100 Days (25 page)

“Right,” Jake replies, green eyes sparkling with some of that light Aiden has been missing. He checks the scoreboard. “Look who’s winning. Two games to one.”

“So
weird,
since I haven’t beaten you since we were sixteen,” Aiden com­ments, prodding him in the side and leaning in to say against his lips, “Stop letting me win.”

Jake sashays away with a wink and a wiggle of his hips, retrieving another bowling ball as he goes. Aiden bites his lip and thinks,
There you are. I missed you.

Aiden watches Jake almost follow the instructions from the laminated card, rapidly spinning twice and covering both eyes instead of one, as instructed. He sends the ball rapidly spinning into the gutter and, sure enough, ends up on his ass for the second time in a row. His bright, musical peals of laughter are infectious, and Aiden leans on the backs of chairs for support as he staggers over to help him up.

The teenagers at the other end of the alley are dancing and spinning one another in time with the song’s stringed refrain, and Jake glances over at them as Aiden holds out a hand to help him up.

“Dance with me,” he says, and Aiden complies immediately. It’s almost too easy to assume a loose waltz position and let Jake lead them around in a slow dance that is more a shuffle of their feet than any discernible set of steps. He drops his head to rest on Jake’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of his cologne and letting the music carry his heavy limbs.

Jake hums along to the vocalizations over the strings, and the vibrations tickle Aiden’s cheek. He thinks,
The thing is, I’d be yours in a heartbeat if you asked. I’m already yours. Aren’t you mine, too?

“I’ve missed us like this,” Jake murmurs, reminding Aiden that no, Jake
isn’t
his. Lips brushing the outer shell of Aiden’s ear, Jake says, “I’ve missed
you.”

Aiden abruptly breaks their hold. Without meeting Jake’s eyes, he asks, “Can we get out of here?”

Jake pauses. His hands slowly fall to his sides. “Sure. Let’s go.”

They’d left the RV in the parking lot of a grocery store only a few minutes’ walk away, and Aiden wastes no time jumping into the driver’s seat. He’s pulling out of the lot before Jake has fully closed the passenger side door, and he sighs inwardly in gratitude when Jake remains silent.

It’s a mere five-minute drive to the waters of Lake Calhoun, a straight shot up Lagoon Avenue, but to Aiden it seems unending. Anger charts a fiery path through his veins—he needs to be near the water, to look at it moving under the light of the half-moon and let its perpetual nature ground him again. It isn’t Maine, it isn’t the ocean, and it certainly isn’t getting answers to all of his unasked questions, but it will have to do.

Jake seems to realize that Aiden needs some time alone and doesn’t try to follow him out of the RV. Aiden’s footsteps make dull thuds as he slowly walks the couple of blocks down to the lake and along a narrow dock that juts out into the water. He sits down at its end, crosses his legs and closes his eyes.

The night is fresh and uncomplicated, the water calm and still, but his head is a mess of threads tangled up in music and movies and sex. Aiden places his palms flat against the dock at either side of his body in an effort to give the anger somewhere to drain, to worm its way through the wood and down into the water where it will dissipate… but the encumbrance of his own unmet expectations presses down on him like a tangible weight he can’t shrug off.

He isn’t surprised when he hears the distinctive click of Jake’s boots approaching.

“Dan?” he asks from a few paces back. “What’s going on?”

Taking a deep breath, Aiden lets his eyes slip closed, just briefly, before standing to face him. Quietly he asks, “What are we?”

Jake sucks a breath in through his teeth and closes his eyes. Aiden’s rage crests, and he lets the wave take him.

“I’m serious. Why are we doing this? Am I just your safe option because I’m here and willing?”

Jake stares him down with a look that makes Aiden want to step back. “In what universe would you be
anybody’s
safe option?”

“I’m a pretty safe option for
you,
” Aiden retorts. “It’s not like you have to commit to anything with us, because you already laid down the rules, right? Only I think I missed the part where you get to go fuck your asshole ex-boyfriend just to
prove
that all this means nothing to you.”

Jake stares at him with an incredulous expression. “You can’t be serious right now.”

“Oh, I’m deadly serious.”

“You
really
think the reason I…
fuck,
Aiden. Do you even know me at all?”

“You know what? These days, I’m not so sure,” Aiden says.

“Look, Aiden, it wasn’t about
you,
” Jake says, shaking his head and biting his lip. His brow furrows, and Aiden waits. “It was… all I wanted was one time with him that ended on
my
terms. Mine. I wanted to choose whether or not it happened, how it went, when to walk away.”

Aiden considers this for a moment. “So you needed closure.”

“Yes,” Jake says, the relief in his tone almost palpable, but Aiden isn’t even close to understanding why he did what he did.

“Why would you want closure that in
any
way gets him off, too? Tell me how that even works in your head, because I’m at a loss,” he says.

“I know it’s fucked up, that
I’m
fucked up—”

“Yeah, you are,” Aiden interrupts. “You know, ever since this whole thing started—no, ever since I got
back,
you’ve been like a different person. Sometimes I feel like I barely know you at all.”

“That’s because I
am
a different fucking person!” Jake shouts, throwing his arms out to his sides. The sudden outburst makes Aiden take a step back. “And I said I’m sorry! What more do you want from me?”

Anger rising up in him yet again, Aiden walks forward, grabs Jake’s arms and looks straight into his eyes. “I want you to tell me that this
is
just a road trip thing.”

“What? Of course it is,” Jake says, trying to wriggle out of Aiden’s grip.

“Then why don’t I believe you?” Aiden presses.

There is a long, awful pause in which Jake meets his eyes, the moonlight highlighting the frown lines around his mouth and between his eyebrows. And then he asks quietly, “What changed, Aiden?”

“What do you mean, ‘what changed?’ Nothing’s changed.”

“When did you fall for me?” Jake asks, his voice rising, and Aiden’s stomach drops into his shoes.

“Stop it,” he says, finally releasing his grip on Jake’s arms and turning away. “This isn’t about how I feel or don’t feel about you. This is about
you
being selfish and reckless and a complete
idiot
for thinking any good would
ever
come of getting back into it with Max fucking Whitley.”

“I wasn’t getting back into it with him, Jesus!”

“Then what
were
you doing?”

“I was trying to prove to myself that
I
wasn’t falling for
you!
” Jake screams.

His words echo around them, and then a terrible silence falls as Aiden just stares at the rapid rise and fall of Jake’s chest, at the wideness of his eyes. Aiden shifts from one foot to the other. He opens and closes his mouth, wanting to ask so many questions but unable to give his voice to any of them.

Jake stuffs his hands into his pockets, drops his head and mumbles some­thing that Aiden doesn’t catch.

“What was that?”

“I didn’t
fuck him,
Aiden.” When Jake lifts his chin, his eyes flash with hurt and anger. “Fuck, I knew my opinion of myself was low, but I thought—I thought
you
thought better of me, at least.”

“Jake.” Aiden’s voice is a relieved breath on the wind, all of the venom and fight suddenly gone. “What was I supposed to think? You let me believe—”

“I know,
I know,”
Jake says. He covers his face with his hands and mutters, “I’m an asshole.”

Aiden steps forward and tears Jake’s hands away, takes a deep breath, and kisses him. He swallows Jake’s surprised whimper, licking hungrily into his mouth. He can feel Jake’s hands flail before they settle, one against Aiden’s chest and the other molded to his neck. And he can feel the crack in Jake’s armor widening.

I can wait,
he thinks.
I can wait for you.

“Aiden, I—stop for a second, just…”

“Okay, okay, I’m stopping,” Aiden says, pressing his forehead to Jake’s and cupping his jaw with both hands as they breathe each other’s air.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Jake murmurs, his breathing ragged. “That’s not us; it’s
never
been us.”

“I know, I know,” Aiden says quickly, all the fight in him gone. “I’m sorry, I just got so—”

“I know. I’ve been putting up with it for nearly seventeen years, remem­ber?” Jake reminds him in a tentatively wry tone, and Aiden can’t help but smile. “Can’t we just… be happy with this?”

“What you did—what you let me
believe
you did—was really,
really
shitty,” Aiden says.

“I know. I know, Dan, and I’m so sorry.”

“But okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Aiden says with a shrug. “We can be happy with this.”

“And we—” Jake stops, clears his throat and momentarily drops his gaze. “We have to remember that we’re friends first.”

Aiden hesitates. “One condition.”

“I’m listening.”

“I know you well enough to know that you were—you would have been safe,” Aiden begins, searching Jake’s eyes and receiving a nod. “But, look… we’ve been going out a lot and sure, we always look out for each other, but what happens if one of us isn’t around? What if we get too drunk to remember to be safe?”

“Well, not that I really want to think about that, but sure, it’s not
impos­sible,
” Jake concedes, shifting from one foot to the other. “What’s your condition?”

“If we’re doing this, then it’s just us,” Aiden says. “No one else. Deal?”

“Deal,” Jake agrees, nodding and holding out his index finger for Aiden to hook around his own.

Aiden pauses, blinks and asks, “Just like that?”

“I think you’re right. So, yeah, just like that.”

“Okay, then,” Aiden says, and taps his lips. “Here.”

With one eyebrow raised, Jake steps forward and seals the deal with the requisite kiss, settling his arms atop Aiden’s shoulders. Aiden immediately pulls him closer, trying and failing not to smile against his mouth.

This is what we are,
he thinks.
But… maybe.

6,231 miles

Day Fifty-f
our: Iowa

“Have you ever had one of those moments where you look at your life and just think, ‘What the hell?’”

Smiling, Jake glances around the inside of the barn. Everything is rustic and light; roof beams are strung with fairy lights and globes. They are sur­rounded by tables dressed in white, russet and laurel green, with baskets of apples and greenery serving as centerpieces. Wait staff, dressed almost casually, clear away the last remnants of dessert and serve cups of hot cider.

Jake leans forward in his seat and takes a sip from his cup. His tongue darts out to chase a droplet at the side of his mouth before he answers, “Pretty much every day.”

“Seriously, though. What the hell? This day has been insanely surreal,” Aiden says.

It started as they drove along I-80 from Des Moines on their way to the KOA campground in Adel.

It was an unseasonably warm day for Iowa in November—or so the morn­ing weatherman said. Jake pushed his sunglasses higher up on his nose as he turned to look out the window at the rolling fields passing them by. There wasn’t much to see, given that most harvests had already taken place. All that was left behind was tilled earth, resting before the freeze of winter. It was like watching a piece of the earth fall asleep, and were it not for the few other vehicles ahead and the suit-clad man walking along the side of the road trying to hitch a ride, Jake could probably have fallen asleep with it.

“Look,” Aiden murmured, gesturing to the hitchhiker, who was waving wildly at each car and truck as it passed. Something about the man seemed somehow… familiar.

“No way,” Jake said. “We are
not
picking up a hitchhiker.”

“He doesn’t exactly look like a hitchhiker, though,” Aiden reasoned. “He’s wearing a suit.”

“Oh, so he dresses up to kill people, how thoughtful,” Jake replied. “Just keep driving, Dan.”

They were almost passing the hitchhiker when Jake realized why he looked familiar: it was Andrew, one half of the couple whose engagement party they had attended back in New Jersey.

And now, hours after giving him a ride to the wedding ceremony for which he was running late—“Long story short, major freakout last night, disgusting amounts of booze with the guys, and apparently they all thought it would be fucking
hilarious
to drive my drunk ass out to the middle of a field and leave me without a car or a cell phone”—Jake finds himself seated just to the left of the head table, dressed in his Sunday best with Aiden beside him, both of them half-jokingly named the guests of honor.

“Insanely surreal” is probably the best way of putting it,
Jake thinks.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice comes over the speaker system, ambient music fading. Jake turns to look at the head table, where both grooms are on their feet and Toby speaks into a microphone. “Andrew and I would just like to begin by thanking you all for coming here to be with us today. We know it was a bit of a trip for most of you, so we really appreciate you being here. And to the New Yorkers: We’re not even a little bit sorry for making you spend the afternoon at the Hillard family farm, so suck it up.”

Laughter breaks out in the back of the room, and Jake can’t help but smile at Toby’s easy humor. His blond hair is styled a little more neatly than usual but is still messy, and he’s dressed in a charcoal gray suit offset by the light green of his waistcoat. The microphone is in his right hand, and his left clutches Andrew’s.