Chapter Nine Perfectly Broken #2
Then nodded once. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
And as he stood, he noted the time.
Shit.
He was late.
* * * *
Aaron stood outside the shelter, Chaos’s lead clutched in one gloved fist, freezing his fucking bollocks off.
But he refused to wait inside. Way past four p.m. and the sky had bled itself dry hours ago, leaving only blackness above the car park.
Thick, quiet, and endless. A winter darkness that didn’t fall, it settled.
Heavy. Like a memory he hadn’t asked to remember.
Hadn’t wanted to remember.
He yanked his hat down lower, blew a cloud of frozen breath towards the ground. It vanished almost instantly. Figures.
That was the problem with this time of year.
Not the tinsel or the songs, not even the smell of fake cinnamon everywhere.
No. The darkness. Waking up in it. Working through it.
Walking home in it. And it curled around the edges of things, too early, too often.
Made it feel as if the sun had left for good.
Made him remember the dark.
Aaron stared out across the empty car park.
Only the floodlights from the kennel yard lit the gravel, casting a pale-yellow wash across the slush-streaked ground.
Everyone else had gone home an hour ago.
No one stayed past five anymore. Not unless they had something to prove, or something to control.
Only one person did that.
Blackwell.
Still inside. Probably in the back office, scrolling through spreadsheets as if he was God, deciding whether the staff would get a party or the dogs would get to eat.
Those dead-fish eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses, always watching, always weighing.
Aaron had spent the day dodging him. Taking dogs out, running supplies, hiding in routine. Anything not to answer that question.
The one about tomorrow.
He hadn’t said yes.
But he hadn’t said no, either.
Chaos whined at his feet, then curled closer to Aaron’s leg. Warmth, or protection. Maybe both. Aaron’s breath caught when headlights appeared at the top of the lane. Kenny’s Discovery. The shape of it, the way it moved untangled him.
But as the relief cracked through the cold, a voice cut across it.
“Aaron?”
He tensed.
Turned.
Blackwell stood in the shelter doorway, one hand on the frame, silhouette backlit by the harsh fluorescents inside. His coat was expensive. His smile wasn’t.
Aaron forced his breath out through his nose. “Yeah?”
Blackwell stepped forward, boots crisp over the gravel. “Need to get back to the Mayor’s office. You’re good for tomorrow? St Joseph’s shelter visit?”
Aaron could feel the headlights behind him. Kenny’s car drawing closer, beams spilling across the carpark. Kenny would see them and he didn’t want that. Didn’t want this moment seen. So he said the only thing that would make Blackwell go away.
“Yeah. Whatever.” He didn’t mean it.
But it worked.
Blackwell gave him that polished nod and slipped back inside.
Kenny pulled into a space and flashed his lights once.
Aaron stood there for a beat longer, tightening his grip on Chaos’s lead instinctively, eyes burning from the cold. Then he ran over, got Chaos into the boot, and jumped in the front, putting his armour on.
“You said four.”
“I did.” Kenny glanced out the front windshield. “Got caught up at the station. Was that him?”
“Who?”
“The new guy. Boss man. Bloke here to save the charity.”
Aaron clicked his seatbelt too hard. “Yeah. Blackwell. He’s a prick. I hate him.”
Kenny snorted. “You hate everyone.”
“I hate you for not being here at four.”
“Then I’ll make it up to you.”
“You better.” Aaron reached for the heater dial and cranked it to full blast, waggling his fingers in front of the vent.
Kenny pulled out onto the road, tyres slipping on a patch of slush. “Why do you hate him?”
“Who?”
“Your boss.”
“He’s a bellend.”
“More specific.”
“A massive bellend.”
Kenny hummed as if he was filing that under: will circle back later. Then he said, “I know you liked Patricia. Shame she retired.”
“Yeah. She actually cared about dogs and not about how much money they can swindle out of old people. Legacy funding. All the rage.”
“Might take some getting used to. New management.”
Aaron turned his face to the window, watching the frost halo around the glass.
Everything outside looked like a postcard.
From a place he didn’t live in. The silence held for a while, not uncomfortable, but thick.
Then Kenny took his hand off the wheel and slid it up Aaron’s thigh.
And Aaron, despite having his game face on, still flinched.
Hard. Sharp. Automatic. So much so he bashed his other knee against the door handle, almost curling in on himself.
It was a reflex older than thought. Older than Kenny.
His body didn’t give a shit about safety, or who it was.
Lover, stranger, it didn’t matter. Touch meant threat, and his nerves fired first. Recoil now, process later.
Kenny pulled away immediately, curling his hand back around the steering wheel. “Whoa. Sorry.”
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
“No. Fuck, I’m sorry.” Aaron dragged a hand down his face, shook his head hoping to rattle the shame loose. “Wasn’t thinking.”
Kenny said nothing.
Because he knew better. Knew Aaron was thinking.
Too much, too fast, too loud. It was pouring off him, practically screaming through the space between them: I’m in trauma mode.
And Kenny would know. He always did. He did that maddening thing where he didn’t look at him, keeping his eyes on the road, calm as anything, which only meant he was seeing more.
Seeing harder. Right fucking through. Straight down into Aaron’s fucking psyche.
So Aaron reached out, snatched Kenny’s hand from the wheel, and slammed it back onto his leg, right where the rip in his jeans exposed bare skin. He held it there.
Made him touch him.
Made him feel him. The prickling skin. The fractured pieces. The part of him still flinching and the part still wanting him. Kenny. So Kenny slid his fingers under the frayed denim, circling his thumb across the cold skin of Aaron’s thigh.
And—fuck.
Aaron’s throat closed. His chest did that twisty, impossible thing.
He might cry.
He didn’t even know why.
What the fuck was this?
“You okay?” Kenny asked, as if he already knew the answer and didn’t expect to hear it.
Aaron sniffed hard, swallowing down whatever sound clawed at his throat. “Yeah.”
He shook his hair out, scrambling for something—anything—to say that wasn’t I’m a fucking mess, stuck in the past, when will I get over it, and have you chipped me down so far I can’t function unless you’re holding me? All the fucking time?
Too much. Way too much.
So instead he said, flat and simple, “We had a lurcher brought in. Been with her all day.”
Kenny said nothing.
“Skin and bone. Couldn’t even fucking stand.
Someone tied her to a tree and left her.
In winter. Wind like this, rain like knives.
And they walked away.” He ground his teeth.
“She won’t eat. Won’t move. Trembles all the time.
Flinches when someone tries to get near her.
” He blinked too fast. Wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I fucking hate people.”
Kenny stilled his thumb on his leg.
Did he know it was deflection?
Course he fucking did.
Didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
It was. All of it. He did hate people. Hated what they’d done to that dog. The way they’d stripped her down to fear and reflex. How she flinched at every hand trying to help. How her ribs showed through her coat and no amount of coaxing could convince her she was safe now.
But what pissed him off most, what broke him if he was honest, was that someday she’d be labelled un-rehomable. Too difficult. Doesn’t like affection. Aggressive when cornered. Best kept away from children.
Un-fucking-lovable.
He wiped a tear from his cheek he hadn’t even felt fall.
Kenny noticed.
Of course, he fucking noticed.
Because he was Kenny. And because he was somehow both a forensic psychologist and the goddamn patron saint of boyfriends, he didn’t say a word. Didn’t push. He kept his hand on Aaron’s leg. Circling his thumb in that same grounding rhythm.
He knew Aaron saw himself in that lurcher.
Knew the ache came from a place not only of compassion, but recognition.
Aaron’s empathy had been carved out of survival.
Moulded by every careless hand. Every rough word.
Every time someone took too much or left too little.
And those sharp, rusted edges Aaron had forged from every bruise life had handed him?
Kenny had taken them on. One by one. Not smoothed them.
Not asked him to change. But… held them. Got cut on them more than once, too.
But he never let go.
“Bollocks.” Aaron swiped his eyes, trying for casual and landing nowhere near. He peeked sideways. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. You’re allowed to feel things. You’re allowed to crack open. Bleed a bit.” Kenny looked across at him. “With me, you don’t have to perform. You don’t have to be brave. You’re allowed to be angry. Messy. Quiet. Soft. You’re allowed to be anything.”
Aaron blinked hard. Swallowed harder. He dropped back into the seat, then turned to look at Kenny.
Christ, this man.
This insufferably calm, infuriatingly kind bastard somehow hadn’t fucked off yet.
Two years of chaos, lashing out, running hot and cold and colder, and Kenny had stayed.
No guilt trips. No ultimatums. No disappearing acts.
And something inside Aaron, something brittle and long-splintered, gave way.
It cracked open wide enough for the truth to crawl out.
Not dressed up. Not made safe. Raw and shaking and real.
“Please don’t leave me.”
The words fell out like a wound splitting.