Aerie

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I’ve never been one to sleep in late and, as far as I know, neither are any of the Badd brothers. Tate will occasionally sleep in until maybe nine or so, but that’s rare. Usually, we’re both automatically up by at least seven, and usually earlier; there was always just too much we wanted to do to waste time sleeping all morning, and I figured it’s probably similar with the boys. I know in the few months Corin and I have been…dating, or whatever you want to call this thing…I’ve never known him to sleep later than seven thirty. So, when I’m woken to voices outside the bedroom door, then peer sleepily at the red numerals of the cheap digital alarm clock and see 11:30 a.m., I’m shocked.

I shake Canaan. “Hey.”

He mumbles, still mostly asleep. “Whazzit.”

“It’s eleven thirty in the morning, Cane.”

“Mmmm-fmmm.”

“And I think your brother is home, and about to come in.”

“Hnnnn?”

“Canaan, wake up, honey.”

“Nnnng.”

“I don’t want him to come in and find us in his bed like this.”

“Fug’im. Not scared of the dumb ol’ gorilla.”

“I’m not scared, Canaan, it’s just—”

The door swung open at that moment, and I instinctively tugged the blankets up to my chin, as Baxter stood hulking in the doorway, a stunningly beautiful woman of medium height with jet-black hair peering around his shoulder.

Baxter tilted his head to one side, stepped backward out of the room to glance at the hallway. “Yo, am I—this is my bedroom, yeah? Like, I’m not hallucinating?”

Canaan blinked awake, finally, and tossed a wave with one hand while scrubbing his eyes with the other. “Sorry, Bax. Had…um…sleeping arrangement issues, so we borrowed your bed.”

I had the sheet up to my nose, now. “Um. Hi, Bax.”

Baxter’s eyebrow slowly arched upward. “Aerie Kingsley, all snuggled in my bed with my kid brother. How cozy.”

“I’m barely two years younger than you, douchebag. That hardly makes me your kid brother.” Canaan shifted to a sitting position. “Hi, Eva. Nice to see you again.”

She waved. “Hi, Canaan.” Her eyes went to me. “Hi, Aerie. Nice to meet you in person.”

I wiggled my fingers at her. “Hi. Um, could we maybe finish this after I’m dressed?”

Bax snorted. “Sure. Not like I need my bedroom or nothin’.”

Evangeline pulled him backward by the bicep. “Honey, don’t be an ogre.”

“I’m not being an ogre, I just—” Evangeline must have squeezed pretty hard, because he went silent abruptly.

“Baxter.” All she did was say his name, but he sighed, a sound of resignation and irritation.

“Fine, fine, fine.”

Once they closed the door, I slipped out of bed and quickly dressed, while Canaan took his time, stretching, yawning, and scratching, before finally getting out of the bed.

“Canaan, come on,” I huffed.

“What’s the rush? It’s fine. It’s not a big deal.”

“He sounded pretty upset, actually.”

Canaan just laughed. “You’ve clearly never seen Baxter when he’s upset then, that was…that wasn’t even mild irritation.” He tugged on his jeans, zipped and buttoned, and snagged his T-shirt off the floor. “Seriously. Don’t stress.”

“We were in his bed, in his room, without asking.” I was combing my fingers through my hair in an attempt to mitigate bedhead.

“And he’ll be all be like, yo, wash my sheets and maybe call and ask next time, and I’ll be all like, yo, no problem, and that’s that. Quit stressing, babe, for real.”

We left the room, as Canaan shrugged into his shirt. Corin and Tate were nowhere to be seen and the bedroom door was opened, the bed made in Tate’s signature meticulous style; Lucian was kicked back on the couch, a thick paperback in his hands, a pair of red Beats on his ears; Baxter and Evangeline were in the kitchen, leaning side by side against the counter beside the fridge, sharing a knife and a block of cheese.

I hopped up on a different section of counter, and Canaan leaned back between my thighs, accepting the cheese and knife from Baxter.

“So, I guess maybe we should have called you first,” Canaan said, handing me a slice of cheese and then taking one for himself.

Baxter waved a hand, stopping Canaan. “It’s not a big deal. I was just surprised, as much by the fact that Aerie was in the bed with you as that anyone was in my bed. Also not a big deal, but I am curious as to how all this has shaken down. I have been gone for a few months, and it’s understandable that you might wanna borrow my bed for a night.”

“More to the point, actually,” Eva said, “is the fact that now that we’re in Ketchikan, living arrangements need to be reexamined. Especially if it’s not just me being added into the mix, but Tate and Aerie as well.”

Lucian, the headphones now around his neck, glanced at us over the back of the couch. “When it was eight dudes in two three-bedroom apartments, it was a little crowded but manageable. Then it was Bast and Dru, over there, and that was fine. Then it was Zane and Mara, and that made two couples in one apartment, which was pretty tight, but then Zane and Mara moved into their warehouse apartment. But now we’ve got Brock and Claire, and now there’s Bax and Eva, plus Canaan, Corin, Tate, and Aerie. It’s becoming a housing crisis.”

Baxter nodded in agreement. “If all eight of us brothers end up with a serious girlfriend, wife, whatever, it’s gonna be sixteen of us. Zane and Mara have their own place, but the rest of us are all just sort of jamming into the same two apartments. We gotta do something.”

Evangeline sliced a piece of cheese and ate it, then gestured with the knife as she spoke. “Normally, this is where I’d offer to buy or renovate a building, but I’m sort of…well…there’s not much I can do at the moment. I’m sort of dependent on Bax until I figure a few things out.”

I glanced at her. “Doesn’t your father have, like, more money than God?”

She nodded, with a heavy sigh. “Yes, he does. He’s not Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos wealthy, but he has a lot of money, and it’s old money, too. My family is one of those East Coast American aristocracy sort of families.” She glanced up at Bax, and then continued. “But…I didn’t toe the line, so…” She shrugged, as if the rest was obvious.

I frowned at her. “I’m sorry, maybe I’m not understanding. Your father disowned you?”

“That’s a polite way of putting it, yes.”

Baxter’s expression was fierce, angry. “You guys seriously wouldn’t believe it if I told you all the shit that’s gone down.” He bumped her with his hip. “You mind if I share, babe?”

She shrugged. “Go ahead. It’s not a secret.”

“Her pops doesn’t like me much, and that’s putting it lightly.”

“It’s less about you than it is me not obeying him,” Evangeline put in.

“It’s about the fact that your father is a controlling asshole and needs to choke on a dick.”

Evangeline whacked him on the arm, but had to hide a smirk. “That’s a little unnecessarily vulgar, honey.”

“He’s a little unnecessarily a controlling asshole.” Bax swept his gaze over all of us. “She walked away. From him, from everything.”

“My whole life, my father provided me with a generous allowance. The older I got, the greater the allowance, and eventually it was in my own bank account. I’d always been under the impression that this money was mine. Well, a few years ago, when Thomas first began proposing to me and Father began attempting to push me into a relationship with Thomas, I realized just how much control my father had over my life. Especially when Father and I started clashing over my choice of college major.” She wrapped a lock of black hair around her finger and tugged on it. “I began skimming money out of the account Father had opened for me back when I was in high school and I shunted it into an account at a different bank. Just, you know, so I’d have a little money of my own, away from Father’s control, just in case.”

“Sounds smart,” I said. “I take it that didn’t work out as you’d planned?”

Evangeline laughed bitterly. “I rather drastically underestimated my father’s willingness to control every aspect of my life, and the lengths to which he would go. He somehow discovered that other secret account, and because he’s so powerful and influential, he had a word with the owner of the bank and convinced him to sign control of that account over to him, despite the fact that I’d opened it as a legal adult, under my own name, with funds that had never been attached to any kind of a legally binding contract. But…Father has his ways, and got it done. So that money, all those years of carefully and cautiously skimming and transferring, all those years of living frugally at Yale so I would use as little of Father’s money as possible…all for nothing. He had control.

“When he came to get me and bring me home, after my little, um…vacation…with Baxter, he presented me with an ultimatum. He knew about the money, he had control, and he was perfectly willing to let me have it…if I married Thomas. And, oh yeah, he threatened to have Baxter detained.”

“And then I went in, stormed their fancy wedding, punched that slimy ass-hair straight in his pretty-boy mouth, and that got ’em even more riled up.”

Canaan frowned. “Have him detained? Whassat mean?”

“It means he’s played golf with the deputy director of the FBI every week for the last twenty years, so all he has to do is call Mr. Pritchard and mention Baxter’s underground fighting, or offer to put in a word with the president for Mr. Pritchard’s bid for NSA director…and bam, a couple of special agents show up, and Baxter is in jail.”

“Your dad can just ‘put in a word with the president’?” Canaan asked, putting heavy emphasis on the last phrase. “Like, the POTUS?”

“Like the POTUS, yes,” Eva answered. “Like I said, Father is very, very influential. He doesn’t hold a position in the government anymore, but he knows everyone on the Hill and in Washington. And I do mean everyone. He has standing lunch dates with the speaker, golfs with the D-D of the FBI, he was roommates at Yale with the majority whip…” she trailed off, shrugging.

“Damn,” Canaan drawled. “And you made this guy your enemy, Bax?”

“‘I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made,’” Lucian said. “FDR.”

“That’s a nice quote, bro, but what are we gonna do if our brother gets arrested by the FBI? He hasn’t exactly been quiet about his underground fighting, not to mention the gambling that surrounds it.” Canaan pointed at Baxter. “Sounds to me like you’ve got a tiger by the tail, Bax.”

“Would he really send the FBI after Baxter when you’ve very obviously made your choice to go your own way?” I asked. “That seems kind of petty, if you ask me. I can kind of understand using that threat to try to keep you in line, but to carry it out after you made your choice?”

Eva shrugged. “That’s part of the reason we’ve been laying low the last couple months. I doubt my father will ever forgive me, but he might be willing to just let me go without trying to make further trouble out of spite. He’s controlling and manipulative, but he’s never struck me as spiteful.”

“Thomas would, though,” Baxter added. “Thomas is a dick.”

“This is true. But Thomas doesn’t have the ear of the FBI, and Father does.” She sighed. “You embarrassed them all, though, and you took me away from them, which ruined their plans.”

“What do you mean, he ruined their plans by taking you away?” I asked.

She laughed. “Oh, well…Father has been grooming Thomas for the political career I was never interested in. Essentially, he’s the son Father always wanted. Not only was I a girl, I had my own ideas and plans and, in his mind, I was meant to be a quiet compliant girl, meant only to help him play his game his way. He intended me to marry Thomas for political gain. See, you can’t be a serious politician hoping to play in the big leagues and be unmarried—you need a wife. She has to be the perfect accessory, she has to fit an image, further your brand. I was that, for Thomas. The trophy wife, the smiling, party-hosting, perfect-figure, perfect-dress-wearing political tool.”

Canaan snorted. “Maybe I’m dumb at politics, but I don’t get what that has to do with your father.”

“Everything. Father is Thomas’s mentor. Father controls Thomas just as much as he controls me, but in a far more subtle way, and I don’t think Thomas really realizes it. Father has kept the best of his connections for himself, only allowing Thomas the contacts he wants to give him when he wants Thomas to have them. He’ll introduce Thomas to a particular senator when it suits Father’s machinations. He’s a spider with an enormous web, and Thomas is just a strand in that web. Of course, his real plan is to plant Thomas in the Oval Office, which would place Father as Thomas’s chief advisor, and thus one of the most powerful men in the country, beyond even where he is now. And I was always meant to be Thomas’s wife, and that’s an integral role in the whole game. There’s no real power in being first lady, but there is huge power in the optics of it all.”

Eva sighed, waving her hand. “In refusing to play their game, I’m forcing them to figure out a plan B for Thomas’s arm candy trophy wife, and I think Father had always banked on being able to manipulate me into going along with it.”

I was somewhat dumbfounded. “Is this, like, real life, or is it an episode of Scandal?”

Eva laughed. “Aerie, you have no idea. It’s enough to give me a headache.”

“For real, though,” Canaan said, “they wanted you to be the eventual first lady? Like, your boy Thomas really has a shot at being the actual president?”

Eva nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. He’s smart enough to fill the role, but he’s easily manipulated enough that Father can make sure the real power stays with him. Thomas does have the looks and the charisma to pull it off, that’s the scary thing. He’s good at politics, too. If you can look past the fact that he’s a philandering, womanizing, arrogant asshole, he’s actually quite a remarkable person.”

“So…he’s just like the rest of Washington?” I asked.

Eva laughed. “There are good people there, people who truly do want to serve, to help the country. But…yes, Thomas will fit right in with a certain crowd.”

Baxter waved both hands, shutting the conversation down. “How did we end up on this topic? We were supposed to be talking about living arrangements.”

Lucian tossed his headphones onto the couch. “We’re short on options. I’d be fine sharing a room with Xavier, but I’m not sure that’d be a good idea for him. He kind of needs his space. Not sure what other options we have other than people finding their own places.”

“No, Xavier needs his own room.” Baxter looked down at Eva. “We can get our own place.”

She glanced down at her feet. “I left everything behind, Bax. Literally, everything. Including school. I also have zero work experience, and I do mean zero. I only started washing my own clothes, doing my own dishes, and things like sweeping and vacuuming after I moved out for college. I’m…” She let out a frustrated breath. “I’m just not sure how much help I’m going to be in terms of getting our own place. I have no money and no job.”

Baxter curled his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. “Don’t worry about that, okay? I’ve got some money saved, so I can put a down payment on a place near here. It won’t be the Ritz, but it’ll be home.”

“And I’m still going to be dependent on a man.” She wiped her face with both hands. “I’m sorry, this probably isn’t the best time to be having this conversation, is it?”

“It’s a perfect time,” Baxter said. “You’re among family now, babe. We don’t judge around here. What we do is figure shit out and help each other.”

“I’m the definition of a spoiled rich girl, Bax! What am I supposed to do? I can barely care for myself. I used my father’s money to pay for my life.” Eva shook her head, hair bouncing, and I think I detected a tear running down her cheek, which she quickly brushed away. “Sorry, sorry, I just…I’ve been thinking about this nonstop, all those hours on the bike. And I just…it kind of hurts to realize I’m basically useless as a person.”

“Useless as a person?” Baxter sounded pissed. “Eva, honey, you’re not—”

“Ketchikan is a tourist town,” Lucian cut in. “We get steady traffic year-round.”

“Luce, buddy, what’s your point?” Baxter asked.

“I thought I remembered hearing you were majoring in art, which was problem for your dad.” He addressed this to Eva.

She nodded, sniffling. “Yeah, but—”

“What kind of art do you do?”

She shrugged. “Painting, mostly. I was experimenting with mixed media, before all this happened.”

Lucian tapped the back of the couch with a fingertip, eying her speculatively. “No nice way to ask this, but…are you any good?”

Eva sniffed a laugh. “Well, I had a private study program with the head of the Fine Arts program at Yale, and he’s one of the most prestigious artists and critics in the world, so…I guess I’m okay.”

I stared at Evangeline. “Wait, let me get this straight. You turned down a marriage with a rich, good-looking, highly powerful and influential man who might someday be the president, you walked away from your entire family, you walked away from your comfortable, cushy life paid for by your father, you walked away from your inheritance, and you walked away from a paid-for private study arts degree from Yale University…all to be with Baxter?”

She stared back at me, and then looked up at Baxter in a way that could only be described as one of absolutely besotted, mad, crazy love. “Yeah, I did. Seems like a lot, when you put it that way. But…none of that meant anything to me, not if I couldn’t be with Bax. I certainly didn’t want to be with Thomas, no matter what perks may have come with that relationship.”

“Mercedes-Benzes and vacation houses won’t make you happy,” Bax said.

Eva laughed. “Honey, I got a Mercedes for my sixteenth birthday, and my own condo in Manhattan at eighteen, just for when I wanted to go shopping on Fifth Avenue. If I’d married Thomas, I’d have a garage full of Rolls Royces and Bugattis, and private estates in the Caribbean. Thomas is already independently worth far more than Father, and he’s barely thirty.” She shook her head. “But you’re right.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. “That you two found love like that with each other.”

“Amazing doesn’t begin to describe it,” Eva said, gazing up at Bax. A pause, and then she glanced at Lucian. “What was your point with those questions, Lucian?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Oh, well…just that I know several people around town who do well selling their art. Cafes and bars will display your stuff, and there are a couple of independent art galleries that do rotating artist features. It may not be the same as having your work displayed at a fashionable gallery in Manhattan, but if you work at producing art, you can make a decent living.”

Eva stared at him. “I…really?”

He nodded. “Bringing home local art is a big thing for tourists. Keep your canvasses on the smaller side and they’ll often take it home with them right then and there. If you offer to ship it for them, they’ll buy the bigger frames too.”

“My plan was always to try and make it in the New York art scene,” Eva said. “I had the connections, and my professor always said that when I was ready to start displaying my work, he could help me get in touch with some influential people. I just wanted to finish my degree first.”

“If a tourist sees a piece of art that moves them, they’re not going to stop and ask if the artist has a degree before they buy it. If it moves them, they buy.” He fiddled with his headphones. “Make meaningful, moving art, and people will buy it. And, like I said, I know a few people, too.”

The conversation moved on from there back to Baxter and Eva’s plans to find somewhere to live, but I stopped hearing anything they were saying. I kept seeing the look on Eva’s face as she gazed up at Bax. She gave up her whole life to be with Bax.

Amazing doesn’t begin to describe it, she’d said.

I stole a glance at Canaan, and our eyes met.

His expression was…complicated. Hard to read. Deep.

And I wondered if he was having similar thoughts.

Why was it so hard to come out and tell him I wanted a love like that?

Oh, yeah…I remember now. I tried that once, and got my heart broken. I don’t think even Tate knew all the details of that particular situation, nor how serious things had gotten, or how fast. No one knew. But then, that was the whole point of that relationship—the excitement, the forbidden, the daring, the exhilaration. It had been a secret.

I had been the secret.

I wasn’t supposed to fall in love, and neither was he. But I did, and I thought he had too.

I thought things were different than they were.

It turned out that I was wrong…very, very wrong.

I have to tell Canaan about this.

My heart cracked and twisted at the thought, and my stomach dropped out. I couldn’t tell him…I just couldn’t. I’ve never told anyone.

If I want to bring honesty and truth to our relationship…I have to.

I’ve been trying my damnedest to keep the memories of the past suppressed. I’ve tried to not think about it, to pretend it’s not me who experienced it all. I’ve tried to keep the pain of it from tainting my relationship with Canaan, but…

I can’t keep pretending.

I want more.

I want love.

I want Canaan to love me, and I want to love him back. I want what Eva and Baxter have, but I’m terrified, because I have deep, dark secret.

And it’s eating away at me.

It’s poisoning my relationship with Canaan, and preventing me from going after what I really want.

I don’t know what to do.

It’s festering inside me, an infected wound in my soul.

But I can’t keep pretending I don’t want more. I can’t keep doing this stupid dance with Canaan, acting like what we have is purely physical when we both know it’s not. He wants more too, but he’s just as scared as me. Maybe he has his own secret. I don’t know. I just know…

I have to tell him.

I feel my stomach welling up, my throat closing, hot acid burning bitter in my mouth. Tears sting my eyes.

This is why I don’t think about this, why I don’t go here, emotionally—it makes me physically ill.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I’m sorry. I—I have to go. I—I need to get out of here. I need—I need air.” I fled, stumbling out of the kitchen toward the stairs.

I felt everyone looking at me, surprised, confused. I felt the questions no one asked.

I left, and I found myself on the docks, sailboats on my left, the masts bobbing in the wet cold wind that just kicked up. The sky is gray and heavy overhead, the air chilly, with a wet cold wind blowing. I don’t know how long I walked along the docks, but I knew Cane was behind me. I felt him.

Eventually, I stumbled to a stop. My feet ached, burned, throbbed—I had run out barefoot.

“Aerie, babe, what the fuck?” Canaan was out of breath when he caught up with me.

I collapsed forward onto the dock, sobbing, shaking my head, unable to form words.

“Aerie?” He was beside me, his arm over me. “Talk to me, babe. You’re scaring me.”

I sat up, turning my tear-stained face to Canaan’s. “There’s something I need to tell you.”