“Okay,” Kasey says, her eyes still on the photo I took of Ralph’s note. “I’m a little confused.”

“You want to see the video again?” I close the picture and open up my texts. “I’ve got it in my messages with Raj, gimme a sec.”

“No, I mean-” Kasey glances from me to Aiden and back again. “When you guys said you needed help, I assumed it was something Ghost Office-related. Why are you telling me about all this?”

Aiden and I look at each other, confused. We didn’t really discuss our reasons, we both just kind of - decided?

“Well,” he says, “We can’t talk to Gabby about this stuff without blowing up Noah’s spot, and you’re the other smartest person we know, so…”

Kasey smiles, then rolls her eyes.

“I should start charging a consulting fee.”

“Okay, except that I regularly sit here just turning pages of books for you! For hours, sometimes!”

“Fair point, Jamie.” Kasey nibbles her lip. “Okay, well, my first thought is subterfuge. Specifically, a Trojan Horse.”

“You think Ralph was trying to sneak something into the house?” I ask.

“That was my first thought, yes, but… it doesn’t track. I assume we have no reason to think that the verbal ass-kicking Aiden gave Ralph wore off already?”

“Kase-face, he literally ran from Kent’s house like a tiny little gazelle about to get mauled by a lion on Planet Earth. David Attenborough could have narrated that shit.”

“Sometimes I forget that you’re scary,” Kasey tells Aiden, who smiles brightly.

“Thanks, Kasey. That’s good to - thanks.”

My phone buzzes. Kasey looks down at the notification. “Pizza guy’s downstairs.”

“I’ve got it,” Aiden says. “Be right back.”

“Why don’t you guys just let Aiden actually kick Ralph’s ass? That would solve everything.”

“Kasey!” I fix her with an indignant frown.

“Excellent idea,” Aiden says, slipping his shoes back on. “I’ll go do that right now.”

“Aiden!” I whip around to face him, and he grins at me over his shoulder, headed for the door. “You’re a fucking brute, you know that? You’re a - Kasey, give me the name of a barbarian tribe from history.”

“Mmm.” Kasey thinks for a moment. “The Xianbei. But barbarians is a very loose term, historically speaking. The Xianbei would have called themselves an independent confederation, and anyways, China was wild during that particular moment. A lot was going on. There's a reason it was called the Sixteen Kingdoms period."

"Say it again?"

"Xianbei."

"You hear that, Aiden? You're a Xianbei!” I call, but the door has already closed behind him. I sigh deeply and turn back to Kasey. “Come on, what’s going on with this? Aiden says that it doesn’t feel like one of Ralph’s tricks, and honestly, I don’t get that feeling, either. Why do this? Why the note?”

“I’m thinking, Jamie, give me a second. In the meantime, is Noah safe?”

“Raj is staying over there tonight, and they’ve got the security system on. Aiden and I offered to stay, but Raj was worried that might overwhelm Noah right now, so. We figured the best way to help would be to figure out what the hell is going on.”

“Okay. Tell me everything that happened one more time.”

By the time I get through it all, Aiden has returned with the pizza and is toeing his shoes off by the door.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” I finish, “Because if Ralph wanted Noah’s stuff out of his house, he could have just thrown it in the trash. But instead, he did - this. Whatever this is. We can’t figure out the motivation.”

Kasey presses a thoughtful finger to her lip.

“Is there something Ralph needs Noah for?”

“What do you mean?” Aiden asks, setting the pizza on the counter. “What would Ralph need Noah for?”

“I don’t know, exactly, but - okay.” Kasey pauses, clearly trying to think of how to explain it. “Ralph knows where Noah is, but Aiden is around, so he can’t get him back.”

“Yeah?”

“So - alright. Let’s do a hypothetical. Let’s say you’re an economic power.”

“O...kay?” Aiden accepts the plates from me, looking at Kasey with interest. I get it. I also kind of have fun going down these roads with her, and it’s nice to see how she brightens up at the prospect of a difficult problem to solve.

“Say you want control over trade in the area, so what could you do?” she continues. “Use force. Conquer your nearby competition, take the trade routes over, take all the resources. Take total control. But there are others who are watching you, and they’re not going to let you get away with waging open warfare on whoever you like.” She looks meaningfully at Aiden. “So what do you do? You don’t take the competition by force. You just make them think that you could, if you decided to. The trades suddenly tip in your favor. That’s how you get what you want. That's the real reason why major capitalist powers maintain such big militaries, incidentally, in my humble opinion-”

“Oh, boy, here we go.”

“We don’t have to get into it right now!” Kasey flaps a hand in my direction. “My point is - is there something that Ralph stands to gain from Noah by intimidating him, but not making a direct move? Something he could get without provoking a response from Aiden?”

Aiden and I look at each other for a long moment, thinking.

“That’s the thing,” he finally answers. “No.”

“Okay.” Kasey taps her chin, her eyes narrowed. “Then… let’s play this out the way it would have gone if Ralph hadn’t changed his mind and tossed the note. One: Noah comes home and finds all his stuff at Raj’s house, neatly put away by the door. Everything accounted for, nothing tampered with.”

I pick up where she leaves off.

“Two. He finds the note. He thinks that Grant brought him his stuff back, and he hears concretely that Ralph isn’t going to come for it.”

“So…” Aiden says slowly. “In this scenario, he doesn’t even realize that Ralph has figured out where he lives.”

We all take a minute to absorb that.

“Three,” Kasey continues. “Noah reads in the note that he’s not supposed to say anything about it. So he doesn’t try to contact Grant. Grant never even finds out that this happened.”

“And four…” I finish, “Noah just - has his stuff back, and… he’s not scared at all.”

“Which means...” Kasey tips her head to the side. “If Ralph hadn’t thrown out the note, then today’s incident would have had the complete opposite effect. Noah would be… happier. He’d feel safer.”

“And,” I realize, “If Ralph didn’t tell Grant about this, and he was trying to hide it from him, he must not think that Noah is coming back. Otherwise, Noah could just ask Grant about it in person, and the whole deception is blown.”

“So it wasn’t to get Noah back,” Aiden says. “And it wasn’t intended to scare him.”

“Then why pull the note?” Kasey asks, her forehead furrowing.

“Noah said-” I understand all at once. “Noah laid out like, five or six very good reasons why this couldn’t have been Grant, when I suggested it. We all know that Ralph is a spectacular liar… I think, at the last minute, he realized that this lie wasn’t believable. He didn’t know what to do, so he - took the note, but left the stuff.”

“But why?” Aiden asks. “Why do this? To - give Noah a false sense of security before he makes a move?”

“We’ve already established that Ralph won’t make a move, because he’s afraid of you, Aiden,” Kasey reminds him.

There’s a long silence, and then something unlocks in my brain.

“Oh, my fucking god. You guys.”

“Got an idea?” Aiden asks.

“Holy shit. Yeah, I do. I think that Ralph tried to do something nice.”

~~~~

“There’s no way, Jamie.”

I blow out a long breath and bury my face into the delicious warmth of Aiden’s chest. I’m a weird mixture of extremely frustrated and extremely cozy. It’s quiet and dark in my bedroom, and the cold air wafting through the open window isn’t so bad with Aiden this close. But we are definitely talking in circles.

“Okay, yes. I know what you and Kasey think.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Am I arguing that fact?”

“He doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but himself.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“Clearly he’s put Noah through some awful shit.”

“I’ve seen Noah’s face bashed to bits, dude, I know. And even if I hadn’t… the way Noah reacted today when he thought Ralph might be trying to get back into his life… Look, I understand, okay? Don’t think that I’m making any kind of justifications on Ralph’s behalf. He’s a total bastard, and saying anything else would be an insult to Noah.”

“Exactly, so why-?”

“All I’m saying is, sometimes even total bastards feel bad about the shit they’ve done.”

“I-” Aiden begins, and stops. “I... yes. That’s true.”

I snuggle a little closer to him, drag the tip of my nose along his stubbled jaw. “That wasn’t about you.”

“No, I know. I’m just saying, I - I understand. I understand better than anyone.” Aiden trails his fingers up my back, and I close my eyes, enjoying the perfect feeling of his skin against my skin. “But Ralph, I mean - Ralph.”

I groan into Aiden’s chest.

“You guys are misunderstanding me! I’m not saying that he’s a good person! He’s the worst person I’ve ever met! It makes me fucking furious what he’s done to Noah, and I don’t want him anywhere near any of us, all I’m saying is that I think he tried to do something nice! Of course - he failed epically, if that was his intention. Zero out of ten on that one. If I’m right, Ralph tried to do something nice for Noah, and as a result, Noah was so scared that he almost skipped town.”

I expect Aiden to say something, but he’s grown quiet. I lift my head to look at him, and he looks back at me, his eyes thoughtful.

“Seriously, what sort of tact was this to take?” I ask. “He wants to be nice, so he stalks Noah until he figures out where he lives, then just shows up and leaves all his shit at the door? That’s - how could he not see how Noah would take that? Ralph literally tried to make him happy by tricking him.”

Aiden looks at me affectionately, takes my chin in his fingers.

“That's what he knows. Not everyone is as talented at being nice as you are, Jamie. I know it might sound crazy to you, because you’re such a fuckin’ little sweetheart, but…” He runs a thumb over my jaw. “You can forget how. Or you can just - never have learned in the first place.”

I lay my head on his chest again, thinking about what he said.

“Am I right in thinking that Ralph never learned in the first place?”

Another stretch of silence passes before Aiden answers.

“I think so. Maybe.”

“Was he like this when you met him?”

“He…” Aiden sighs, twining his fingers through my hair.

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay.” He presses a kiss onto the top of my head. “Ralph was like this when we met, yes. Not as good of a liar and manipulator as he is now. He perfected that over time. But - yeah, you could probably call us the two angriest kids on the playground. That’s part of why we hit it off right away.” A pause. “I think, by that point, Ralph was… already used to having to be creative to get what he wanted. Or to - hold onto what he wanted to keep.”

“Oh.” I fall silent again.

“But, Jamie-” Aiden gives my shoulders a squeeze. “Please, please don’t think that you need to try and talk to him or something. Even if you’re right, and that’s why he did this - and I’m still not sure about that, by the way - tangling with him any further could bring him back into proximity with Noah.”

A parade of unpleasant memories marches through my head. Aiden, insisting over and over again that he didn’t want a drink, while Ralph kept trying to force him to have one. Ralph, in the woods, talking about Melanie and Angie like they were things and not people. The look on Noah’s face when he showed up at my apartment. His swollen eye, his injured hand.

The look on his face earlier today.

“Nope.” I nuzzle my nose into Aiden’s neck. “I’m not going to do that. I do believe in forgiveness, but - it’s also not a bad thing to cut a toxic person out of your life. The opposite, honestly. One attempted nicety doesn’t undo anything he’s done to Noah, or to us, or to anyone. My mom says never miss an opportunity to be kind, but - we have to be kind to ourselves, too, right? And most of all, doing that... it wouldn’t be fair to Noah.”

Aiden breathes out slowly. I feel it against my hair.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I was worried you might do something. You’re a fucking wildcard sometimes, you know that?”

“Me?” I prop myself up on an elbow, staring at him. “I’m a wildcard? Oh, my fucking god.”

“Alright, alright,” Aiden laughs. “Maybe we both are.”

Drawn in by his smile, the warmth in his ocean eyes - I lean down and kiss him, deeply and slowly. Aiden’s hands move to cup my face. It’s all very gentle and tender, but I want more. I move my mouth to his neck, nibbling on sensitive skin, my hand starting to trace along the contours of his chest, his stomach, along his waistband.

“Jamie.” His voice is somehow both rough and honey-smooth. Yet another form of Aiden Callahan magic. “I’m - not sure I won’t break anything in your room.”

“I don’t care, okay? Just make out with me for a bit.” I stop, pull back a little. “Unless you don’t want to right now, which is totally-”

I break off as he takes my hand and guides it down to the front of his pajama shorts. The cotton fabric is thin, and I can feel right through it.

“Oh.” I lean back in, smile against his neck, leave my hand where it is. “Feels like you do want to.” I trace my fingers in slow circles, and Aiden’s hand on the covers jumps, then tightens into a fist.

In a sudden burst of movement, he flips me onto my back and rises over me, locking his burning blue gaze with mine. My favorite eyes to look into, my favorite fucking stars in this galaxy.

“Do I want to?” He takes a handful of my hair and tugs my head back, kisses his way down the ridge of my throat. “I want to every time I look at you.” He pushes my legs apart, makes room for himself, and flattens his body against my body. My cheeks are on fire, my heart pounding against my chest like it’s trying to break through my ribs and get to him. “And I want to every time I hear your voice.” He rolls his hips down into mine, and a hoarse sound tears itself from my mouth. “Yep, just like that.” He flattens his tongue against the base of my throat and slowly drags it all the way up. My breathing hitches and stutters. Goosebumps rush over me in every direction. "I want you all the time. Always."

We end up exploding a vase. It’s all good. Never liked that thing, anyway.

Later, when we’ve calmed down and cuddled up, I find fingernail marks on his arms and realize that they’re from me. I didn’t even do that on purpose. All we did was make out, how did I lose myself so completely?

I hope I didn’t hurt him, but he’s smiling in his sleep, tired out and nestled up in the blankets. In fact - I think I vaguely recall a soft growl of pleasure when I scratched him. Noted. I’m saving that info for later.

Today was full of surprises, and there’s a lot I want to think about. I don’t expect to get too much rest tonight.

But then Aiden tucks an arm over me, drawing me in closer, mumbling some half-formed words in his sleep. In the end, I fall into a heavy slumber before I have time to worry about one single thing.