The Only Thing that Ever Made Sense

Chapter 1-2

Beto knows Aiden always talked about San Francisco when they were serving, how if there was any place in the world he would want to live, it would be here. But to have him here, to have chosen the one place in the world he knew Aiden might go; doesn’t that say something about him? Even if he can say his reason for choosing the San Francisco Fire Department was to be closer to his abuela, Beto knows the truth of it. Something deep in him always hoped he’d find Aiden again.

Aiden’s smile is curious. “Here, specifically?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t joke about this, or—”

“I work here. I have since I got out. Which was two years ago, if you’re interested?”

“But you signed up for another tour. You asked to be transferred. You went to Syria,” Beto says in surprise, knowing a flash of anger. That’s why Aiden said he left, for more opportunities on another tour. He left Beto behind, for nothing, and Beto doesn’t even have the right to be mad about it. Aiden is still holding on to him and all Beto can do is stare.

Aiden’s smile is a flicker of a thing as he keeps eye contact but bends down enough to knock his knuckles against his lower leg. The dull sound of it tells Beto everything, putting a gasped sob in his throat and tears in his eyes.

“Aiden…”

“I’m okay. I am now, anyway.”

“What happened?”

“Can you stop?” Aiden says in exasperation, his eyes flaring wide. That intense look has frozen Beto in place a hundred times over in the past.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“I haven’t seen you in more than three years. The last time we spoke, at one point you were so angry, I wasn’t sure if you were going to punch me, or kiss me.”

Beto’s stomach swoops for the shared memory. He would tell Aiden how much closer he’d been to doing the latter. But everything is such a mess now. He is a mess.

“I have no idea what I’m doing here,” Beto says, letting his head fall forward. Aiden is still holding on to him. How can such a small gesture be both grounding and terrifying?

“Making coffee. It’s not that hard.”

“Aiden…”

A shoe scuffs against the kitchen floor. Aiden is close enough for Beto to get lost in how good he looks. His dark brown hair is a little longer than before, his dark eyes just as piercing. Beto wants to take a step back. Though he also doesn’t want to go anywhere. With his hand trembling, Beto presses the fingertips of his free hand against Aiden’s chest, both to touch and to keep him back. It is a mistake, because the heat of Aiden’s skin through his shirt against Beto’s palm is igniting. Beto swallows back the lump in his throat. Before he can second-guess himself again, he throws his arms around Aiden’s shoulders, devastated that feeling Aiden wrap his arms around him clinging on tight could make him feel so whole.

“It’s good to see you,” Aiden says, mumbling the words against Beto’s shoulder.

Beto shuffles closer still, resting his head against Aiden’s, closing his eyes and forgetting everything else in the world. I’ve missed you, he wants to say, even if the words don’t feel nearly enough. But he can’t, not now. “Yeah. It’s good to see you too.”

* * * *

They make it to the couch. Aiden brings their tray of coffee and cookies since Beto’s focus is shattered, and it takes all the effort he knows to follow. They sit in awkward silence, snapping off pieces of cookie that they chew and take their time over. Beto likes to think Aiden is doing the same as he is doing, eating instead of having to find words.

“I moved recently. I was in South Beach before, and just moved to Lower Haight. About a month ago,” Aiden says, proving Beto wrong about keeping silent.

“I guess that’s part of why I haven’t seen you. I’ve been here a bit over a year.”

“It’s a busy place. You might not have seen me, anyway.”

He would. For how often Aiden is in his thoughts, whether he fights thinking about him or not, Beto is sure he could pick Aiden out in any crowd. “Yeah. So, what are you doing here?”

“Same as always. Information analysis, security analysis. I just do it for myself now. I set up my own company when I left,” Aiden says.

Those few words drag Beto back to watching Aiden hunched over a Navy laptop with a pensive expression, desperately trying to hack into a system with a deadline that literally meant life or death. The tension in those moments makes his bite of cookie hard to swallow. Beto washes it back with too-hot coffee, then nods to Aiden’s leg.

“What happened?”

Aiden turns his gaze there as well, a clinical, detached kind of observation or acceptance of his reality, Beto can’t tell. This look is new to him and it breaks his heart.

“An IED hurled into our camp. Could have been worse.”

“Where?”

Beto doesn’t have to say more, silently watching the stroke of Aiden’s fingertips over where his leg ends, and his prosthetic begins. Beto itches to touch him, but isn’t that a problem he’s been fighting ever since they met?

“I’m sorry, Aiden.”

“I’m good. Really.”

“So, you work for yourself here?”

“I do. Took a year to build up a good client base, but I’m good now. That’s why I moved apartments. My new place works better for me. Did you come here to be near your abuela?” Aiden asks, as though drawing a line under what he wants to tell him.

Beto breaks off another piece of cookie. “In part. After I did my firefighter training, I looked around, picked places as far as I could get from home. Here, they offered me a place on a crew in a couple of departments. The Thirty had the best offer for me.”

“Where is your firehouse?”

“Cole Valley. Not that far from here. Or from you, actually. If you’re in Lower Haight.”

“And you like it? Firefighting?”

“I love it,” Beto says, with nothing but sincerity. Firefighting is what has made him the person he wants to be.

Aiden’s smile is affectionate. “I can see how it suits you. You always did thrive when you got to take care of people.”

It’s a compliment. Beto should accept it and not overthink it. Praise from Aiden is mixed up in so much guilt for Beto. The memory of it still leaves an ache in his chest like the aftermath of a bruise. Beto remembers basking in Aiden’s praise and getting lost in his praise-filled smile, only to then remember his wife Daniella waiting at home for him and the moment souring. The comfort Beto used to give himself, that Daniella never looked at him with anything like the pride Aiden showed in him, used to keep him awake for hours. Sometimes it still does.

Beto knows more guilt then, for remembering how he used to make up excuses not to call home sometimes. It wasn’t always because he didn’t want to speak to Daniella or even because he didn’t know what to say. Sometimes, after spending a couple of hours in Aiden’s easy company, Beto didn’t know how to tuck all the pieces of himself back again to put on the mask he always wore. It was a dangerous game with no thrill, no reward, and rules that he only made up to punish himself with. There is no reason for that guilt to surface now, but it is. Aiden is here on his couch in touching distance? It’s devastating.

Beto realizes he hasn’t answered Aiden yet. “Yeah. It’s a good team. Feel like I’m doing my part. I even got used to the hours.”

“Twenty-four-hour shifts?”

“Yes. Alternating on and off for three days, then off for three. It works out pretty good.”

“Good. Not like you aren’t used to being on alert at all hours,” Aiden says, reaching for his coffee.

“Yeah. Must be a pretty different story for you?”

Aiden smiles, and that is just as devastating, though hasn’t it always been? “I feel like I’m living my life now. A good life. I don’t regret serving, but now? I get to work how I want, when I want, and with who I want.”

More guilt hits Beto. He must close his eyes because he has to blink them open when Aiden prods him in the thigh. “What?”

“I left for me. Not you. It was nothing to do with you.”

It is a lot to do with him. “You wouldn’t even have asked to be transferred if it wasn’t for me. I didn’t exactly make things easy for you,” Beto says, which is an understatement. Isn’t it? Every time Beto replays their conversations, all he remembers is how difficult he made things. Why else would Aiden move to a unit taking him as far away as possible?

Sorrow fills Aiden’s smile, which only makes Beto feel worse. “How’s Daniella?”

Changing the subject, then. Gulping his coffee, Beto forces himself to keep eye contact. “I came home with a Silver Star and a hole in my shoulder to divorce papers. And I don’t blame her for a second. Maybe we shouldn’t have married in the first place.”

Aiden nods, slow and considering. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

Guilt flickers in Aiden’s eyes. “Why did she want a divorce?”

Beto can’t have that either.

“Because we got married when we shouldn’t have. Because I think a part of me only wanted to get married just to piss my parents off. Because we were always better as friends. And I ruined that friendship by trying to make more of it, then let her down repeatedly. Now, I’ve lost her altogether, and just have to hope that she’s out there in the world living a far better life than she would have done with me.”

Aiden nods. “So—”

“Irreconcilable differences.” This isn’t on Aiden at all, not in any way, Beto can’t let him think that.

“Right. Sorry.”

“I left her behind, enlisted without discussing it with her, re-enlisted without telling her. Never was really there with her. I was not a great husband.”

Conflict ripples across Aiden’s face. He wants to defend him, even now, to remind Beto that despite everything he wasn’t anything but faithful. But Beto doesn’t think he was, not in the ways it counts.

“I wasn’t a great friend either. To you.”

Aiden’s expression morphs again. All Beto can see is the hurt in Aiden’s eyes when he’d pushed him away, shutting him out the second everything got too close, too big to ignore. How he’d blamed it all on Aiden without ever saying out loud what the problem was between them. How, like in his kitchen, only the slightest of touches between them, be it a hug or a clasped arm, was once the only thing to steady him while serving. A part of Beto hopes he was once that for Aiden too, but somehow he doubts it. How could he have been when he was constantly leaning in then pulling away until Aiden didn’t have a clue where he might stand with him?

“Things were different then. Complicated.”

How much doubt has he made Aiden feel? “They didn’t need to be. They either were something, or weren’t.”

There is teasing in Aiden’s eyes now, though it is tinged with sadness. “You were always good at talking around things, instead of about them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that unless I caught you in a moment when there was no one around, where there was literally no chance of someone else overhearing—or when you really let your guard down—you always talked in riddles. Talked about something without talking about it. Saying anything and everything, except what you meant to say.”

Beto can’t deny it. He hates it, for how tricky he has made himself, for how Aiden must have felt so untrusted, or shut out by him. “I’m sorry.”

“I got pretty good at learning to speak Cepeda,” Aiden says with a more genuine smile. “I’m a code breaker, remember?”

“You shouldn’t have to break a code to speak to someone. For them to speak to you.” So many nights Beto has lost sleep to cursing himself for not being more honest with Aiden. For not finding the words he needed, to explain what was going on in his mind. What has he done to him, to make Aiden look so guarded, like he might get up and leave for not being sure he is welcome?

“You had your reasons,” Aiden says, as forgiving as he always was.

“But they weren’t good enough reasons for making you feel like—for making you feel—”

“Beto. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Beto says in protest even as Aiden shakes his head.

“I removed myself from a situation where I would have only been more hurt for how things were going. Weren’t going. It’s not like you promised me anything. I didn’t promise you anything either.”

The day Aiden had said he was leaving is fresh in Beto’s thoughts. How can it be anything else when it had wounded him just as painfully as any fighting or ambush ever had? To stand in front of him, have Aiden shake his hand like he was just another soldier, then to have to stand and watch him walk away like his heart wasn’t breaking; Beto has replayed those moments countless times ever since. Their stolen moment after, a few minutes snatched in the dark where they danced and hugged, and Beto begged for time to slow, is a memory Beto unpacks and replays more than any other. The guilt that always comes with it wraps even more confusion around the memory, leaving Beto as likely to lean into it as try to avoid it.

“I never meant to make you feel like that,” Beto says, wishing he was braver, bolder than he is. Or that he had been when it mattered. Now, he could be; he has no one to feel guilty about and is far enough away from familial judgment to not worry about anything. But this is Aiden, not any of the random people he has been with since Daniella. If just seeing Aiden brings back all those confused feelings and that deep, never-ending ache of want, then there is so much for Beto to be honest about. Aiden walking into his life after years could be a sign of something, couldn’t it? Or some happy coincidence? Or just another thing to torture himself over?

“All of that’s in the past, Beto.”

Does it have to be? Though maybe it should be. Beto has no idea what he needs or wants right now. His draw to Aiden, as strong as it always was, doesn’t need to mean anything. Even if he wants it to. Even as he tells himself, he can’t want anything from Aiden.

“We’re both probably different people now.”

“Not so different,” Aiden says, lingering his gaze over him in a way that has always left Beto holding his breath.

There is no one to see him do it. No one for him to be thinking of instead. Here in this apartment, he can do anything he wants. All Beto wants is for the first time to let himself look. Properly.

Aiden is beautiful. Deep brown hair and eyes, a light stubble over his jaw, and soft though solid-looking in a light blue shirt carefully rolled up above his elbows. Is he here between clients? Beto thinks he must be judging by the laptop-shaped bag Aiden arrived with. Beto can so easily picture him at work, that look of concentration on his face that always had Beto’s stomach doing excited flips vivid in his memory. So many of Aiden’s looks always did that. Aiden is, or was, a soldier who doesn’t waste a single movement, every action he takes so precise and clean. He has a stern way of shutting down when situations are fraught, and terseness to his tone if he thinks someone is time-wasting. Beto remembers having to ignore the way seeing Soldier Aiden on full display made him feel, and how confusing that was. He knows it shouldn’t be confusing, and that he only made it so out of loyalty to Daniella and the long-instilled opinions of his parents. Though now he is letting himself look, all Beto can remember is a thousand missed opportunities.

“Either way. It’s good to see you, Aiden. Really good,” Beto says, offering a smile, hating the fresh tears that prick in his eyes.

Aiden nods, then takes a second cookie, his expression still a guarded mask. “So. Tell me everything I’ve missed in the last couple of years.”