Silent Is The Heart

CHAPTER 14

Easton

What’s six-foot-two, a fucking idiot, and carrying two milkshakes as he walks into a place he swore he’d never set foot in again? A jackass who apparently has a conscience after all.

“Still not my fault he fucking cried,” I mutter under my breath, getting off the elevator on the second floor, trying not to shudder at the familiar surroundings.

Hampton Freaking Hills. Kill me now. When did I become as big of a sap as Wolf?

Dead. Dr. Reider’s dead.

Fuck me. Did not see that one coming.

One minute, you’re about to anger bang your teen crush into a wall, and the next, he’s crying on you over having his heart broken. So… I bought freaking milkshakes. What the hell else was I supposed to do? I don’t know where he lives, and a card or roses seemed like they would be an inappropriate way to apologize for rutting a widowed man into the back alley wall of Pulse.

I’ll admit I was a bit of a dick, but that was before I knew Reider was dead. I thought he was having a marital crisis. Not that I’m into home-wrecking, but he’s a big boy. He can make his own decisions. What was I supposed to think?

Jesus.

The internet said it was a car accident. A year and a half ago. Had to be a freaking car wreck. Fate has a cruel sense of humor. It knows just how to sucker me.

This explains why he moved back to Maine. I’ve had the weekend to mull over how this development played into him looking me up. The best I can figure is that he’s lost. It explains the change in him, the heightened fragility that I mistook as innocence when I put him on a pedestal so long ago.

I’m not quite at the point of admitting I was wrong, though. I bought Nutella milkshakes for crying out loud. That’s enough. Baby steps.

Stopping at the reception desk, not as a patient, is surreal. I know I’ve been a free man for years, but it’s invigorating to be reminded of it.

“Delivery for Manicki,” I inform the woman behind the counter.

Frowning, she glances over at a roster on her workspace. “Um, we don’t have anyone by that name here. Are you sure you’ve got the right floor?”

That old feeling of inadequacy creeps over me, typical of Hampton. “Reider,” I mumble.

“Who?” she asks, leaning forward the way people do when they can’t hear me.

“Aaron Reider,” I repeat with more volume.

“Oh! Okay. Yes, Director Reider is making his rounds right now. If you’d like to leave that here with me, I can get it to him.”

Shit. Now what do I do?

“Easton?” a familiar voice calls from the opposite hallway door, and there he is.

In the same style of green polo shirt with Hampton’s logo embroidered on it that he wore when I was here, it’s like being sucked back down memory lane. For eight years, I’ve told myself everything has changed, and yet, for a split second, it seems as though nothing has. Except, that’s not true. I’ll never be able to look at him now without remembering that I know what it’s like to kiss him.

Bad reminder.

Fucking hell. How am I supposed to console someone I wanted to wipe from my memory and now want to eat alive?

“Hi. What…what are you doing here?”

Right. My presence isn’t exactly in line with my you-and-Hampton-can-go-fuck-yourselves behavior.

Hoisting up the bag from The Shake Shack, I flash him an impish grin. The way his expression softens is truly sad, as though he’s just been given the gift of a lifetime. Is that how I looked when I was here and had just lost Mom?

“Um, how about we go to my office? I was just headed there to file these,” he says, gesturing to some papers in his hand.

There’s a new coat of paint on the walls and new light fixtures in the hallway as we walk in stride, but you can’t hide the past. The smells are the same. The sounds are the same. The air is the same suffocating air. I try not to let my skin crawl, reminding myself it doesn’t matter. Yet maybe… in a way, it did. I had to end up somewhere after the accident. Who knows if there were worse places than Hampton?

Following Aaron inside an office, I vividly remember that it belonged to Dr. Norton, the eccentric old man who oversaw this level when I was a resident here. Hints of tobacco smoke linger in the air from ages past and oddly fill me with a sense of being home.

Stopping in front of his desk, Aaron gives me a bewildered once over. Yeah. I can’t believe I’m here either, I want to tell him. He makes a breathless laugh and smiles.

“This is a nice surprise.” Glancing at the bag when I set it on his desk and remove the contents, his expression turns fond. “Are those Nutella? I can’t believe you remembered. I haven’t had one of those in years.”

It’s like I don’t know what to do with myself since I’m not a kid on crutches with a scheduled appointment. Locking onto a leather couch at the side of the room, I tote my milkshake over to it and take a seat. Maybe this will be easier if I’m not close enough to be in his orbit, close enough to grab him and put my mouth on his.

I need to say something. I used to have to contain my excitement over getting to talk to him, but now that my speech is more improved than he ever heard it, it’s like I don’t have the backbone to use it. It might have something to do with the only thing I’ve said to him verbally was a taunt about his dead husband before I knew said husband was dead.

Did you make it home okay? I sign.

Leaning against his desk, he drops his chin, cheeks going pink. “Um, yeah. I’m so sorry about flaking out like that…about…not being myself.”

I’m sorry about your husband. That doesn’t seem very sincere since the thick air between us says he remembers the feel of my tongue in his mouth, so I add, I thought maybe you were divorced.

“Um, no.” Craning his neck back, he looks up at the ceiling and blows out a breath. “I can’t say I didn’t think about it sometimes. We didn’t exactly know each other very well when we got married, so it took some work after the honeymoon phase was over.” Fidgeting, he stuffs a hand in the pocket of his khakis and flashes me a chagrined look. “Not what you asked, I know,” he digresses with a nervous laugh. “But I’m just explaining because…because I guess that’s part of what’s made losing him so difficult. Not that it’s probably any easier losing someone you had a perfect relationship with.” Pushing off the desk, he goes to the window and stares out at the dreary landscape, everything going dormant and caught between the end of summer and fall.

“I got completely swept up and lost in Jason when he came along. I’d never met anyone like him. He had this incredible resume and was so confident and worldly and…convincing.” Glancing back at me, he lets out another of those pained laughs. “I honestly don’t know how anyone would have said no when he asked me to pick up and move out to Seattle with him. He made it sound like the world would be at our fingertips and our life would be full of sunshine and rainbows. And it was…for a while.”

His silence infects the room with something dark that has me wanting to go to him. I’m here to cut ties amicably, not get pulled further into the fog that is Aaron.

“That’s what I get for believing in true love,” he mutters with feigned humor and lets out a sigh, turning back around to face me. “I… lost sight of who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. I won’t pretend I came back here solely by choice. I honestly couldn’t see many other options, but…I’m here now. So far, I’ve made a mess of nearly everything. For starters,” he hesitates, fingering his collar and eyeing a spot on the floor. “Thinking I should look up one of my former patients.”

I used to be the one who was embarrassed all the time during our sessions. Sure, I teased him to keep the playing field even, but this is a different shade of humility in him now. It wars with the chip I’ve carried on my shoulder. His life choices destroyed the invincible image I had of him, making part of me want to scold him for pissing on my fantasy. I can see now that he was just a pop icon on a poster, and yet, the icon sought little old me. It still doesn’t make any sense.

Why did you?

“I…had to know if you were okay. If you were okay, I thought maybe it meant I’d done one thing right.”

Shit. If he starts crying again, I don’t know what I’m going to do. The urge to get up and hug him is way stronger than it should be. I don’t fucking hug.

“Honestly, though,” he admits with a forlorn smile, “wondering what happened to you after you left here was better than thinking about everything I usually think about these days.”

And there it is. He was just looking for a distraction from his pain.

It’s not exactly a compliment, but it’s forgivable. Understandable. I feel it in my damaged bones. What the hell is life but a distraction, anyway? Maybe that’s all he ever was to me and why it hit so hard when he disappeared. I was forced to face everything after that.

I nod because there’s nothing to say.

The phone on his desk blares, slicing through the poignant silence between us. Frazzled, he turns and answers it.

“Oh? All right. No. No, just wait. I’ll be there in a minute. Okay.”

That’s my cue to leave. Peace offering delivered. Guilt successfully shucked off. I stand, giving him a knowing look when he turns back to face me.

“I’m sorry. I have to go.”

The remorse in his voice shouldn’t please me. He’s just lonely. It’s not like he wants my company in particular. It’s not like I want his company. I don’t.

Take it easy on them , I tell him, gesturing to the phone.

“Always,” he laughs. “If Dr. Norton taught me anything, it was to not rule with an iron fist.” Grimacing at the room, he adds airily, “Or…smoke a pipe indoors.”

I didn’t need to see that he still possesses his easy humor. Leave, Easton , a wise voice in my head tells me.

Giving him a salute with my melting shake, I head toward the door. I didn’t even want to come here. Why is there an invisible pull making me want to stay?

“Easton,” he calls just as my hand touches the knob. “If you ever want to chat or…get together. Maybe not at a club or with alcohol involved—I think I’ve made it obvious that I’m in no condition to handle either of those situations,” he chides himself with that annoyingly adorable goodness in his expression as he scribbles a number on a Post-it Note . “God knows why you’d want to. I must look completely deranged after how I burst into your life again, but…it really is good to see you.”

Reaching out, I fully expect the slip of paper to snap me like a mousetrap. He is the freaking mouse, after all. He just didn’t know it, apparently, or I’m a bad fucking cat who can’t tell a cry for help from a come-on. Whatever. I can throw it in my drawer with the rest of the numbers I’ve collected.

“Thanks,” he adds, lifting his cup. “For the shake.”

I need to burn that damn place to the ground so no one can ever buy him one again if he acts like this over a freaking malt. Protect him from more Jason Reiders.

Whoa…

What?

Get back to work, slacker.

With that parting sarcasm, I hightail it out of my former prison faster than I’ve ever moved. This is the last place I want to be if I’ve apparently lost my fucking mind.