept flipping through the mess of papers. “This is that dude you checked out for your landlord, right? Oh, avian tattoo on his side, assault charges, attempted burglary—”

  He snatched the file and wrinkled his nose. “He’s just some stupid kid, Karman. I should get this back to Cindy.”

  His phone lit up and buzzed.

  Aiden Maar 10/27 12:10 p.m.

  how are you

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 12:12 p.m.

  working, but i’m alright

  Aiden Maar 10/27 12:13 p.m.

  thanks for patching me up

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 12:15 p.m.

  i’m sorry things happened the way they did

  Aiden Maar 10/27 12:15 p.m.

  don’t

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 12:16 p.m.

  i am though, i want you to kn
ow that

  Aiden Maar 10/27 12:17 p.m.

  i gotta go.

  Shannon Wurther 10/27 12:19 p.m.

  ok?

  And that was that. No more undulating dots. No more texts. Silence. He stared at his phone waiting for another message. Nothing. He shoved his phone in the front pocket of his jeans and tried to keep the rising anxiety from showing on his face. Fate sure knew how to pick them. Unruly, volatile, and self-absorbed wasn’t Shannon’s type, but apparently he was supposed to look past the defects of Aiden Maar and find the parts that might be acceptable. He was going to try. He had to.

  Shannon retraced every memory of Aiden that he had stored away: the curve of his lips when he smiled; the singular points of his cheekbones; his small chin; his eyes, always too invasive, always piqued with interest; his warm, ashy breath; his mouth, soft and demanding, pulling the darkest parts of Shannon to the surface when they kissed.

  Shannon returned to his desk after he gave Aiden’s file to Cindy at the front of the station. He chewed on the straw of his empty soda cup and let the thought of Aiden’s legs around his waist and the tangle of his fingers through his hair take him back—back to the first night when he thought the Clock was wrong, back to being a fool, letting his pride win and watching Aiden leave when all he’d wanted was for him to stay.

  Karman talked softly on her cell phone, sighed, and rubbed her temples with one hand stretched across her forehead. “Yeah, I’ll be right there. Is she okay?”

  Karman hung up. She grabbed her purse and shot him a pitiful smile. “Fae has a fever. I have to pick her up and take her to the doctor. You gonna be okay here?”

  “It’s been quiet. I’m sure I can handle everything. I’ll get the canine units ready for tomorrow and check on the highway patrol.”

  She nodded and fished in her purse for her keys.

  “Car been okay?”

  “Eh, it’s running. Should be good for another two months before something else goes wrong,” Karman said through a laugh. She gave a halfhearted wave over her shoulder as she left.

  Shannon’s pocket vibrated.

  Aiden Maar 10/27 1:30 p.m.