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"How?"
"When it was you, it was one mistake in a lifetime of good decisions. But me?" He shook his head, eyes fixed on the dark landscape beyond the glass. He was so close that Seth could hear him breathing, but in that moment, he seemed impossible to reach. "It's just me fighting against the inevitable. I'm good for a laugh and a roll in the hay, but not much more."
"You're wrong," Seth said. "Come home with me, and I'll prove it."
"No." Aiden couldn't hide the sorrow in his voice, and that made it so much worse.
"Then let me come home with you," Seth said desperately.
Aiden didn't bother replying. He kept his face averted, retreating into himself in a way that seemed alien to the naturally vivacious man Seth loved.
Seth was half-tempted to duct tape him to the seat again. He wanted to escape into the mountains with him, hole up at the little hunting cabin by the lake, just the two of them, and keep Aiden naked beneath him until he admitted they were made for each other. But Aiden wasn't shallow or stupid, and he couldn't be easily swayed once he'd gotten an idea fixed in his head.
Seth gritted his teeth as he pulled into the trailer park. It was all he could do to keep from pulling Aiden back when he went for the door latch.
Aiden lingered in the open doorway for a moment, head down, face shaded by his hat brim. He toed the ground with his boot, and Seth caught the pale quirk of his lips pulling up in a ghostly imitation of a smile.
"Thanks, Seth," he said quietly. "For everything."
Seth leaned out the door and grabbed a fistful of Aiden's shirt, yanking him back into the truck and halfway across the seat. He slammed their mouths together with no finesse, grinding his lips in a kiss meant to punish. Aiden allowed it, but his mouth was unyielding.
"I don't want your thanks," Seth growled against his damp lips. His voice was like shattered glass. "I want you. Only you. Always you."
"I love you too much to do that to you," Aiden said, trying to inject some lightness into his voice and failing miserably when it cracked. He curled his fingers around Seth's fist and pried himself free. "You had the right idea back then," he said hoarsely. "You let me go once because you loved me. Now, I've finally grown the balls to do the same for you."
Aiden released him with a hard shove and slammed the door between them, effectively cutting off Seth before he could object. Then he walked swiftly toward his trailer, disappearing in the darkness beneath the broken lamplight.
He didn't look back.
Chapter Thirty-One
AIDEN
Aiden's muscles burned as he hoisted the last box of trash into the rusty dumpster at the edge of the trailer park. He slammed the metal lid shut with a resounding clang that did nothing good for his aching head and rested his back against the dumpster to catch his breath.
Except for the incessant barking of the pitbull at the edge of the lot, the trailer park was quiet for a weekend afternoon. Rusted trucks and snow-caked cars were parked haphazardly, tires half-buried in slush. The skeletal remains of summer gardens peeked out from the snow, and a tattered American flag hung limply from a pole in front of Ramon's wheelchair ramp, barely stirred by the winter breeze.
The wind stung Aiden's exposed skin, but his body and brain felt on fire. He wore nothing but a thin cotton t-shirt, soaked with whiskey sweat, and even that felt like too much. Despite the cold, beads of sweat had formed beneath the band of his baseball cap and trickled down his hairline, tickling the back of his neck. His head throbbed, and his throat felt parched despite chugging his body weight in sports drinks as soon as he stumbled out of bed that morning.
He'd never felt so hungover, but he knew it wasn't the leftover booze squeezing his brain. It was his broken heart. It might have been more bearable if he'd had someone else to blame for it. Seth had hurt him, but Aiden found himself unable to stew in righteous anger. He wasn’t so drunk the night before that he’d forgotten what Seth had said to him. Seth loved him and wanted him to be okay, no matter what. But Aiden wasn’t okay. The arguments with Seth and his mother rattled around his head. He'd avoided responsibility for so long, drifting through life like a reckless kid, terrified of disappointing people. But now, as he stood beside the dumpster filled with most of his belongings, he knew what he had to do.
Maybe it was running away; a stronger man would probably stay and fight. But Seth would never give up on him if he stayed, and Aiden needed him to move on. He deserved so much better than a hot mess in a cowboy hat.
With a heavy sigh, Aiden forced his weary legs to trudge back toward the trailer that had been his home for over a decade. It sat like an empty shell, cleared of detritus that had accumulated without him noticing. It hadn’t taken more than a day to clean and repair the place; aside from a few sentimental knickknacks, not much was worth saving. He’d finally fixed the loose gutter and filled the cracked sealant in the bathroom window, but it felt like putting lipstick on a pig. The trailer was never going to sell for much. It was a stark reminder of how little Aiden had achieved in life.
"If you keep moping like that, your face is gonna stick that way!" Roberta called, stepping onto her porch with a pack of camels clutched in one hand. She poked a cigarette between her lips and squinted at him through the first curl of smoke. "Then it won't even matter where you're going. No one will hire you."
"Aw, I'm more than a pretty face, darlin'," Aiden joked, but his heart wasn't in it. He ignored the smoke and sat beside her on the front step, gesturing toward the boxes she'd allowed him to neatly stack at the end of her covered porch. "I appreciate you hanging onto my stuff for a while. I'll send for it once I land somewhere permanent."
Roberta waved his thanks away. "No worries, honey," she said. "You're doing me a favor by selling it so cheap. My nephew's been looking for a place for months. Housing prices are crazy even out here in the middle of nowhere."
"It's not much," Aiden admitted, "but it'll keep the weather out."
"It's a good place to start," Roberta said firmly. "He's young and itchy-footed, so he won't stick around long."
Aiden chuckled. He hunched forward and draped his arms across his knees, staring out at the dilapidated homes that had been his neighbors for his entire adult life. "That's what I thought when I first moved in," he said thoughtfully. "I don't think any of us planned to stay forever, did we?"
"I sure as hell didn't," Roberta said, letting out a rough smoker's cackle. "Ed's back pain keeps him from working, so I have no choice. You, though…you always seemed like you were just waiting for something better to come along. The only trouble is nothing ever did. I guess that's changed now, huh?"
