Fortitude Smashed

by Taylor Brooke

  “Don’t!” Shannon hissed, shoving Aiden’s shoulder when he made it across.

  Aiden jumped on the tire. He swung one way and then the other, with his eyes settled on Shannon, who sat on the deck with his back against the tree trunk.

  Light played tricks in the Hollow. Aiden swung on the tire, a freshly lit cigarette between his lips, and watched as sunlight danced across Shannon’s face. His head was tipped back; his long-sleeved shirt clung to his torso. They were both younger, playing in a tree house in the middle of the woods.

  Time wasn’t real. Shannon wasn’t a cop. Aiden wasn’t a thief.

  Aiden wanted to take this ease with him, back to his apartment, to Marcus, to 101, to Shannon’s loft. He wanted to bottle it up and drink it—an elixir that granted everlasting youthfulness, a potion that would keep him here, enamored and nervous and looking at Shannon as if he was just as magical as this place was.

  “We should’ve picked up a six-pack,” Shannon said.

  Aiden hopped off the tire and landed on the deck. He feigned a dramatic gasp. “Shannon Wurther!” He slapped a hand over his chest. “That’s illegal.”

  “Shut up. I’m still allowed to have fun.”

  Aiden took off his hat, pushed his sunglasses on top of his head, and then rearranged his snapback, brim facing backward. He plopped down in front of Shannon, stubbed his cigarette out, and situated his ankles over the top of Shannon’s thighs.

  “Tell me something.”

  Shannon pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, messing up his made-to-look-messy hair. “Like?”

  “Something, anything.”

  “Your hat is stupid.”

  Aiden rolled his eyes, but Shannon laughed and shook his head. “I’m kidding. What do you want me to tell you?”

  “Tell me something true,” Aiden said and scooted forward.

  Shannon hummed. He grabbed Aiden’s hips and pulled, sliding him across the wooden planks until Aiden’s knees were over top of his legs. His fingertips played with the bottom of Aiden’s sweatshirt. “You’re not what I expected.”

  “Okay,” Aiden smirked, glancing at the sliver of space between them. “Now tell me a lie.”

  “I…” Shannon paused and swallowed. His hands drifted under Aiden’s sweatshirt; they were cold and jarring on his skin. “I don’t get nervous around you.”

  “Why would you?” Aiden tilted his head.

  Shannon’s brow furrowed; his lips parted and closed. His tongue darted out to wet them, and his eyes went every which way around Aiden’s face. “Either you have no idea what you look like, or you have every idea and you enjoy making people squirm.”

  He frowned, hands fidgeting against the rough wooden planks. Aiden never had been fond of what people had to say about his looks. He’d gone through school a shock-and-awe kind of kid and grown into an even greater shock and an even breathier awe. Aiden knew what he was. He knew what people thought about what he was. “I know what I look like. What does that have to do with it?”

  “What does that…?” Shannon laughed. One hand slid across Aiden’s thigh. The dumbfounded expression he wore made Aiden tense.

  Suddenly uncomfortable, Aiden steered his gaze to the deck again. “People think I’m dangerous, that’s why they’re attracted to me. I’m every honor roll student’s wet dream when it comes to pissing off their parents.”

  “‘Dangerous’ is a strong word.” Shannon sighed. The hand resting on Aiden’s thigh moved to his face. Shannon studied him and thumbed his cheekbone. His index finger dragged along Aiden’s jaw. “You’re impossible to read. No one knows what you’re thinking when you’re thinking it—a perfect poker face. All these angles and bones…” He traced his nose, his brows, his Cupid’s bow. “They’re in all the right spots.”

  Aiden braved looking up. Shannon looked back.

  “A secret,” Shannon added. His thumb brushed Aiden’s mouth. “Everyone’s always dying to know everything, and you don’t give it to them. That’s why people think you’re dangerous.” Shannon flicked his wrist in a circle, gesturing at Aiden’s face, “And you’re also beautiful, which helps.”

  He laughed, and so did Aiden, hoping the heat in his face subsided before Shannon noticed. The hand inside his sweatshirt swiped up his side, down to his hip, over and over.

  “Your turn. Tell me something true,” Shannon said.

  “I like you.”

  “I hope so; you’re stuck with me. Now tell me a lie.”

  Before he could answer, he drew Aiden into a kiss lighter than any they’d shared before. Aiden thought it might count as their first, despite how many times they’d kissed already. Their lips fell together, pushing and pulling in slow fluid motions. There was no urgency. Aiden felt Shannon smile as his lips slid up and away.

  “I’m totally used to this. People make me feel like this all the time.”

  “What does this feel like?” Shannon asked.

  “Déjà vu,” Aiden said. Shannon tugged Aiden farther into his lap. “It feels like I’ve known you forever, but I don’t know you at all—the feeling you get when you’re driving to a new place but you swear you know the way, a directionless path that’s easy to navigate. What does it feel like for you?”

  Aiden kissed him, longer and deeper. The sound of their lips meeting and parting was accompanied by rustling leaves and cawing crows.

  “More intense than I’d like it to,” Shannon admitted. “But you summed it up, honestly. At first it felt like I was sucked into your orbit. Now that we’ve…” Shannon couldn’t say slept together, because they hadn’t technically slept together, and that, beyond anything else, terrified Aiden. “Tried to eat each other—”

  Shannon stopped when Aiden threw his head back and laughed.

  They laughed a lot together. Aiden had been right about the smile lines, and he adored them.

  Shannon pressed his grin into Aiden’s throat. “It’s the truth,” he said through a sigh. “But now that we’ve gotten past that, it feels new, but not.”

  “Are we past it?” Aiden leaned back to catch Shannon’s mouth. “I’m not past it,” he rasped, unsure of the person inhabiting his body. Aiden Maar would never say something like that. He would never paint himself as sexy or deserving. And that was what he became, wrapped up in Shannon Wurther, fooling around in a tree house like teenagers, pushing every doubt to the far reaches of his mind.

  The youthful elixir of The Hollow turned him wild.

  Shannon’s hand crept farther up his back; the other settled on his thigh. Aiden took the chance to run his hands along Shannon’s chest. His fingers found the grooves beneath his collarbones, the toned divots and hard planes he hadn’t yet felt. All the time they’d spent in Shannon’s bed was blurred; fragments of both nights watermarked the inside of Aiden’s skull. They’d been a different version of themselves, discovering each other like wounded, hungry, desperate things. This was real, he thought. This didn’t leave him begging; it left him yearning.

  “Why do you do that?” Aiden asked. He hadn’t meant to say anything, but the words slipped out.

  “Do what?”

  “Put your hands under my shirt. You’ve done it since the first night we met.”

  Shannon immediately tried to retract his hand, but Aiden stopped him.

  “I didn’t say stop, did I? I was just curious,” Aiden blurted.

  “I…” The side of Shannon’s mouth pulled down and he shrugged. “I don’t know. I enjoy touching you. Would you rather I touch you elsewhere?”

  Shannon’s hand slid across Aiden’s belly button. He gripped the front of Aiden’s jeans, dipped fingers beneath the denim, and tugged. Aiden’s stomach lurched into his throat. His heartbeat escalated. He hoped none of the surprise showed on his face or in the way he trembled into the kiss Shannon planted on him. He squirmed, hips canting up, and drew a ragged
breath. No, Aiden wasn’t going to have this conversation in a tree house, not the one where he explained his lack of sexual history. Virgin. Aiden hated the word, but it was the only one there was.

  “Yes,” he said against Shannon’s mouth, “but not here.”

  Shannon arched a brow. He pressed his palm between Aiden’s legs. “Not here?”

  Aiden hissed through his teeth. His face was warm. Everywhere else was warm. “I hate you,” he whispered, but didn’t move. “But no, not here, in this tree house.”

  “All right.” Shannon snaked his hand up Aiden’s torso and teased at the zipper on his sweatshirt. He pulled it down, inch by inch. “What about here?”

  “Fuck off,” Aiden said. Shannon fastened his mouth between Aiden’s collarbones. Aiden’s lashes fluttered; his breath caught in his throat. “We’re gonna fall out of the tree, Shannon.”

  “We’re gonna fall out of the tree,” Shannon mocked, high-pitched and teasing.

  Aiden swatted the back of his head and squirmed away, zipping up his jacket as he went. He fished for his pack of cigarettes and dug out his lighter, all the while glaring at Shannon, who watched from his place against the tree.

  Aiden fell back on the wooden planks with an arm dangling off the edge. He inhaled smoke, exhaled his anxiety, inhaled smoke again, and exhaled embarrassment. Shannon’s foot kicked the side of Aiden’s foot, and Aiden kicked back, which resulted in their feet steadily knocking together.

  Just as Aiden was Shannon’s secret, and Shannon was Aiden’s secret, the Hollow was their secret now.

  “Did you ever carve anything into the tree?” Shannon craned his head over the edge of the deck, looking intently at all the letters etched into the tree’s trunk. Names in different shapes and sizes, phrases, quotes, curses, and lyrics covered the tree from six feet above the deck to the very bottom.

  “No.” Aiden sat up on his elbows, took one last drag, and twirled the lit end of the cigarette against the deck. “Some of my friends did, though. They’re probably down by the bottom, Vance, Daisy, Jonathan. Daisy spent three hours carving Brand New lyrics into it.”

  “Daisy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You smiled when you said her name.” Shannon sat up straighter, at ease and comfortable, the way Aiden liked to see him. “Do you guys still talk?”

  “She’s off at college doing things with her life.” Aiden waved his hand nonchalantly. “We were really close until she graduated, took photography together, hung out every day. She’s the first person I told after I found this place.”

  “Were you guys like together, or…?”

  “Why?” Aiden snorted.

  “I’m allowed to be curious.” Shannon scratched the wood; his fingers stretched toward Aiden, who sat just out of reach. “I dated someone for five years, eighth grade to senior year. Chelsea Cavanaugh.”

  “Daisy was my best friend. I didn’t date anyone, ever, actually. But it’s good to know you shacked up with someone before I got ahold of you.” He grinned, but the words were sticky in his throat.

  So, Shannon had dated someone. Of course he had, what was Aiden thinking? They’d find each other, fresh and untouched, ready to conquer the world together? No, that was a childish fantasy, and he knew better. Shannon Wurther had dated, he’d been in a dedicated relationship, and that made perfect sense. And yet, Aiden’s chest tightened. “What was she like?”

  “Chelsea?” Shannon’s eyes widened and then rolled, which was satisfying to watch. “We still talk sometimes, but not as much as we should. She was a great student, top of our class, Homecoming queen. We danced at prom. It was high school,” he scoffed and pinned his gaze on Aiden. “It was a long time ago. She wouldn’t approve of who I am now.”

  “And who’s that? Youngest detective in SoCal, living in Laguna Beach, already nailed down a career, and all before he turned twenty-six? Yeah, who would approve?” Aiden squinted at Shannon. “I’m sure she’d approve of the dangerous thief this so-called detective hangs out with all the time. Think she’d like me?”

  Shannon offered a pained smile. “You’d give that poor girl a heart attack, Aiden.”

  Once again it was laughter, belly-aching, booming, chest-rattling laughter. Aiden crawled into Shannon’s space and kissed him, tasting the impossibility.

  “You think so?” Aiden said against his lips, setting his knees on either side of Shannon’s waist and his hands on Shannon’s face.

  “You’re everything she’d try to contain, all the best parts of the world that she’s scared of, that’s you.”

  Aiden’s jaw slackened. His heart raced. Shannon’s eyes were half-closed, his cheeks were tinted pink. His honesty was a raw, open thing. Aiden was a sucker for candor and blue, blue, blue eyes.

  The impossibility of Shannon and Aiden, two separate beings, becoming Shannon and Aiden, an intricate something, was a wild, wonderful, magical thing. And Aiden loved the way it tasted. He kissed him again. And again, and again, and again.

  17

  “Yeah, yes… No, Shannon—don’t rush or anything. I just texted you to let you know I’m heading home…” Aiden perched his phone between his shoulder and ear as he pulled his arms through the sleeves of his coat. “I’m still at my brother’s—probably like, twenty minutes. Oh, yeah,” Aiden hummed pleasantly and dug in his pocket for his cigarettes, “bring ice cream. Vanilla’s fine… it’s pie, Shannon, not a fancy ass… Okay, yeah, all right, whatever. Twenty minutes. Bye.”

  Marcus watched him, head cocked, a condescending smile plastered on his face. “That was adorable.”

  “Fuck off,” Aiden mumbled around the butt of an unlit cigarette.

  He pulled the slider open and walked into the small fenced-in space that served as Marcus’ backyard. It was a rectangle, half cement, half grass. A barbeque was stationed under the bay window. Aiden plopped down in a chair and kicked his boots up on the table.

  Marcus sat across from him and made a point of grabbing Aiden’s ankles and shoving his feet off. “You ever consider being polite?”

  “I’m polite,” Aiden hissed. He lit his cigarette and took a drag. “Thanks for dinner. You still shock me every year by not burning your house down.”

  “You’re welcome; thanks for stopping by the store for me.” Marcus pointed at Aiden’s mouth. “You need to quit those. Mom would slap the shit out of you if she saw you smoking.”

  “Don’t use Mom on me. It’s my New Year’s resolution.”

  “Wasn’t it last year’s resolution?”

  “Last year I didn’t have you and Shannon climbing down my throat about it. So, yeah, this year it’s my resolution.”

  “Am I ever going to meet this guy?” Marcus adjusted his long-sleeved brown shirt. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “You pretend you’re not in deep, but you are. I can see it.” A wide dark finger waved around Aiden’s face. “I’m your brother; I know these things.”

  “Am I ever going to meet this chick?” Aiden arched a brow.

  “Don’t deflect.”

  “I’m not…” Aiden chewed on the end of his cigarette. “I mean, you’ll like him, that’s for sure. He’ll like you. But I’m not in deep or whatever, I just…” He tried to look at his brother, but Marcus wouldn’t drop the wide grin. Laughter crept up Marcus’ throat. “Okay, whatever, asshole. So what if I am?”

  Marcus closed his eyes, shook his head, and laughed into the night air, which made Aiden laugh, too. “It’s not a bad thing,” Marcus said. “You’re always pretending you don’t feel things. It’s pretty amazing to see you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Bambi-eyed, checking your phone constantly, not stealing, the list goes on. Mom and Dad would get a kick out of it.”

  Aiden rolled his eyes. “You don’t know I’m not stealing.”

  “You’re not reselling expensive je
welry and artwork, Aiden. That much I do know,” Marcus said matter-of-factly. “I check your listings. You think I didn’t keep tabs on you after the second time I had to bail you out of jail?”

  Aiden made an extended ppsshh noise with his lips. He stared up at the white Christmas lights Marcus had strung from the roof to the fence.

  He wasn’t going to argue.

  It was Thanksgiving. He didn’t want to fight with his brother and he didn’t have any ground to stand on. Through all the screaming matches, stints in jail, teenage drug use, and excessive partying, to the adulthood thievery, callous attitude, and lackluster bartending job, Marcus never told Aiden he was hard to love, even though Aiden knew he was.

  He hadn’t known Marcus checked his listings, though, and that meant Marcus had acquired a separate router, done plenty of research on the dark web, and probably seen Aiden’s listings queried by more than a few unsavory buyers.

  “Mom and Dad would love him,” Aiden mumbled, taking a short drag off what was left of his cigarette. “They’d want him to come over all the time. Dad would take him to those weird theater performances he went to. Mom would ask if she could paint him. They’d embarrass the hell out of me.”

  Marcus chuckled and stayed quiet, waiting to see if Aiden would continue.

  Aiden didn’t. He couldn’t. His words got stuck behind his teeth where he pushed them around with his tongue and chewed on them until they disintegrated. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, they’d really love Shannon,” he said.

  “Why don’t we do dinner sometime before Christmas? Holidays make for awkward introductions, anyway. Next Thursday?” Marcus stood and pulled Aiden up into a tight embrace.

  “That’s the eighth, right? I should be able to. I’ll ask Shannon tonight and get back to you. You should bring your new girlfriend-not-girlfriend.” Aiden leaned his cheek against Marcus’ shoulder and sighed. He’d worn the same cologne since Aiden was in middle school; it was full-bodied cinnamon, the one their Dad wore. “Thanks again for dinner.” And everything else.