Cain’s dark eyes gleam in the passing streetlights as Aidan drives anywhere that’s not letting a demon behind the wheel of his car. I huddle into the blanket, get cozy with the hand-warmers to coax feeling back into my numbed fingers and toes. My reflection in the dark glass of the window is pale, tremulous, I’m a drowned-looking cold thing lumped into the back of Aidan’s car.
Suddenly Cain leans into the middle console. Aidan grips the wheel like he’s expecting a fight as he glances over, but Cain only reaches for the volume on the radio. He cranks the vapid pop music and then starts spinning the tuner to scroll the digital indicator through stations. He finds static, a commercial for a car dealership, country music, rap, another commercial, and then settles on rock music. Cain next starts messing with the air vents, he pokes the dome light on and off, he adjusts the audio balance between the speakers. He hits the eject button to get a long-forgotten CD spat at him, and then he immediately feeds the disc back into the slot.
“Huh,” Cain says quietly. He’s scowling at everything like it annoys him, amuses him, like he’s trying to figure out my complicated world just as much as I stumbled around trying to feel shadows and smoke on the Otherside.
He flops into the backseat again, and I’m horrified on Aidan’s behalf at the casual way Cain sprawls wet and naked across the leather grain of the seats. The towel and blanket barely keep him decent. I try not to stare, but of course I’m staring at Cain. Even Aidan’s trying to stare in the rearview mirror. It’s impossible not to stare at Cain, especially he starts watching me back.
Streetlights pass over Cain’s face, and I have to be imagining that his eyes stay bright each time it gets dark. He’s scowling, half-annoyed but starting to smirk and smolder as we sit staring at each other in the quiet dark backseat of the car. His hand reaches out to grip my chin as he did before, when we met on the Otherside. I wonder how different I look to him, if I look different at all, because he looks exactly the same to me. I don’t know what on Cain I want to stare at the most, but with his hand holding my face I find myself focusing on the dark entirety of his eyes. I become obsessed with looking for the shaded difference between pupil and iris.
Cain runs the edge of his thumb over my lower lip, and it’s a touch that traces fire. I shift closer to him, feel pulled toward him by the caress. I feel the warm skin of his leg against mine as I abandon my half of the backseat to get nearer to Cain.
My fingertips brush over the back of his hand, they circle his wrist and glide along his arm. He’s just all this warm, damp skin for me to feel. I move an entranced gaze over his face, his glistening wet hair, I watch my own hand as I touch Cain’s shoulder and then neck. Cain cocks his head to the side some as I feel the thrum of pulse at his throat. I can’t believe that he’s really here in my warm safe living world.
I watch the rise and fall of his chest, as mesmerized by that as anything else about him. I keep my fingers on his pulse, stare at the smirking set of his lips. I tell myself I can’t really hear each soft breath and heartbeat beneath the noise of the radio, I tell myself that it’s only my imagination that Cain seems to get closer and closer because he’s not moving.
I’m the one moving, I’m the one pressing against Cain for a kiss. The scar flares, small sounds of desire pour from my throat, I make the most terribly lewd moan when Cain kisses me.
I see the close-up gleam of Cain’s eyes before his lashes close, my lashes close, I’ve started this tender, warm kiss between us that ignites into flame when Cain responds. His touch is a match tossed into the hapless kindling he put inside me. I’m burning, hot hard burning for Cain.
I grip my left hand into Cain’s shoulder, curl my right hand against his wet hair. He strokes a callused palm over my knee, sets a hand into my lower back, uses his touch to guide the way I spread into his lap. He kisses me with a sultry eagerness that’s pure sin because he’s a demon, his touch is a poisoned addiction that saps my strength and numbs my thoughts.
I’ve forgotten all about Aidan until he slams on the brakes. I collide into the back of the empty passenger seat and then nearly crash foreheads into Cain. I yelp, Cain snarls, the car rocks to a halt amid Aidan’s startled, “Oh fuck!”
“No, nope. No way,” Aidan says. “Not happening.” He throws the car into park and then twists in his seat. He glares at Cain — my sweet, shy best friend looks ready to start throwing punches as he glares down Cain.
I trust nothing about the sardonic twist of Cain’s mouth, but I’m almost too frightened to look at him at all. I can’t believe I was kissing him. I can’t believe my dick’s this hard just from kissing Cain. I can’t believe I want Cain to fuck me again so desperately that I climbed on top of him in the backseat of Aidan’s car.
Aidan’s hand closes over my arm. “Get in the passenger seat.”
I should explain, in case he was more focused on driving than watching us, but Aidan pulls like he’s just going to drag me off Cain if he must. He gets a second hand on me to try getting more of me away from Cain faster. He’s frantic to get me away from Cain, even though Cain’s not putting up a fight at all. There is indescribably danger in the lazily-frustrated and half-amused way this demon watches these two dumb kids scramble around scared of him.
I have to look away from Cain before I can actually start moving away from him as well. I should explain this to Aidan, except, I’m not sure at all how to explain that I’m crazy enough to want to fuck a demon.
I clamber between the seats and then reach back to get my towel. I try to flash Cain an apologetic, sheepish smile, but when his brooding glare shifts to me I nearly swallow my own tongue. I want him like I’ve never wanted anything in my life, and it’s terrifying. My desire is an unmanageable beast within me clawing to get free.
Meekly I face forward and get the towel under me to spare Aidan’s seats from my wet swim trunks. I can’t risk looking at Cain again. I barely want to be in the car with Cain anymore. Now that I’m not looking at him — not touching him — it’s easier to think about things that aren’t Cain.
Once Aidan has me in the front half of the car with him, he starts to snatch at our belongings. He wants more things away from Cain, I guess, and not just me. My backpack gets moved into the floorboard of the passenger seat along with one of the shopping bags. As the crinkle of plastic and fabric hits my ankles I see it’s the one holding my sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers.
Since I’m too scared to look back at Cain, I watch Aidan and find him no less easier to observe. He looks as desperately scared as I feel, probably for the same reason, maybe for entirely different reasons. I wonder if he didn’t really believe me about Cain, even after everything, because certainly everything about this is unbelievable.
Aidan touches lightly at my knee. “Get dressed.” He murmurs to slip the words beneath the background blaring CD mix. He glances toward Cain and then doesn’t say anything else as he pulls away from the curb. When he switches turn signals to avoid waiting at a red light, I realize he’s just driving again without a destination in mind.
I look down at the shopping bag and grab handfuls of fabric, I tug into my sweatshirt first and then next warm socks from my backpack. I try to tell myself everyone in the car’s already seen me naked at some point or another, but I still feel shy about stripping out of the swim trunks to get slipped into clean boxers.
I’m tugging my jeans into place when Cain’s left hand grips the back of Aidan’s seat. His right elbow goes into my seat’s headrest as he leans forward. He takes up an exorbitant amount of space within the confines of the car. The lights of the dashboard illuminate his sharp scowling expression in strange soft ways. I scoot nearer to the window, because I can’t keep my eyes off Cain. Cain looks out the front windshield at the spread of city, and then he just starts watching Aidan drive. Understandably this makes Aidan incredibly nervous, and I don’t blame him in the least for looking more and more panicked the longer that Cain keeps silent.
Finally Cain asks, “How much longer until we’re there?”
Impatience flattens his mouth and sets a downward pluck into his dark brows. He’s looking to me for the answer, because somehow Cain still thinks I’m going to know anything. “Uh, um.” I find my mind entirely blank of anything except the truth. “I don’t know. We’re just, um, driving.”
It makes Cain chuckle, and his brusque laughter draws a smile over my face. I’m cognizant of the way my cheeks wrinkle and my lips spread, but the gesture doesn’t seem fully formed — it doesn’t seem to be entirely my doing. My body wants to behave in strange ways around Cain. I want to throw myself into his arms again. I dig my fingers into the seat cushion instead.
“Just driving, huh?” Blunt-edged nails snip playfully at the back of my neck.
The strain of my body’s desire for Cain is torturous. I manage a nod. “Y-yeah.”
Cain smolders a sideways glance to Aidan for a moment before shifting the full of his attention back to me. “Hot shower and a bed sounds real fucking great, don’t you think?”
Snarky, sarcastic, like he’s mad I’m not already thinking about these things. A squiggly line between his brows draws my attention, and it takes nearly every ounce of willpower I possess not to reach out and try smoothing the creased skin.
Within me worry takes root and blooms as Cain speaks again, as he shifts further into a braced lean. It has to be my imagination that Cain seems exhausted. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Scared to take me home to meet Mommy and Daddy?”
He rumbles a soft, mocking laugh that doesn’t make it any easier for me to pay attention to what he’s asked, how he’s asked it. Not helping either is the slow pluck of his fingers, the irresistible lure of Cain being this close. The tight clench of my fingers into the seat cushion slowly eases. I move a hand toward Cain. I’ve forgotten about Aidan again, forgotten about everything except Cain. I remember the raw, ragged strain of Cain’s voice earlier calling to me from the ruined body of the motorcyclist, how tormented and hurt he sounded.
I sweep the tentative caress of my touch over Cain’s hair, behind his ear, his cheek, I cup his face with both hands. The tender warmth of a pink-tinged blush fills me, and my lips part in anticipation of a kiss. When I lean toward Cain, though, I catch a glimpse of the way Aidan’s staring. His knuckles are stark white against the wheel. He’s ready to plow the car into oncoming traffic in order to keep me off Cain.
My heart’s pounding as I pull my hands from Cain. I settle them into my lap, I knit the fingers together. “I can’t go home,” I say.
“Why not?” Cain demands. “That house was swank.”
The up and down hunch of my shoulders can’t give him much of an answer, nor does the way I start slouching. I look at my hands rather than face Cain’s likely anger. I’m not prepared to articulate just all the reasons why I no longer fit into the place my parents made for me. I’m too scared to even admit how much the idea of going home frightens me and fills me with despair.
“His parents think he’s crazy now thanks to you,” says Aidan. “That’s why he can’t go home. You’ve ruined his life.”
It’s blunt and quick like the swing of a bat, so all I can think about is the little league game where Aidan hit a homerun. It’s the dumbest thing to suddenly think about, but I remember the searing heat of the day, the pinging crack of the aluminium bat, the soaring little white dot, the look of dazed disbelief on Aidan’s round face as he had to run around all the bases. Slow, pudgy, awkward little Aidan, who only joined the team because his best friend wanted to, winning for us the last game of the season. I remember bouncing up and down inside the dugout screaming encouragement as loud as one eleven-year-old can scream, and I wonder if I started screaming like that now if Aidan would understand.
Aidan keeps going. He is nowhere near around all the bases yet. “Dartmouth, Stanford, MIT, CalTech — none of them are going to take him now. His grades aren’t the best anymore, he’s been out of his mind crazy because of you messing with his life. You want him to kill people, and now there’s someone trying to kill him because of you. So where’s the first place they’re going to think to look? His house, maybe at school, and where are the two places his parents are going to keep him just as soon as get their hands on him? His house and school. Assuming he isn’t just hospitalized right away, that’s a possibility, he’s still a minor.”
“You’ve really messed this up for him. Just, everything. His whole life. Totally fucked.” The light ahead turns yellow, and Aidan slows slightly before deciding to burst through the intersection instead.
I hear Cain say, “Huh,” just as quiet and strange with it as when he was exploring the stereo system on the car. Then Cain’s hand tousles my damp hair, he pushes from a hard forward lean.
I turn my head some to watch peripherally as Cain settles into the backseat again. Cain drapes his arm over the rear deck of the sedan. “I said I’d handle Deimos,” he sneers. Noticeably he offers no apology or explanation for the rest of Aidan’s accusations. I’m still trying to process them, and they were about me.
Aidan says nothing further, neither does Cain, I’m terrified of opening my mouth and making this somehow worse so I stay silent as well. The radio compensates but can’t make it any less awkward and tense. I keep my eyes on my lap, on my hands. Entirely too much awkward emptiness occupies my thoughts until I think to get out my phone. Hopefully it’ll help distract me from thoughts of Cain, of how much I want to kiss him. There is a terrifying depth of want within me regarding Cain that I’m not prepared to think about.
After a few minutes I realize Cain’s going to see the glow in my lap and hastily thumb off the screen before he can ask to use the internet again. I turn some to peek at Cain and then turn further as the cautious glance turns into staring. Once we’re at a red light Aidan can’t skip, I reach my hand over and gently pat at his leg. I nod my head toward Cain, because I’m pretty certain he’s fallen asleep. His head’s rolled into the crook between his shoulder and the headrest, the blanket’s pull across him like he put it there on purpose, and he’s stopped scowling at everything.
Though that line’s still between his brows, that line I wanted to smooth with my touch. I can too easily see for myself that he’s not bruised or bleeding anywhere, but I know he’s in pain. I just do, I know Cain’s hurt. He somehow looks all the more exhausted asleep. I don’t think any of this has been easy on him either.
A different red light, Aidan’s turn to reach over only he’s not being gentle about it. He’s trying to push me, shake me, and I realize I’m turned around in my seat staring at Cain. I’m clutching the back of the seat, my cheek’s rested against the headrest, and as I startle out of that position I feel my expression rearrange. I think Aidan just caught me literally sighing over Cain like he’s a hurt puppy.
“Stop that,” Aidan hisses at me. “Ethan, he is a demon .”
“Okay. Okay, I know.” I fight Aidan off me and sulk low into my seat. I shift to where I can’t see Cain and then look out the window.
My gaze settles on the side mirror, at the slivered reflection of the car’s interior. I wonder if Cain’s okay. He’s not usually this quiet. I can’t believe he’s sleeping. I pull my eyes from Cain’s shadowed reflection. Aidan leans forward to check if the intersection is clear and catches my eye. We swap mutual apologetic smiles.
He reaches to turn down the radio and then instead shifts the audio to the back speakers. He fiddles with it while keeping an eye on Cain in the rearview mirror. Once he’s happy with the volume he asks me, “Where do you want to go?”
I shake my head some and say, “I don’t know. Somewhere, wherever. You can’t drive all night.”
“I could maybe,” Aidan says. The squared, determine set of his mouth tells me he’s serious. “I’ll stay awake and drive. Let’s stop to get coffee.”
I smile some and comb the rapidly drying fluff of my bangs to one side. “You are not driving all night,” I insist. “We should stop somewhere. Cain’s right that a hot shower and bed sounds nice.”
Aidan shakes his head. “We’re safer if we keep moving.”
“Cain said he’d handle Deimos,” I counter.
Disapproval twists the stubborn set of Aidan’s mouth. When he glances over at me, though, his expression softens into that pitiful one where he’s realized I’m crazy. “Okay,” he says. Quiet, placating, and he sets a comforting hand on my knee. His hand stays there as he drives.
We’re done talking about what to do, apparently. Aidan’s realized I only want to do what Cain wants to do, because I’m crazy enough to listen to a demon. I didn’t even have to explain to him that I’m crazy enough to want to fuck a demon, too, because I’m pretty sure he’s figured that out as well. He’s figured out I’m sitting over here having lusty gay thoughts about this hot naked man currently asleep in the backseat of the car, and I wish it was just that simple. I wish Cain wasn’t a demon. I wish so desperately I didn’t have to be crazy.
My gaze drifts to the side mirror and the dim reflection of the car’s interior. An entire childhood of getting to tell Aidan what to do because I could be trusted with it — I was faster, tougher, smarter, bolder, more outgoing, more popular. I was always getting new toys and attention and best of all, I liked Aidan enough to be his fiercely loyal best friend even though he was such an awkwardly shy and timid kid, bullied sometimes when I wasn’t around to stop it, always picked last when I wasn’t there to pick him first.
That day he hit the homerun, my mom took us out for ice cream afterward. I couldn’t shut up about how cool it was, how great it was. Aidan mumbled something about how he wished his family could’ve seen it, and that made me realize that my mom always drove us since Aidan’s mom was busy with his baby sisters. Three seasons of little league, and I never once saw Aidan’s mom at a game or practice, never saw his stepdad or half-sisters. We ate ice cream in silence after that. We played video games the rest of the day. Aidan stayed the night. My parents woke us up fighting. I remember being embarrassed, angry, feeling betrayed that my normally quiet and empty house was being filled with their problems.
It was the first night I saw Aidan’s expression soften with sudden understanding that his all-star perfect best friend’s life wasn’t so perfect after all. That night Aidan whispered to me about the kind of fighting his parents did before getting divorced, and he told me he was too happy about the lack of bruises on his mom to ever complain about feeling left out of her busy new life.
My parents wanted me to fit into the place they made for me so much they ignored the actual shape I wanted to be. I’m the epitome of square peg, round hole. That round, normal life with NASA posters, straight-As, asking pretty Stacy Gershwin to prom, little league and Ivy League, a life I lost in the careless instant I slipped on the deck of my father’s boat. Me hitting that rail, going into the water, it killed the boy my parents wanted me to be, the one they think they can still make me into if they squeeze hard enough.
But Aidan’s mom, she wanted to make a place for him but just didn’t have the time. She was too busy fixing things, too busy getting out of a bad marriage and into a good one, and Aidan’s such a good kid that he did the work for her. He found a place for himself outside of the happy domestic chaos of his mom’s new life — he found me, and he found a place at my empty house when his was too full of the family he’s half-and-step part of anyway.
I turn my face from the window. I look away from Cain’s reflection to focus on Aidan, until he notices and glances over with a worried, encouraging smile. “Okay?” he asks. He squeezes my knee when I don’t say anything right away, when I just keep staring at him. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah.” Belatedly I drag my eyes off Aidan, force myself to stare out the windshield at the hood ornament. I don’t say anything else or elaborate, because the truth is that I’m not okay. I’m not okay at all with the realization that I’m ruining Aidan’s life.