Chapter Three My Favourite Things
chapter three
My Favourite Things
Chaos was far more enthusiastic about the beach walk than Aaron was.
Which, fair enough, Chaos hadn’t spent the last three nights sleeping with a pillow between his legs because his boyfriend had a praise kink, an edging complex, and absolutely no fucking shame.
Still, Aaron tried to enjoy it. This was the stretch of coastline he loved most. The part that made all the chaos (no pun intended) worth it.
His favourite place in the world was right here, watching his ridiculous mutt lollop through the surf, tongue out, ears flapping, kicking up shingle and barking at nothing in particular.
Okay. Second favourite place.
First was Kenny’s mouth.
Which he wasn’t allowed in right then.
Fucking hell.
He adjusted his Dryrobe, pulled his bobble hat down lower, and trudged forward in his wellies with all the festive cheer of a man personally wronged by the weather and his own libido.
There was something about being denied sex that made him crave it like a junkie.
He thought about it constantly. Obsessively.
Even out here in the freezing arse-end of December, with salt wind in his teeth and seaweed flapping around his ankles.
He’d survived dry spells before. Years of them, actually. But that had been different.
Because most men were arseholes.
Kenny was an arsehole too.
But… in a whole different way.
A way Aaron wanted to punch and kiss in equal measure.
The sky stretched overhead in a dull sheet of pewter, the sea beneath it rough and restless, spitting froth over the worn pebbles in long, shuddering sighs. Aaron whistled low, alerting Chaos from his frolicking by the sea that he was angling towards the slip path cutting down to the shoreline.
He always let Chaos off the lead at the beach.
Freedom in open air. But once they hit the streets again, he’d reel him back in.
And he tried—honestly—to ignore the uncomfortable parallel.
But when Chaos bounded up, tongue lolling, eyes wide with unfiltered devotion, and Aaron crouched to clip the lead back on, it was impossible not to feel it.
The metaphor practically leapt into his lap.
Chaos looked at him as if he was the centre of his universe. And Aaron, pathetic, praise-starved creature that he was, ate it up. He ruffled the dog’s ears, pressed a kiss to the top of his head and said, “Good boy,” while handing him a treat from his coat pocket.
Somewhere, distantly, he heard Kenny’s smug voice in his head: Operant conditioning works best when consistently reinforced.
Aaron flipped off no one in particular and kept walking.
December on the Isle of Wight was a snow globe turned on its side—bone-white light, the itch of damp wool, strings of lights sagging off pub porches to lure in winter tourists and coach parties of pensioners.
The locals, hollow-eyed and layered against the cold, pretended they didn’t resent the season.
Aaron had grown to like it.
It felt honest.
And…safe.
Up ahead, gulls wheeled and shrieked over the rock groynes.
Someone’s labrador barked at the surf. And behind him, the town waited.
Small, wind-bitten, stuck somewhere between postcard charm and end-of-the-world desolation.
Chaos sniffed a piece of driftwood with the solemn focus of a dog discovering buried treasure, then promptly sneezed all over it.
Aaron nudged him on with a sigh. “C’mon, we’re out of milk. If I go home without it, he’ll declare moral victory and edge me into the New Year.”
Chaos, naturally, did not give a single shit.
His balls, after all, had been surgically removed some time back.
So he zigzagged ahead through the dune path, utterly liberated, tail high, as if he were the one in charge of the relationship. But that illusion shattered when Aaron tied him up to a lamppost outside the farm shop.
The Forager’s Table was a farm shop-slash-post office-slash-café at the edge of the beach stretch and into the village.
As Aaron stepped in, the warmth wrapped him up as much as the over potent cinnamon, wet coats, and ancient stone.
Pine garlands hung from the beams overhead, and a bucket of hand-tied wreaths sat by the entrance.
Aaron shook the sea spray from his hood and made his way inside.
It was busy for a Sunday. Local types. Woolly hats. That retired couple from the book club. A few kids on break. He headed for the fridge, grabbed a bottle of semi-skimmed, and paused as he overheard voices by the veg crates.
“…it’s awful,” one woman said, brows drawn beneath her Santa bobble hat. “They say he was left there.”
“Outside the church?” asked the man beside her. “Or the green?”
“No, the green. Ventnor. Poor boy. Dressed up too.”
Aaron’s spine tensed.
“Red velvet thing,” she went on. “Like a Christmas outfit. Police found him early yesterday morning.”
The man shook his head. “Bloody hell. Sick joke, that. Or worse.”
Aaron turned away. Pretended to study the parsnips. But he couldn’t help listening in.
“Who would murder a young boy like that at Christmas?” one of the ladies said, clutching her invisible pearls.
Aaron tensed.
Murder.
On the Isle of fucking Wight.
Their safe haven.
With a sigh heavy enough to flatten mistletoe, he dumped the milk on the counter. “Book of first-class stamps, please, mate.”
Gerald—ancient, unbothered, and almost definitely planning to die behind that till—nodded towards the gossiping ladies by the eggs. “You heard about this?”
“What?” Aaron dug in his coat pocket for cash. He didn’t carry much. No one really did anymore. But Gerald liked things off the books. Said computers gave him hives. And considering this was part the Post Office territory, no one blamed him.
“A young lad.” Gerald opened the drawer below his till for the stamps. “Not much younger than you. Found dead. Murdered, no less. At Christmas, too.” He glanced up to Aaron. “You want four or eight?”
Aaron blinked. What? Murders? No, shit. Stamps. Fuck. How many people did they even know to send cards too? He did a quick mental count. “Four.”
“That’ll be six pound eight.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Post Office prices.” Gerald tutted. “Daylight robbery. Thieving bastards.”
Aaron handed over a tenner. “Don’t think psychos care what season it is.”
“Who? The Post Office?”
“Murderers.”
“Mm. Same difference.” Gerald nodded sagely and gave him his change.
Aaron was halfway to the door when Gerald called after him.
“Oh, and tell your Dr Lyons his book came in.”
Aaron paused, hand on the latch. “What book?”
“Some academic thing. About missing babies. Took me ages to find. Not on .”
Aaron tugged down his hat. “Right. Cheers.”
He stepped outside into the cold, the bell jingling behind him, but the words trailed after like a draft.
Missing babies?
Not exactly stocking-filler material.
Certainly didn’t sound like some secret gift to go under the tree. Last year, Kenny had wrapped up a dog behaviour manual, then presented Chaos two days later like the world’s most chaotic Christmas miracle.
But this?
What was he planning this time?
A baby?
Aaron snorted aloud. “He better not be.”
Though as he untied Chaos from the lamppost, the quieter that laugh got. Because Kenny didn’t do anything without reason. And that book didn’t sound hypothetical.
Not even slightly.
The cold bit back into him. Cleared his lungs. And his head.
Chaos trotted obediently beside him, ears twitching with the wind as Aaron followed the narrow footpath leading along the cliffside towards home. The view opened up around him. Grey sea, crashing waves, a spit of beach curling away beneath them.
He pulled out his phone. Scrolled to Mel.
They hadn’t properly talked in months. A few memes, the occasional rant about dodgy therapy tropes in crime dramas, and one article Mel had sent titled Why Your Favourite Detective Would 100% Fail a Psych Eval.
He didn’t totally relate that to a certain DI Bellend. But he didn’t not either.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Aaron bloody Jones. Pocket call or did the phone fall on your face?”
“Missed your voice.”
“Uh-huh. What’s the catch?”
“What’s your address? Kenny’s bought Christmas cards. We’re apparently people who do that.”
“RIP the planet.”
“Fully. Fuck the actual planet.”
“Honestly thought you’d post one of those smug ‘we’re donating to a dog shelter instead of sending cards’ captions while everyone side-eyes you for never sending one in the first place.”
“As I now work for a dog charity, they technically pay me to buy the stamps. It’s eco-petty. Full circle.”
Mel snorted. “Well, then. If it’s not a cringe matching jumpers by the fire pic, don’t waste the cost of a stamp.”
“Which is extortionate. But don’t panic, he won’t even let me that close to him to take a photo. I get a metre, max. Unless he initiates it.”
Mel cackled. “Knew he was a kinky bastard. Got you on a leash, has he?”
“Mate, don’t joke. This is serious. My balls aren’t blue. They’ve achieved full spectral collapse. I’ve got ghost bollocks. This is actual abuse.”
“You want me to file a safeguarding referral?”
“Honestly? Yes. I need intervention. Immediate. A trauma response unit. Maybe an exorcism.”
“Cool, I’ll fax the UN.” There was a beat. Then, “You okay, though?”
Aaron blinked. “Since when are you that friend?”
“Since I started doing behavioural triage for actual adults with actual psych flags and realised you were the training wheels.”
“Wow. I’m touched.”
“Apparently, you’re not. How long has it been since our professor touched you up?”
“Too fucking long.”
“And there’s the reason for this call. To stop you wanking and accidentally adding days to Kenny’s torture schedule, huh?”
“You don’t know me.”
“Babe. I meet six of you a day on the trauma ward. I have a postgrad diploma and zero remaining patience for bullshit.”
He laughed. “You? Gainfully employed and emotionally literate. Who even are you?”