Aiden nodded, and then his grin made a welcome reappearance. “I don’t know. I mean, I appreciate all that intellectually, but Ilovetelling people about my sex life, so it’s hard for me to reallyfeelwhat you’re saying. You know?” Another grin, and this one was clearly an invitation for Cade to share the amusement. “If I were you, I’d probably be going around telling everyone, ‘Hell, yeah, I’m a self-made man! I don’t need mommy and daddy to feed me with their silver spoon, I find myownfood. No car? No problem! I’m not afraid of hitchhiking! I can take care of myself! I make sandwichesandI make straight As.’ And then I’d probably throw in a few details about my sex life too. Just to mix things up a little. You know, ‘Hell, yeah, Grandma, Itappedthat fine ass. We went at it all night long, every way we could think of!’ That sort of thing.”
“That’s pretty disturbing,” Cade said, but he didn’t feel disturbed. He felt almost calm, for the first time in far too long.
They sat quietly for a while, and then Aiden said, “Hey, Cade? I’d be happy to drive you home, if you’re okay with that. But if you’re not, that’s cool too. I can drop you wherever you want. I know what you mean about it being personal. Private. But if it was something you decided to trust me with, I promise I wouldn’t let you down.”
Cade blinked, hard. He didn’t want to get emotional about this. It had already turned into a much bigger deal than it needed to be, and now he was going to start blubbering just because somebody said something nice to him? No. He could retain at least alittleself-respect, surely. “It’s out of your way,” he said.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know where I’m going. Maybe my family lives down the street from yours and spendswaytoo much of their income on spoiling their son.”
“Oh, Aiden.” Cade made himself sound disappointed. “Just when I thought we were being honest with each other and taking our relationship to a whole new level, you want to mislead me?”
“No misleading,” Aiden said quickly. “I grew up in Lake Forest. On the water. We have a housekeeper. Awhiteone, who speaks perfect English. Born in America. I expect we pay extra for all that. My dad’s a CEO and my mom does charity stuff and works part time at a museum. We have a summer house in Canada and go skiing every winter. We usually go south in the winter too. We’re pretty rich.”
“Your dad gave you a classic Mustang because his wife wouldn’t let him drive it anymore,” Cade added. “Now he drives a Lexus. Your mom… I’m going to guess a Mercedes. She probably rode horses when she was younger—maybe she still does. You and your dad golf together and sometimes play tennis. In high school you played… soccer? Or maybe did crew. You like Abercrombie, but sometimes Fitch is a bit annoying.”
“You’re wrong on that one,” Aiden interjected. “I like both AbercrombieandFitch.”
Cade smiled at him. “You grew up lucky. But you didn’t let it spoil you. Not completely.”
“Iamlucky,” Aiden said. He wasn’t bragging, but he didn’t sound embarrassed, either. “Not just with money. My parents are both really solid. We all get along really well. And I don’t have siblings, but I have cousins that I love to death. My grandparents on both sides are healthy and really supportive.”
“Golden retriever?”
Aiden’s smile widened. “Yellow lab, asshole. Shows what you know!”
“I guess you’re not a cliché after all,” Cade said. He wasn’t sure why he was comfortable teasing Aiden like he was, but it felt okay. He supposed he somehow trusted Aiden not to be offended.
“How ’bout you?” Aiden asked. He sounded tentative, as if he knew it wasn’t going to be as much fun to play the guessing game with Cade’s background.
Cade sighed. He had no idea why, but he wanted to tell the truth. “No cars. No cousins or grandparents. Well, I guess there might be. There kind of had to be grandparents at some point, right? But nobody we’re in touch with. No dog. My parents? My dad’s on partial disability from the First Gulf War. Nothing too specific, and not disabled enough to keep him from getting my mom pregnant when he came back. They’re both….” He was sorry he’d started, but he figured he might as well get it all out, now that he’d said some of it. “They don’t work. They own their house, somehow. It’s a shithole, no maintenance done for a long time, but no mortgage payments, at least. I think maybe they inherited it, but neither one of them ever talks about anyone in their families. They rent a room out, sometimes.” They got food stamps, and went to the food bank and took advantage of whatever other charities they could find. There was never any extra money, but there was always enough to buy booze. That was the priority. But Cade had said enough. He glanced over at Aiden and knew that he’d said far, far more than enough.
“Shit, Cade,” Aiden said quietly, and Cade was tempted once again to go for the door handle. But something made him stay, something kept him anchored in place as Aiden shook his head and said, “Fuck. And you’re top of your class, now. In a really hard program, at a pretty good school. Do you know howincrediblethat is, Cade? How mind-blowinglyawesomeyou are for pulling things together and making that happen?”
“I don’t think it’smind-blowing,” Cade started, but Aiden interrupted him.
“Mind-blowing,” he insisted. “My mind is fuckingblown. Seriously. I knew you were hot and I knew you were cool, but I didn’t know you were—”
“Lukewarm?” Cade suggested. “That’s about the only temperature left.”
“Don’t make fun of my limited vocabulary,” Aiden protested. “We can’t all be mind-blowing geniuses.”
“Sorry.”
“I want to drive you home,” Aiden said. He wasn’t insisting, just making a statement. “If you’d let me. I’d like to.”
It took Cade a moment to reorient himself now that the conversation had shifted back to something more concrete. Concrete, and scary. But something about Aiden inspired trust. “Okay,” Cade said in a small voice.
“Yeah?” Aiden said. His smile was back, and it was directed full force at Cade. It wasn’t merely an expression of happiness, Cade realized. That was there, certainly. But there was also affection, and optimism, and a trace of something almost sad, like a tiny recognition that Aiden was happy inspiteof the world around him, not because of it. Aiden wasn’t blind, but he chose to focus on beauty instead of ugliness.
“Yeah,” Cade said. He leaned back into the seat but kept his head turned so he could watch Aiden as he drove back onto the highway. Cade knew it wasn’t a good long-term strategy, but for the time being, he let himself focus on the beauty instead of the ugliness too. And with Aiden, there was so much beauty to see.
Chapter Six
“Huh,” Aidensaid. He slouched down a little to get a better view through the windshield of the parked Mustang. “I was expecting something a bit more dramatic. I mean, this isn’t a great neighborhood, obviously. But the house? Well, maybe it’d look worse in the daylight. At night, it just looks a little small.”
“You were expecting…?”
“I think something from a war movie,” Aiden confessed. “Like, downtown Mogadishu or something.”
