“I’m actually in Indiana, not Chicago itself.” Being in-state was the only reason Cade had been able to afford Purdue, evenwithscholarships and grants. “Are you going in on I-90 or I-94?”
“This time of night? I was thinking about skirting around the outside and coming in from the northwest. It’s farther, but I’d rather burn gas moving than burn gas stuck in traffic, you know?”
“Oh. Yeah.” As if Cade knew anything about the trials of making one’s way home to Chicago’s North Side, where he was sure Aiden was heading. “Well, whatever. If you can drop me somewhere before you go too far west, that’d be great.”
“I’ve got no big plans. I can drop you at your house.”
“Nah, that’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Aiden didn’t say anything for a while, but Cade had a definite feeling he wasn’t done. Finally he looked over at Cade and said, “For the record, I’m not stalking you anymore.”
“What?”
“If you don’t want me to know where you live because you think I’m stalking you? You don’t have to worry. I mean, I still see you a lot, but that’s because you make good sandwiches. It’s not stalking, it’s lunch. And then that time at the library, yeah, that was a bit stalkery, butI quit as soon as you said you weren’t interested. Just sandwiches since then. And tonight, I was driving by and I saw you. That’s all. It would have been weirdnotto stop, right? So that wasn’t stalking, it was a coincidence.” He smiled a little. “Or possibly fate.”
“I think probably coincidence,” Cade said, trying to keep his rational mind engaged.
“I think maybe fate,” Aiden said with a little smile. Then he groaned dramatically. “Shit! Was that being stalkery again, saying it like that? I swear, bro, I can drop you at your house and I promise tonotshow up, ever, without an express invitation. Seriously, I wouldn’t be a pain about it.”
“If you dropped me at my house I can absolutely guarantee you wouldn’t show up again, not without an armed guard.” Shit. Why the hell had he said that? Cade wondered if there was any chance of glossing past that and pretending he hadn’t spoken.
“What?” Aiden said. Apparently he wasn’t interested in glossing.
Cade made himself laugh. “Nothing. I was being dramatic. Seriously, though, I don’t need a ride home. You’ve been great to get me this far.”
Aiden didn’t say anything right away. Then, instead of speaking, he pressed down on the accelerator and they surged forward to pass the car on their right, then cut in front of it and headed for the nearest exit, one they’d almost driven past. Cade braced himself and hung on as Aiden braked hard on the ramp and then drove at a more reasonable rate until they merged onto a surface street. He turned into the first parking lot—a fast food restaurant—and found a spot.
Aiden shifted into neutral, slammed on the parking brake, and turned to stare at Cade. “Do you think… okay, I’m trying not to get insulted here. I’m trying to find a different way to interpret what you just said. But do you think I’d be freaked out by where you live? Are you trying tohidewhere you live? Because the only reason I can think of for you to do that is because you think I’d think less of you for it, and that’s pretty insulting, bro.”
Cade stared at him. “What?”
Aiden stared back, then looked away. Then he looked back. “Okay. Possibly I’ve got the wrong perspective on this. But I’m right that you don’t want me to drive you all the way home. Right?”
This was allmuchworse than even the most awkward conversation Cade had anticipated. He thought about climbing out of the car right there. But he didn’t like to think about how confused Aiden would be if that happened. “Right,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Is it because you think I’m going to stalk you, or keep being a nuisance?”
Cade kept his eyes on the dashboard. “No.”
“So it’s not your precise location that you’re worried about me knowing. Is it because you don’t want me to know somethingelse, and I’d know it if I drove you home?”
Cade couldn’t take the slow torture anymore. “Not everyone comes from rich families, you know. Or even, I don’t know, not even middle class. Not everyone! It’s not a big deal, but it’s not something you’d understand and I’m already the Monk, the super nerd who studies all the time and doesn’t want any friends. I don’t really need to be thepoormonk on top of it all. I just want to study and graduate and get a good job. I donotwant to be distracted by the rest of this crap!”
Aiden was quiet for long enough that Cade was revisiting his open-the-door-and-walk-away-forever idea, but before he reached for the handle, Aiden spoke. “It was super easy for me to go to college,” he said thoughtfully. “I mean, it would have been harder for me tonotgo, because my parents would have been so pissed off. They let me take a year off to travel, but after that, ofcourseI was going to college. They pay my whole tuition, and my living expenses, and they gave me this car, and they pay my credit card bills.”
“Yeah,” Cade said miserably. He was all too familiar with the way these things were supposed to be done.
“You don’t have any of that?”
Cade sighed. “No.”
“And you’re still doing it? Are you paying for it all yourself?” Aiden didn’t sound disgusted, just curious.
“I have scholarships. A grant.” Cade didn’t think he’d get into the issues with his grant right then.
Aiden looked at him and frowned in exaggerated amazement. “You’re not saying that you make sandwiches every day because you need the money, are you? I assumed that was your passion!” He grinnedat Cade’s expression. “Kidding, bro. I meant—I knew you weren’t rolling in cash. I didn’t know—I guess I stilldon’tknow—that it was that bad. That there’d be something about your house you wouldn’t want me to see. But I knew you were working hard to stay in school.” He shook his head in amazement. “I’m supposed to thinklessof you because of that? I mean, I wouldn’t even judgeyour parentsfor not making a lot of money—there are lots of reasons people don’t make money. It doesn’t mean they’re not good people. But you really think I’d judgeyoufor your parents’ income? Really?” He frowned again. “I think I’m going back to being insulted. I’d have to be really, really shallow to think like that. Except if you reallydidthink I was that shallow, why would you give a shit what I thought?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, bro, this whole thing has got me confused.”
He wasn’t the only one. “It’s… it’s personal. You know?” Cade sighed. He knew he sounded crazy, and he knew he should give up. It wasn’t like it mattered what this random frat boy thought about him or his feelings about anything. Except it kind ofdidmatter, for reasons Cade didn’t want to think about too much. “It’s like being gay, I guess. There’s nothing wrong with being gay. But when everyone expects you to be straight, and you’re not, it feels personal to have to explain it to them. Like I’m telling people about my sex life, just so they don’t get the wrong idea about me. Straight people don’t have to tell people abouttheirsex lives in order to keep people from getting the wrong idea. It goes the same for money stuff. People assume that I’m like them, and it feels weird to have to go around telling them I’m not.”
