Silent Is The Heart

CHAPTER 32

Easton

“I’ve got to get going, anyway. It was nice to see you again. We can catch up more another time.”

I shrunk in on myself when I first walked in, wondering if I’d intruded on Aaron having company. He never said anything about being busy when I texted earlier that I was bringing dinner. The way the dark-haired man in the kitchen stood so close to him a moment ago gave me a sick sensation in my stomach. He was too near something that’s mine.

There’s something oddly familiar about him, but I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. Until now.

That voice… that smug-ass voice, I’d remember it anywhere.

It can’t be.

As he walks toward me and picks up a gym bag off the sideboard, I have a full view of his face. Thick black hair, cold brown eyes— Reider . Why the fuck does he look a hell of a lot like Jason Reider with a beard?

Flashing me a wink, he slaps me on the shoulder. “I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

It’s a hard slap, but that’s not why the bag of carryout slips from my grip and crashes to the floor. It is him. I swear by all that’s holy, it’s him.The way he quickly moves his foot out of the way, like he’s worried about damaging his shoes, if something from the containers leaked, only convinces me more.

“Whoa. Careful there.”

Dropping to my knee, I re-stack the containers inside the bag with shaky hands, reminding myself to breathe. It smells like dinner in here already. Were they cooking together? Does he have a twin brother? What in ever-loving hell is going on?

Aaron rushes over, bending down to help me. He takes the two boxes of Christmas lights from underneath my other arm and sets them down on the sideboard without a second glance at my gift for the night.

“This is Easton,” he tells the Reider lookalike. “Easton…this is…”

I don’t like how he looks uncertain. I don’t like how pale his face is.

“Tomás,” the man supplies, squeezing my hand more tightly than necessary. “I heard Aaron moved back to town and thought I’d pay him a visit.”

Why am I getting an explanation like he knows I should be here, but he shouldn’t? Jesus… he even smells like Reider used to. I nod dumbly, my head full of questions hammering at my skull. The article I found on the internet said Reider died. I didn’t imagine that. I want to believe Aaron’s confirmation of that was true. I want to believe the tears he cried over being conflicted when I made that pass at him at Pulse were real, but my instinct is telling me I’ve been lied to.

“You two behave yourselves,” the man calls and heads out the door.

I watch Aaron slowly lock it behind him and stare after the man through the glass pane for a moment. He lets out a sound of relief, turning toward me. His gaze satellites from mine to the floor in rapid succession. He looks nothing short of sick. Sick and… guilty.

“Was that…” I swallow against the dryness in my throat, not even wanting to say the words. “That looked a lot like–”

“Jason,” he blurts.

It’s a gut punch I didn’t think him capable of delivering. I know he doesn’t just mean it looked like Jason.

“He showed up here last night. I nearly had a heart attack.”

“But he…You said he was dead.”

“He was! At least, I thought he was!” He grips two fistfuls of his hair and starts pacing. I’ve never seen his eyes look so wild. “A coroner came to see me,” he rationalizes frantically. “I planned an entire funeral and went. I sent Thank You cards to everyone who paid their respects. I have a death certificate . I…I still can’t believe it.”

Shaking his head, he stares at the floor, looking lost. I can hear my heartbeat in my head. It’s not a comfort seeing Aaron as shocked as I am, even though it tells me he was unaware that Jason was still alive.

Still alive… How the fuck is he still alive?

Suddenly, that terrified feeling I’ve had makes sense. I knew things were too good to be true.

Looking up at me slowly, he flounders for words for a second. A more pitiful expression has never been made. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. I was going to tell you tonight, but when I got home, he was here again. I don’t even know how he got in. I didn’t give him a key.”

Visions of a ghost walking through walls come to mind, hearing how the man appeared here with Aaron unawares. That’s freaking ridiculous. I just saw him in the flesh. My brain feels like it’s gone for a spin in a blender.

“I don’t understand,” I mumble, shell-shocked.

“Here. Sit down. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

I go with him when he tugs my arm toward the couch. My skin crawls knowing Jason was in here last night and again today. Did he sit here? Did he touch Aaron on this couch— our couch? For the next twenty minutes, I watch his mouth move, unsure if I’m actually absorbing all the things coming out of it. Something about a building project and an organized crime faction screwing Jason over. Interest. Threats to his life. Faking his death. Fleeing to South America, where he’s started a whole new life, complete with a new medical practice.

All I see is the distress on the face of the man I’ve fallen for. This time it’s worse than the last time Jason Reider caused him pain. Where are the answers to those questions?

“What about all those bills you said you have because of him? Did he say anything about that?”

Blinking down at where he’s wringing his hands, he shakes his head absently. “I… No… I don’t know. Just that…because of these people that were trying to con him, I guess. I still feel like I dreamt the entire thing.”

What does that have to do with properties that Jason supposedly owned that Aaron didn’t know about? I desperately want to ask, but fear I already know he doesn’t have the answers and is too frazzled to even consider my suspicions. Are they suspicions or is it just jealousy? Because why would he come back if not to…

“So…he wants to get back together?”

“He got us new identities and wants me to go to Brazil with him to work at the practice he started there.” It looks as painful for him to answer as it was for me to ask. Why does it look painful?

“And…you’re going?”

“No. I…I don’t know.”

What… the fuck?

I’m suddenly back in that white room at Hampton Hills with my leg in traction. Helpless. Worthless. Unable to compete. What the hell did I ever do to Jason Reider that he repeatedly comes to take the only thing I’ve ever wanted?

Popping up off the couch, I can’t sit patiently any longer. I wanted answers. Well, I got them.

“I don’t want to,” Aaron amends, springing up beside me, “but…”

“But what? ”

“But…he’s my husband.”

I gape at the man in front of me, the one who just a few days ago told me he loved me in not so many words. The intelligent man whom I’ve seen blossom over the past few months, crawling back from the guilt and agony of saying goodbye to a broken marriage.

“He was your husband. You’re a widower.”

“I know. I know, but this…changes everything. I…I don’t know what to do. I wish he’d just go to the police. I don’t understand why he didn’t. Or maybe I understand why he didn’t then , but now—” he rambles. “I’m sorry. I know this all sounds so…”

My patience is gone. I can’t hold back my frustration any longer.

“Like an episode of Dateline? ”

Gripping his hair again, he lets out a delirious laugh. “Maybe.”

Is he not hearing the alarm bells that I am? Fucking Aaron—why does he have to be so understanding to everyone about everything? If I have to lose him to another man, fine. I’ll freaking deal with it and not lose my shit like last time, but not to this man. Anyone but this man.

“Aaron, he faked his death, shows up two years later, and wants you to move to another country with him under an alias. There’s no maybe about it. I don’t trust the guy. Why all of a sudden? Why now?”

“He said it wasn’t safe for either of us,” he babbles, looking even more lost, like just having the conversation is taking a toll on him.

No shit, it wasn’t safe. There’s nothing safe about Jason.

“And me? Does he know about me?”

Some of the color returns to his cheeks and he looks away. What the hell is that about?

“He knows I’m seeing someone.”

I remember the creepy gleam in Jason’s eyes when he said, “I don’t want to interrupt anything.” It felt like half dare, half threat. What married man would leave his husband alone in a room with someone his husband has been seeing? Nothing about what this fuck-stick is up to makes any sense. All I have to go on is what Aaron is telling me. Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions.

“ Are you …still seeing someone?” I ask with my heart in my throat.

“I want to,” he replies with tears in his eyes, and then he adds an awful word to that sentence, “but…”

Three letters just killed me. Jason’s corpse has been traded with mine. He wants to see me, but …he won’t.

“I have to figure this out first,” he whispers.

I nod because what else can I do? There’s nothing for me to figure out. I’m not a husband. I’m just a boyfriend… or was. Everything about me has been reduced to three-letter words.

“I’m so sorry, Easton. I know I can’t ask you to wait for me, but…”

Maybe it’s the evident remorse pouring off him, or how he looks as heartbroken as I feel. Maybe it’s that this time the word ‘but’ offers me hope.

Pulling him toward me, I wrap my arms around him. He hugs me back, but the embrace is weak and awkward, not nearly as comforting as either of us needs right now. It’s not like our hugs that make me feel as though we’re two halves completing a whole. There’s an invisible canyon wedged between us, and it has Jason Reider’s name on it.

Did Jason hug him? God, I can’t even stand the thought of Aaron being in the same room as that man. Something foreboding tells me the longer he’s around him, the more likely he’ll be to slip through my hands.

“If you need me here for moral support when he comes back, just let me know.”

“Thank you,” he mumbles into my shoulder. “But it’s probably better that you aren’t. You’ve done so much for me already, and I think it would just make things more difficult.”

Difficult how? Difficult to say goodbye to me? Or difficult for Jason? If it’s the latter, I have no fucking problem hanging around to make him uncomfortable.

“Why don’t we eat?” he says, trying to sound optimistic, but it’s wasted because I can feel him trembling. “I saw you tried spoiling me again.”

If the reminder of our normalcy brings him comfort now, I’ll attempt it. I follow him to the kitchen after we gather up the now-cold Chinese food I brought over. It seems like a saving grace if he’s asking me to stay for dinner, but after we set out our food and sit down, nothing feels salvaged. We eat in silence. At one point, he reaches out and holds my hand, rubbing the top of it anxiously with his thumb.

When I first started sketching years ago, I used to press too hard on the paper. It was a rookie mistake. No matter how much I tried to erase my errors, I could still see the marks from my pencil. Picking at my food, feeling that pitying stroke on my hand, I feel like one of those failed sketches. Kind words, good intentions—no matter what Aaron said, it feels like I’m no longer in the picture.