A Mended Man (The Men of Halfway House Book 4) (38 page)

"Wherever you want to go is fine. You're always cooking and you stay in the house unless you've got an appointment, so I figured a break would be nice. To get out, do something…different. As long as I can pick a steak, I'm fine with any place you want to go."

"You choose the spot. Surprise me," Jessie said.

"Okay."

"So where are we going?"

"Uh, I thought you said to surprise you?"

Jessie bit his lip, trying to disguise the humor at seeing Aidan squirm. He figured Aidan was probably getting a little edgy lately, always giving in and letting Jessie get his way each time. "I need to know what to wear."

"A suit. Definitely a suit. A dark one. Either the blue one or the charcoal."

"So it's a date?" Jessie asked, trying to contain the flutter in his chest. He cherished their time hanging out on the couch or back porch but going out in public together? Definitely one heck of a milestone.

"Uh, okay," Aidan said with a pinched expression.

"It's not a date?"

Aidan rubbed the back of his neck. "If you want to do something else too, we can."

"We don't have to do anything else. Dinner's fine."

"Okay. So it's
not
a date?" Aidan said, scratching his stubble.

Jessie hid a grin at Aidan's confusion. "How about you tell me. Do you want it to be a date?"

"I want to take you out to dinner. I want you to wear a suit, because you look hot as hell in them. If that makes it a date, then cool. It's a date. But if I have to do something else to make it a date, like a movie or…fuck if I know…a walk on the beach or something. Let me know and we'll do that too."

Jessie wrapped his arms around Aidan's neck. "Where did you get that from?"

"Google."

"I think you better leave the research to me." Jessie chuckled.

"As long as you wear your suit." Aidan snaked his arms around Jessie's waist and leaned in for a quick kiss.

Jessie nuzzled Aidan's neck. "And you need to keep your stubble. It's hot."

"You like soft balls and hard stubble. I think you're confused regarding what you want."

"I know exactly what I want. I want all of you, soft and hard and everything in between."

"Mmm." Aidan tugged Jessie closer and kissed his temple. "By the way…"

"Yeah?"

"You're cutting into our date time."

Jessie smiled, hearing his words from their other night repeated. He inched back, easing out of the embrace. "Then get your ass in the shower so we can get going."

"This is nice," Jessie said, sipping his wine. He set his glass down and crossed his arms, leaning forward to rest them on the table. Damn, he wanted to reach out and touch Aidan. "People are staring."

"Of course they are. Look at you."

"I think they're staring at you," Jessie said.

Aidan pursed his lips and finished the last of his water. "This looks like my standard issue work clothes. Trust me, they're looking at you." He wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin to the side.

"You trimmed your stubble." Jessie rested his chin against his fist, unable to tear his eyes away from Aidan. "I like that."

Aidan delivered a wicked, teasing grin. "Yeah?"

"Oh yeah." He bit his lip when the tip of Aidan's boot brushed against his leg. His heartbeat sped at Aidan's forwardness. In. Public.
I don't care if what he's doing is hidden by the tablecloth. It's still out in public.
"Is the big tough detective playing footsie with me?"

Aidan crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward, pitching his voice low. "I want to make sure you remember I'm the one here with you while everyone's busy staring, drooling over you in that dark suit."

He quietly laughed. He slipped his socked foot out of his dress shoe and slid it up, inside Aidan's pant leg.

Aidan stilled, his focus steady.

Jessie withdrew his foot after a few seconds, not wanting to push his luck. He leaned forward in his seat, crossing his arms on the table, mirroring Aidan's pose. "Make no mistake. I know damn well who I'm here with. And I know who the hell I'm going home with too."

Aidan slowly inhaled, his lips parting on an equally measured exhale. "Where the hell have you been my whole life?"

"Waiting for you."

"Fuck," Aidan said, under his breath. "Let's get out of here."

"Did you want to wait for the dessert menu?"

"If you want to, we can…or I can pour something sweet over you at home and lick it off." Aidan's jaw muscles twitched, the gold flecks in his eyes seemed to kindle with the reflecting flicker of the candle at the center of the table.

Jessie's arm shot up, pointing toward the server walking in their direction. "Check please."

Jessie dried the glasses while Aidan washed the last of the dishes. Aidan silently focused on the task, but his mind seemed to wander a million miles away. He handed Jessie the dish and rinsed out the sink. He slung the towel over his shoulder and crossed his arms, his face still showcasing the same frown for the last ten minutes. "The other day, when we were talking about names, and you said I was shutting you out," he finally said.

Jessie waited for Aidan to continue, refusing to interrupt him. The "other day" had actually been weeks ago. So he'd obviously mulled it over, chewed on the topic, and still toyed with it in his mind for a while.

"When you said my name meant little fire."

Jessie nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"Made me think back, when I was a kid."

Jessie waited.

Aidan looked down. "It's stupid."

"Not if it shuts you down like this. It's obviously important."

Aidan remained quiet for a while, long enough for him to assume Aidan had given up on whatever he was going to say, until he decided to resume the conversation. "My mom was pregnant with twins."

Jessie stilled. "When?"

"I had a sister. Nadia." He looked over to Jessie then turned away, folding the towel over the oven handle to dry. "We were fraternal twins. I guess it's like those parents who name their kids with the same first letter or dress them up in the same outfits or something. My mom thought it would be cute to have the names be the same. Just, opposite I guess because we were boy and girl twins." He shrugged, but the frown remained.

"What happened?"

"She died two weeks after we were born. She was really small and wasn't strong enough." Aidan quieted, almost to a whisper. "I've never told anyone that."

Jessie took the two steps to reach him. He tugged Aidan's hand and led him to the couch to sit. "Did your parents tell you?"

Aidan shook his head. "I found a small box of stuff one day, hidden in the back of the closet. I was a pint-sized, nosy little shit. I asked my mom about it. She said it wasn't something they talked about because they never wanted me to feel as if I wasn't enough or as if I were to blame. Here's the weird thing…and I don't really know how to explain it. I don't remember her. I mean, I was two weeks old. But I knew
something
was missing…I just never really had a clue what it was. But after that day, it all made sense."

"What about your dad? Did you talk to him about it?"

Aidan quieted again. He looked down at his hands and pushed his thumb into his palm. Jessie placed his hand in Aidan's and laced their fingers, knowing the contact often eased him.

"My dad was probably one of the most easygoing guys in the world," Aidan continued. "Always smiling, never angry, and he never raised his voice. Ever. Everyone loved him and he lived for the shop. Even when he wasn't there, he was working on a car in the garage at home. But it's as if I couldn't communicate with him. I mean, the man spoke cars and I spoke sports. Two very different languages," he said, distantly. "I mentioned Nadia once and he cut me off before I could say anything more. He refused to talk about her. The look in his eyes scared me to death. It was pure rage and pain and I swore I never wanted to see that look in his eyes again. It was so out of character and I didn't want to be the one to trigger that in him. I heard him screaming at my mom that night, wondering how I found out. That was the only time I had ever heard him scream in my life. He was so fucking mad," he said, almost in a whisper. He took Jessie's hand between his two, staring at them for some time before he continued again.

"He took the box and burned everything in it. Afterward, he couldn't stop crying and apologized to my mom for having done that. Said he wasn't thinking and now he had nothing of hers to look at or touch." Aidan quieted. "I shouldn't have said anything to him about her."

Jessie closed his eyes and leaned into Aidan. He couldn't imagine being so young, carrying the burden of such guilt and blame for the loss of a sibling.

"I always wondered if maybe Nadia would have been more like Ty, into cars and stuff." Aidan shrugged. "If she would have fit better."

He wanted to yell at Aidan for the thought Jessie was positive had crossed his mind in that moment—
would it have been better if she had survived instead
. He rubbed Aidan's shoulder and didn't say a word.

"About a year after all that happened, my mom found out she was pregnant again. My parents made this big deal about wanting me to name my new baby brother…be a part of the whole thing. I couldn't do it at first." Aidan seemed distant. "After that shitstorm I caused, I didn't want to do anything to hurt them ever again. So I focused on school, my homework, whatever I needed to get through the day and not give them any trouble. But I…" He looked up, the pain screaming from his expression. "I felt like I was a constant reminder."

He remembered something Aidan had said a while ago:
I feel as if I've been cursed since birth to be alone
. He needed to steer the conversation away from the melancholy thoughts. "How did you come up with Ty's name?"

"They kept pushing about the name, and after a while, I…really wanted a brother." Aidan looked away and blew out a heavy breath. "I figured maybe my little brother could bridge that gap between us. Somehow be the link that tied me to my family so I wouldn't feel like the odd man out. So I wouldn't feel so…alone. He turned out to be that and so much more," he said with a lopsided grin. He turned his body slightly toward Jessie. "It's as if he put a big bandage on this hole I had. You know? Like the wound was still there but somehow better and didn't hurt as much. Anyways, I figured Ty with a y was better than the i-e. Because seriously, who names their kid after a noose. He would have gotten picked on and I would have been busy kicking ass."

Jessie smiled. Those little things Aidan said sometimes meant the most. "You could have called him Link or Bridge."

"I'm not that deep. I was a troublemaker and not very creative. I spared him the future torture of a nickname. At least I thought I had until that pain in the ass future-brother-in-law of mine came along. Anyways, it's short. It was supposed to be easy."

"Does he know that's why you named him that?" Jessie asked.

"I told him it would make life easier and people wouldn't come up with stupid nicknames."

"Not that. The other part. You should tell him. I think he'd like to know how important he is to you, even before he was born."

"Why does it matter now?" Aidan looked genuinely confused. "He knows he's important to me."

"It matters. And I'm sure he'd like to know about Nadia, too."

Aidan vehemently shook his head. "Absolutely not. I won't have him hating me because I took away a chance at having a sister."

"Is that what you think?"

"It's a fact. And I'm not going to have him hate me because I survived and she didn't."

"Do you hate your brother?"

"What the fuck?" Aidan's face contorted. "Of course not! What the hell kind of question—"

"He survived the accident and your parents didn't. Do you love him any less?"

Aidan stilled. "No," he said on a gasp. He didn't move, looking off to nothing in particular as if lost in thought. His features transitioned into a pained expression, his shoulders hunched, and he screwed his eyes shut as if a sudden realization had blindsided him. He buried his head in his hands. "Oh God. Is that what he thinks?"

Jessie stroked his back, hoping to ease the building tension. "You have no idea what he thinks about the accident unless you talk to him. Tell him, Aidan. I think he'll understand how you feel, more than you can imagine. And I think it'll mean the world to him that you talk to him about stuff like this. This is something, not just about you, but about the
both
of you. Not just about your sister but your parents. You both share the same loss."

"I've never talked to Ty about the accident. I figured he didn't want to relive it. I just thought it was best to focus on his recovery," he whispered before his voice trailed off.

Jessie pulled Aidan into an embrace and stroked the back of his hair when Aidan leaned on his shoulder. "Open the door of communication and let Ty know it's okay to discuss it with you. Then leave it up to him. What if he blames himself and thinks you feel the same? He won't ever approach you about it."

Aidan's arms wrapped around Jessie. "You're like my human translator."