At least Uncle Warren had been a good sport about it. He’d laughed and given Cade a hug. And, fine, Cade wasn’t a hugger, but he’d pushed away from Warren like the guy’d been assaulting him or something. Yeah, Cade was not making any kind of an effort to enjoy this trip.
Aiden sat up in his bed. The window was open and cool morning air flowed over his bare chest. He could hear the songs of birds and bugs, smell the forest. It was a summer morning full of promise and he should have felt alive and excited, there in his favorite place in the world, surrounded by the people he loved. Instead, he felt dull and reluctant. He had to go find Cade now. He had to put on a smiling face and try to ignore Cade’s sullenness. He had to pretend he didn’t see his mother’s impatience or his father’s concern. For the first time ever, he wasn’t looking forward to spending time with Cade.
He flopped back on the mattress. The whole thing was a mess. Aiden was working his ass off to make it work, and Cade wasn’t even trying. So, yeah, there was some guilt, but mostly he was pissed off.
It wasn’t a natural state for him, and he had to take a few minutes to figure out how to deal with it. Communication, he was pretty sure. He’d try to say it nicely, but he needed to make it clear he was… disappointed? Was that too much like something his mom would say? But, dammit, hewasdisappointed. He’d thought Cade would rise to the challenge, and instead Cade was diving into the depths of failure, swimming as hard as he could in the wrong damn direction.
Yeah. It was time for a talk. Aiden threw his legs over the side of the bed and grabbed his jeans. It was pretty early, so Cade was probably still asleep in the guest room. The guest room….
Maybe Aiden should have fought harder against his mother’s separate bedrooms rule, but by the time Cade had sulked his way through dinner on the night after they’d gone swimming, Aiden had decided that a little time alone might be good for both of them. And then after the golf day? Aiden hadn’t felt like making a huge effort then, either.
He stopped with his hand on the door handle. What had all that looked like from Cade’s perspective? Aiden had said he’d take on his mother, and he hadn’t. Sure, it was hard to call her on the chilliness. He couldn’tmakeher like somebody, and it wasn’t like she was actually being clearly, over-the-top rude about anything. But he’d told Cade he’d talk to her about the bedrooms, and he hadn’t done it. The one thing hecouldhave actually done to make Cade feel more welcome, and he’d let it go.
He sighed, and made himself keep moving. Maybe this conversation wasn’t going to go quite the way he’d thought it was going to. Maybe it would be less of a lecture on Cade’s attitude and more of a discussion on how they could both improve. Hell, maybe it’d be a fight. They hadn’t really had a big one of those, yet. Might be best not to have their first at the family cottage with an audience, but there was no way they could go through another three days like the last two.
The guest room door was slightly ajar and Aiden nudged it open a little further, enough so he could peek inside. If Cade was still asleep, maybe Aiden wouldn’t wake him.
But it wasn’t Cade in the room. It was Uncle Warren. He was sitting on the tidily made bed, looking at the door like he was waiting for it to open. But when he saw Aiden, he stood up quickly.
“Oh. Hi. Good morning.”
“Hi,” Aiden said cautiously. “Are you looking for Cade?”
“Hmmm? Oh, no. This is his room? Yeah, of course it is. I heard something strange, and I followed the noise down here. Did you hear it? A sort of scratching, scurrying sound? Louder than a mouse would have been. I was worried that maybe a squirrel had found its way into the attic or something.”
“I didn’t hear it.”
They stood quietly for a moment then Uncle Warren shrugged. “It’s gone now. I’ll mention it to your dad, but maybe it was on the roof. Like I said, I heard it from the hallway and followed it down here, but I didn’t hear it once I was in the room. I was just sitting there, waiting to see if I could hear it again.”
Aiden supposed it made sense. There was something a little strange about Uncle Warren’s expression, maybe, but there was often something a little strange about Uncle Warren. He could be quirky, Aiden’s mom said.
So Aiden didn’t worry any more about it. He had more serious concerns and headed down the stairs to see if he could find the biggest of his worries. “You seen Cade?” he asked his father in the kitchen.
“No, not yet.” His father turned away from the fruit he’d been chopping and leaned back against the counter, classic dad-speak for inviting a conversation. But Aiden honestly had no idea what he’d say to his dad about any of it. Not yet.
So he headed outside and made a quick circuit of the cottage. His mom didn’t seem to have invited anyone over for breakfast, for a change, so the property was pretty abandoned. Aiden eventually made his way down to the shore and along to the spot where Cade had been sitting that first morning. And there he was again, staring out at the lake.
“Looking for a little serenity?” Aiden asked. His voice had been quiet, but Cade still jumped in surprise.
“I guess I could use it,” Cade said after taking a moment to collect himself.
“What do you want to do today?”
There was no reason for Cade to look startled by the question, and Aiden frowned in irritated confusion. “What’s going on?” he asked, drawing closer. “You’re not right. You’re not being yourself. I knowyou’re not a big fan of all this family togetherness, but there’s something more bothering you. Isn’t there?”
Cade stared at the lake. After too long of a pause he finally said, “I think maybe I should go home. I could change my flight. Right? Changing flights—they let you do that?”
“What? Like, the airline? Yeah, they’d let you, as long as they had seats available. And my dad can always pull strings because his company is a big client. But, why? I mean, okay, I know why. You’re clearly having a really shitty time. But, Cade, you’re going to give up? Going to quit? You know how important it is for me to be here, and if you go home now, does that mean you never come back? That’s it, forever? You’re just going to hate my cottage forever.” It sounded petty. Why was it a big deal if Cade didn’t like the cottage? But it was more than that.
“What else are you going to avoid? What other stuff that I love are you going to hate? Parties, the frat, golf, my family, Aspen, the cottage… what else? I spent half of last semester in the damn library with you, Cade! We spent all the rest of our time at your apartment, and it’s not like it was some sort of luxury man cave. It was a shithole, but I didn’t care because you were there! And now I finally get you to do one damn thing for me, one thing that I like, and you want to bail halfway through. Seriously, Cade?”
Cade looked so miserable that Aiden had to work hard to stay angry. He had a point, and he knew it. But dammit, he hated to see Cade looking that way. “Can you at least… can you explain it to me? You told me all that introvert stuff, and I kind of get it. So this might be kind of tiring, being around people all the time. But there’s something more, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me.” Aiden wasn’t sure how he knew that, but as soon as he’d started talking he’d known it was true. He shuffled over and sank onto the ground next to Cade. “What’s going on?”
Cade drew in a shaky breath. “I need to figure some stuff out,” he whispered. “I need to… I don’t know. I want to… to not make a mistake. I want to do the right thing, but….” He looked down at his hands. “I need to figure it out.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Aiden was starting to get a little freaked out. He shifted around so he was in front of Cade and grabbedhis hands. His strong hands, with those long, graceful fingers. They were shaking. “Shit, Cade, this is more than just not liking my cottage.”
Cade made a sound between a laugh and a sob, and then he pulled his hands away from Aiden’s. “I’ll go home. I’ll figure it out, and when you come back… when you come back I’ll be better.”
