It always puts an instant smile on my face to see that Aiden is calling me. I set his contact photo to the one I took of him in the flower shop when it was dark and closed, right after we made our breakthrough about the watch. In the picture he’s grinning openly, one strand of chestnut hair fallen over his eyes, his cheekbones made even sharper by the camera flash. He’s so stupid hot that the blurry photo legitimately looks like an ad for something. Expensive… cologne, maybe? There are flowers in the background.

I usually end up staring at it for a minute before I answer. This time is no exception.

“Hey!” I cram the phone between my ear and shoulder, glancing at the door to make sure that Noah isn’t nearby to listen in.

“Hi.” Aiden sounds tired, and it makes sense. He’s had regular work stuff going on, on top of which he’s been busy preparing for this thing with Ralph. Thankfully Kasey agreed to push our deadline for the glasses back a few days, to give us time to deal with the more pressing crisis. Namely, Noah living in my home and using up my toothpaste and criticizing the selection of games downloaded on my Xbox.

“I like your tired voice,” I tell Aiden, and I mean it. I love the way his low rumble turns soft and lazy, unwound with drowsiness. “It’s cute.”

I think I can almost hear him smile over the phone.

“What are you doing?” he asks. “You don’t sound tired, Energizer Bunny.”

“Little bit of houseplant maintenance. Trimming, aerating the soil, and I’ll probably polish some of these leaves, too. Get the dust off.”

“Polish the leaves?”

“Yeah, it helps them take in more light, and they need all the light they can get. I don’t have windows facing the right direction for good sun in this apartment, sadly. One day I’m going to get myself a real house and a real garden, and then all my plants will be swimming in sunlight.”

“Sounds nice,” Aiden murmurs, and pauses. “Is everything okay over there?”

“Hmm? Yeah. Well - my Mistletoe cactus needs fresh soil, I think, but everything else is blooming nicely-”

Aiden makes a noise, a heavy exhale through his nose which I know to be a form of his huffing laugh. This is the sleepy edition, and he’s done it against my neck more than once.

“Not the plants, dummy. I meant are you okay. Like, you and Noah. Any sign of trouble?”

“Oh! Right. No, not trouble from the outside world, anyways. Noah, on the other hand. I don’t know who the hell raised him. He put a Tide Pod in the dryer, Aiden. The dryer. It melted onto a pair of my jeans.”

A soft chuckle from the other end of the line.

“I’m sorry to hear that you’re suffering so profoundly, but I have some good news.”

I brush the soil from my fingers and grab the phone, which was about to slip off of my shoulder. I quickly poke my head out of the bedroom, but Noah is still planted on the couch, out of earshot. I close the door, just to be safe.

“Good news?”

“Yeah, I think we'll be ready by tomorrow.”

“Oh, thank god.” I let out a long breath of relief. It’s been two days since we formed our plan, and even though Aiden should be able to hear any trouble that might be coming for us, I’ve been on edge. “Does this mean that Kasey will be back tonight?”

“Yep. Do you mind sending me the info she has?”

“Hey, if it’ll help get Noah out of my apartment, and more importantly out of my spare pair of sweatpants, I will happily act as translator.”

“How’s he holding up?”

“Noah? He’s on the couch, eating a cold Hot Pocket like some kind of serial killer. He’s okay, but… I think he’ll be happy when this is over.”

“It’ll be over soon. Tomorrow night. It’s a Friday, so. If shit goes wrong and we all end up with black eyes, at least we’ll have a few days to recover before going back to work.”

“Speak for yourself, I have a shift on Saturday. The flower game is brutal.” Again, I think I can sense him smiling on the other end of the line. I most definitely hear a deep yawn. “You sound so tired. Why don’t you go to bed?”

“Mmmm, I am tired, but I can’t sleep. Guess I’m a little anxious about tomorrow. I know I can do it, it's easy. But I don’t like seeing people scared of me, anymore. I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Do you have a plan for what to say?”

“Nah. I mean, roughly, but mostly I’m just gonna improvise. It’ll come more naturally that way.”

“Then you’d better get some rest, or you’ll be too tired to do a good job.” I hesitate, wishing I was over there with him. “Anything I can do to help you fall asleep?”

“I don’t know.” Another yawn. “Maybe just talk? Tell me about that house and garden you want someday.”

I sit down on my bed, smiling to myself.

“Okay. I want a place with an old garden that I can fix up. It’s nice to work with the roots of what’s already there. Enough room for some big trees around it…”

I chatter away, my words punctuated by quiet responses and little laughs from Aiden, until I realize that he hasn’t said anything for a while.

“Aiden? Did you fall asleep?” No answer. I wait for a good long minute, just to be sure. “Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”

Only silence comes back, so I hang up, my heart doing something very weird. Suddenly in desperate need of distraction, I toss my phone down on the bed and venture into the living room. Noah is cross-legged on the couch, his hair up in a bun, his fingers mashing away at the buttons of my Xbox controller. I drop onto the couch next to him and dig my toes into his ribs. He yelps and crashes the little animated car he was driving.

“Make room.”

“Asshole,” he growls.

“Jerkface.” I grab the other controller and turn it on, switch the game into two-player mode. “Aiden called. He says we’re on for tomorrow night.” Noah stops and looks at me, and I notice something new. “Hey! Your eye is open.”

“Yep.” The swelling has gone down a lot over the last few days. Now it looks less like a tennis ball hidden under his eyelid and more like a particularly bad bruise. He looks so much better like this: two black pupils, two silvery-grey irises. Back to how he should be, sort of. And I guess his thumb is feeling well enough for him to clumsily play video games - easy ones, anyways. “Tomorrow?” he asks, even though I just said so.

“Mhm. You feeling ready?”

He doesn’t answer. Only turns back to the TV and starts the game.

~~~~

Nights in Ketterbridge are increasingly chilly now that summer is over, but both Noah and Aiden left their coats off, so I just pull my flannel a little closer around myself. We’re all on Aiden’s porch, waiting. The darkness spreads out around us, the glow from the porch light stretching only halfway down the stairs. The house is still and silent; Kent and Ellen are out.

I’m the only one fidgeting. Noah reclines in one of the porch chairs, nursing a beer he snuck out of my fridge and brought over. Aiden leans his hands on the railing, blue eyes traveling over the shadowy landscape, apparently calm.

“He’ll be here soon. Are you two ready?”

My instructions are basically to stand here and be myself, so I’m about as prepared as I can be. I nod, but Noah takes a too-big swig of beer and dribbles a little down his chin. Aiden turns and looks at him, folding his arms.

“Noah. You need to seem like yourself. You have to have my back, and you can’t look nervous.”

“I’ve got it. Lay off.” Noah gets to his feet, smearing the spilled beer onto his sleeve. Aiden pauses, then leans down to say something in my ear.

“Ralph is here. I can hear him. He didn’t bring Grant. He’s overconfident, that’s good.”

I want to ask Aiden what’s in the closed black bag on the porch table, but I don’t want to distract him, especially if Ralph is already here.

“Don’t hold back, Aiden,” Noah says quietly, fingers tightening around the neck of the beer bottle. “We’ve only got one shot. Scare him good, or this will kick off a whole new shitstorm.”

Aiden rests his elbows on the railing, staring up at the layers of stars and clouds overhead. The breeze in the trees is the only sound for a few long, tense minutes, and then Aiden says:

“I know you’re down there.”

There’s a movement at the bottom of the steps. Someone emerges from the shadows. Just a silhouette at first, an outline in the darkness with a flare of bright blonde at the top. The ringing of sharp, confident footsteps on the stairs accompanies him all the way to the top.

Ralph stops on the porch, facing the three of us.

Back in high school, Ralph and I would be in opposite places. It feels weird that I’m the one next to Noah, who has that nasty smile back on his face. With the beer in his hand, he looks very much like his old self.

Aiden faces Ralph, one hand on the railing, his expression neutral.

“Well, well.” Ralph’s eyes travel from Aiden to me to Noah, where they linger for a moment. “If it isn’t the island of misfit toys.” He turns to Aiden, a dark smirk on his face. “Got your text. Ready to give him back?” He nods at Noah, who takes a sip of his beer, but doesn’t look away.

“No,” Aiden says. Ralph pauses, just for a split second.

“No?” His eyebrow pops up. “That’s disappointing. I was hoping we could get through this without any... nastiness.”

“Imagine my disappointment,” Aiden answers, all casual.

“Your disappointment.”

“Yeah. Where’s the gratitude? Here I was doing you a favor, letting you go on thinking you run Ketterbridge. Indulging you in your little fantasy, out of the goodness of my heart.”

Ralph is clearly caught off guard. His eyes narrow.

“Excuse me?”

“I was happy to do it,” Aiden continues, still perfectly, icily calm. “To let you think that this sad little existence you’ve got going is actually intimidating. But now I hear from Noah that you think I’ve gone soft. That you think you can chase him and Jamie around Ketterbridge like I haven’t made it clear that they’re mine. Like nothing… well, bad will happen to you.”

Ralph is silent, staring. Aiden drops his hand from the railing and unfolds to his full height. There’s something chilling about the way he can do this: it feels like he’s unrolling forever, standing higher and higher, towering over Ralph.

I can almost hear the pop of a match striking behind Aiden’s eyes, which are suddenly narrowed and burning, boring into Ralph like a drill. A shiver runs down my spine.

Ralph’s face is contorting. In the half-light, he now looks like a scowling creature you might find carved into some gothic building. He flinches as Aiden lets out an abrupt laugh and slaps his shoulder.

“Come on, Ralph.” He pushes open the sliding glass door and gestures to it, grinning. “You’re my boy! Let’s go inside and settle this.”

Ralph blinks, thrown off again, and glowers at Aiden.

“Really?”

Aiden laughs again, this time louder. Not his usual warm huff; this one is frigid and brutal.

“No, obviously not really, you fucking asshole. What, are you kidding me?”

“That’s what I -"

“It was a joke, man, holy shit. Of course you can’t come inside, fuck you! Can you believe this fucking guy?” Aiden twists to look at Noah, who is apparently trying hard not to laugh. He bursts into a little snicker when Aiden catches his eye. “He thinks he can get away with all that shit-”

“I didn't-” Ralph begins.

“And then show up here and set foot in my home?”

“I don’t fucking think so,” Noah sneers.

“He doesn’t seem to fucking think so, Ralph,” Aiden says, pointing at Noah.

“I can’t believe you’d choose Noah, over me,” Ralph spits, recovering for a moment. “He’s worth nothing. Less than nothing. He has no fucking loyalty, if you haven’t figured that out by now.”

“Aww, does it make you sad, that I took him?” Aiden tips his head to the side. “What, Ralph, did I hit a nerve? Or is that just the face a man makes when he realizes he’s messed with the wrong fucking person?”

“Oof!” Noah puts in, grinning. “You probably shouldn’t have done that, Ralph.”

Aiden laughs again, and just like that, he and Noah are playing off of each other like they did in high school. A vicious back and forth, too fast for interruption.

“Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it, Ralph?”

“What goes around comes around, Ralph.”

“You reap what you sow, Ralph.”

“Alright, alright!” Ralph sounds a little breathless, and Aiden notices immediately.

“Are you scared, right now?” he asks, a gleeful grin spreading across his face. “I do love to know people’s fears.”

“You - you fucking-”

“Noah, hand me that bag, would you?”

Noah obliges, and Aiden drops the bag at Ralph’s feet. He jumps back like it might explode.

“What is this?”

“It’s all the money from your safe,” Aiden explains. “Minus what you owe Noah.”

A brief look of surprise flits over Noah’s face before he regains control, smirking like he knew this was the plan all along. Ralph, on the other hand, looks thunderstruck. He drops to a crouch and unzips the bag to reveal stacks of cash in neat bundles.

“What the fuck?”

“I took it.” Aiden shrugs. “20, 4, 18, that’s your safe combination, isn’t it?”

“How-” Ralph zips the bag shut and straightens up, his eyes perfectly round. “How did you-?”

Aiden drops the laughter and the nasty smile. Now he just looks terrifying, angry and serious, his fiery blue gaze pinning Ralph to the spot.

“I have eyes everywhere.” His voice lowers to a growl. He moves a step closer to Ralph, who falls back, clutching the bag. “I know everything, everything about you. I know where you sleep and eat and who you sell to and who you buy from. I know where you get your groceries, I know your address, your phone number, your safe combo, and I also know a lot of people who would have fun with that information. Did you even know that I was in your house? Did you even know that I took this?” He takes another step forward, and Ralph steps back in tandem, pressing up against the porch railing. “If you ever do anything to Jamie or Noah again, I will be the shadow around every corner. You’ll never stop seeing me. I’ll even be there when you sleep, in your worst fucking nightmares. Got that?”

Ralph makes a stammering sound that doesn’t fully form a word.

“That’s what I thought. Here’s the last favor I’m ever doing you, shithead. I’m gonna let you take the rest of your money and walk away. Just as soon as you apologize to my boys. Both of them.”

Ralph grits his teeth for a second, then lifts his gaze over Aiden’s shoulder to us.

“I’m. Sorry.” He seems to strangle on the words.

“Good,” Aiden says, with a nod. “Now walk away.”

Ralph pulls the bag to his chest, looking like a frightened child under Aiden’s oppressive gaze. He turns immediately and starts down the stairs.

“Ugh!” Aiden groans. “This is boring, watching him walk away like a scared puppy with his tail between his legs. You know what, Ralph? Run.”

Ralph stops on the stairs, glaring at Aiden over his shoulder, and Aiden’s eyes flare.

“I said run,” he snarls, and Ralph whips around and races down the stairs, stumbling with the bag in his hands. “Run, puppy, run!” Aiden bellows, his hands cupped around his mouth, his deep voice vibrating my very bones. Ralph hits the ground and tears off without looking back.

Noah and I join Aiden at the railing and watch in silence as the darkness swallows him up.