Chapter 10
Matt
By the time we get back upstairs, I’ve lost my ability to hide my pain. Being thrown around by the explosion at Aron’s house, helping him get around until he got his footing back, cooking dinner … I’m spent.
I figure I’ll just sleep it off, but Aron’s got me pegged. As soon as we get to the bedroom, he slams the door shut and orders me to take off my shirt.
I’m not stupid enough to think this is about sex. He’s noticed that I’m hurt, and I know he wants to inspect the damage Dad did tonight. Last night? Fuck, I don’t even know what day it is anymore.
Try as I might, I can’t get the damp tee off by myself. I wince and groan, and finally Aron makes me sit down on the bed while he goes off on the hunt for a pair of scissors.
Funny how the tables keep turning. I’ve been Aron’s charge my whole life, but after just a few hours of taking care of him, he’s back to being my savior.
Within minutes, he has my shirt off and is inspecting my injuries.
His fingers trace the bruises and cuts on my chest, back, and sides, and he flinches in sympathy with every sharp intake of breath.
“Sorry.”
“No worries,” I say as he presses a rib that’s likely bruised, if not busted. “I’m just sorry I can’t hold still for you.”
“Tito really did a number on you, didn’t he?”
I let out a dry laugh. “How do you know this isn’t explosive damage?”
“Because I know Tito.”
“Well, I probably deserved it. I kind of pissed him off by refusing the wife and kids bit—again.”
Aron’s eyes snap shut, and I bite my lip. I’m a fucking idiot.
“Aron, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re okay. I did ask, after all.”
Awkward silence drags on until I can’t stand it anymore. By now, Aron’s at my back again, gently probing at my bruised spine. “So … Will I live, doc? I mean, Dad beat me pretty bad, but I also survived, so there’s that.”
“You ran into a burning building with all this …” His voice is low, almost inaudible.
Guilt racks me as he finds a new spot to poke. Does he think this is why I didn’t bring Emily’s body out? “Aron—”
“Shh.” He pats my shoulder and stands up. “Where’s the antiseptic? I should put something on all these cuts before they get infected.”
After I give him instructions, he disappears for a few minutes. I sit on the bed, frozen, unsure what to make of this. I don’t know what Aron’s thinking, don’t know if he’s embarrassed by my revelation or if he’s into it.
Will this be the end of our friendship?
Aron returns with first aid supplies, but he remains silent.
I sit quietly as well, trying to hold still for him while he tends to my wounds.
The antiseptic stings like a bitch, but at least none of my cuts seem to be deep enough to require stitching.
Aron makes an amazing guard, but he’s a terrible physician.
The last time he tried to stitch me, I wound up with a gnarly, jagged scar on my thigh instead of something clean and straight.
To this day, it’s still my favorite scar.
“This beating,” he says, breaking the quiet, “you took it because you refused to let Tito marry you off to a woman?”
“Yeah.”
“And you refused because you’re gay … but also because you’re in love with me?”
I hesitate to answer. Not because he’s wrong, but because he figured out the real reason before I even did. “Yeah. I just—I’d rather stay single than marry someone else, even a fake marriage. A marriage of convenience.”
The wait for Aron’s reaction is agonizing. I’d almost rather take another beating from Dad.
“You watched me marry Emily.”
He whispers it so quietly, almost reverently. I don’t know what to say to that. Of course I watched him get married—though from a respectable distance. He’s my best friend. What kind of friend would I have been to miss that?
“I didn’t see you there,” Aron says as he caps the antiseptic and sits back to check his work. “Where were you?”
“About a hundred yards away, in the shadows of an old oak tree at the park.”
He shakes his head. “I should have known you didn’t ditch me that day.”
“I could never ditch you.”
“I see that now.” His smile is brilliant, if a bit shy and wistful. It makes me want to hug him, to wrap my arms around him and comfort him. The thing is, does he want that?
“Matt?”
“Yeah, Aron?”
If I was hoping for a passionate kiss, he dashes those hopes rather quickly. “You said we can share the bed tonight, but … could we, like, not?”
“Huh?”
Aron holds his hands up, palms out. “Not not share the bed, but maybe not share other things, if you know what I mean? I’m just not sure I’m ready for that.
Between losing Emily and the baby, then hearing you admit how you feel, then finding out that there’s a part of me that reacts sexually to you … It’s a lot to take in.”
Of course. Just my luck. “Sure. I mean, it’s a king mattress, so there’s plenty of room. I could even get you separate blankets, if that’s what you—”
“No, Matt. I don’t want to be alone tonight, either. I guess what I’m saying is: I need my best friend right now. Not a lover, not a sexual partner. I need the Matt I grew up with, not the Matt who confessed his undying love when he thought I couldn’t hear him.”
Ouch. That stings worse than the antiseptic did.
Forcing a smile, I pat Aron’s back and scoot over a bit. “Sure thing. We can share the bed and share blankets, and nothing else will happen that you’re not ready for. Cool?”
“Thanks,” he says as he crawls under the blankets next to me. “You don’t know how much this means to me, Matt.”
When Aron wraps his arms around me and snuggles close, it’s like the past twenty-five years have melted away, like we’re suddenly ten years old again, sharing a bed while our dads work through the night.
I remember how we’d tell each other ghost stories and fall asleep facing each other.
This is eerily reminiscent of that, though this time we refrain from telling scary stories.
Life is scary enough right now, and we still don’t know who attacked Dad and the Syndicate.
One thing I’m sure of: It was an inside job.
Someone got to not only Beto, but Dad’s guard for the night and several others.
Add in the fact that most of the Syndicate homes exploded almost simultaneously, and there’s no way it wasn’t a coordinated operation.
Someone wanted all of our top associates dead in one strike, and they nearly succeeded.
We’ll need to wait things out for a couple days, bide our time, before we start to rebuild.
Gather our remaining members, find a new base of operations, things like that.
My mind swirls with lists of things we need to do—and it’s we, not I, because I know that no matter what ends up happening to the Royal Syndicate from here on out, Aron and I will face it together.