Neon light falls over the lines of Aiden’s face, turning it sherbert orange, then a dreamy blue, then scarlet. After a sizzling summer day, the air has cooled off. A drizzle is fluttering down, slow like snow, spangling Aiden’s shirt with little droplets. He’s stretched out flat on the hood of my car, his back against the windshield. His eyes are closed, a tiny smile lingering around his lips, his arms folded behind his head. I sit cross-legged next to him, finishing the last of my soda. The pizza box is on the roof of the car, probably getting wet, but it doesn’t matter: it’s empty.
Crickets chirp distantly. The buzzing neon sign over the pizza place is still on, though the only employee closed up shop long ago. I’m not sure how long Aiden and I have been here, but it must be late by now; traffic has slowed, and mine is the only car in the parking lot. The night stretches its arms around us, cool darkness.
The watch is tucked into Aiden’s pocket. I reach out and take it by the chain. He feels me do it and opens his eyes.
“I still can’t fucking believe it,” I murmur, running my thumb over the engraving. “And not just about the watch.”
Aiden’s drowsy smile is open and total. I’ve never seen him look quite so happy, and he’s been like this ever since we made the magic work today. I feel the same way. A wild giddiness keeps rising over me in waves. We’ve both been bursting into random bouts of laughter, grinning at each other over nothing, starting to say things and losing our train of thought. Neither of us has tried to explain our behavior to the other, because we’re both feeling the same thing. We may have stopped trying to make magic, but I still feel some open current between us. I’m hyper-sensitive to him, like I can tell when he’s about to smile before he even does.
“I can’t believe it, either.” He looks up at me, his blue eyes swimming with neon reflection. “You think this is crazy for you? I’ve been searching for a way to make this work for forever, and then you show up and go, oh, you mean like this?” He laughs again, and I grin, holding the watch tightly.
“It’s cause we’re companion plants,” I tell him.
“What kind of plants are we?”
“Mmmm.” I think it over. “Trees.”
“What sort of trees?” I love it when he gets like this, relaxed and silly and asking me questions that he knows will get me talking. It means he wants to listen to me, I think, and is there a lovelier feeling? I wish I could curl up against his chest, especially when he’s stretched out with his arms back like this. There’s so clearly a spot for me, but I remain cross-legged, upright.
“I think you’d be a Linden,” he says, surprising me.
“What?”
“If you were a tree.”
“How do you figure?”
“Mmmm,” Aiden hums. “You know. It’s peaceful and - makes cures for anxiety and stress. Makes super sweet honey. Good for bees, which means it’s good for all other plants, so it just feels like…” He fades off, shrugs. I feel my heart swelling wildly.
“Why do you know any of that? I thought you didn’t know anything about plants.”
“Yeah, but you like them, I -” He shrugs again, like it’s nothing. “I bought a book.”
Jesus Christ. He’s going to kill me, and I mean it.
“Oh,” is all I can say.
“Your turn. What tree am I?”
“Sugar Maple,” I answer immediately, without even thinking.
“You got that one fast,” he says, looking up at me with affection in his warm eyes. “Why Maple?”
“Because - you know, they go through this beautiful transformation as the year goes on, flower from the top down.” I poke him in the ribs. “Rough bark, but bleeds sugar.”
He looks a little stunned by that. He grins, catches my finger before I pull it away, and opens his mouth to say something. My phone vibrates in my pocket.
“Uh oh. That might be your dad,” he says, letting me go. I extract my phone and click it open.
Roger 🧯 1:21 AM
Can we finish our conversation from today? 💓
The smile drops from my face. I’ve avoided this long enough. I hit reply and start typing.
“Your dad?” Aiden asks, watching me.
“No.”
“Roger,” he guesses, and I raise my eyebrows.
“Yes, actually.”
“You guys talk a lot?” He’s staring straight up at the sky.
“I mean, if you call this talking.” I turn my phone around so that Aiden can see the column of unanswered texts that Roger has sent me. I don’t expect him to take it right out of my hand, but he scoops it and holds it over his face, his blue eyes reading quickly. I realize too late that he can see what I was working on typing back:
Hey, sorry, I know I’ve been a little MIA. I know we had fun together but right now I’m just not really looking for
Aiden hands me back the phone without comment. I can’t see the look on his face, but I know my ears are swiftly turning red.
“So, what happened? I thought you guys had a beautiful summer or whatever fucking weird thing he said.”
Everyone from high school knows that I’m gay - I came out sophomore year, dated, took a guy to prom, the whole thing, but Aiden and I have never really directly talked about my romantic life before. It feels a little weird, but I guess there’s no reason to keep things from him.
“Roger… he was a lot more invested than I was. I thought we were just having fun, and I guess he thought… well, I could tell he was more into it, and it didn’t really feel fair to him. It was a disaster, when I ended things.”
“Why?”
“Because… God, this is so embarrassing. I told him we should talk, and he was all, I’ve been thinking the same thing, but it turns out that I wanted to talk so I could break up with him, and he wanted to talk because he had been, um, planning to ask me to move in.”
“Oh, god.” Aiden cringes.
“I tried to be too nice about it,” I groan. “I got him breakup flowers and baked some cookies… It sent the wrong message. Yeah, it was bad. Extremely very bad. I told him we could be friends, because I thought that was the nicer thing to do, but that was a mistake. I don’t even know why he’s suddenly missing me, it’s been a long time since that summer. Years.”
“Guess you’re hard to forget,” Aiden answers, and I snort.
“Or he needs a rebound or something.”
“Not that many texts, not for a rebound.”
“Well, whatever.” I stretch my legs out over the hood of my car, then pull them in and cross them again. “I’m not going down that road. Don’t worry, I’m still focused on the hunt.”
“Right. The hunt.” Aiden grins. “We finally made progress!”
I turn the watch over in my fingers.
“What should we do with it?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Aiden takes it from me and clicks it open again. “At the very least, we know that the time on the incident report is wrong.”
“Oh, I didn’t even think of that.”
“The report said that William was killed during regular work hours. The watch is stopped at 10:27 PM. We know he fell into the river and was crushed - that’s almost definitely when the hands stopped working. William was on the beat crew. It was his job to jump across logs traveling down the river and prevent them from jamming up. It was super dangerous, men died doing it all the time.”
“Jesus,” I murmur. “Pre-OSHA days, huh?”
Aiden laughs. I feel it buzz in my own chest, maybe because our connection is still a little open, maybe not.
“Pre-pre-pre-OSHA days. The point is, it would have been sad, but not all that unusual for William to die on the job. But I can’t think of any good reason he’d be working that late at night. In the dark, no way to see, it just… doesn’t check out. So what was he doing there?”
“Maybe it’s something to do with why the company covered it up,” I suggest, and Aiden nods.
The drizzle picks up slightly, sprinkling us with cool droplets.
“I guess we should probably go home.” Aiden starts to sit up. I reach out and put a hand to his sternum, pinning him back down against the car. I expect some resistance, but he falls back easily against the windshield, surprised.
“One more time,” I tell him. He blinks, then smiles.
“Energizer Bunny,” he says, teasing. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Yeah, but - one more time.”
He gathers the hand that I have on his chest into both of his. A white-blue flash darts through his eyes. It’s so much easier, now that we’ve done it before, now that I know what it feels like. I don’t even have to try to let him in. I feel everything between us fall away, the barriers dissolving in brilliant fission. I breathe into him, and he breathes into me, and we laugh with each other’s voices, but not a sound leaves our mouths.
The wonder hasn’t worn off, not one little bit.
~~~~
“This was William’s?” Kasey leans over the watch, her short hair swinging into her face. “It came out of the river?”
“Yes! Can you believe?”
Kasey presses her finger to the lettering on the back. Her eyes are wide with excitement, just like I knew they’d be. It’s a testament to how exhausted I was when I got home last night that I waited until this morning to tell her. Whatever Aiden and I did, it took a lot out of me. I slept until 2 PM today, fully missed my shift at the flower shop, and woke up to a slew of texts from Kent threatening to end my life.
“Holy shit,” Kasey murmurs.
“I know! And this is new information - check out the time. Aiden says that William was on the lumber company’s beat crew, which means-”
“I know what it means, dummy.” Kasey glances up at me. “Frankly, it’s shocking that’s not what killed him. He must have been really good at it. But it’s easy to see why people bought the fake-ass story the company put out.”
“Right. The point is, he shouldn’t have been at the river that late at night. It’s a whole new angle.”
“This is big.” Kasey smiles brightly, clasps her hands together. “Jamie! Oh my god.”
I return her grin, unable to stop myself.
“Our first break! Maybe we can get the glasses working and use them to find the old cemetery.”
“Did Aiden say that?”
“No, but he was brilliant yesterday, I wish you could have seen it. If anyone could do this, I’d put my money on him.”
Kasey looks at me like I’m a baby bunny at the pet store. I grin as she flings her arms around my shoulders. I can’t feel her, but I can easily tell how happy she is.
“This is amazing,” she breathes. “I’m gonna go tell William!”
“Tell him?” I pull back, surprised. “You can communicate with him?”
“Not really communicate.” Kasey pauses. “I’m not sure. When I walk the Benton Street line, sometimes the warmth comes back, and I just - I feel like it’s him. I don’t know if he can hear me or understand me or whatever, but if he can, he’d want to know about this.”
“How do you know that, you’ve never met him,” I laugh.
“I just do.” She smiles again, her cheeks dimpling.
“It’s nice to see you so happy, dude.”
“Likewise.” She touches a finger to the old pocket watch. “I can’t wait to tell him we’re getting closer.”
“Hang on - I don’t want to over-promise. We are getting closer, but it could still be more time, and more trial and error-”
“I know that.” She waves her hand. “I meant - I just didn’t expect any of this to work. Aiden has admitted that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and we’re working completely from scratch. I was trying not to get my hopes up, in case it wasn’t possible.” She raises an eyebrow. “Come on. You’re honestly going to tell me you had faith that Aiden could do this, right from the very beginning?”
“Yes. I mean, I knew it might take a long time, that there’d be mistakes and setbacks, but - he’s the real deal. He’s special.”
I feel my cheeks turning red, and half expect Kasey to make a dig about how I haven’t told him how I feel yet, but she only looks thoughtful.
“You really trust him.”
“Yes. I know I swore I never would again, but yes.” She doesn’t answer. “What are you thinking?”
“I may have an idea of what to do next.” There’s a pause, and I can tell by her face that she’s coming to some kind of decision. “I think it’s time for you to tell Aiden about me.”
~~~~
God, I love having an excuse to see Aiden in his work clothes. Today he looks exhausted, his hair rumpled and the purple bruises around his eyes darker than normal. I suppose he didn’t sleep through his entire day of work like I did. But he’s still very cute in his dress shirt. Especially because it’s hot today and he has a button or two undone, and he’s smiling like he’s happy to see me.
“You’re a hero,” he yawns, accepting the coffee I hold out. “Oh, and an extra-large, too? What did I do to deserve such a gift?”
“You know what you did.” I wish I could step a little closer to him, but we’re right outside of the doors to City Hall, and people are bustling in and out. “Did you already have your lunch break? I know it’s late for it, but I was thinking-”
“Aiden!” Someone leans out of the doors, and we both turn. It’s Gabby, with her phone pressed to her ear. “There you are. With me, now.”
Aiden sets off after her at once, and I follow them both inside. The air conditioning is a mercy. Gabby clicks along a few feet ahead of us, her hair swinging around her waist. She seems agitated, speeding along at a rate that should not be tenable on those heels. I try to catch Aiden’s eye, but he’s busy trying to inhale his coffee before we get wherever we’re going.
We stop outside of a door with a sign that says CITY MANAGER. Gabby pushes it open to reveal a sort of waiting room with three more doors, each leading to an office with glass walls. A secretary sits at a desk in the middle, but she doesn’t even look up as Gabby, Aiden and I march to the centermost office. Gabby drops the binder she’s carrying on her desk with a tremendous thud and shuts the door after us.
She’s still listening to whatever is being said on the phone, so I take a moment to glance around. There are post-its lining the desk, color-coded and filled up with Gabby’s careful handwriting. Two framed diplomas populate the wall. The shelves behind the desk are stuffed with binders and heavy leather-bound volumes, the titles of which I can’t make out from here.
Gabby mutes her phone and points to the chairs before her desk.
“Sit,” she instructs, and we both do. She unmutes the phone and cuts off the person talking. “I honestly don’t care, Tony. Two different interns have told me he makes them feel uncomfortable.” A pause. “Dress code, my ass! He’s not allowed to ask them about what they’re wearing. I’m coming over to deal with this myself, so tell him to have a seriously good explanation by 5, or be out by 6.”
She hangs up, presses both hands to her eyes, and lets out a long breath.
“Long day?” Aiden asks cautiously.
“You have no idea. Tony has clearly never had a boss in a dress before.” She glances at me, then does a double-take, like she’s only just noticed that I’m here. “Ay, are you two a package deal or something? Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jamie doesn’t work in City Hall, does he?”
“Oops.” Now that I think about it, what am I doing? God, I'm tired. I start to rise from my seat. “I’ll just - Aiden, should I wait in your office, or-?”
“No, Jamie, stay.” Gabby drops into her chair and leans back, crossing her legs. She steeples her fingers and examines us over them. “You two have some explaining to do.”
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