by Maisey Yates
He felt delicate fingers touch his, and he looked down to where Casey was closing the distance between them. He should’ve pulled away, because there was no reason to walk through this property holding her hand like they were together. Like they were living some kind of fantasy where this belonged to them and the mountains in the future stretched long and tall in front of them with nothing but possibilities and ever after.
They moved farther down the dirt road, and Aiden heard the sound of men’s voices. “I wonder what’s going on.”
“Visitors?” Casey asked.
“Who’s going to visit us? My mom is out of touch with reality, my dad is a drunk and I’m an asshole.”
“Well,” she said, “sure.”
They kept walking up the road and as they drew closer, he moved away from Casey. There was no reason to announce that their involvement went beyond casual acquaintance. Just another of his mother’s strays.
Asshole.
Yeah, well, he’d said he was.
“Except,” she added, even as he put more distance between them, “you aren’t. You’re a good man, Aiden. Even if you don’t always feel like one. It’s what you do that matters. Trust me. I’ve heard so many promises that they just kind of wash over me like rainwater. You are what you do. Not what you say.”
She was trying to help, he knew that, but it made him ask himself what the hell he’d done lately to prove he was anything but a man stuck in one place.
When the house came into view, his pulsed raced ahead of him, blood pumping hard through his veins. “What the hell?”
He walked ahead faster, not waiting for Casey as he approached the scene before him. There were two men, and a large tow truck with his dad’s pickup hitched to it. The old man wasn’t saying much, just standing there looking resigned.
His mom wasn’t out there.
She’d probably gone back inside. All the better to not hear any of what was happening. She could just pretend they weren’t losing one of their most valuable assets as long as she didn’t see it happen.
She would probably emerge with PB&J and a smile in thirty minutes like things weren’t falling apart around them.
“What the hell is this?” Aiden asked, storming into the driveway.
“Sorry, Aiden,” one of the men said. Aiden recognized the guy from around town, but didn’t know his name, or care to. “Just following orders, you know?”
“You’re repossessing my dad’s truck,” he said, his tone flat.
“Yeah,” the guy said, almost apologetically. “No payments made for more than six months.”
Aiden swore low and harsh, rounding on his dad. “Dad, come on. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Say what? That there was more trouble? That I spent all the money and I don’t know where the hell it all went? Yeah, I could have told you that, I suppose. What’s the point? You’re worse than a cranky old man about things like that.”
Aiden thought his head was going to explode. “Oh, you mean about things like keeping a farm going? Preserving our livelihood? Our legacy?”
“It ain’t your legacy, boy. It’s mine.”
“The hell it is. Without me, there wouldn’t be anything here. You wouldn’t be here.”
“No, you’re thinking of yourself,” his dad said. “Without me, you wouldn’t exist. Get off your high horse and stop acting like you’ve never made a mistake.”
Aiden gritted his teeth, rage pouring through him now. “No. I never have. I’ve been too busy cleaning up after yours.”
“Well, why don’t you go make some of your own? Leave me to mine.”
Sure, it was easy for his father to be belligerent and angry now. Easy for him to say that he didn’t want or need Aiden’s help. But if the time came when the bank decided to foreclose on the farm, Aiden knew he’d feel differently. Even if the old man didn’t know it.
“Sure, Dad. But if I’d left you to it you wouldn’t have the farm anymore. You know I invested more than twenty thousand of my own dollars into this place just this year. I was going to buy myself a house. But I’m here instead, giving everything to you so you don’t end up out on your ass.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” his dad said, not backing down, not having the decency to be shamed.
“No. But you benefited from it all the same.” He turned around and walked away, briefly stopping in front of the tow truck. “Just take it,” he said, continuing on away from the house. Back toward his cabin.
He could hear soft footsteps behind him, evidence that Casey was following him. Casey, who had been silent through this entire exchange. Casey, who had kept him away from work and the house for most of the afternoon, had him indulging in things that could never be part of his real life. Could never be part of him.
This was what happened when he looked away. This was what happened when he took time-outs, even for a little while.
And suddenly, it was all just too much. It wasn’t her fault, dammit. He knew that. But he couldn’t deal with it. Not all of this. It was like the whole world was caving in on top of him, and swallowing him whole. His dad, the repo men, the fallout his mother would feel...
And then there was Casey.
“Aiden,” she started, her voice soft.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“This is why staying is hard,” he said, turning all of his anger on to her, even though it wasn’t fair. “Because you just see how little things change. Year in year out. I stay and I stay, and this is how it is. Nothing changes. He won’t change...”
“And neither will you,” she said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You think you can put a Band-Aid on a mortal wound, and you just can’t. But that doesn’t stop you from trying. Year in. Year out. That’s on you.”
“Right, so I should run away like you do?”
She flung her hands wide, her cheeks pink, clearly telegraphing her frustration. “I don’t know. But you sure as hell shouldn’t invest your entire life in someone who doesn’t even want you to.”
“He says that, but he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t actually want to lose his house. His livelihood.”
“Well, he isn’t a man who’s earned the right to it.”
“My mother...”
“Is a grown-ass woman. Aiden, at least I know I made my own bed. It sucks. But I have to lie in it. I mean, sure, I didn’t have the best start in life, but blaming other people for my life now doesn’t get me all that far.”
“Casey, it isn’t your fault—”
“Bullshit. Plenty of this is my fault. You’re right. I’m a completely capable person. I can hold down a job anywhere. I could be midway up the ladder at...well, a semi-non-horrible job. I could be doing better than minimum wage by now. I could at least be renting an apartment. You know what costs a lot of money? Running. Living the way that I do. And nobody forces me to do this.” Her eyes widened, her breasts rising and falling with the force of her breath. “Nobody forces me to do this,” she repeated. “I do it. It’s me. I do this to myself.”
His throat tightened, and his spine went stiff. He was witnessing something he had no right to. A revelation about her life that belonged to her, or someone who meant to share the future with her. Not him.
He gritted his teeth.
“Well, fine for you. You’re welcome to your little personal revelation. But I have a crisis to deal with. In case you didn’t notice, we lost my dad’s truck. And I don’t necessarily think I have the six months of payments to deal with it, not on top of all the other expenses.”
She spread her hands. “So don’t. What happens if you don’t?”
He laughed, forking his fingers through his hair before he turned away from her, shaking his head
. “The whole world goes to hell.”
“No. Your dad’s world goes to hell. A hell of his own making. Your world would be opened up.”
Aiden couldn’t process what she was saying. Couldn’t deal with those words, because they worked in direct opposition to what he’d been doing for the past ten years. He had given up everything for his parents. Repeatedly. To have her talk like that, to have her say that walking away was just that easy... It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. He was linked to this place. He was. He had poured so much work into it that now walking away and leaving it to fall apart was impossible.
“I didn’t ask you to psychoanalyze me.”
“No,” she said, “you didn’t. But I’m doing it anyway. Because you’ve given me a lot over the past week, Aiden, whether you realize it or not. You have. You look at me like I matter. I travel light when it comes to belongings, but I’ve been carrying a lot of weight inside. But you...you make it seem like I don’t need to bring all that with me. I want to do the same thing for you. I know you worked hard to keep this place running. But at what point is it just a millstone? I know you see it as an investment, but I see it dragging you down to the bottom of the ocean and drowning you. You can’t save what doesn’t want to be saved.”
He turned back to her, his heart pounding hard. “And neither can you.”
CHAPTER TEN
CASEY LOOKED AT AIDEN, her heart breaking for him. She had no idea what it was like to be in a situation like this. To feel yourself being torn up by the roots.
Because she had none.
But she knew full well what it was like to have a parent looking at you like you didn’t belong. To have them choose the addiction over you, over everything good in their life. She had allowed that rejection to become a part of who she was. She didn’t want him to do the same.
“He’s wrong,” she said. “It isn’t you. He just can’t see it. They—they love the substance too much. They love it more than the people around them. And you can’t make the choice for them. You can’t choose to give it up on their behalf. It doesn’t work.” She swallowed hard, instantly back at the door of that small house in Kansas, the hot, damp air coating her skin, fear tightening her throat. “I stood on my mother’s doorstep, with my one pair of shoes, two sizes too small, and my garbage bag that contained everything I owned in the entire world, and I told her that I was out of the system. She invited me in. Gave me some iced tea. We visited and then she... Then she said she had some errands to run so it was about time I moved on. She never asked... She never said I could stay. No one has ever asked me to stay. And here you are, staying and staying, and he lets you. But he’s just bleeding you dry. It’s what they do.”
“My dad isn’t the same as your mom,” he said through gritted teeth. “He raised me.”
“Right. He did. Do you really think that version of your dad would want you to be this way? Do you think this is the life that he wanted for you? He didn’t build the farm to trap you. He built it to give you a life. He’s lost sight of that now. Because addiction is a fierce and evil beast. But if it didn’t have him by the throat... Aiden, he would want you to have a life.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, maybe I don’t. But if what you’re saying is true, if you feel like you owe him because you had good years with him, then I have to believe that there was a time when he was different. And that father... If he’s worth any kind of loyalty, then this isn’t what he wanted for you. It isn’t your job to save him. Right now, the house is burning down and you have to save yourself.”
He clenched his hands into fists at his sides. “Why? There’s nothing else for me. This is what I have.”
“You have me.”
Saying those words was like tearing a strip of her own skin away, exposing herself. Exposing everything inside of her. She had been telling the truth when she’d said no one had ever asked her to stay. And she had never asked anyone to come with her. Right now, she knew there was nothing else she could do.
“Come with me.”
He only glared at her, his eyes hard. “You’re being crazy.”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m crazy. But I can’t stand the thought of you being here forever. I can’t stand the thought of that man hurting you while he steals everything good from you. Come with me. And we’ll... I don’t even know what we’ll do. But we’ll be together.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then let me stay.” The words broke her. Her pride was on the floor now, in pieces, completely irreparable. But she didn’t care. She had to do this. “If this is what you need, then let me stay with you. Let me share it with you.”
“I can’t do that, Casey. I can’t afford to be distracted. I have to get to where everything is sorted out here.”
“What if it never is? What if it’s never fixed? What then, Aiden? Are you just going to keep living like this? For the rest of your life? Why? To keep an old drunk in a comfortable lifestyle?”
“For my mother. Because she lets her love for this guy take everything from her. She stays when she should leave.”
“Listen to yourself,” she exploded. “You can see it when it’s her. Because she’s his wife. Because you think she should just be able to walk away. But look at yourself. You’re staying. You’re staying because you don’t know what else to do. You’re staying when you should have left years ago. No, you’re not looking away and pretending everything is fine like she is. You’re being stubborn because you want to save him and he won’t let you do it.”
“I don’t know what else I would do,” he said, his voice raw.
“I know. That’s the problem, isn’t it?” she asked, stopping in the path. “This is who you are. This struggle has become your entire life and you don’t know what else to do without it. You’re afraid of who you’d be without this.”
She knew, because she’d done the same thing. Let her past define her. All the way up until this moment. This moment where she was standing in front of this man who made her want to stop protecting herself. Who made her want to stop hiding behind all of the trauma, all of the pain. Yes, her life had been hard. There was no denying that. No erasing it. It was part of who she was. And it always would be.
But it wasn’t who she was.
“I’m not a whore,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m not useless, or stupid. I can be more than that. More than those things other people said I was. I want more than that. I want... I love you,” she said. “I do. I love you. Aiden, I’ve never said that to anyone before in my life.”
He looked as though she had slapped him in the face. It wasn’t the most flattering expression to see someone wear when you’d just confessed your love for them.
“You’ve only known me for a week.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve known people for less time, and I’ve known them for a whole lot more, and I’ve still never wanted to say it. Ever. I know I felt it for my mom, because that’s what you do, but I was never able to say it. I knew she wouldn’t be able to say it back. Otherwise? I’ve never even been tempted. When I say that I love you, it’s not because the sex is good. I’ve had sex with other men. When I say that I love you it isn’t because I want a warm bed to stay in for the foreseeable future. It’s not even because I’m afraid to be alone. It’s not because I want some kind of an easy dream life. I see your struggles. I’m willing to inherit those. To share them with you. I’m willing to make your pain mine. I’m willing to drop the load that I’ve been carrying for years so that I can pick up some of yours.”
“No,” he said, his voice raw, a note of pure horror running through it. As though she’d just asked if she could cut him open and live in his chest cavity, not professed her love.
“I know I’m not much of anything,” she said. “I do. I want to be more. I want my life to be more. I’m tired of everything I own being ab
le to fit into a trash bag. And I don’t just mean my things. I’m tired of not having ties. You. You’re my roots, Aiden. And where you go...I want to go. And where you stay, I’m willing to stay.”
“No, Casey, it just can’t... You can’t be saying that.”
She frowned, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving him her fiercest glare. “I am.”
“Dammit, woman, you’re supposed to be my vacation. You’re supposed to be a moment for me to step away from my control and have some release. You’re not supposed to be... You weren’t supposed to be another complication.”
“Oh,” she said, a sound more than a word, filled with pain and shock. She hadn’t known what he would say when she confessed her love. How could she have? She hadn’t even known what she was going to say until the moment the words left her mouth. She could never have anticipated something like this. Or the pain that the words had brought. She had been rejected countless times, in thousands of different ways, but nothing had ever hurt so badly as this. She was worn-out, she was jaded. She had learned to hold pieces of herself back in her every interaction with people. But she hadn’t done that with him. She had believed in him. Believed in this. Believed in his ability to be more. To be everything that he seemed.
But, of course, he couldn’t be. She’d thought of him as good the first time she’d seen him, and she still thought he was good. Better than anyone she’d ever known. But he was afraid. Afraid of letting go. Afraid of losing what rooted him to the earth. She had spent so much of her life living in fear that someday everything would fall away and reveal that there was nothing. But it was the same for him.
Family, a home—neither was magic. He didn’t draw strength from them any more than she drew strength from her isolation while moving from place to place. Neither of them was immune. Neither of them was protected. And she was left to wonder what could change it. What could anchor you if none of that did.
I would. I would anchor him. If he would let me.
She knew that. Trusted in it. More than anything in her whole life. But looking at him, standing there with his jaw clenched tight, his expression uncompromising, she could see that he wouldn’t let her.
