His to Cherish (12 page)

“Oh shit,” I muttered. My face twisted into worry. I expected it to be Suzanne, but it wasn't.

Beth Johnson: Have you talked to Shane by any chance lately? I can't find him.

My heart sank, knowing how bad Shane had been, and now knowing tonight was his best friend's birthday.

“Who is it?” David asked, his voice tight. “Aidan?”

“No.” I shook my head and whispered. “Shane's mom, Beth Johnson.”

“Shit.”

He knew. He had to know who that was.

“Yeah.”

Slowly, I turned to him as tears began to burn my eyes. I couldn't cry. Not now.

I typed back a quick message to Beth as David climbed out of his side of his SUV.

Me: No, not yet. I'll keep my eyes peeled. I'm at Aidan's. Just found out it was Derrick's birthday today.

Her reply was almost instant.

Beth Johnson: Oh no. I totally forgot.

Oh no, was right.

And oh crap, oh shit, oh God, oh hell. All of those
oh
s seemed appropriate.

With goosebumps prickling my skin, and adrenaline buzzing in my veins, I slowly climbed out of the vehicle and met David at the front where he'd been waiting for me.

His hands were in his pockets and his eyes were on the front door.

There were no lights on and it didn't look like Aidan was home.

I checked my phone, to see if I'd missed any texts or calls from him, but there was nothing.

“It doesn't look like he's home,” I said quietly, although I didn't know why I was whispering. No one was around to hear us, but it seemed to fit the tense mood.

Even the air felt thick and damp, like the trees and sky were in the mood to cry for whatever we were about to walk into.

“Come on.” David took my hand, clasped his palm around mine, and pulled me toward the front door. He flipped through his keys when we hit the front stoop and had a key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door before I could tell him about Shane, or Beth, or any of my concerns.

He was purely focused on Aidan anyway.

“Damn.”

I cleared my throat as soon as we got inside the house.

It reeked of stale pizza and beer and a host of other smells I couldn't and didn't want to identify.

The front room, which looked like a small office, was completely trashed. A lamp was tossed over, shattered all over the carpeted floor, and papers were strewn everywhere.

Even a laptop was broken and lying upside down on the floor.

“Oh no,” I muttered, and quietly began to follow David through the house.

He flicked light switches on the wall on his way, illuminating the mess. It looked like the house had been broken into, and as much as that thought concerned me, I knew it hadn't been.

This was the damage done by a broken man in pain. An angry man who had no other outlet but to destroy everything in his path.

“Aidan!” David's loud voice boomed through the house. It echoed off the walls and the two-story foyer we'd just walked through, but we didn't get an answer.

“Check the garage,” he muttered, pointing me toward a door. “See if his truck's here.”

I did, hesitantly, and exhaled when I saw his truck parked at an angle inside the garage.

“It's here.”

David kept walking until we hit the kitchen. The stench made me gag and I suddenly realized why Aidan had been spending so much time at my house.

It was a miracle rats hadn't taken up residence in his house with the mess piled all over the counters and sink. Dirty dishes and food boxes were strewn all over the place. Some of them I recognized as food dishes I had helped him with the night of the funeral.

Tears fell from my eyes. I didn't even bother stopping them or wiping them away.

How long had it been this bad?

“Aidan, you fucker!” David shouted again, and I jumped, unable to peel my eyes away from the disaster in front of me. “Where the hell are you?”

A loud crash came from the back and my head snapped to David. “This way,” he said, and stared back at me.

“I think I should go.” I whispered the words and cringed at my suddenly dry throat.

I knew I was right. There was no way, absolutely no way in hell, Aidan would want me to see his house like this.

“No. He needs you.”

“David.” I shook my head and took another step back. “He won't want me here.”

He got the same odd look on his face that he'd had earlier, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward the back of the house.

“Bullshit. He's barely spoken to any of his friends. Won't tell us fucking shit except he's been hanging out with you. Don't know why he won't talk to us when we've been fucking with him since that crazy bitch took off when Derrick was too damn young to remember her, but we were the ones with him on campus, helping him raise his fucking kid. Derrick was all of ours, and he's shut down on all of us completely. But you,” he said, pointing a finger at me, “he talks to you. He hangs with you when he wants not one damn thing to do with us no matter how hard we've been trying. Don't know the pull you have on him, but we know he likes it. So you're here and you're not leaving.”

My mind couldn't even process all of that, what with the disaster we saw when we reached the living room. It was a thousand times worse than the front room and impossible to miss.

Cushions thrown. A couch tipped over. A broken television. Glass and picture frames that at one time had probably hung on the wall in a collage were shattered all over the floor.

“Holy crap,” I muttered to myself more than to David. Had the Incredible Hulk broken in here? It looked like the disaster that creature could create in a nanosecond, and even while I wanted to pretend it was the force of some Marvel comic character, it only made the tears fall harder.

David was wrong. By hanging out with me, I'd allowed Aidan to ignore dealing with
anything.

He made a grunt of acknowledgment, but didn't stop moving.

When we reached the back door he finally turned to me and placed both of his hands on my shoulders. “You're insane if you think you mean nothing to that man. I've listened to him talk about you for years. Why he's finally started hanging around you now, I'm not completely sure, but he's wanted you for a long time. He's going to be angry out there, and he's going to take it out on us, but I need you to be strong. He lets loose fast and hard but it boils over quickly.”

My eyes grew wide with the warning and I stared at him, tongue-tied, while I forced everything he'd said to make sense.

I was way too startled by everything we'd seen, and everything he'd just spewed at me with determined eyes, to object.

He didn't give me a chance anyway.

David let go of my shoulders, reached for my elbow, and opened the door that led to the back patio.

And I followed, heading to the place where I'd had my first conversation with Aidan after the accident, knowing that this one was about to go completely differently.

“Aidan.”

I wasn't entirely certain Aidan was even conscious when David called his name from where we'd stopped just outside the doorway.

He was splayed out on a lounge chair, three empty alcohol bottles at his side and a half-empty one on the table next to him.

Aidan's eyes were closed and his head was flopped toward his left shoulder, face aimed in our direction.

I took a step forward to check if he was even breathing when David squeezed my hand. I looked up at him to see him shake his head.

Just wait,
he mouthed to me.

He turned back to Aidan after I nodded. I'd give him about two seconds before I checked on him.

“Aidan. You weren't supposed to lie, brother.”

He muttered something that sounded like, “Go the fuck away.”

Through his drunkenness, his speech was slurred and his mouth barely moved.

“Can't do that, man. You promised you'd call.”

Aidan's head snapped up and he stared directly at David.

His nostrils flared, and I could feel his fury rolling off him.

“Is that right?” he drawled. His lips twitched and I wanted to cry. I wanted to run to him, wrap my arms around him, and apologize for not being there for him. He'd practically begged me to stay with him and I'd pushed him away.

His eyes stayed so focused on David I didn't even know if he realized I was out here, watching him completely fall apart.

I didn't move. I couldn't. I watched as David had another silent argument with Aidan and I took in another disaster scene. Glass was everywhere, the patio table had been thrown completely over onto the cement, and four of the chairs that had once surrounded it were scattered all over the lawn.

I couldn't see the grill where it used to sit against the house behind me. I didn't even want to know what had happened to that.

In front of me, there were two lounge chairs and another glass side table. One of the chairs was upside down.

Aidan's drunken frame took possession of the other.

Slowly, he shifted his body, twisting and moving until he was sitting up, his feet planted on the ground and his knees splayed wide. His hands dropped to his knees and he continued glaring at David.

Eventually, David must have won.

Aidan sighed, reached for something next to him, and held up his phone. “Thought about it. Does that get me points?”

“Not when you're drinking yourself to death.”

I inhaled a sharp gasp at the words. David's voice was brutal and thick.

On this day of all days, I figured it was okay for Aidan to lose his shit and implode.

Or destroy his house.

Seeing him like this, hair askew and dressed in only a pair of athletic shorts while his completely unfocused eyes roamed the yard and the patio area, sent an aching pain to my heart.

“Go away,” Aidan slurred. “And leave me the hell alone today.”

David took a step forward, dropping my hand from his, and whispered, “He wouldn't want this for you.”

Aidan's temper flared like the Fourth of July and I knew all that foreboding I'd felt earlier—everything was about to explode and light up the sky like a firework extravaganza.

“Aidan,” I whispered, but he didn't seem to hear me.

“Yeah?” Aidan replied to David, his eyes narrowed slits of anger and anguish. “You know what the fuck my boy wanted? He wanted to live, you fucking prick! He wanted to play ball and kiss girls and he wanted to learn how to drive my damn truck. He wanted college and more girls probably. But he sure as fuck didn't want…to…fucking…die.”

He was panting after his rant and wobbled on unsteady feet. Whether from the booze or his grief, I didn't know. I lunged to grab him when David threw his arm out, stopping me.

His arm was a solid bar of steel and his voice lowered. “I know, buddy. I know all that and I know this sucks, but you throwing all this shit around your house, all this anger at my feet, and all your grief into a bottle isn't going to help a damn thing.”

“It silences it.”

David shook his head. “It hides it, hides your pain and your sadness until it's forced to come out another way. Be sad, Aidan. Grieve and mourn and wail, but don't lose your fucking mind over this, or your life. You know this shit.”

Aidan laughed. It was the first time I'd heard him laugh, and I coiled back into the safety of David's protection because I couldn't stand the sound.

Nails on a chalkboard sounded more pleasant than the evil, dark cackle that escaped his thick lips.

“You're such a prick.”

David nodded. “I know. You love me for it, even if you're too fucking stubborn to admit it.”

“Get the fuck out of my house.” His hands balled into tight fists and I shrank back, unsure if there was going to be a brawl, but both men were wired so tight I wouldn't have been surprised.

I didn't want them fighting.

David stayed still for several minutes until his shoulders relaxed. “We'll go, then.”

I frowned and looked at David. He'd wanted me here to help but hadn't let me do a darn thing yet.

The way he said “we” seemed to spark something in Aidan.

“She stays.”

I jerked back, surprised he even knew I was there, considering he hadn't yet acknowledged me in any way.

“I don't—” I started, but was cut off by the lethal glare Aidan flashed my way.

“Stay,” he growled.

No way in hell was I staying.

David ran a hand through his hair and smiled sadly before he took my hand in his. The comforting squeeze he gave me did nothing to help me. “He won't hurt you, but don't put up with his shit, either. Throw it back at him, he needs it, I promise you.”

“I don't think that's a good idea,” I mumbled when I felt a wall of heat at my side, trying to burn us to death.

A large hand wrapped around my elbow and I was pulled away from David, into Aidan's side.

“Get your hands off her.”

“Be nice, man.”

“Go away.”

David's smile changed like this had actually been fun. I decided he must have been crazy. He hadn't helped anything and now he was throwing me to the big, bad, really pissed off, really drunk, and really sad wolf with great big green eyes and sharp, wicked teeth.

“When your hangover disappears tomorrow, give me a call.”

He stepped forward, slapped Aidan on the shoulder, and pulled him in for a man hug. He murmured something that I couldn't hear into Aidan's ear, and when he pulled back, some of the tension and anger tightening Aidan's shoulders had evaporated.

Thank goodness.

David winked at me before heading toward the sliding doors. “You'll be all right. Remember what I said before.”

We both watched David walk away. My head screamed at me to follow, my heart urged me to stay.

David might have been right, Aidan wouldn't hurt me, at least not physically.

But when I looked back up at him, I watched his lips twist like he had more bile to spew in the form of words wrapped with daggers, and I knew I was completely wrong.

This man had the power to destroy me, and he looked ready for battle.

“Sit down.”

The lounge chair he had flipped over was now right side up with the cushion in place. If it hadn't been broken before, it was now. I struggled trying to get it into an upright position and gave up after I realized it would only lay completely flat.

When Aidan arched a brow, shooting me one of the many chilling glares I'd received in the last few minutes, I figured to hell with it

Half of me still didn't know why I didn't leave.

The other part totally understood when Aidan quietly demanded, “Anything I need.”

I sat. When I couldn't get comfortable, I lay down on my side and propped my head in my hand, elbow on the thick mattress pad.

Aidan took a long drink from the whiskey sitting next to him and stared into the backyard.

We sat, the unfathomable space between us thick with a rolling tension that was different. My pulse drummed in my ears as I watched him.

When I couldn't stand the silence any longer, I decided to go to the kitchen for a drink.

As I sat up, Aidan's eyes shot to me and narrowed.

“I'm just getting some water,” I told him, and scuttled into the house before he could argue with me.

Once I'd filled a glass, careful not to step on the sticky food remnants on the floor or the counter, I noticed his coffeemaker sitting on the counter.

While I waited for a cup to brew, I dug through the cabinets until I found a bottle of ibuprofen and dumped three pills into my palm.

Armed with sobriety-inducing drugs, I headed back to the patio, ignoring the mess all over his house. It would take him hours, if not days, to clean up what he'd wrecked.

Based on his volatile mood, I suspected most of the damage had been done earlier today.

My shoulders fell with a wrongly placed sense of guilt. This wasn't my fault, yet it felt like it was. Had I agreed to spend the day with him like he'd asked, he might not have ended up wasted and destroying his house.

“Here,” I whispered, getting his attention as I reached him. He stared at the coffee mug in my hand. “Take the coffee and the pills.”

His lips twisted like he wanted to argue, but eventually he reached out, took the mug from my hand and set it on the table next to him. Then he took the pills and glass from my other hand, tossed the pills into his mouth and chugged the water. When he set the empty glass on the table, he took my hand in his and tugged me gently but with intention.

“Sit with me?”

His pleading eyes, sad green sludge, stared up at me, drunk and desperate.

“Of course.” I forced a small smile that matched his mood and he shifted while I moved into the chair sitting in front of him.

I trembled slightly when his arm wrapped around my shoulders with my back to his chest, his legs on the outside of mine.

“I'm so damn tired.” For a moment I thought he meant he was ready to pass out into a drunken coma, but then he inhaled a shaky breath. “So damn tired of all of this. How am I supposed to move past this? Get over losing my kid when I fought tooth and nail to keep him in the first place?”

My brow furrowed in confusion, but he kept talking, not giving me time to ask.

“I'm so damn lonely. So damn tired all the time. Hell,” he sighed, and his voice broke. “Fourteen years old today, that's how old he would have been. How old he's supposed to be. We were supposed to head to Chicago and make it a guys' weekend. Gorge ourselves on pizza and hit the Cubs' season opener. Now what in the hell am I supposed to do?”

My throat choked and tears fell down my cheeks. I figured he knew I was crying when his hand tightened on my shoulder.

I wasn't brave enough to look back to see if he was doing the same. Seeing him shattered and crying could end me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his head tilted back, looking at the sky.

“I don't know what to tell you,” I dumbly replied. “I wish I could take it away for you.”

His handed drifted from my shoulder up to the side of my head and he pushed, pressing me against his shoulder. His fingers tangled in my hair.

“I wish you could, too.”

We sat like this, in the silence that was so familiar between the two of us, while he reached out and began taking small sips of the coffee.

“It's not easy…feeling like I have something good sitting next to me, something I want, and I feel like I can't have it. It also makes me a dick that I want to keep taking whatever it is you'll give me because being around you is the only good damn thing in my life, and I don't want to let that go.”

I shifted, my head turned until I could see his droopy, half-lidded eyes. He was going to pass out at any moment.

“You haven't done anything I don't want, and you haven't taken what I haven't given willingly, Aidan.” I pressed my hand on his chest.

“I know everything seems so dark and ugly in your head right now, and I don't get what you're going through, but I do know difficult loss. And the one thing I know for sure is that whenever there's good in your life, you need to grab on to it and hold on tight. So much horrible shit happens in the world, so much disaster and death like Derrick's that doesn't make any sense no matter how hard you're going to try. You need the good stuff to help you remember that not everything is always shit. The good helps you be able to bear the bad.”

His lips pressed together into a line so fine they almost disappeared. “I'll take your word for it.”

Giving up on being able to say anything to help him feel better—because really, what could possibly do that—I stood and held out my hand. “Come on. You need to go to bed.”

He was way drunk, it was getting late, and he needed his sleep.

At the worried flash in his eyes, I offered him assurance. “I'll stay, though, if you want.”

He nodded immediately. “I do.”

“Then go to bed, I'll be up after I clean up a bit.”

A frown line appeared between his eyes. If he remembered the disaster he'd caused inside, he didn't show it. But I turned him by his shoulders and pushed him toward the house, ushering him inside. I didn't stop moving him until we reached the stairs.

“Up you go.”

He reached out and gripped the banister. His sigh was deep and slow as he turned to face me before staring at the staircase like I'd asked him to climb Mount Everest. “Thank you, Chelsea.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, wanting to lean in and brush my lips against his, tasting him like he occasionally did to me, but I held back.

As much as I desired him, tonight was not the night. And it most definitely wasn't the moment, even though for the first time since I had stepped inside his house earlier, the tension and anger had seemed to evaporate. “Anytime.”