Reap The Whirlwind
Book 2 of the Killian Kendall Mysteries
By Josh Aterovis
Copyright 2026
Chapter 8
I awoke suddenly with the acrid smell of smoke still in my nostrils. I pushed myself into a sitting position and felt a sticky wetness on my hands. I looked down to see they were covered in blood. Whose? Mine? A knife lay on my pillow, glinting in the semi-darkness. I looked for Aidan, but he wasn't next to me in the bed. I was alone.
Suddenly, fire was all around my bed, jumping and leaping closer and closer like a living thing. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The flames crept closer, and I squeezed my eyes closed so I wouldn't have to watch my skin burn away like the paper in the sink.
"Will! Will!"
Aidan's voice sliced through the nightmare and my eyes flew open to see his face, wide-eyed and frightened above me.
"It was just a bad dream," he was saying. "You're okay. I'm right here."
My heart felt like it would beat right out of my chest, and my breath came in ragged gasps.
Was it really just a dream? It felt so real.
But it must have been. I was in my bed and there was clearly no fire, no smoke, no blood. I wasn't alone. Aidan was there. He'd wrapped me in his arms, but the terror still clung to me like stubborn fog in the early morning sunlight.
"It's okay, Will," Aidan whispered as he pulled me closer. "I've got you. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
I felt my body slowly begin to relax into his, and I snuggled closer. I hadn't felt so comforted since I was a little kid being held by my mom after a bad dream. I slowly drifted off to sleep.
The nightmare stayed away for the rest of the night, and I awoke the next morning with Aidan's arm still around me. I sat up suddenly, waking him in the process.
"Mornin'..." he mumbled sleepily.
I looked around the room for signs of a fire. It was silly, I knew, but the nightmare images were still so vivid in my mind.
"Whatcha lookin' for?" Aidan asked.
I lay back down without answering. Aidan raised himself up on one elbow to look into my face. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Before I could answer, my phone began to ring. Aidan looked around for it. It was charging on my side of the bed, and since I hadn't made any move to answer it, he leaned over me to grab it up. His face was just a fraction of an inch from mine, so close I could feel his breath on my lips.
Our eyes locked, and he froze, the ringing phone momentarily forgotten. It stopped abruptly, and the sudden silence brought us back to ourselves. Aidan quickly rolled back to his side of the bed. We carefully avoided looking at each other for an awkward moment before the phone began to ring again.
"I've got it," I said quickly, and snatched up the phone. "Hello?"
"Will! Just who I was looking for! Did I wake you?" It was Nikki.
"No, uh... No, I was awake."
"Oh, because I just called, and the phone rang and rang and then went to voicemail, but I hate leaving voicemail and nobody ever listens anyway, so I called back. Guess what? I've got some good news. How soon can you get to the gallery?"
"The gallery? Um...I don't know."
"What about the gallery?" Aidan asked.
"Nikki wants to know how soon I can get to the gallery," I told him.
"An hour?"
"What about classes?"
"It's Saturday."
"Oh." The days all sort of blurred into each other when you didn't have a job and never left the house. "An hour," I relayed to Nikki.
"Perfect! See you then! Ciao!"
"See you then," I said to a dead line. I dropped my phone and turned to Aidan. "Nikki wants me to come to the gallery. She said she has good news." I paused. "Have you ever noticed how you can hear the exclamation points when she talks?"
Aidan laughed as he sat up. "Do you think she sold one of your paintings?"
"Whoa! You think so?" That hadn't even occurred to me. In fact, I'd almost forgotten I even had any paintings there.
"I bet so," he said. "Why else would she want you to come to the gallery?"
"Or maybe they haven't sold and she wants to get them out of there."
"That wouldn't be good news."
I had to concede his point.
"Well, let's get dressed and go find out," Aidan said as he jumped up. "No point lying around speculating." He started out of the room, but paused in the doorway. "You take your shower first. I'll cook us breakfast. This calls for a celebration!"
"We don't even know what we're celebrating," I called after him.
"Who cares? I'm just glad we've got some good news for a change."
I had to admit, I felt a little flutter of excitement in my chest. The first I'd felt since everything happened with Joey and my Dad.
After we both showered and enjoyed a delicious omelet that Aidan whipped up, we arrived at Avant Garde only a little later than the hour I'd promised. Bluegrass music was serenading walkers-by on the plaza from the open door of the gallery. A banjo jangled merrily as we walked into the seemingly empty showroom.
As we were standing there trying to decide what to do next, Dante pulled his favorite trick of seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
I made a mental note to ask Nikki how he did that.
When he saw us, he made a face like he'd stepped in doggie doo doo. "Nikolia, it's your latest pet, the next big thing."
Nikki swept in through the curtain on the back wall with a wide grin on her face, pointedly ignoring her older brother. "Will! Aidan! Thanks for coming in on such short notice. Guess what?"
"I sold a painting?" I guessed.
Nikki frowned. "No, I'm sorry Will; you didn't sell a painting..." I felt my face drop before she went on, "...you sold all three!"
"What?" Aidan and I chorused, then I added, "You're kidding! How?"
Nikki laughed. "I stirred things up a bit, called a few people to come see them, told them you were a newly discovered talent and boom! Once they saw them, the work sold itself."
"I can't believe this!" I said.
"I can," Aidan laughed.
"Now before you get your hopes up, I priced them on the low side since you are an unknown at this point, but now we have a benchmark. They only go up from here. We never discussed prices so I hope you aren't disappointed."
I was surprised to realize I hadn't even thought about money. Just the fact that someone thought my art was good enough that they wanted to pay for it was enough for me at the moment.
"How much?" I asked.
"Three hundred."
I blinked. "Dollars?"
"No, pesos. Of course dollars."
"For all three? But that's great!"
"No, not for all three. Each."
"Three hundred dollars each?"
"That's nine hundred dollars," Aidan said helpfully in a somewhat awed voice.
"Minus my commission of course," Nikki said with a wink.
I felt like I needed to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit.
Nikki continued, oblivious to my state of shock, "I want to capitalize on this, stir up some interest."
"Whoa, slow down. Capitalize how?"
"I still have one of the paintings here. The buyer is on his way to pick it up now. In fact, I was afraid he'd beat you here, you took so long. I want to get a photo with the two of you and the painting. He's stupid rich and very connected, so I know the paper will run the photo. It'll cause a little stir."
"A stir about what?"
"You, obviously. How would you feel about doing a one-man show?
My head was spinning. Things always seemed to happen faster than I could keep up when Nikki was around. "A show? Me?"
"I'd like to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. The people that bought your paintings are the types who like to brag about their latest acquisitions to all their rich friends, so you can be sure your name will be circulating right now, especially once our photo hits the paper. Do you have any more paintings ready to go?"
"I've been working on some stuff but they're probably not good enough for a show. How many would we need?"
"Well, that depends on how big they are, doesn't it? But let's say, hmm, maybe around twenty. And you let me decide what's good enough for the show."
"Twenty?" I felt faint. "When would you need them?"
"Let's see... It's the beginning of October now. Ideally we'd open before Thanksgiving and the holiday rush, so let's say mid-November. That would give you about a month. You wouldn't have to do anything but paint; I'll take care of everything else. Think you can pull it off?"
"Do I have a choice?" I said. This wasn't the kind of opportunity one passed up. "I'll make it work. It's not like I have a job to worry about."
"That's the spirit! Oh, that reminds me...I ran into Aidan the other day in the hall, and he mentioned that you'd quit your job. It just so happens that we could use some extra help here at the gallery. We can't pay a lot but it's better than nothing, and we could work around your painting schedule. Interested?"
"Are you serious?"
"Rarely, but in this instance, yes."
"What would I be doing?"
"Some light office work, doing some inventory of our stockroom, watching the floor for us if one of us can't do it, helping with sales, manual labor...you know, the usual."
"And Dante is okay with this?"
"He will be. I can be pretty persuasive when I need to." I believed her. "Besides, anything that means less work for him will always win out in the end."
"Will you teach me that trick of Dante's?"
"You mean his appearing douchebag trick?"
I laughed. "Yeah, that one."
Nikki laughed. "Sorry, that's top-secret, but I can tell you that he desperately wanted to be a magician when we were kids and he practiced his tricks for hours. So, does this mean you want the job?"
"Hell, yeah!"
"Great! You're hired! You can start next Monday."
Just then, a tall, very tan gentleman with white hair and a beige linen suit breezed through the door.
"Nikolia, darling," he boomed. "It's a joy to see you, as always. Did you tell Gio I said hello?"
"Of course I did, Angelo. He sends his regards. But what a coincidence that you came by for your painting while the artist himself just happened to be here. Let me introduce you."
Nikki wouldn't be getting any awards for her acting any time soon, but I allowed her to sweep me up into a photo shoot while Aidan watched from a safe distance, not even bothering to hide his amusement.
Everything was happening so quickly. I could only hope I didn't look as overwhelmed as I felt in the photos.
Aidan insisted we have a celebratory dinner after Nikki's big news. While I was grateful that Nikki had somehow sold three of my paintings and handed me a one-man show and a new job on a silver platter, I couldn't help feeling that I didn't deserve any of it, or that it was all somehow a well-intentioned plot hatched by Nikki and Aidan to cheer me up.
Still, Aidan seemed excited enough for both of us, so I allowed him to persuade me. He took us to an Italian place just down the street from Avant Garde, and even insisted on paying. I felt guilty, but it's not like I was flush with cash at the moment, so, once again, I gave in.
We watched a movie when we got home, but when the credits finished rolling and we headed down the hall to bed, Aidan turned right into his room. "Goodnight," he called as he started closing his door.
"Oh, you're, uh, sleeping in your room tonight?"
"Yeah, I figured you were doing so much better that maybe we should try sleeping in our own beds tonight. Is that okay?"
What was I supposed to say? I nodded and attempted a smile, though I'm guessing by his expression that it was somewhat unconvincing. "Yeah. Of course," I said, and turned into my room.
"I'm right across the hall if you need me," Aidan called as I closed my door.
I went on autopilot as I stripped down to my boxers, turned off the light and crawled into bed. Then I proceeded to lay awake, staring at the moonlit ceiling while my mind ran at a hundred miles an hour.
Would I be able to finish enough paintings to fill a one-man show in one month?
What would I even paint?
What if they all sucked?
What if they all sucked and no one bought them?
What would working for Dante and Nikki be like?
What if I hated it?
What if Aidan had kissed me that morning?
That last question brought me to a screeching halt. I'd somehow managed to not think about our awkward moment in bed this morning, when he'd hovered over me, his face inches from mine, our eyes locked.
I'd clearly seen what he was thinking in that moment. I know, because I was feeling it too.
Suddenly, it seemed of the utmost importance to know what Aidan's lips felt like against mine.
Almost without even thinking, I got up and walked across the hall to Aidan's door. I rapped lightly.
"Come in," he answered right away, obviously having as much trouble sleeping as I was.
I opened the door and then just stood there stupidly, suddenly unsure of what exactly I was doing. What was I hoping would happen?
Aidan was sitting up in his bed, his bare chest glowing in the moonlight. He was looking at me with a confused expression. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"No, I just... I missed you," I said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
For what seemed like an eternity, he just stared back at me. I could see his mind turning my words every which way, seeking out every implication of my appearing in his bedroom after midnight. I felt like a little kid waking up his daddy after he had a bad dream. This was stupid. I should have stayed in my own bed.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you," I mumbled, and turned to leave.
"Will, wait," he called.
I turned back to see him toss the sheets aside and pat the bed next to him.
"You're not bothering me."
I slowly stepped into the room, shut the door, and walked to the side of the bed before hesitating again. My heart was racing, and I couldn't keep my hands from shaking.
In the near darkness, I could feel as much as see Aidan searching my face, his eyes seeking mine out. Then he reached out and tentatively took my hand, pulling me gently onto the bed.
The kiss was so soft, so quick that I almost thought I was still imagining it. The second one, though, was much more decisive, as if we both now knew what we wanted. He pulled back and searched my eyes once more. I reached around his neck and pulled him back to me for another kiss, this one much longer and more passionate.
I don't know how long we stayed like that, kissing as if our lives depended on it. I was lost in the moment. It was like my first kiss all over again, but so much better. The first time I kissed Beth, I had wondered where all the fireworks were.
There were plenty of fireworks with Aidan.
I felt his hand slide over my shoulder, across my chest, and down my stomach as his kisses moved down my neck. He left a trail of angel kisses down my chest and stomach where his hand had passed just moments before. His mouth lingered over my navel, and he tickled it with his tongue. I felt my breath rush out as my stomach did somersaults.
His mouth moved back up to meet mine, but his hand slid under my boxers. I almost jumped out of the bed when he found his target. Then, in a blur of motion, he broke away, and before I could even think, our boxers were off and he was on top of me, kissing me once again with a passion that caught me off guard. Our bodies began to move in synchronicity as the fireworks turned into an all out explosion.
Afterwards, as I lay wrapped tightly in his arms listening to his regular breathing, I began to question what had just happened. Did I love Aidan, or had I just gone to him because I missed the security of having someone next to me? Was I just craving attention? Was he just available?
I didn't have any answers. My mind was too muddled and I didn't have the energy to pursue that line of thinking at that moment. I pushed all thoughts from my head, focused on his breathing and how safe I felt in his arms, and soon fell into a deep sleep.
The doubts were back with a vengeance as soon as I opened my eyes the next morning, though. My first coherent thought was, "Oh my God! What did we do?"
Of course, I had all the evidence I needed spooned against my back, his arm tight around my chest.
The biggest question for me was did I love Aidan?
I wasn't sure.
I was sure that I was hurting from Joey's and my family's rejections. Maybe I just needed to feel loved for one night. But that would make me one hell of a horrible person, using Aidan like that.
Of course, I hadn't gone expecting all that to happen...had I? Or was that exactly what I was hoping would happen?
Aidan was without a doubt the most caring guy I had ever met. I knew I could love him, but I also knew I still had a lot of unresolved feelings for Joey.
I felt Aidan stir behind me. His lips brushed my shoulder, then my ear. "I love you, Will," he whispered.
I sat up with a jolt.
"Will?"
"Aidan, last night..."
"Was incredible. You can't imagine how long I've wanted to do that, to hold you in my arms. It was so hard lying next to you all those nights, so close and yet..."
"Aidan..."
"I've wanted so badly to tell you that I loved you, but I knew I had to wait, that you had to make the first move."
"Aidan, last night was a mistake."
Punching him in the stomach wouldn't have created the effect those words had on him. He seemed to cave in as his face fell. "What?"
"We shouldn't have...done what we did."
"Done what? Say it, Will. We shouldn't have had sex? What do you mean? You came to me. I thought you wanted me."
"I don't know what I wanted. I still don't. That's the problem. I still love Joey, and right now I can't separate what I feel for him and what happened last night. Maybe I did want you, but what if I only went to you because I needed to feel loved, because I couldn't have Joey?"
"I don't understand this." Aidan ran his hands through his hair. "Do you...do you have feelings for me?"
"I... I don't know."
Aidan stood up abruptly, realized he was still naked, and grabbed the sheet to cover himself, clutching it like a security blanket.
"Aidan, I do love you," I said hurriedly. "You've become my best friend these past few weeks. I don't know anyone else who would have done what you've done for me. I'm just so confused right now. I don't know if I love you the way you want me to love you."
"You didn't seem confused last night."
"I...it's just...I still have all these feelings for Joey."
"Joey's straight. He's not just straight; he's homophobic. He outed you to your family. He's done actual harm to you. How could you possibly still have feelings for him? I'm here, right now. And I'm telling you I love you with everything I am. Isn't that enough for you? Aren't I enough for you?"
"It's not that you're not enough. These feelings I have for Joey, I've had them for years. I can't just make them go away. I don't have an on-and-off switch. I wish I did. And maybe...maybe once he gets used to the idea, maybe he'll be okay with it."
"Oh, God! Wake up, Will! It's not going to happen. The guy's an asshole. I hadn't told you because I didn't want to hurt you and I thought you had enough to deal with, but ever since you broke the big news to your old pal Joey, he's been hell-bent on proving his heterosexual masculinity. Mackenzie dumped him weeks ago when she found out he was cheating on her, and he's been screwing everything with tits ever since. He's become the campus sleaze overnight."
"No..."
"Yes. He's also managed to maintain an almost constant state of obnoxious drunkenness at every party that's been held since school began, whether he was invited or not. He's been kicked out of more parties than I'll ever attend. He hasn't spoken to me since he found out I'm gay except to call me a fag in front of his new friends. Actually, do you want to know what his exact words were?"
I didn't, but Aidan was on a roll.
"He said, 'That's the fag that turned my old best friend gay. Can you believe I used to be friends with a fag?'"
The last statement hit me like a blow.
Aidan saw it written all over my face and his eyes widened in horror. "Oh, God, Will, I'm sorry."
I stood up and staggered to the door.
"Will, please, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."
I walked across the hall to my room and shut the door behind me. Immediately, Aidan was knocking and talking through the door. I quickly turned the lock.
"Will, please open the door. Talk to me. Don't shut me out."
I looked around the room with a strange sense of detachment. I didn't feel connected to anything, like I'd become completely untethered from my life.
"Will! I shouldn't have said that. It was wrong. I was hurt. I'm sorry. Please open the door."
I walked to the window and threw it up with a bang.
Aidan sounded like he was crying now; he'd stopped banging on the door. "Will, please forgive me..." he sobbed.
I didn't feel anything anymore but I felt I owed him at least that much, so I turned back. "I forgive you," I tried to say, but it came out as a kind of croak, so I cleared my throat and said it louder.
Then I climbed out the window and onto the fire escape. For a brief moment, I realized I was naked outside, but I didn't care. What difference did it make?
I swung one leg over the railing, then the other. I stood for a second, balancing precariously on the outside of the railing, my hands gripping the top rail, my heels barely on the platform. I looked down. The ground seemed so far away.
I heard a key fumbling in the lock of my door, and I thought it was strange that I didn't know Aidan had a key to my room. Not that it mattered.
"Will...No!"
I let go and fell forward.
For a brief moment I felt like I was flying.
I was finally free.
Then the ground started rushing toward me.
"WILL!"
Next Chapter
Previous Chapter