Fortitude Smashed

by Taylor Brooke

  “You can hit him, too,” Aiden said to Fae. She gave a curt nod, but stayed quiet.

  Children responded well to honesty, and, although Aiden was a criminal, he wasn’t a liar. Honesty, Aiden thought, was the longest lasting piece of someone that could be left behind. Polite niceties and forced interactions bored Aiden into a fury. Rather than put on a show, he opted to be reserved instead. Despite his brashness and attitude, children seemed to understand.

  “Go—do something,” Marcus waved a dark hand at Aiden, and went to work cleaning his brushes. He smiled at Fae. “And you, Miss Butterfly, hop up here.”

  “You want a drink or anything?” Aiden asked. He searched the pockets of his black trench coat for his half-empty pack of cigarettes. “I’m going to the coffee place real quick.”

  “Muffin,” Marcus said.

  “What kind of muffin, Marcus?” Aiden heaved a sigh.

  Marcus waved his hand dismissively, flicked his wrist at Aiden again, and shot him a sour glare. He glanced at the pack of American Spirits and snorted. “Doesn’t matter; go do that somewhere else.”

  He wasn’t planning to light a cigarette in the middle of a crowded Saturday Art Walk, but Marcus made his point—again. Aiden wanted to flip him off, but the little girl was watching. She bounced in the seat and called, “Bye, tiger,” as Aiden took long strides away from the boardwalk.

  Art Walk was the first Saturday of every month, and this was the first Saturday in November. Artists from in town and out of town exhibited their work in the center of Main Beach’s boardwalk. Sculptures displayed on foldout tables sat next to handmade jewelry, large canvas paintings propped on easels stood beside framed photographs, and delicately carved wooden wind chimes hung from the hooks of a canopy tent. A path wound through the plethora of cluttered knickknack tables, leading potential buyers through a loop that ended at Marcus’ face-painting station and a booth sponsored by the local metaphysical shop.

  Aiden cursed under his breath and flicked the lighter again and again. Finally, once his thumb was raw, a flame sparked to life. He leaned against a tall palm tree and watched the streetlight turn from red to green, green to yellow, yellow to red.

  Gray winter skies battled with the sun, causing the cloud cover to glow ethereal white on the horizon. Shadows lingered, threads stretched between the ocean and the sky. Laguna Beach, Aiden thought, wasn’t the heart of the world, but a knot of its nerves. He didn’t hear its pulse beneath the concrete or as a distant drum carried on the backs of crashing waves, but he did feel it. Spikes of energy shot from the ground, and the air was a constant swirl of if’s and when’s and but’s. Laguna Beach seemed like a question—the complex, distasteful, unnerving one that everyone refused to ask—dramatic and timeless, the sensory overload of Southern California.

  Perhaps that complexity was what drove the rich to nest here. It was most certainly what kept Aiden around.

  Distracted by a buzzing in his pocket, he flicked the cigarette at the ground and stomped on it. Before he could reach his phone, a pair of heeled boots clicked in front of him.

  “Pick that up!” The heeled boots belonged to a woman with a lion’s mane. Her dark curls framed her face in a twisty arc that fell past her elbows. Aiden’s chin jerked, and his eyes widened. People rarely startled him, but she was vaguely familiar. “Do you think it’s cool to litter? Polluting our beaches, trashin’ our city, c’mon, pick up your garbage, kid.”

  She narrowed her eyes so her fierce eyebrows became sharp lines. Her plump lips were pursed, painted mauve, and overly glossed. Aiden clawed through his memories. He knew her face.

  “You done?” Aiden snapped.

  The woman shook her head. “Use an ashtray, asshole.”

  She pointed one last glare at Aiden and flew off toward the Art Walk.

  Aiden watched her go, seeming less and less familiar the farther away she got. Tall black boots, black tights, vibrant purple long-sleeved sweaterdress, all were dwarfed by the amount of hair on her head. Maybe he didn’t know her after all.

  Aiden picked up the cigarette butt and tossed it in the trashcan. He was inclined to leave it where it was, but the woman was right. He shouldn’t leave his bad habits lying around for other people to clean.

  His phone buzzed again, and he swiped his thumb across it, then glanced up to make sure he wasn’t walking into traffic as he crossed the street.

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:16 p.m.

  hi

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:20 p.m.

  are you working?

  Aiden Maar 11/7 12:21 p.m.

  yeah i close the bar tonight

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:22 p.m.

  beach tomorrow?

  Aiden Maar 11/7 12:24 p.m.

  sure. but you can come over tonight if you want

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:25 p.m.

  what time?

  Aiden Maar 11/7 12:27 p.m.

  i’ll be home at 2 probably

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:29 p.m.

  At that, Aiden laughed, out loud and abruptly. The barista, plastic cup in one hand and sharpie in the other, slanted an eyebrow. She cleared her throat, obviously unamused.

  “Sorry, yeah, can I get a large—”

  “Venti?”

  “No, a fucking large—cold-pressed, two shots of hazelnut.” He glanced up from his phone and caught the barista rolling her eyes. “And a muffin.”

  She sighed. “What kind of muffin?”

  “What’s your favorite?” Aiden cooed sarcastically. He arched his brows, and the side of his mouth quirked in an impatient half-smile.

  The barista wasn’t fazed. “Pumpkin.”

  “Pumpkin it is.” Aiden focused on his phone.

  Aiden Maar 11/7 12:35 p.m.

  yeah i know that but then we could sleep in

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:36 p.m.

  cant you just come over to my place

  Aiden Maar 11/7 12:36 p.m.

  i have to feed the cat

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:38 p.m.

  can you leave a key for me

  Aiden Maar 11/7 12:40 p.m.

  you are an old man. come by 101 and ill give it to you

  Shannon Wurther 11/7 12:42 p.m.

  fine

  “Muffin and cold pressed for the tiger!”

  Aiden shoved his phone in his pocket. He’d forgotten about the face paint.

  “Thank you.” He snarled a grin at the barista. She snarled one back.

  14

  101 was packed. All sorts of people struggled to hold conversations over the thrum of seductive music and the clank of glasses. The crack of pool sticks against cue balls ricocheted off the back walls. Lights from low-hanging lamps flickered, sending shadows skittering across the sleek black bartop. Ragged, red-upholstered booths lined the wall across from the bar.

  It wasn’t the dive of dives, but it made the short list—not dangerous, but sordid; not filthy, but incriminating. It was a place people went to find things: not drugs or crime, but maybe infidelity, another self. 101 sang you shouldn’t be here, and Shannon found it eerily sexy.

  Aiden stood at the far end of the bar with his elbows propped up, eyebrows raised, lips stretched in one of his predatory smiles. Shannon stayed in the corner and watched, engrossed in selfish curiosity. He’d memorized the line of Aiden’s jaw, caught glimpses of tenderness between shared breaths, but he’d never studied him—not like this, from afar, cloaked in darkness. It was like turning pages in a diary that didn’t belong to him, and the thrill made him smile.

  Aiden slapped the bar, grabbed a glass, and filled it from a tap. All straight teeth and narrowed eyes, he spoke over his shoulder as his fingers tapped lazily against the handle. He slid one beer to a woman with a dark pixie cut, then filled another and slid it to her friend.

  Both women smiled, th
eir lashes batted, and their manicured fingertips danced along the bartop. Aiden arched a brow at something one of them said and placed a bill in front of pixie cut. Shannon saw it clear as day: their pretty mouths smiling at Aiden, at each other, at the bill. Those two wanted Aiden to chew them up, and Shannon was amused.

  They slid off the barstools and waved—the pixie cut first, her platinum friend second. Aiden nodded, leaned across the bar, and accepted a folded twenty-dollar bill between two fingers. He winked. The pixie cut winked back. Shannon fought back a laugh. Aiden rolled his eyes, his predatory grin fell away, and he shoved the bill in his back pocket. One mask was gone, replaced with another.

  Shannon took the space the women left vacant and knocked his fist on the bar. “Hey!”

  Aiden’s head jerked. His granite expression relaxed, and he smiled, a true smile, still as sharp, but not quite as deliberate. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  “Shut up,” Shannon said through a groan. “I’ve been busy watching you flirt your way to a fat tip. You always charm your way to what you want?”

  “Pays the bills.” Aiden shrugged and reached across the bar to flick Shannon’s nose. “Does it bother you?”

  He flinched away. “Not unless you’re using it on me.”

  “Of course I am, Detective. How do you think I talked you into not arresting me?” He grinned, cocking his head. “Here.” Aiden pushed a frosted glass filled with dark beer in front of him. “It’s on the house.”

  Shannon slid onto a barstool and watched Aiden go about his night. He worked hard and he laughed more than Shannon had expected. He spoke when spoken to and said only what was necessary: a very Aiden thing. Sometimes he gave a fanged grin, other times his lips twisted into a smirk, but every time it earned him extra cash.

  Aiden was good at feigning interest; he wasn’t good at trying to hide it, though. As the hour went by he stole side-eyed glances at Shannon. After a shake of his head or the hint of a bashful smile, he would turn away, engrossed in another customer who thought he might give them the time of day if they tipped him well enough.

  Shannon was skimming a text from Karman when a set of keys clattered against the bar.

  “Shannon, go home—go to my place.” Aiden closed his eyes after the words rushed from his mouth. Shannon had heard him correctly, but he chose to stay quiet. Home. What a strange word for them to use with each other. “There’s beer in the fridge, but that’s about it. Might be some leftover Chinese.”

  “I can wait for you.”

  “It’s almost midnight. Go.” He nodded toward the door. “You’re tired. I’ll try not to wake you up when I come in.”

  “No, wake me up,” Shannon said.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Shannon leaned across the bar and asked, “So, should I stick the twenty in your hand or in your pants—”

  Aiden’s ears turned pink and he palmed Shannon’s face, shoving him backward. “Go away.”

  00:00

  “Hi, Mercy,” Aiden said softly. He shut and locked the door, tossed his jacket on the couch, set his helmet on the kitchen counter, and kicked off his boots. “You hungry?”

  Mercy meowed. Her plump, white body wound around his ankles.

  The clock above the microwave read 2:14 a.m.

  Aiden sighed, preparing himself for the sleep he wasn’t going to get. It happened from time to time. His mind buzzed in a body that ached for rest. He could feel nights like these in the hours before, in the pulses of restlessness that caused his hands to twitch, in the midday exhaustion that ambushed him with unwarranted naps. His doctor called it dysthymia; Aiden called it life.

  His doctor, the one Marcus had forced him to see since he was seventeen, said he’d be fine in a few years. A steady job would help, therapy would help, friends would help, and even Shannon—before Aiden knew Shannon was Shannon—would help.

  “Your Rose Road is due in the next year, right?” the doctor had asked. Aiden had said yes, despite being convinced there wasn’t one for him. “People react differently, but I think it’ll be good for you to have someone.” His doctor was a round Indian man with an Eastern accent. “No pills, Mister Maar. But for your sleeping, I’ll prescribe something else.”

  Unfortunately, Aiden was out of said prescription. He shook the blue bottle and opened it, holding the lip below his nostrils.

  “Mercy, how the fuck did I forget…” He inhaled—sweet, sharp, and tangy—the remnants of his last run to the clinic. Strong indica was his saving grace on nights like this. “Do I at least—of course not,” he whispered, eyeing the empty bottle of bourbon on the counter.

  He’d polished that off three days ago.

  Aiden fed Mercy, kissed her between the ears, and left her to eat. Showering would make the insomnia worse. Instead he crept into his bedroom and watched Shannon sleep.

  Shannon was on his stomach with his face smashed on the mattress below the pillow and his hands tucked under it. Gently parted lips pressed together as he took a deep breath; his eyes moving beneath their lids. Aiden had never watched someone sleep; he’d never witnessed a dreamer dream. It was private, murky, like looking through tinted glass. He couldn’t tell what, but he’d stolen something from Shannon then—a bit of his unknown.

  He tossed his shirt on the floor, almost tripped getting out of his pants, and crawled under the covers. Shannon didn’t stir, but he sighed. Aiden continued to watch. His eyelids were heavy enough to close, but his mind was too busy. Shannon moved again; his elbow knocked Aiden’s shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Shannon slurred. The movement behind his eyelids ceased, and he opened them. They were blue even in the darkness. “You’re home—you’re here.” Shannon’s brow furrowed. His words were sticky and quick. Aiden had said it before, now Shannon was the one calling their together a home.

  “I’m here,” Aiden said.

  “How was work?”

  He turned to lie on his side. “Work was work. Go back to sleep; you’re tired.”

  “Aren’t you?” Shannon blinked. He tapped Aiden’s jaw; his fingertips played a gentle rhythm against his skin.

  “Sometimes I can’t sleep.”

  “Why?”

  “Bad dreams,” Aiden whispered. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was enough.

  “About?”

  “My parents.” That was the whole truth.

  Alertness sparked in Shannon. Aiden thought he heard the beginning of I’m sorry, but it faded into silence quickly. Shannon didn’t move closer, which was disappointing, but he nodded. “Sometimes I have nightmares about my dad getting shot, what could’ve happened instead of what did. I wasn’t there. My mind imagines it for me.”

  Aiden nodded back. “You get it, then.”

  “I get it.”

  Shannon’s fingertips stopped drumming. They ran up the side of Aiden’s face, over the top of his cheek, the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes, and Shannon touched his eyelids.

  Such delicacy, Aiden thought. Isn’t he scared it might hurt?

  That was what most assumed when they looked at Aiden, that he would prick their fingers if they reached for him. On his good days he didn’t know why; on his bad days he made up reasons.

  “I know I made fun of you for it at the bar,” Shannon said. Somehow he’d inched his way into Aiden’s space. A welcomed warmth, his breath gusted Aiden’s chin. “But you’re something, you know that?”

  Aiden opened his eyes. “Something?”

  “Yes.” Shannon sighed. “I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t want to sound like everyone else.”

  “You won’t.”

  “You’re handsome. Maybe beautiful, I’m not sure.”

  “You aren’t sure?” Aiden lifted his brows. Shannon traced the line of his smile.

  “No, I am sure,” he admitted and huffed. “I’m sure that you’re som
eone everyone wants to touch,” Shannon mumbled. He pushed his head farther into the pillow. “I’m glad you let me.”

  The witching hours were beehives full of turbulent honesty. Aiden had always been awake and alone during them, left to sort through the truth himself. It was different sharing it with Shannon. Honesty was a lonesome thing. Involving another made it unpredictable.

  “I’m glad I let you, too.”

  It was quiet except for Mercy’s chomps echoing from the kitchen. The blinds trembled against a breeze, and, far off in the distance, waves dragged against the sand. Their skin on the sheets, toes curling against the comforter, the mattress whining when either of them moved—Aiden had never noticed any of it. He’d never noticed how alone he’d been until he wasn’t.

  Shannon’s thumb touched Aiden’s top lip. “I wish it’d been sooner. I wish I could’ve been there.”

  Aiden narrowed his eyes. All at once he was an animal backed into a corner, unable to process what Shannon meant. Timing out as teenagers would’ve been the end of them. No. He meant something else. Aiden blinked, questioning.

  “Our Clocks, I wish they’d timed out earlier in our lives,” Shannon said.

  Honesty during the witching hours was not a beehive, Aiden decided. It was jet black arachnids with curved teeth and eight eyes, watching, and biting, and crawling.

  “It wouldn’t have changed anything, Shannon.” Aiden nearly choked, but managed to get the words out. His mouth tightened. “My parents would have still gone to Big Bear. They would’ve still died coming home. I didn’t need you; I needed them.”

  “Yeah, but maybe I needed you,” Shannon snapped. His face hardened, and his fingers stilled. He looked away, at the crumpled sheets. Two animals, Aiden realized, backed into opposite corners, hiding from the same spiders. Aiden’s mouth went dry. He should reach for him; he should apologize. “Look at us,” Shannon whispered bitterly, “already arguing over who needs who.”

  Frustration festered in Aiden’s chest. He was terrible at controlling his tongue when he was tired. “There’s no argument,” he said. “Do that thing to my face again.”