I stand in front of my mirror, taking a long look at myself. I’ve been to Ms. Callahan’s house before, but never with Aiden there. I want to look nice. My fingertips are stained a light green from all of the centerpieces yesterday, but there’s nothing I can really do about that. I run a brush through my hair one more time, lean in and check that there’s nothing on my face. I meet my reflection’s gaze and remember what Aiden said when he pulled the reading glasses off of my nose.

Taking these back. We don’t want to hurt your pretty brown eyes.

I brought home the lily he left at the shop yesterday and put it carefully between two paper towels. The paper towels I put into one of my poetry books, on the page with the line that reminded me of him. The book is closed and at the bottom of the stack, now. When the flower is pressed properly I might get a frame for it or something. I don’t know. It’s a really lovely little thing. Aiden made a surprisingly nice choice. Every time I think of it my cheeks get red all over again.

I take one final look in the mirror, settle my bag over my chest, and head out. The stairs are quiet and empty. I remember the frantic dash we took down them when Gabby was in danger. Aiden has only been to my apartment once, but there are reminders of him everywhere.

I’m in a pretty great mood, and I whistle on the way down. I step out into the afternoon sunshine, smiling to myself.

Someone grabs me by the shoulder and slams me into the wall.

I gasp, feeling before registering my impact with hard brick. A hand pins me back forcefully, sending sparks of pain through my chest. Instinctively I seize the wrist of whoever’s holding me, panic clouding my vision.

“Where you headed, Keane?” snarls a nasty voice. I blink rapidly, trying to breathe under the press of his palm.

“Ralph?” I gasp. “What are you doing?”

He’s leering, that’s one thing. A frightening rictus grin is on his face. Grant is right behind him, and enjoying this just as much, going by his expression.

“Noah, get the door,” Ralph says.

“Noah?” Oh, now I see him. He’s a few feet further back, his arms folded over his narrow chest and a deep frown on his face. “What are you guys doing here, what is happening, right now?”

“I’ve got it,” Grant says, stepping forward. Ralph uses his free hand to stop him.

“The door, Noah,” he repeats. Noah haltingly uncrosses his arms, steps forward, and pushes open the door to my building. I find myself hauled back inside, half-pushed, half-dragged by the handful of my shirt in Ralph’s fist. He uses it to toss me at the wall in the tiny entryway. Grant and Noah fan out behind him, blocking any chance of escape.

“So. I think we have some business to deal with, don’t you, Keane?”

I stare up at Ralph, struggling to stay calm. He’s the opposite of Aiden in build (more scarecrow-like than anything), but he’s still frightening.

“Business?” I rub my shoulder, which is throbbing where I hit the wall. “Do you, um, need some flowers?”

Grant lets out a little laugh, but the nasty grin drops off of Ralph’s face, replaced by an ice-cold glare. Apparently I’ve somehow made him angrier than he already was when he arrived.

“You see that?” He twists to face Grant, then fixes me with his icy glare again. “This is what the fuck I’m talking about. I’m so sick of this. What’s wrong with you, Keane? Why are you always fucking smiling, like a clown? You are so annoying. You’ve always gotten on my damn nerves, but Aiden would never let me do something about it.”

“Are you kidding? You guys made my life a nightmare for like, four years,” I stammer, pressing as far back against the wall as I can go.

“I mean actually do something about it.” Ralph takes a step closer. “I should have, back then. Then you’d know better than to try and steal a friend from me.”

Fear is making the corners of my vision swirl, but a thought finds its way to me. If I was in serious trouble, wouldn’t Aiden hear it? He would come and save me, right?

I think this means - I really hope this means - that I am not actually in danger right now. It makes sense, doesn’t it? What is Ralph going to do, beat the shit out of me in the stairwell of my own building? Where anyone could walk in and see him? No, this is a scare mission, and for a second, I let it work. The terror threatening to overwhelm me suddenly pulls back. Something hardens in my gut, and I find myself angry, not scared. I cast my gaze over to Noah, who is staring at the wall above my head.

“You feel good about this, Noah? After Aiden and I spent forever looking for you in the woods?” He doesn’t answer or look at me, so I turn my attention back to the head goon. “Honestly, aren’t we a little old for this, Ralph?”

“Blame Aiden for that.” Ralph’s feral eyes on my face threaten to melt the little bit of courage I’ve found. “I wanted to do this forever ago. I think it’s time you and I settled our business.”

“We don’t have any business.” I straighten up against the wall, then take a step forward. My heart is hammering, but no one moves to stop me. “Unless you need flowers.” I take another step forward. “In which case, you can call the shop.” Another step. No one stops me, but neither do they get out of my way. “We’re open every day of the week except Monday.” I’m only a foot or so away from Ralph, now. “We usually do a sale at the end of the season, so I would recommend coming by then.”

I can’t go any farther without walking directly into Ralph, so I stop. This is the actual test of my theory, and my confidence wavers. Ralph stands staring at me, his eyebrows raised, looking almost amused.

“I think you’ve forgotten that you should be scared of me, Keane,” he says, leaning forward very slightly. My instinct is to step back, but I force myself to hold my ground.

“I’m not sixteen anymore, Ralph.”

We stand staring at each other for a moment. A door on the second-floor bangs open, and one of my neighbors appears in a bathrobe, a stuffed trash bag in her hands. She pauses on the landing, looking down at us. Ralph glances from me to her and back again.

“Let’s just go, dude,” Noah murmurs. Ralph opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but changes his mind. He turns and shoves Noah at the exit.

I wait for a few minutes after the door shuts behind them before moving again. Now that the adrenaline is burning off, the fear is back in full force. I’m terrified that they might be waiting just outside for a sneak attack.

But when I step back out into the hot sunshine, they’re gone.

~~~~

Aiden pulls open the door of Ms. Callahan’s house, smiling.

“Hey, you,” he says, and my heart lifts.

“Hey.”

“Come in.”

Ms. Callahan’s place is pretty much as I remember it. She has a very different style from my mom. This is a house in shades of charcoal and dark green and chocolate brown. Faded wallpaper that screams of the early 90’s lines the entryway, and a thick carpet quiets our steps. But there are changes here, new signifiers of Aiden. The curtains on the windows are tied back, and the windows themselves all thrown open, the way they always are at his attic apartment. The warm scent of brewing coffee is drifting from the kitchen. A snapback I’m sure belongs to him is on a hook by the door. I snag it off the wall and put it on backwards, the way he wears them.

“Well?” I ask, pointing to myself.

“Very cute. Hold onto that, actually, you might need it.”

“For what?” I pull off my shoes - he’s already barefoot - and follow him into the kitchen. “Where’s Ms. Callahan?”

“Still at the store, I think.” Aiden is wearing board shorts that come just past his knees, a white t-shirt on top. A turquoise snapback I’m familiar with by now. He opens a cabinet and pulls out two towels. “Dinner’s not for a bit.”

“Yeah, I was wondering why you told me to come over at 2 pm for dinner, but then again, Gabby took us at a 4:30 pm lunch, so… I don’t know anymore.” I shrug. “What’s your aunt cooking?”

“I’m cooking.” Aiden turns and tosses me one of the towels. “Good day to crack open the grill, don’t you think?”

“Do we need towels to open the grill?”

“No.” Aiden laughs softly. “I want to show you my favorite thing about my aunt’s house. I think my board shorts from high school might fit you, I’ll go get them.”

“Are we going for a swim?” I call, but he’s already jogging up the stairs.

Ten minutes later, Aiden is sliding open the back doors of Ms. Callahan’s house, letting us out onto the green lawn stretching behind it. The board shorts he loaned me are a little too big, but I tie them up tight and follow him across the lawn towards the wall of trees lining it.

He leads me through a slender stretch of woodland until we hear the faint whisper of rushing movement. We emerge at the edge of a little creek, water bubbling along in the brilliant sunshine.

“How did you ever find this?” I breathe. It’s beautiful, the trees swaying along its banks, the water clear and shallow and rushing over a mosaic of pebbles.

“Truth be told, I used to sneak out here to get drunk when I was a kid.” Aiden shrugs, a little abashed. He tosses his towel and hat to the ground. “Since then I’ve figured out it’s better in the daytime. The water’s not even that cold.”

I stick a bare foot into the creek and find it chilly, but not intolerable. Birds call out to each other overhead.

“You want to go for a swim?” Aiden asks, and pulls off his shirt.

The sunlight breaks over his head and rolls down his shoulders, casting velvety shadows under every ridge and curve of his body. The breeze stirs his dark hair as he tosses the shirt onto the little pile at his feet. My eyes follow the shift of muscle under his tawny skin. He turns to face me, and there they are: those two little spots, just above the waistline of his low-slung board shorts, that dip inward. God, I hate them. I also want to put my thumbs on them. I wrench my gaze away just before he looks back at me.

He’s waiting for an answer. Maybe I wouldn’t normally jump into a chilly creek, but I’m actually thinking some cold water would be good for me right now. I quickly pull off my own shirt, drop it next to his. Feeling his eyes on me, I glance back at him. To my surprise, he looks troubled. He takes a step towards me and touches a finger to my chest, just above my collarbone. My heart leaps into my mouth.

“What happened?” he murmurs. I glance down and realize that I’ve already formed a bruise where Ralph grabbed me earlier. Somehow that feels like it was forever ago, and it was literally right before I set off for Ms. Callahan’s house. I thought about it on the way over, and I’ve decided against telling Aiden what happened. It would only make him upset, and it wouldn’t help with anything.

“I had a run-in with a wall,” I explain, because it’s mostly true. Aiden’s eyes soften.

“I leave you alone for one day,” he says. “And you dye your fingers green and run into a wall?”

“Are we swimming, or what?”

Aiden smiles, and I see a dangerous flash move through his eyes. He scoops me directly off the ground in one swift movement, slinging me over his shoulder. I gasp and grab at him, but before I can escape, he charges at the creek. Water rises up around my ears, mixed with my laughter, and his.

The afternoon passes in a sunlit haze. We spend ages fooling around in the creek, splashing and shouting, me trying to kick Aiden under the water and him catching my leg and pulling me off my feet. We walk along the shallow banks, follow the creek up to a tiny waterfall and back. I name the plants we see along the way and tell Aiden about them. He listens quietly, water dripping from his dark hair and down his shoulders. We stretch out on the mossy stones lining the creek bed and talk. He actually bothers to ask me how it went with the centerpieces, and teases me again about my literal green thumbs. We debate theories about William and talk about the details of my upcoming trip with Destinee. He tells me about his week at work, which was mostly spent archiving newspapers. He says he likes doing them, because he can read all the old headlines.

“What was your favorite one?”

“Cemetery ‘Necking’ Parties Considered a ‘Grave’ Problem,” he answers.

By the time we walk back towards the house, the sun is low over the horizon, its colors turning a darker blush. I'm pleasantly tired, drowsy in a contented way, and I can tell that Aiden is, too. The light blue of the sky has become cobalt, and the air is cooling off. Smoke drifts up from Ms. Callahan’s porch when we step out of the trees. She already has the grill fired up.

“Hello, James! I’m delighted you could make it!” She waves at us with a spatula, then hands it off to Aiden as he steps onto the porch. “Glad you boys are back! Aiden, honey, you’d better get cooking. We should eat soon.”

“What’s the rush, sun’s just setting,” he answers, popping open a cooler and extracting a frosty lemonade. He tosses it to me and then pulls one for himself. “Plenty of time to eat.”

“Yes, but we should leave a little time for after dinner, love,” Ms. Callahan says, reaching up to smooth his damp hair from his face. “I have a few little favors I need two strong boys for. Just some boxes I need moved…”

Aiden grins at me over his shoulder. Told you, he mouths.

“Happy to,” I tell Ms. Callahan, who gives me a sparkling smile.

“Wonderful! Can we start right now? James, I want you to have a look at the plant in my kitchen. There are spots on the leaves.”

“Oh no! Let’s go see what’s up.”

“Don’t keep him all night, Auntie, I’m sure he actually wants to eat at some point.” Aiden ruffles my wet hair. I pretend to bite his fingers before he draws them away, then follow Ms. Callahan back into the house.

“Thanks for having me over, Ms. Callahan.”

“Oh, James, it’s me who should be thanking you.” She leads us into the kitchen. There’s a view of the porch through the window. Darkness is falling rapidly outside, but Aiden is lit by the warm glow of the grill as he leans over it, breathing renewed heat into the coals.

“Thanking me for what?” I ask, as Ms. Callahan lifts the potted plant from her windowsill. She sets it down on the counter, leans closer to me, and points through the window.

“For that. The smile on my nephew’s face.” She turns to look at me, and I notice for the first time that she and Aiden share that appraising blue stare.

“I’m not sure I should take all the credit,” I tell her, and she shakes her head.

“Aiden has never had an easy time of things. Since he’s been spending time with you…” She glances at him through the window, then looks back to me. “Well. It’s just nice to see him so happy.”

I can only stare at her, my heart swelling.

“You don’t have to thank me,” I tell her. “He makes me happy, too.”

Ms. Callahan nods. She watches him through the window, affection written all over her face.

“I told you, he’s a good one, once you take the time to know him. He just needs someone who can be gentle with him. Someone with a soft touch."