Page 67 of Seasons of Love
AIDEN
It took me a whole hour after hanging up on Slade to pull myself off the floor where I'd sat down crying. I'd promised I'd be there for him, and I was breaking that promise.
I needed to get to San Diego and face Richard. Maybe I could convince him to delete the video.
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it was pointless. He probably already had a bunch of copies. He could delete the video, but I'd never trust that there wasn't another copy out there.
Maybe he just wanted money, maybe I could pay him off. If he'd been after me just for the money, surely that would be it, right? I'd pay him off and he'd go away.
Except he could come back over and over again. I would never be free of him.
A new sob of desperation ran through me.
"Come on, Aiden. Pick yourself up. You need to figure this shit out. Do I fly, or do I drive?"
If I took a flight, I'd get there faster, but I'd still need to drive my car to the airport and then I'd have no way to get it. If I drove, it would take me a week to get to the other side of the country.
I picked up my phone and opened the messaging app.
Aiden: I need to drive home. It'll take me a week.
Richard: A week? Where are you? Timbuktu?
Aiden: I'm on the East Coast.
Richard: Oh, visiting your little friends, are you? I suppose since you're coming home to me, I'll wait.
Aiden: Thank you.
Two hours later I had the car packed up, saving for some last-minute items, and I'd called the parents of the apartment owner to let them know I'd be leaving in the morning.
There was one last thing, I needed to speak to Wren. It wasn't fair to leave without any warning, but it was already too late to drop by his place. I messaged him for a run early in the morning, which was met with a GIF of a cat yawning, but since he didn't flat out say no, I assumed he'd be here.
Going for a run on very little sleep was a bad idea, but since good ideas were in short supply these days, I'd have to suck it up.
"Why are we running so early? Have you killed Slade with your energetic lovemaking?" Wren said, using the steps outside my building to stretch his legs.
"No, I wasn't with him last night."
"Ahh, too horny to sleep. Gotcha."
We started with a slow jog to warm up. We usually picked up our pace once we were on the forest trail.
"Tom and I have some news," he said.
"You finally got him pregnant after all this time trying?"
"Never have I ever been so glad to be with a guy. We can try all we want. And we do try a lot," he said.
"Is it something you want?"
We ran in silence for a moment, picking up the pace a little. It was harder to speak, but we'd been doing this for a long time and needing oxygen had never stopped us from managing a conversation.
"Yeah. We want to have the wedding first, go on a honeymoon, and then when we're back, we'll start looking into surrogacy."
"That's great. Congrats. Was that your news?"
"No, we have a wedding date."
