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Cash smacks his lips with a shrug. “He’s a fixer. He fixes everything except himself.”
My breath catches as he speaks so frankly about Raiden. This man might know Raiden better than Hunter does, better than all the other people in his life put together. This afternoon was all impulse, but I hate the fact that Raiden tagged what was happening between us as a train wreck waiting to happen. “What’s there to fix? I don’t want to fix him; I want to understand him.” Starting with what happened in the early hours of this morning, preferably.
“Sweetheart, you’re a godsend.” He takes me in as his gaze softens. “Raiden will never let on, but he needs you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
Cash shakes his head as if I don’t understand what’s happened this afternoon.
“You know, when Raiden eventually made it to my place in Boston, after hitchhiking for two days and having Bill and May in a fit of despair at him having run away from home without a trace, he was so angry. So very, very angry.” He swallows and runs a thumb and forefinger over his moustache. “Frustrated with his stutter, frustrated with his head. Frustrated with everybody thinking it all originated from the accident. He was so angry, I had him on demolition for a whole year to break and beat the hell out of something legit before he went and got himself more than a juvenile record.”
Raiden ran away from home? From Bill and May? Those sweet people would have been ripped apart with worry. And then there’s a juvenile record, too?
“Of all the days in the year to talk about this,” Cash mutters as he wipes at his brow. “I know Raiden wouldn’t have told you. He never speaks about the accident. I bet if you know anything, you would’ve learned it from May, what with the way women talk.”
I chew my lip with a sinking acknowledgement that he’s right. For all I opened myself to Raiden before and physically this afternoon, he’s still a book with many closed chapters. I get to read them one by one when he chooses to turn the page—at his pace—and it’s killing me. “What is it?” I ask. Talking to Cash behind Raiden’s back doesn’t sit right with me, but I can’t help myself.
“Tomorrow it’ll be two decades since that car wreck destroyed those boys’ lives.”
My heart hears the words first, my brain so slow in understanding that Cash refers to the crash Raiden’s parents died in. Twenty years ago this weekend. This was what last night was about, wasn’t it? Raiden never gave away that he’s about to hit the hardest time of the year. No wonder he’s having night terrors. “He said nothing to me.” Instead, he pushed me away, too scared of more hurt.
“He isn’t a talker. He’s a doer. When he talks, it always comes out wrong.” Cash slips off his glasses and pushes them into his breast pocket. “It took him ten years after he started working for me to go and see someone and figure out his head. To be diagnosed with his learning issues.”
“And nobody can figure out exactly how that head works,” I mutter under my breath, for every word Cash says rings true. Raiden doesn’t talk. He’s a doer. This afternoon, he was doing perfect things until he started talking and then he only did a lot of damage. This isn’t going to hurt when it ends; it hurts already.
Outside, another truck pulls up and a moment later, Hunter strolls in.
“Cash,” he says in greeting, and the men hug for a moment.
Hunter meets my gaze over Cash’s shoulder, and I can see in his eyes everything Raiden keeps to himself.
“Where’s Raiden?” Hunter asks.
“He went to the lake for a swim. He’ll be back soon. It’s been a while.” All I want to do is escape the heartache of the moment ballooning in front of me. Suddenly I’m not so sure that Cash is here for the Ashleigh Lake annual fair.
“Do you want to wait for him,” Hunter asks, “or do you want to head to my place? Uncle Bill and Aunt May will be there around six. Rachel is coming after work so that will only be later…and Raiden—” He breaks off. “We’re having a family gathering tonight.”
“I know,” I say, even though I knew nothing. Even though the Brodies and Logans have been inviting me to every small thing lately, and I’ve politely declined most of them, here is an invitation that nobody extended. Tonight is a commemoration of sorts, and I have no place there.
Raiden chooses this moment to walk back into the barn, his hair swept back and wet, his mouth pulled into a stern line. He’s seen the trucks parked outside.
There’s no joyous greeting between the men, but Cash pulls him into a bear hug with a slap on his back. Then he holds Raiden at arm’s length and for a moment there is an intense stare between the men. Raiden closes his eyes and nods. Cash pulls him back into a hug and I almost feel the hard pressure on their bodies as they hold on to each other.
Cash glances at me where I hover. An hour ago, I would’ve been clueless as to how to interpret this scene, but now I know what they are silently communicating. I turn away, blinking as last night’s events and the revelations of this afternoon become too much. If I think I’m a mess, how does Raiden feel?
Raiden lets go of Cash and nods in Hunter’s direction. “You get going. I’ll finish up here and come over.”
I feel Hunter’s gaze burn on my back. “We’ll see you at the fair, George?”
“Sure thing.” I shoot him the fastest glance in the universe, not wanting anybody to notice that I’m upset.
Cash comes up to me and takes my hand in his. “I might have spoken out of turn.”
“It’s nothing. I pushed.”
He nods, then with a last squeeze of my fingers, walks out of the barn with Hunter. An awkward silence the size of Mount Rushmore invades the barn.
“We have a family thing tonight,” Raiden starts. “I won’t be home until late.”
