Thomas opened and closed his mouth a few more times before settling on saying, “Oh.”
Aiden snorted. “Yeah, oh.”
“Aiden—”
Aiden pointed a finger at him. “Apologize to me at your own peril, Mulvaney. I swear to God, I can’t take it. It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine. Have a drink. Do whatever you have to do to get yourself together because we’re not done talking about your past yet.”
Thomas seemed to take Aiden’s advice, walking to pour himself a drink before taking the seat across from him. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
Aiden watched him from over the rim of his glass. “You tell me. Someone wants to expose you to the world as a murderer. You’re doing your best to act guilty as hell. You are drowning in your own misery. Your kids are already on the case and we’re not leaving this cabin until I know the whole story. So, you decide how you want this to play out.”
Thomas gulped down his whole glass in one swallow, then set it on the small table between them. “I’ll tell you what I can.”
“You’ll tell me everything,” Aiden corrected.
Thomas made a noise of frustration. “You have no idea what this is like.”
“What would you say if the tables were turned? Would you let me get away with hiding?”
Thomas clenched his teeth until the muscle in his jaw twitched, shaking his head. He knew Aiden was right. Thomas would have forced the secret out of him one way or another. Aiden would do the same. They needed to know the truth in order to get to the bottom of things.
“I need another drink first,” Thomas said, rising to fill his glass.
“Have two. It helps,” Aiden promised.
Liquor always loosened Thomas’s tongue, usually to both their detriment. Today, Aiden would use that to his advantage.
When he was sitting across from him once more, Aiden met his gaze. “Tell me about Shane. Tell me everything.”
“Where did I leave off?” Thomas asked.
“Shane’s ulterior motives,” Aiden said gently.
Something died inside Thomas at Aiden’s patient tone. He could handle him being hostile, furious, argumentative…but not this. Not the softness. Fuck. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to tell this story. How could he squeeze the most confusing three years of his life into one cohesive narrative?
Had he really thought he’d be able to go his whole life without admitting his part in his family’s murders? He clutched his glass in his fist, trying to quell some of the shaking, at least long enough to get the words out. Maybe he needed to detach? Tell the story clinically, like it happened to a patient? Would that make it easier? Did he even deserve easy?
No. He didn’t.
Thomas took a deep breath and let it out. “Looking back, I think I was…flattered. Shane was all I had. My only friend. Choosing him wasn’t a hard decision. It wasn’t a decision at all. He was my only choice. But Shane had a million friends and he chose me. He ignored them all for me. They didn’t get it. I didn’t either if I’m being honest. But I was grateful. After thirteen years as a ghost, someone finally saw me. Chose me. I was…” Thomas closed his eyes. “An easy target.”
Shane’s attention had been like the sun on his face after living in darkness, but Thomas didn’t say that. Shane didn’t deserve that praise. It had all been so fucking contrived. And thinking about how stupid and naive he’d been just made his stomach churn.
“He convinced me that the others didn’t get what it was like to be us. That they didn’t know what it was like to have parents who demanded everything but gave us nothing. He protected me, listened when I talked, validated my feelings, hid with me at our parents’ parties. He convinced me nobody would ever get me like he did.”
Thomas’s heart skipped as memories flooded back. Shane’s smile. Thomas had once thought it was the best thing in the world, but now, it seemed evil—as evil and deceitful as Shane himself.
“Thomas…”
When he realized he’d fallen silent, he shook his head. “I didn’t know what he was doing.”
Thomas didn’t realize he’d spoken the words out loud until Aiden said, “What do you mean?”
“Looking back, it was textbook, really. Isolation. He didn’t need any help with that. I was already lonely. Then it was liquor. Not enough to get me drunk, but just enough to make me more receptive. After that was porn. It was totally normal for boys to…help each other out.”
“Are you saying—”
“I see it now, obviously,” Thomas said, cutting him off. “The…grooming. But at the time, I just wanted to make him happy. Wanted him to keep liking me. He was cute. I was gay. It wasn’t like I didn’t already have a massive crush on him, but I wasn’t ready for what he wanted. I was barely thirteen and he was almost sixteen. I see what a massive age gap that is now. But it didn’t feel that way then. I was in way too deep.”
