“Two days ago.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Aiden turned around. He needed to see Cade’s face for this. “So you went along with him? For two days? You’ve already—” Aiden couldn’t finish the sentence, but he could see Cade’s expression change as the unspoken words sunk in.
“No!” Cade said. He sounded afraid, but insistent. “No. I was trying to figure something out. I didn’t—there was no way—I mean, I thought about it, but only as something I could never do.” He shook his head and stared intently at Aiden, his eyes wide.Thiswas what Cade needed Aiden to believe. “I’ve never cheated on you, and I never would have. I was trying to think of ways to buy time, and to get rid of him. When he said he wanted to fly home with me, that’s when I knew I had to tell you. I couldn’t think of any way out of it.”
And now that Aiden was pretty sure he’d heard the whole thing, his emotions switched back on. “You couldn’t think of any way to keeplyingto me. To keep pretending you’re the Monk? Seriously? That was your fucking nickname? Jesus Christ, Cade, you had the nerve to get jealous aboutmyboyfriends? You were upset because I’d been in my shower with other guys before you? How many fucking guys have you been with, Cade?” Aiden knew he was yelling, but he wasn’t interested in trying to stop. “Seriously. You’re smart enough to do the math, right? Eight months of it? Did you go out every night, or take weekends off? Was it just one guy a night, or a few? How many were repeat customers?How many guys have you fucked?”
Cade didn’t answer, and Aiden couldn’t look at him anymore. He didn’t want to see the expression on Cade’s face, as ifCadewas the one hurt by all this. And Aiden had more questions, even if he didn’t really want to hear the answers. “Did you have favorites? Did you get off on it, Cade? Did they make you come? DidUncle Warrenmake you come? Did he?” A quick look at Cade, staring at him with round, wet eyes, and Aiden couldn’t stand to be there anymore.
He whirled and headed into the forest.Nottoward the fort, where Cade had lain in his arms and not told him about his connection to Uncle Warren.Nottoward the cliff face, where Aiden had last touched Cade. He needed somewhere Cade had never been. Somewhere he could find some peace, some air, some way to make this all make sense.
He wasn’t sure the forest was big enough to give him all the space he needed. Quite possibly thecountrywasn’t big enough. But he couldn’t be around Cade right then, not until…. Until what? He didn’t know. And that was the most bewildering thing of all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aiden walkedfor a long time. He didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings. He found an old logging road and followed it. When it was time to return, he’d simply retrace his steps.
But when would it be time to return? After a couple hours, when the sun got hot and his mouth got dry, he turned around, but he wasn’t sure he was actually ready to talk about any of it.
Cade had an ugly past. Cade hadn’t told him about it. It was the second part that hurt most. If Cade had told Aiden, right at the start… but why should Cade have been expected to share his secrets with someone he barely knew? So Cade should have told him later. But when, exactly? When was the right time for telling your boyfriend you used to sell sex?
Probably when they’d startedhavingsex. Yeah, that would have been a good time. That first night, after the frat Christmas party, when Cade had… when he’d said he didn’t want Aiden to watch him strip. When he’d said he didn’t want to perform, because he wanted it to just be the two of them. He’d been thinking about other men and past experiences, and he’d been trying to set things with Aiden apart. And Aiden hadn’t asked any questions. He’d never really asked that many questions. He’d let Cade tell him things when it felt right to Cade.
It probably wasn’t too surprising that Cade had never thought the time was right for a discussion of certain aspects of his past. Aiden tried to imagine how it would have felt to bring it up. Cade already thought of himself as an outsider, someone who could never fit into Aiden’s easy, golden life. He wouldn’t have wanted to add one more difference, one more reason he wasn’t one of Aiden’s crowd.
Yeah, there were lots of reasons. Lots of excuses. But what it all came down to, Aiden realized as he stalked back toward the cottage, was that Cade hadn’t trusted him. He hadn’t trustedthem, as a couple. Even when he’d seen Warren and known he was in trouble, he hadn’t told Aiden. He hadn’t believed their relationship was strong enough to withstand the truth. He must have known Aiden wouldn’t share the secret with others, so itwasn’t about what anyone else would think. It was all about Aiden. Cade hadn’t thought Aiden would be able to handle it. Had he been right?
Aiden needed to figure that out, not only for Cade, but for himself. He was almost jogging by the time he came out of the forest and headed for the cottage. He saw his mother on the porch, a glass of wine beside her as she read something on her tablet, and the normalcy of the scene was jolting. Didn’t she realize what had happened? Didn’t she understand how the world had been shaken?
When she looked up, he saw the tightness around her eyes and realized that at least some of her calmness was an act. “You’re back,” she said. “Good. I was starting to worry.”
“Where’s Cade?”
She gave him a blank look, then glanced down at her watch. “On the runway, I imagine. Assuming that the hitchhiking worked as well as he seemed to think it was going to and he actually made it down in time.”
Aiden stared at her. He’d been gone for hours. He’d been lost in his own thoughts, his own worries, and he hadn’t even wondered what Cade had been doing. Sitting down here, waiting quietly for Aiden to arrive? Like a discarded toy, waiting to see if it would be picked up again. No. Cade had planned to go back to Chicago, and he’d followed his plan. Aiden had given him no reason not to.
“You didn’t drive him?” Aiden asked, as if that was important. As if it was his mother who’d let Cade down.
“I offered. He declined.” She sat up a little straighter. “Now, we need to sort out whatever’s going on between him and Warren. I’m sorry if this is a touchy subject, Aiden, but whatever happened here… is Cade still going to be a part of your life? Are you still planning to share an apartment with him? Because if so, we need to set some ground rules, I think. If Cade’s done half of the things Warren’s said—”
“Warren’s a lying sack of shit. I have no idea what he said after we left, but everything he said before was a complete lie. Jesus, he’s not stillhere, is he?” Aiden wasn’t sure he’d be able to look at the man, not after hearing Cade’s story.
“He’s down at the dock with your father.”
“He’s still here.” Aiden’s stomach churned. A part of him wanted to confront the man, throw his ugliness in his face and make him choke on it all. But another part wanted to hide away. Warren was his father’s friend. He was an adult, someone who’d always been there, jovial and friendly, sure, but an authority figure as well. He’d reminded Aiden of the cottage rules, made sure he was wearing a life jacket when he went boating, given him tips on his golf swing, and driven him around before Aiden had his license.
Had he been fucking barely legal prostitutes the whole time? Had he been… what had Cade said? Had he been doing things that weren’t “regular stuff”? What the hell did that even mean?
“I’m leaving. I’ve got to go talk to Cade. But trust me, Mom, you don’t want Warren here. He’s not….” How much could Aiden say without violating Cade’s confidence, and without making it even more difficult for his mother to accept Cade in the future? Aiden had a sudden burst of sympathy for Cade’s need to get away and find somewhere quiet that he couldthink. “I’m going to call the airline,” he said. Getting to Cade was the important thing.
But right then Warren appeared at the side of the deck, Aiden’s father trailing behind him, looking a bit frustrated by the interruption to his precious vacation time.
“Aiden!” Warren exclaimed. He was as jovial as he had always been, his smile as genuine and warm. “I thought I saw you coming down from the hill.” He stepped a little closer. “I think you and I should talk, Aiden. Man to man. I think it’d be best for you, and for Cade, if—”
“Don’t say his name.” Aiden wasn’t sure where the rage had come from, but he was glad it was there. It felt good. Pure. “Don’t talk about him, don’t think about him. And don’t you ever,evertouch him again.”
