Lost in Arcadia

Nutcracking

The walk to the car and the subsequent short ride was painfully quiet. It didn’t take Kade long to realize that Addie wasn’t being random with the person she had chosen to pick him up.

His sister knew him well, after all. If it were someone else who was any less unaccommodating, no matter what his initial impression of them was, Kade would have still tried to flirt with them and perhaps would have succeeded in securing their number, if not altogether got into their pants before the day was out.

But Kade wasn’t someone who took it to heart if the other person was not at all inclined to be interested in him.

This time around, he really was just hungry, and this guy Arden was his meal ticket.

Or so he thought.

“You brought the company credit card, right?” he asked offhandedly.

The two had just been seated at a table in a restaurant some ten minutes away from the airport. Kade was already looking over the menu when the other man responded, “Sorry, Mr. Harker. I did not.”

Kade looked up at him askance. “Then who the hell is gonna pay for our food?”

Arden just looked back at him blankly.

“Sh*t,” Kade said in frustration and closed the menu shut. The reason he had asked for a ride instead of just getting a taxi in the first place was that he was completely broke. He didn’t even have enough money on him to pay for a decent meal. “Good thing I asked before we ordered. Let’s get out of here, then.”

He stood as he spoke, expecting Arden to simply follow. 

But the guy remained seated and stared up at Kade.

“It’s fine, Mr. Harker,” he said blandly. “You can order. I’ll pay for it.”

Kade was momentarily surprised and narrowed his eyes, then he seemed to be enlightened and said, “Right. You can just get your money reimbursed.”

He was about to step back towards his seat, expecting to hear some sort of agreement, but when he didn’t, he remained standing and looked at the man again suspiciously.

“You will get it reimbursed?” he asked, wanting to make sure.

But Arden turned his face slightly to the side and replied quietly, “It’s not a big deal. There's no need to trouble the President with this.”

Kade couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. How was that any trouble? At most, he would only need to hand Addie the receipt and get paid back then and there.

Was he the type who was shy about things like that?

Deciding that that was probably the case, Kade shrugged.

“Never mind, let’s just go. Don’t want to eat you out of your savings or anything. I’ll have you know, my appetite is big.”

Kade accompanied those last few words with a wink. By this point, he was totally unsurprised when Arden showed no reaction whatsoever.

All the guy did was nod, stand up, and head for the door first.

Despite himself, Kade huffed and rolled his eyes at the guy’s back as he followed.

‘So boring…’ he thought.

Even though he had no particular type, he admired people who were bold. The more fiery they were, the better his estimation of them was. But he liked it best when they didn’t let the fact that Kade was an alpha intimidate them into acting subservient or showing their real personalities.

While it’s true that this Arden guy wasn’t exactly fawning over him either, he was just too… lackluster, he guessed he could say.

He had no fire in him at all. He acted as if nothing and no one could touch him, in every sense of the word.

And Kade was supposed to be stuck with the guy for around two hours while he drove him back to his parents’ house in the suburbs.

It was going to be a long and hellish ride.

Bothered by this more than he should, Kade only noted in passing how another car had been waiting for theirs to drive off before taking the vacated parking spot. Through the rearview mirror, he then saw a young and attractive family of four alight and head to that same restaurant they had just left.

“Must be nice…” Kade commented absently, just talking to himself.

“…Isn’t it?” Arden responded, much to Kade’s surprise.

And to Arden’s too, as it turned out. 

Kade had caught him looking at the rearview mirror as well while they were waiting to take a turn. Kade's words had been vague enough that for all Arden knew, he might have been referring to how those people could get to eat while he couldn’t.

But the hint of wistfulness in the guy’s tone told Kade that it wasn’t food on his mind.

Upon noticing Kade’s attention on him, Arden looked stonily ahead and seemed to regret saying anything.

As far as Kade was concerned, however, it was too late. That was all the opening he needed.

“So are you a family guy?” he asked chirpily, determined to start a conversation. They could both dislike each other all they wanted, but they didn’t need to be so quiet about it.

Indeed, Arden was compelled to reply, “I’m not.”

“Right,” Kade said with a knowing nod. “You’re probably too young for that. What are you, like, twenty-two? Twenty-three?” 

“…I’m twenty-eight.”

“Woah,” Kade replied, his eyes wide as he tried to look at the guy’s face closely. “Dude, I thought you were younger. You’re nearly as old as my sister.”

Arden’s tone was dry when he responded, “You’re twenty-five yourself, Mr. Harker.”

Kade was more than a little displeased by the reminder. “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting older too. I never said I wasn’t. So what made you want to go and work for Addie? Isn’t it awkward when your boss is around the same age as you?”

With a tiny shrug, Arden answered flatly, “The pay is higher." Then he paused before continuing, “And it's just better there. The culture, I mean.”

That was met with a snort of disbelief. “You must be joking,” Kade said, making Arden throw a glance at him. “How could the culture be any good under my sister? That woman’s a demon.”

Arden pretended to watch for other cars so he could turn towards the driver’s side window and mutter, “Only to you…”

But of course, Kade heard him perfectly. He didn't quite know what was making a corner of his lips turn up, amusement or indignation. Perhaps it was a mixture of both.

"Come again?" he asked, wanting to see if the guy would dare repeat it louder to his face.

He was mildly disappointed when Arden only said, "I was saying I've had worse bosses. Now if you'll excuse me, Mr. Harker, I need to concentrate while driving."

In other words… "Please shut the hell up—before your yammering drives me so crazy that I end up crashing the car."

Or so Kade imagined he meant.

Whether or not he was accurate, it seemed this was as far as their budding interaction would go.

"Can I play music, at least?" Kade asked, giving up entirely. He didn't really have the energy right now to try cracking this nut. It didn't seem to be worth the effort, if he was being honest.

Little did Kade know how hard he was going to have to swallow those words, and soon.

"It's not my car, Mr. Harker," Arden replied in that same bland tone.

"Right, it's my sister's—which makes it as good as mine, per the laws of siblinghood." Chuckling at his own joke, Kade proceeded to fiddle with the car's touchscreen to get to the music player. "I wonder if we still have the same taste…" he muttered as he browsed the playlists. Arden betrayed his curiosity by glancing at him. “Aha! Blood will tell, after all.” 

The other man had looked away just in time before Kade turned to him with a mischievous grin. At the same moment, the first notes of a song sounded inside the car.

“Buckle up, cowboy,” Kade said. “This is the type of music your boss bops her head to.”

When the vaguely recognizable intro finished playing, the vocalist of Green Day began singing the first lines of Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Arden: “…”

It would have been fine, more than just fine, really, if the music was played at a loud volume and they both only listened to it.

But the damned passenger also insisted on singing along to every line, even belting out the chorus with so much feeling when it rolled around.

Who the hell does carpool karaoke with someone they had literally just met?

Arden wanted so much to tune Kade out and just listen to the song, but it was proving impossible.

And he couldn’t really be blamed for not understanding how deeply Kade was relating to the song at the moment. 

The alpha simply couldn’t help himself. It felt to him like the band was singing about what he was currently going through, and if he didn’t belt his heart out to the lyrics, he might just cry listening to the words instead.

There proved to be a silver lining to the situation when Arden spotted a drive-thru and made a beeline for it.

Kade was by then busily banging his head like a maniac to the outro, and he only realized what Arden was up to when the guy began rattling out his order.

“Yo, yo, wait—are those for me?”

“Not enough?” Arden asked back.

“I said I didn’t want you to treat me!”

“Too late.”

With the order confirmed, Arden began driving again to collect it.

But after he took their bags of food and paid, Kade snatched the receipt from his hand.

“I’ll make sure to pay you back,” he said stubbornly, checking the total amount before pocketing the piece of paper.

“There’s really no need.”

“Just let me!” Kade just about snarled. 

Arden merely sighed and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Mr. Harker.”

Smiling in triumph, Kade said a quick thanks before rifling through the bags’ contents. 

Just as he was about to take a bite of burger…

“Oh, wait, this song is also good.”

Arden let out another sigh and begged, “Please, just eat…”