Aiden would know now. He’d finally get to know the source of their combined misery. He’d allow Thomas to think he’d won, to think he was in control. If he needed Aiden’s help, he’d give it, but he’d also keep digging until he knew it all, every deep, dark, dirty fucking secret Thomas was fighting to keep buried.
And then what? Aiden shook his head. Fuck if he knew. Could he punish Thomas for his crimes? That was why the code existed, after all. To ensure they never strayed from the path. Had Thomas strayed? Whoever was blackmailing him seemed to think so. Thomas seemed to think so, too. But what could Aiden do to Thomas that was worse than what he did to himself?
If after all this time, Thomas was the real villain, where did that lead Aiden? Thomas had never been Aiden’s father, but he had been the only person who’d ever given a shit about him, had confided in him. So, Aiden had done the same. He’d told him all his secrets.
In retrospect, maybe that was why Thomas had confided in him in the beginning? Maybe it was simply a way to get Aiden to trust him in return? But then Aiden had ruined everything by falling in love. He winced, picturing the face Thomas had made the night Aiden confessed his feelings.
He’d been so young. So fucking stupid. Thomas had been horrified. He’d blamed himself for giving Aiden the wrong idea and had sent him away with his friends for the summer just to get away from him, all while blaming himself for Aiden’s ‘crush.’
Thomas the martyr. So put upon. So broken. Aiden tried to force the past back down into the deep, dark recesses of his mind, but it was impossible with Thomas sitting right there beside him. So many fucking years had passed between them.
At seventeen, a fourteen year age-gap was insurmountable. It couldn’t be ignored. Aiden had known that when he confessed. It had never occurred to him that Thomas wouldn’t feel the same. That he’d misinterpreted his niceness for love. But even then, he’d thought Thomas would eventually come around and would stop seeing him as a child. And he had. Eventually. Years later, after Aiden’s heart had been run over again and again.
Aiden blinked behind his glasses, his eyes feeling like sandpaper. He couldn’t believe he was rehashing this shit in his head again. Every time he made peace with slamming the door shut on his feelings, Thomas found a way to drag him back in.
Every fucking time.
It was near pathological at this point. Aiden wished he’d been born a psychopath. The peace he could have had if he’d lacked the capacity to love. It would have been easier that way. Or maybe that was just what Aiden told himself to justify spending twenty fucking years loving someone who refused to love him back.
Who refused to act on it anyway.
Maybe that was the real salt in Aiden’s wound. Thomas loved him. Not then, but later, when Aiden had come home from college graduation, when he’d finally put a voice to his feelings and reminded Thomas he was a fully grown adult…that was when he’d known there was something between them. Or there could have been if Thomas would have just stopped being such a goddamn martyr.
But no matter how Aiden had tried, there had been this fucking wall he’d run up against again and again until he was battered and bloody. Thomas telling him that he did love him, he did care for him, but it didn’t matter—it could never fucking matter—because they could never be together.
But it was Aiden who Thomas called when he was drunk and lonely and desperate for some crumb of affection he couldn’t get from his sons. It was Aiden he called when he was in trouble. It was fucking Aiden he called in the middle of the night just to hear his voice. And Aiden answered. Every. Fucking. Time.
Aiden reached over and turned the knob on the radio, music blaring through the speakers and rocketing Thomas upright in his seat. Aiden tried not to gloat as he watched him look around in confusion before seemingly remembering where they were and why this was happening.
“Where are we going?” Thomas asked, voice raspy with sleep.
“Safe house,” Aiden said, offering no further explanation.
Just looking at Thomas made him ache, made him mad, so mad he fought the urge not to punch him in the face. He stole another glance at him, watching as he scrubbed his hands over his face for probably the hundredth time since he’d arrived.
Even then, sleep deprived and hungover, Thomas could have easily passed for ten years younger than his true age. Maybe it was genetics or the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals, but he was aging like fine wine. His hair wasn’t gray but an almost pristine silver that made his pale blue eyes look silver, too. His usually clean shaven jaw was now hidden by scruff, but it just added a ruggedness to a man most viewed as elegant.
Nothing detracted from his looks in Aiden’s eyes. That was part of the problem. Thomas never aged. And clearly, the same could be said for Aiden. Because even though Aiden was forty, Thomas still acted like he was a child. Like he washischild. Like being together was taboo.
Thomas turned down the radio, turning in his seat to look at him. “Aiden, I—”
“Don’t. Seriously. Just…just fucking don’t,” Aiden said, the rage he’d been choking on for hours bubbling to the surface. “You asked me to come and I’m here, and I’m going to fucking help you, but I cannot listen to you fucking apologize again.”
Thomas opened his mouth and closed it, and Aiden felt some small sense of satisfaction knowing he’d kneecapped Thomas. If he couldn’t constantly apologize to Aiden, he had nothing to say. Sober Thomas was always painfully polite. Reserved, classy, put together in every way.
Aiden preferred drunken Thomas. Alcohol had always been the key to unlocking Thomas’s real thoughts and feelings. With enough whiskey on board, it was hard to shut him up. Drunken Thomas loved Aiden more than his pride, more than his suffering. But only from a distance.
Except for that one time.
“I should call Calliope, make up an excuse…” Thomas mumbled, staring out the window.
“I already did. I told her you’re helping me with a case, but it was clear she didn’t believe it. We only have a limited amount of time before the others realize something is happening. You should just tell them. They deserve to know.”
Thomas gave a stilted nod. “I’ll tell them. I will. I just don’t know what to tell them.”
“You could start with the truth,” Aiden said. “But that would be too easy.”
“Aiden…”
