Chapter 37
AMELIA
The grief of my dead mother had lessened to a numb tidal wave again. Being in that house, and crying the times that I did, it had sucked the darkness out of me and morphed it into a steady stream of bittersweet memories and aching moments of longing.
And so, I found solace in the quiet moments, in the shared silence that spoke volumes of the bond we once shared.
When Dante asked me if I was going to be leaving soon, I had hesitated. I wasn’t ready to fall back into the normalcy of life yet. When he offered to take me to his family’s lake house cabin for the day, I eagerly jumped on the opportunity.
I told him that I would be fine with Caiden coming along, because I wouldn’t want him to feel left out.
I wasn’t sure if I made the right decision.
Being there with both Caiden and Dante, two men who were becoming irresistible, was going to be a challenge.
I replayed the kiss I had shared with Dante, how sweet and soft it was.
Next, I thought about the desirable allure of Caiden, and how I melted when he held me against the wall, inhaling my lips and feeling every inch of my body.
I thought I wouldn’t be able to be intimate, not after what happened with Blake, but I surprised myself when I fell into Caiden’s passion.
When he held me at my mom’s funeral, pulling me back from shredding into a million pieces, I remember feeling so safe and secure I felt in his arms, wanting to melt into him for eternity.
With Caiden, it was like a match to dry grass. Hot, crackling, beautiful, a flame I wanted to press my palm against even as it blackened the skin.
I didn’t know if he’d ever move beyond the gravitational pull of his father’s cruelty, or the volatility that hummed just beneath his skin. I did mean it when I said I was finding forgiveness, but there were still moments of doubt.
But sometimes, when I caught him staring at me like I was the only refuge in a world of sleet and black ice, I wondered if that was the kind of love that lasted, the kind that survived the storm.
But then there was Dante. Dante with his slow-burning smile and his hands that never wandered unless I wanted them to.
I was a fool, really. I wanted the comfort of both of them—the steadfastness of Dante and the heat of Caiden—but I also wanted to fly away, to leave the whole mess of myself behind.
It was like being stranded between two cliffs, one lush with promise, the other sheer with danger, and knowing I’d break on the rocks whichever way I jumped.
I was never more aware of my own duplicity, how my heart could, in the same hour, ache for the soft cadence of Dante’s voice and the raw urgency of Caiden’s grasp.
Caiden was still asleep, his arm draped over his face, mouth open just enough to make a soft, wheezing sound. I watched him for a minute. For all his violence inward and out, he looked more breakable than ever.
I had the desire to crawl into bed by his side and mold myself into his flesh.
Dante texted at 8:00 AM exactly.
Be ready in 30. Getting donuts and coffee. Will honk obnoxiously if you’re not out front.
A smile ghosted onto my face. I texted back.
Don’t bring the ones with sprinkles. Caiden will whine.
Caiden was awake by the time I finished packing my things. He looked at me with the shell-shocked gentleness of someone who expects the next blow to land at any moment, and I realized, with a pang, that he’d probably never had a day in his life where he felt safe.
I couldn’t judge, though. I rarely felt safe either, and I was beginning to understand how similar Caiden and I were.
“You packed?” he asked, voice shredded at the edges.
“Yeah. Dante’s picking us up soon.” I zipped my bag and crossed to the tiny bathroom to run a brush through my hair.
It didn’t go unremarked, the effort we put in, to not mention last night, or the hundreds of nights before it.
We were both on the run from our personal ghosts, and this little plan to drive north with Dante was just another way of pretending we could outrun them.
A honk cut through the morning, followed by the rumble of Dante’s car pulling up under the motel’s warped roof. He stepped out with a Dunkin’ box in hand and a cup tray balanced on his knee.
I double checked that I had all my belongings. Bags I came with? Check. Boxes containing my dead mother’s possessions? Check.
Caiden was gentler than expected. When he carried the boxes, his hands didn’t squeeze or clutch, but balanced them, as if he worried any abrupt movement might shake loose the last memories of my mother inside.
I watched the muscles ripple under his shirt as he loaded my things into the back, then stood awkwardly beside the car, waiting for me to climb in.
I almost told him he could have the aux cord for the drive, like we were two functional humans, like this was just a road trip.
“Just follow me. I’ll see you two there,” Dante called out as he closed his car door. He led the way out onto the main road, us following.
The drive was almost two hours, twisting from the dull gridwork of Pathosbury into the rolling, pine-choked wilderness bracketed by the state park’s borders.
In the car, silence expanded between us. Caiden drove with both hands on the wheel, and his jaw set hard, but his eyes kept flicking to me. Quick, guilty glances, never quite landing. I took to looking out the window, watching the scenery blur past.
After a while, he said, “You ever been to the lake before?”
I shook my head. “Not this one. My mom took us to Erie once when I was a kid, but it was always public beaches and screaming toddlers.”
Caiden snorted, but not in a mean way. “This place is different. Nobody around for miles. I went a few times with Dante back when we were kids.”
It was hard to remember that Dante was Caiden’s friend first. Anxiety gnawed at me, hoping it wouldn’t be weird for the three of us to be hanging out.
The only times in the past when we would be around each other all at once was during school days when Caiden would bully me, and Dante stood on the sidelines.
The endless forest made it easy to think about nothing at all, so I let my mind slip into blankness and watched the miles spool out behind us.
We stopped once, at a gas station with a single pump and a vending machine that only took cash. Caiden bought us two Cokes and a bag of candy. He handed me the bag wordlessly.
The switch had flipped, and he had curled himself back into his dark corner where nobody could hurt him.
I noticed there were two sides to Caiden. The wild, untamed, and passionate one who spoke how he felt, and would do anything to connect with the gentle softness that he had. The one who knew how he felt, determined to redeem himself and prove he wasn’t just a cruel beast.
Then, there was the controlled Caiden, who was quiet and dark. The one who I feared, the one who could snap at any moment and ruin me.
I chewed the candy and watched the road wind tighter, the trees arching overhead in a cathedral of green.
“Do you think it’ll be weird?” I asked, and it was unclear if I meant the weekend or the fact that all three of us would be in such close quarters. “Like, with all of us?”
Caiden shrugged, but his knuckles blanched on the steering wheel. “Only if we make it weird.”
“Are we already making it weird?” I risked a glance at his profile, the hard line of his jaw, the stubble growing in unevenly, as if he’d forgotten himself for a few days. I wanted to touch his cheek, to see how it would feel beneath my fingers.
A muscle twitched in his face. “I mean, I think it’s pretty much always been weird with us.”
I laughed, surprised by the sound, and saw the barest hint of a smile flicker at the edge of his mouth. “You’re not wrong.”
Caiden drove faster as we got closer, like he was racing some invisible deadline. His hands never left the wheel, but I caught his eyes in the rearview, a glance so brief and so full of want that it wrecked me.
When the turnoff came, he slowed to a crawl, then navigated the gravel with a caution that felt almost reverent. The tires chewed dust, and over the rise, the lake appeared, misty and flat.
Dante’s car was already parked beneath a crooked basketball hoop, the net long since rotted away. The air was enveloped with cold, the lake itself a dark sheet, unruffled and endless.
Caiden killed the engine and leaned back, head thunking gently against the headrest. For a second, he didn’t move. Maybe he was waiting for me to say something.
I got out first, the cold air pinching my lungs.
Dante was on the porch. He looked more at home than I’d ever seen him, loose-limbed and grinning as if nothing in the world had ever threatened him.
I heard Caiden’s door open and slam behind me, footsteps crunching on the gravel. He hovered by the trunk, eyes turned toward the water, profile severe in the morning light.
The lake house was painted brown, its windows bleary with years of storms. There was a strip of lawn leading down to a rickety dock, the planks warped and silvered as a fish’s belly. A canoe leaned against the shed.
I followed Dante inside, dragging my duffel. The screen door whined shut behind me, and I was instantly enveloped by the hush of the place.
I set my bag in the corner by the table and pressed my palms to the cold glass. Out there, the lake looked like smoked glass, no wind to fracture its surface.
Near the dock, Caiden walked slowly, hands buried in his pockets, shoulders boxy and defensive.
I watched him for a moment, trying to puzzle out the shape of his sadness from this distance. He stooped and picked up a stone, weighed it, then let it drop back to earth.
Dante appeared behind me, close enough to feel the warmth radiate off his skin. He set the donuts on the counter and offered me coffee. “There’s a canoe,” he said, voice low. “You ever been?”
I hadn’t. “No, I was always too afraid of it losing balance, and I would fall into the water. I didn’t think anybody would be there to catch me, so I avoided things like that.”