CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I knocked on the door with a bag over my shoulder and my Kawasaki parked in the front around seven. Maybe I should have called. Merrick’s car wasn’t in the open garage, but Clara’s pink and cream topless car sat out by the fountain.

I knocked again. Footsteps pattered, the lock whirred, and Clara’s round face appeared around the door.

“Caden,” she said, pulling it all the way open. “What are you doing here?”

I cleared my throat. “Can I spend the night?”

Her jaw dropped. “Um…of course. Come in.”

I followed her inside. She was a few years younger than me and looked it. Her dark hair was piled on her head, tied with a berry pink band. She wore overlarge sweats, the waist rolled up, and a cropped tank top. There were little green pieces of rubber under her eyes that I knew had something to do with makeup. Maybe skincare. I wasn’t sure what.

I followed her down the hallway and into the kitchen. She turned, a crease between her dark, arched brows.

“What’s up?” she said. “Do you want something? I have wine? Or hot chocolate? Or Merrick has some really nice bourbon I can get from the cellar?”

I sank into the stool, setting my bag down. “Dealer’s choice.”

She pursed her lips, studying me. “You look like you could use the bourbon.”

She disappeared down the stairs and appeared a moment later with a bottle. “I hate that room so much. It’s creepy,” she said absently, breaking the seal and taking down a crystal glass. She set it before me, grabbing something from the freezer and dropping it in.

I stared down, watching the pink, heart shaped whiskey stone sink to the bottom.

“Cute,” I said.

She smirked, leaning on the table. “I bought them for Merrick for Valentine’s Day the other year. He likes them.”

I took a sip, letting the bourbon soothe my whirling head. Probably not the best idea, but I was here in Merrick’s house, and my first meeting wasn’t until noon tomorrow. And…I hated to admit it, I felt safe.

Clara absently chewed at the inside of her cheek. “So what’s up?” she asked.

I had another sip. “Does it bother you? Living with all of Merrick’s mental health issues?”

Her brows arched. “No. It’s worth it. I just learned the things that bother him that he can’t change and figured out how to work with it. Or I give him space to do things how he needs to.”

My throat felt dry. “And it doesn’t bother you?”

She shook her head. I had a hard time letting that sink in.

“Does it scare you?”

Her lips parted for a long silence. “It did…or it has before. Not the ADHD, that feels manageable for me, but…um…there was a week about a year after we got married when he was under a lot of pressure from work, and he had some issues. That scared me.”

My chest twinged. “What kind of issues? Can I ask?”

“Yeah, I mean, he’s pretty open about this now,” she said, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat. “He has a lot of intrusive, OCD-related thoughts.”

My mouth was dry. “What kind of intrusive thoughts?”

She sighed. “Not nice ones. People think intrusive thoughts are about impulsive behaviors, but I learned really quickly it’s not that.”

Curiosity rose in me. Was it possible that some of the darker parts of my mind weren’t my fault?

“His intrusive thoughts are tough,” she said softly.

“What are they?” I pressed.

She gave a little shrug. “The worst one…he was struggling with this recurring thought that he…um…stabbed me in my sleep. Like, he knew he didn’t, that he wouldn’t, but he’d get so afraid of going to sleep beside me that he wasn’t sleeping at all. So…so we had separate beds for a while until he got it under control.”

My stomach turned. “What did you do?”

She sniffed. “I sent him to Gretchen once a day for a week. She had him on a low dose of anti-anxiety meds until it stopped. She’s licensed again.”

“Wait…Gretchen wasn’t licensed?”

Clara waved a hand. “Not important. She renewed it recently.”

“So Merrick’s issues…stopped?” I asked.

“It took work. Usually, he gets symptoms because there’s stress from an external factor,” she said, sounding a bit like Gretchen. “Once that anxiety is gone, he can handle the symptoms. So work eased up, he did some really intense therapy, and then he got it together after a month or two.”

I rolled the whiskey in the glass as she pushed off the counter and poured a glass of red wine from the fridge. Her gaze burned into me as I stared into my cup.

My stomach turned. I knew what the usual prescription was for an ADHD diagnosis. I’d snorted twice the dose enough times—off my car, off the back of a toilet, off my hand. I’d taken it just to feel that high thirty minutes later, to feel like a million dollars for an hour and a half. I still tasted the alcohol I burned through to deal with the plunging low as the drop hit.

I’d learned a hard lesson from it.

I was hardwired to be an addict. Maybe that was why I’d been so adamant not to touch anything harder. That would have been the kiss of death.

Every upper and downer I could get my hands on, I’d abused. Sleeping pills, really any prescription medication with a pleasant side effect—I’d run through them all.

It was the reason I barely took Tylenol, why I was trying to cut out cigarettes, why I tried to only drink socially.

My brain was hell-bent on self-destruction.

No, I knew medication wasn’t the right solution for me, I’d just abuse it. I’d burned that bridge a while ago. I just wanted time and patience.

“Merrick tried meds before,” I said quietly.

She nodded. “He prefers not to be medicated, but he also knows sometimes, it’s what needs to happen.”

I looked up, remembering that sometimes, I could just be honest. I didn’t have to make snarky remarks. I didn’t have to put up my defenses.

I took a quick breath.

“My father is very lucky to have you,” I said.

She gave a small, confused smile. “Thank you. Are you okay?”

“I don’t want you to have to deal with my bullshit.”

“Caden, as weird as it is, you’re my family.”

It was a bit weird. She was younger than me, and she felt more like a friend than anything else., but she was right; in a modern way, we were family. I ran a hand over my face, leaning in to balance the glass between my fingers. She crossed the room, sipping her wine, and climbed onto the stool opposite me.

Her dark, sharp gaze was piercing. “Talk to me. Please.”

I met her stare head on.

“I turned my stove on and drove my Kawasaki through town in my sleep,” I said quietly.

Her hand clapped over her mouth, giving me a preview of how Merrick was going to react. There was a long silence, and then she cleared her throat.

“Okay, were you on sleeping meds?”

I nodded. “I went up to the lodge for a few days to work on securing the funding for the Wyoming base. We came home early, and everything was normal. Took a pill, went to sleep and woke up on Gretchen Hughes’ couch.”

“Okay,” she said, pulling her expression together. “Alright, people sleepwalk all the time, especially if they have a bad reaction to sleeping medication. Did something happen at the lodge that was keeping you from sleeping?”

Into my head flashed the image of Circe with her thighs wrapped around my head, her mauve tipped fingers stroking my hair, evoking feelings I wasn’t sure I was capable of feeling until that point. Part of me—the part that was light from bourbon—wanted to spill it all to Clara and get her perspective on the situation. But she was Merrick’s wife before she was my friend, and I couldn’t expect her to keep secrets from him.

And he couldn’t know I’d slept with Circe.

I shook my head. “No, just in and out. Regular work shit.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Hmm, not sure I believe you.”

“Well, believe it.”

She cocked her head. “There’s the old Caden I was expecting.”

“I’m trying to be less of a dick, but you have to take what you get.”

She laughed, draining her wine. “Want another drink?”

I nodded, and she refilled our glasses. The conversation turned towards the living room remodel she was overseeing in her spare time. She took me on a tour of it and showed me the 3D mockup she had on her laptop. I listened to her chatter, grateful for the distraction, but in the back of my mind, all I could think about was the soft scent of hyacinths.

We went back into the kitchen. Clara said she was hungry, and I’d skipped both lunch and dinner, so she dug through the fridge. I knew she wasn’t much of a cook, but I wasn’t picky.

In the nick of time, the front door opened. Merrick’s footsteps sounded in the hall, and he appeared in the doorway. He’d been at work; he was still in his black dress pants and dark maroon button up. His hair was messy, like he’d driven with the top of his Audi down.

His brows rose as he looked at me sitting on the counter and Clara boiling linguine noodles with a wine glass in her hand.

“What’s this?” he asked.

Clara moved to him, and I politely glanced away while she kissed him. “Caden’s staying the night.”

Merrick sent me a sharp, concerned glance. I just shrugged, not wanting to get into it anymore tonight. He set his briefcase and jacket down by the door and started rolling up his sleeves.

“What are you making, cariad?” he asked brightly.

“There’s shrimp in the fridge, so I was hoping for seafood pasta,” she said, poking the boiling water. “But I don’t have the sauce done yet.”

He picked up her wine and pointed to the counter. “You keep Caden company, and I’ll figure this out.”

She climbed up to sit on the end of the counter and started chattering about something she and her best friend, Candice, had done earlier that day. I zoned out, watching my father move around the kitchen. There was a dull ache in my chest, maybe a hint of jealousy.

Was this what being happy looked like?

And if Merrick could have this, why couldn’t I?

Clara left her seat and joined Merrick, hovering at his elbow. She oversaw him like she knew what she was doing, offering suggestions and laughing at his quick retorts.

A sudden warmth stole over me, chipping away at the ice inside. The kitchen smelled like cheese and pasta and good wine. The window was open, and through it came the soft sound of the sprinklers. Frogs chirruped from the pond at the edge of Merrick’s yard.

It smelled, sounded, and felt like a home.

The home I’d never had.

A home I could have if I could stop self-sabotaging and believe that I deserved it.

It hit me right hard that the only thing stopping me from doing this more often was me. Merrick practically begged to have me in his life. No doubt, right now, he was concerned but also over the moon that I was staying the night.

So why was I punishing myself because I hadn’t had him all along?

I had a family, ready to welcome me. The past was just a shadow, and the future was waiting for me to reach out and grasp it.

So why couldn’t I?

Gretchen’s words glimmered in my head, silvery and cool, like a spider’s web built into the back of my mind.

Do you think you’re addicted to your own pain? Do you run off the fumes of it, like an adrenaline high?

My throat was dry as I set the glass aside.

Yes, maybe I was addicted to my pain. It was all I’d ever known.

“Caden.”

I snapped back to reality. Clara stood before me with a glass of water and a wide bowl of pasta sprinkled with cheese and fresh basil. I stared down at it, stunned. As far as I could remember, outside of a restaurant, no one had ever cooked me a meal.

“Do you want to eat on the back porch?” she asked.

I nodded, accepting the plate. Merrick stood in the doorway, holding the door open. He jerked his head, and I moved past him and stepped onto the desk. I could tell Clara had helped decorate it, because the railings were strung with lines of glittering pink lights, and the table in the middle was a soft rose color.

We sat down, Merrick stretching out his legs. Clara leaned into his space, like a moth to flame. There was a noticeable difference in her when he was around. Her shoulders relaxed, her body always bent towards him.

She trusted him. Completely.

Until I saw them together, I’d never been around a healthy couple.

It had always just been abuse and rage, fear like blood in the back of my mouth.

My head was light from bourbon, but it started receding as I ate. Clara asked me about work, and I gave her the safe answers I knew Merrick preferred. He didn’t like her knowing the details of what we did.

At some point, my shoulders felt less tight, and my mind started to wander. My two nights with Circe felt like they’d rewired my brain. Maybe that was why I’d gotten up to roam Providence in my sleep. Maybe, deep inside, I’d tasted something more, and now, I had to have it again.

This evening felt like having a home. We were eating together without abuse, without fear—it was a new feeling.

And I’d felt it with Circe at the lodge.

I wanted to let myself imagine having that every night, but that felt dangerous. Being alone was a safer option.

But was being safe enough anymore?

I decided right then that I wasn’t getting into what had happened with Merrick tonight, not when I wasn’t sure if it involved sleeping with Circe.

Instead, I let the evening wear on. We had a little more wine, and Clara brought out more pasta. We talked about everything and nothing. Clara didn’t mention anything I’d told her, and Merrick and I steered clear of work. Instead, we talked about Merrick’s new hotel chain I had some stock in. We talked about the economy until we noticed Clara had fallen asleep against Merrick’s arm.

He carried her upstairs as I cleaned the counters and loaded the dishwasher. When I turned around, my father stood in the doorway, his eyes soft.

“Clara told me you sleepwalked,” he said.

“I thought she was asleep.”

“She woke up for a minute when I put her in bed,” he said, sinking down at the table. “Caden, you need to start seeing Gretchen.”

I swallowed, setting the towel aside. It was scrunched into the shape of my fist.

“I am,” I said finally. “I have an appointment.”

His shoulders sagged, and relief moved over his face. “Good.”

He wanted to say more, but he was afraid to. I’d pushed him away one too many times, and now, he was worried I’d shrink back. It made me feel like shit that he was afraid to speak plainly.

“I’m good,” I said. “Maybe I’ve had a lot on my mind, but I’m good.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

He cleared his throat. “What’s your opinion on Maelon?”

Grateful he was throwing me a rope, I shrugged. “He has it, but whether he’s willing to be trained is another story. Then, even if he is, it’s hard to get trainees to sign up. I won’t push him into anything. Knowing the stakes, it has to be voluntary.”

Merrick’s lids lowered. “I’m thinking of changing that.”

“What?”

“I might introduce a proposal to change that,” he said more firmly. “No one should have to die. We’re not gladiators.”

I was quiet for a moment, letting that sink in.

“We were,” I said. “Maybe.”

Merrick sighed. “All the old gods are dead. Maybe there never were any.”

My mind went back to the fantasy I’d had a long time ago. I’d walked along a dirt path and paused in the doorway of a stone temple to Aphrodite. I could still smell it, could feel the cool air vividly. A little part of me that wanted more pretended that dream meant something.

Then, I found out historically, it was a temple to Artemis, not Aphrodite.

I was hyperfixating on a place that never existed. It was a dream, nothing else, just like my hope of being in a place where I could rest and heal from everything.

It was a place that never could be. Maybe that was why I fantasized about fucking Circe there. Being with someone like her…that was just a dream, no more solid than incense rising to the sky.

I cleared my throat. “Wasn’t the point of the arena so that our leader experienced violence firsthand so he would only use it as a last resort?”

Merrick leaned back and rested his head against the wall.

“Am I a good Brenin?” he asked quietly.

I felt the weight of his words and my reluctance to open myself up to him. For the first time, I actively fought it. I pushed back my fear of opening myself up.

“I would go to war for you, sir,” I said. “But only because I know you’d never ask that of me.”

His lashes fell and his jaw worked. There was a long silence, and then he nodded once.

“Maybe the men who built the arena were wiser than I am,” he said. He ran a hand over his face. “Or maybe I just need to go to bed.”

“Maybe just go to bed,” I said. “It’s late.”

He jerked his head down the hall. “The guestroom is made up. There’s soap and towels.”

“Thanks,” I said.

My vulnerability was all used up for the night. He nodded goodnight, and I listened as he climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to his bedroom. An uncomfortable feeling filled my chest.

Was it…envy?

I swallowed it down, but it bubbled back up as I strode down the hall and shut the guestroom door behind me. Maybe I wanted to come home to someone the way Merrick had tonight. Have dinner with her on the porch and hold her until she fell asleep. Carry her up to bed.

Why couldn’t I have that?

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize coming home to my apartment after a long day. There was a woman standing at the counter, still in her dress and heels. Her hair fell down her shoulders in dark waves. My mind’s eye followed the lines of her familiar body as she turned.

Circe.

My eyes snapped open.

No, I had to stop thinking about her like this. It would only lead to more bitterness and heartbreak.