Aaron entered the cabin he shared with Belmont, a hand already extended toward the bottle of whiskey he kept on the nightstand. His fucking head was pounding like a giant demanding entry to a castle—the inside of his esophagus felt like it’d been scrubbed with bashed-up asphalt. The drive home seemed like it had taken place ten years ago, not one single turn or stoplight recalled.
Ridiculous. The whole situation was so stupid, he felt a laugh form in his throat. Someone had to be playing an elaborate trick on him. Right? The kind of trick that made his fists shake with their need to plow through a window? Or rip out his hair? Only…no. No one in this world knew him well enough to crawl up inside his psyche and find something to wreck his head like this. Not when Aaron himself hadn’t even been aware of the apparent…weakness.
That is what he was dealing with. A weakness. Something about Grace—unbelievable that a mental recitation of her name made breathing awkward—forced him to reexamine himself and his business, and that was a dangerous idea. You plowed forward, making calls that moved you to the next level. You took steps to ensure you couldn’t get burned. And you sure as hell didn’t question those tactics or look past the surface to determine what they meant about you. As a person.
Aaron registered Belmont’s presence in the room, but didn’t acknowledge his brother in any way. Taking the time to throw an insult across the room would mean delaying his trip to the bottom of the whiskey bottle, and he would avoid distractions at all costs. But that first slide of fire down his throat didn’t deliver the liquid salvation he’d been hoping for. Instead, he remembered the maze of silence that had descended in the Suburban after he’d told Grace about his role with the campaign, how she had locked up, that haunted look replacing the joy in her eyes. When he remembered how flippant he’d sounded about something that obviously resonated with her, his stomach threatened to lose his first draw of liquor.
What was it? What had happened to her? The not knowing was goddamn insufferable. That’s what it was. Because he dealt in information. He didn’t like living in the dark about anything. Not just Grace.
Right. Right, you giant, fantastic, fucking liar.
“Did you feel it?” Aaron didn’t even realize he’d decided to speak until his voice broke the cabin’s thick silence. “When we pulled up at the campgrounds. Did you feel that prickle on the back of your neck? Should have left then.”
Great. He’d lost his mind. Maybe he fit right in with the Clarksons after all.
Belmont hadn’t moved from his epic brooding session, sitting against the far wall in a chair, arms crossed. “Been feeling it most of the trip.”
Aaron’s head jerked up when his brother actually answered one of his questions. Possibly for the first time since they’d left California. It figured that the first thing out of Aaron’s mouth to make zero sense got the response. “Yeah? Well, I don’t believe in voodoo. I don’t feel prickles. And I don’t dance in fields with hippie girls.”
The chair creaked as Belmont leaned forward, clasping both hands between his knees, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Didn’t mean her to run into me like that.” He cleared his throat, but his voice still contained the usual amount of rust when he spoke again. “She didn’t let me get an apology together.”
“She’s—” Aaron stopped, angry at himself for feeling such a pressing need to reassure someone who hadn’t given enough of a shit to speak with him more than a few times over the last decade. “I don’t know if she’s okay,” he said instead, wishing the honesty didn’t feel so good. “I won’t know anymore. When I met her, I didn’t realize I’d be working for her father. And it doesn’t matter. Okay? It doesn’t matter because she finally figured me out. She saw me.”
Liquid sloshed in the glass bottle as Aaron tipped it back, hoping this time when the burn hit his belly, he would stop seeing how beautiful Grace had looked with snow in her hair, eyes lit up toward the sky. You feel it, too? You feel the good we did? Had he? Maybe for a second? He sure as shit wasn’t feeling it now.
“What did she see?” Belmont asked. It took Aaron several beats to gather a vague memory of what they’d been talking about, and oddly, his brother seemed to realize his head was somewhere else. Seemed to understand the affliction, even if he was clearly uncomfortable repeating himself. Talking at all, probably. “You said she saw you. What did she see?”
This was the danger zone. Like lying down on an operating table and having his ribs pried open without the benefit of sedation. But miracle of miracles, Belmont was actually conversing with him, and maybe tomorrow he would refuse to admit it, but talking about Grace was making the sudden separation from her easier. When he woke in the a.m., perhaps the whole ordeal would be off his chest, and he could get back to business. “She saw a manipulator. That’s what you see, too. I see it when I look in the mirror. I’m good at it. And I own it. I’m not ashamed of it.”
Belmont lifted an eyebrow, as if to say, If you say so.
Aaron pushed to his feet with a curse, taking another long swig of liquor. “You know how freeing it is? Admitting something most people would hide from or make excuses for?” His declarations rang hollow, giving him pause. He’d always thought the first time he’d made those statements out loud, they’d be rife with conviction. Hoping to bolster himself with more whiskey, he brought the bottle to his mouth, but it dropped to his side before a drop passed his lips. “Something bad happened to her. She won’t tell me what. But I remind her of it.” His laughter scattered about the cabin. “What can I possibly do about that, right? Fuck all, is what. I just have to move forward.”
Something about what Aaron had said drew Belmont’s full attention. He leaned back in his chair, brow furrowed in what most people would interpret as a scowl, but Aaron knew was just his brother’s resting asshole face.
If Aaron hadn’t been distracted, it would have occurred to him sooner why his mentioning Grace’s unknown tragedy interested Belmont so much. It was similar to his own experience of being trapped in the well at age eight, after wandering off during a school field trip. Four days had passed until he’d been discovered, his voice gone from shouting for help. It wasn’t until later, when he’d regained his speech, that Belmont explained he’d screamed so much in the beginning, he’d had no voice left to call out when he heard people walking past later on. For four days. Ironically, with the return of his voice, Belmont had stopped speaking unless completely necessary and brought the pattern into adulthood with him.
“Do you want to leave it like that?” Belmont rumbled. “With her thinking of something bad and coming up with you?”
“I don’t have a choice,” Aaron said. “And she wouldn’t be the only one who thought of something shitty and recalled my face. You do it, don’t you?” Now that the question was out, Aaron couldn’t take it back. Maybe it was the whiskey or dire need for a distraction, but it was out now. “I was the one who found you in the well, wasn’t I? At your worst moment, tell me you don’t think of my face staring down at you.”
Belmont’s blue eyes—so different from the golden brown ones owned by the other three Clarkson siblings—seemed to lighten. Or maybe Aaron was just remembering the bright blue sky dredged from his memory bank, how it seemed to reflect off his brother so far below, encasing his curled-up form in sunshine. “Is that what you think?” Belmont asked.
It was too much. Past and present conspiring to wreck his head. For someone who almost never shined a spotlight inward, the excessive illumination set off alarm bells. Answers were usually his best friend, but in this case, maybe even when it came to Grace, they were the enemy. Aaron propelled himself toward the bathroom door, closing himself in before another word could be exchanged. Thinking fast, he reached over and turned on the shower, before sliding down the wall to the floor and taking another long drink of whiskey.
Tonight was an anomaly. Tomorrow he would resume his purpose and ignore the bullshit trying to make its way beneath his skin. It wouldn’t succeed.
His final thought before turning off the shower and slipping into unconsciousness was of Grace dropping four red ribbons into his palm. And even as he berated himself for the wussy gesture he’d made cutting up his tie, Aaron’s hand slipped into his pants pocket to close around them, dragging them out and falling asleep with them pressed to his mouth.
When Aaron awoke to a head full of wet cement eight hours later, he stumbled to the cabin’s front door—noting Belmont’s bed was empty—hoping a breath of fresh air would calm the roiling whiskey waves in his stomach.
He was greeted by a sea of news cameras, instead.
“What is your name? State your name toward the camera, please.”
“Is it true you stole thirty thousand dollars in campaign money from Senator Pendleton and left it at a YouthAspire shelter last night?”
“Do you consider yourself a modern-day Robin Hood?”
What. The fuck.