31. Aiden

Chapter Thirty-One

AIDEN

Aiden's muscles burned as he hoisted the last box of trash into the rusty dumpster at the edge of the trailer park. He slammed the metal lid shut with a resounding clang that did nothing good for his aching head and rested his back against the dumpster to catch his breath.

Except for the incessant barking of the pitbull at the edge of the lot, the trailer park was quiet for a weekend afternoon. Rusted trucks and snow-caked cars were parked haphazardly, tires half-buried in slush. The skeletal remains of summer gardens peeked out from the snow, and a tattered American flag hung limply from a pole in front of Ramon's wheelchair ramp, barely stirred by the winter breeze.

The wind stung Aiden's exposed skin, but his body and brain felt on fire. He wore nothing but a thin cotton t-shirt, soaked with whiskey sweat, and even that felt like too much. Despite the cold, beads of sweat had formed beneath the band of his baseball cap and trickled down his hairline, tickling the back of his neck. His head throbbed, and his throat felt parched despite chugging his body weight in sports drinks as soon as he stumbled out of bed that morning.

He'd never felt so hungover, but he knew it wasn't the leftover booze squeezing his brain. It was his broken heart. It might have been more bearable if he'd had someone else to blame for it. Seth had hurt him, but Aiden found himself unable to stew in righteous anger. He wasn’t so drunk the night before that he’d forgotten what Seth had said to him. Seth loved him and wanted him to be okay, no matter what. But Aiden wasn’t okay. The arguments with Seth and his mother rattled around his head. He'd avoided responsibility for so long, drifting through life like a reckless kid, terrified of disappointing people. But now, as he stood beside the dumpster filled with most of his belongings, he knew what he had to do.

Maybe it was running away; a stronger man would probably stay and fight. But Seth would never give up on him if he stayed, and Aiden needed him to move on. He deserved so much better than a hot mess in a cowboy hat.

With a heavy sigh, Aiden forced his weary legs to trudge back toward the trailer that had been his home for over a decade. It sat like an empty shell, cleared of detritus that had accumulated without him noticing. It hadn’t taken more than a day to clean and repair the place; aside from a few sentimental knickknacks, not much was worth saving. He’d finally fixed the loose gutter and filled the cracked sealant in the bathroom window, but it felt like putting lipstick on a pig. The trailer was never going to sell for much. It was a stark reminder of how little Aiden had achieved in life.

"If you keep moping like that, your face is gonna stick that way!" Roberta called, stepping onto her porch with a pack of camels clutched in one hand. She poked a cigarette between her lips and squinted at him through the first curl of smoke. "Then it won't even matter where you're going. No one will hire you."

"Aw, I'm more than a pretty face, darlin'," Aiden joked, but his heart wasn't in it. He ignored the smoke and sat beside her on the front step, gesturing toward the boxes she'd allowed him to neatly stack at the end of her covered porch. "I appreciate you hanging onto my stuff for a while. I'll send for it once I land somewhere permanent."

Roberta waved his thanks away. "No worries, honey," she said. "You're doing me a favor by selling it so cheap. My nephew's been looking for a place for months. Housing prices are crazy even out here in the middle of nowhere."

"It's not much," Aiden admitted, "but it'll keep the weather out."

"It's a good place to start," Roberta said firmly. "He's young and itchy-footed, so he won't stick around long."

Aiden chuckled. He hunched forward and draped his arms across his knees, staring out at the dilapidated homes that had been his neighbors for his entire adult life. "That's what I thought when I first moved in," he said thoughtfully. "I don't think any of us planned to stay forever, did we?"

"I sure as hell didn't," Roberta said, letting out a rough smoker's cackle. "Ed's back pain keeps him from working, so I have no choice. You, though…you always seemed like you were just waiting for something better to come along. The only trouble is nothing ever did. I guess that's changed now, huh?"

Aiden crooked a brow at her and asked, "What makes you say that?"

She shrugged. "Babs has been coming by less, and that handsome fella has been coming by more. It's none of my business where you stick your wiener, but I ain't blind, honey."

Aiden couldn't help but laugh despite his deep pang of regret when Roberta described Seth as 'that handsome fella.' He was handsome, the type of handsome that drove a thrill of lust through Aiden's stomach whenever he looked at him, but he was so much more than that. Intelligent, loyal, hardworking, intuitive, generous…kind. Too kind to cut Aiden loose even when he deserved it. Seth had been through so much; he'd lost everything and never complained. He deserved someone to depend on and settle down with to raise a family. No matter how desperately Aiden wanted to see a future like that with him…he knew it wasn't meant to be. Not for a man like him. It was better to make the cut as clean as possible and then try to move on despite the hemorrhaging.

He would sell the trailer and mail the profits to Seth to use on the ranch. It would never be enough to make up for the harm he'd caused, but at least it might help Seth get the Double Jay solvent. Tonight, Aiden would rent a room at the Whispering Pines, and the next day, he'd begin looking for work somewhere folks didn't know his name. He didn't need much, just a bunk and a place he could keep his head down. Maybe a smaller ranch where his experience could make a real difference. Somewhere isolated, so he could lick his wounds in peace. He could already see time stretching out in front of him, lonely and empty. It was never going to stop hurting. There would always be a Seth-sized hole in his heart, and unlike the gaping absence when he was a teenager, he now knew exactly what he'd be missing out on—a lifetime of passion and loyalty.

"God, I wish I deserved him," he whispered hoarsely.

"What's that, kiddo?"

"Nothing." He forced a smile and slung an arm around Roberta's bony shoulders. "Just thinking how much I'm going to miss your pretty smile."

She rewarded him with a look so dry it shriveled him on the spot. Women like Roberta had seen too much of the wrong side of life to fall for charm and flattery, but he never stopped trying. Occasionally, he caught her by surprise and watched her whole face transform into something beautiful.

"Why are you running, anyway?" she asked curiously. "You afraid of what the town will think of you swinging on the wrong side of the sheets?"

"No," he said with a chuckle. "Most wouldn't be surprised, anyway. Folks have always figured I’m horny enough to fool around with a lamppost if it looked fetching enough."

"Then what's the problem?"

Aiden stared down at his muddy boots, struggling to find the words. How could he explain the tangled mess of fear and shame churning inside him? Those feelings had always been there, he realized, but he'd been so good at ignoring them that he'd managed to convince even himself he didn't have a care in the world.

"It's complicated," he said reluctantly. "I guess… I'm not sure I'll ever be the man people need me to be. I don't think I have what it takes. Despite everything that's happened to him, Seth still takes care of everything around him. His sister, his animals…me. He won't ever stop because it's his nature. But me? Nobody depends on me—and nobody should. I can barely keep my trailer clean, and I do the same job as kids fresh out of high school. I'd only drag him down."

Roberta was silent for a moment. She studied Aiden's somber face and then took a long drag on her cigarette, squinting at him above the glowing tip. "We all have our demons, honey," she said eventually. "Yours don't make you worth less than anyone else."

"I'm not good enough?—"

"Psh." She pointed a chipped fingernail directly in his face. "That's your mother talking. Babs was always ashamed that she got knocked up out of wedlock, and she took it out on everyone around her. She thinks she's got to be perfect to be loved—and now so do you, I guess. But maybe that man of yours sees something in you that you don't. Potential, like."

Aiden felt his mouth twist, so he must have been smiling, but it felt like his heart was cracking in half. "That's the whole problem, sweetheart," he said thickly. "He sees something in me that I'm not sure even exists. He's been through a hell of a lot and never once complained, but no matter how hard I try, I can't stop letting people down. If I stick around, I'll just keep hurting him one way or another."

"So, you're running away to protect him?" Roberta asked skeptically. "Seems to me a man can make his own choices about what he wants or who he wants to be with."

Aiden swallowed thickly. All day, he'd been trying to avoid thinking about the consequences of his decision, but as he stared out at the dirty snow and hodgepodge of rusted trailers, the future yawned before him like a desolate wasteland. Aiden would drift from town to town, picking up seasonal work where he could, but even if he could ever stomach touching someone else, it would never fill that hollow space inside him. The space where Seth was supposed to be.

Seth was different. He would hurt for a while, but he was too good a man to stay single forever. He'd find someone new who could give him more than just love. Even though Aiden loved him with every thought and breath, until there was no space in his heart for anything else, he couldn't offer him stability, support, or a shoulder to lean on. He could only take.

His eyes stung when he said, "I've drifted all my life. No real purpose or direction, just going through the motions to get by without anyone asking too much of me. I thought something would eventually click into place, but it never has. If I stay here any longer…I don't think it ever will."

Roberta sighed and stubbed out her cigarette on the porch step. "Hell, that sounds familiar," she said in disgust. "Ask anyone in this trailer park; they've probably got the same story. I can't say you're wrong for asking better of yourself. Just seems a shame, is all. Love— real love, the kind that causes that smile you've had on your face lately—is hard to find. I hate to see you throw it away."

"Maybe, but it's the first honorable thing I've done my whole life. Don't try to talk me out of that, sweetheart." Aiden cracked his neck and stood, sloughing off the weight of the bleak future pressing down on him. He'd never make it another step if he kept dwelling on the pain. He had to keep moving, or he'd collapse in a broken heap.

The thought of never seeing Seth's slow smile again, never making him laugh or feeling those strong arms around him…was almost too much to bear. If he could, he'd crawl on his hands and knees to the Double Jay's gate and beg Seth to forgive him for his stupid mistakes, but that would only be for his own benefit—not for Seth. Looking back on it, Aiden had always been selfish in their relationship. He'd greedily sucked up Seth's time, attention, and knowledge. He'd learned from him, shaped himself after him, eagerly dug out a place in his life, and never given much back apart from a little extra muscle and some half-assed jokes.

His mother had been right about one thing—it was time for him to do better. So, he loaded a fat duffel in the back of his truck and texted Whit, asking him to forward his last paycheck to Seth. He hated leaving the crew at the Triple M in the lurch, but that was the kicker. He'd never been a valuable enough employee that a dozen cowboys couldn't replace him in an instant. The same would be true of Seth. He'd hurt for a while, and Aiden hated that, but he'd eventually move on to someone better.

Aiden just needed to be long gone by the time it happened, or his heart would never survive.