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“Shh, we will.”
“For all I know, he might be with the guy now.”
“What do you know about this guy?”
“Not much. I didn’t even realize Minty was screwing him until today. I thought it was another of his flights of fancy, you know? Just a more dangerous flight.” I told him the whole story, including our first encounter with Kyle during the trial run ofCream My Face,and ended by saying, “It seems like this wasn’t the first time they’ve…” I didn’t want to say hooked up. What they were doing wasso muchdarker than that. “Fucked.”
Daniel groaned and stood up to pace. “I really hoped we were past all this.”
“I left out one other thing,” I said, in a small voice. I knew, if Daniel hadn’t already blown his stack over this situation, and he hadn’t yet, this was going to do it. “He didn’t use a condom.”
Daniel’s jaw tensed and released as he turned to the wall and hit it with the flat of his hand. “Goddammit. Fuck.”
“I’m sorry.”
Breathing heavily, Daniel turned back to me. “It’s not your fault.” He tore a hand through his hair. “Why is he doing this now, though? He always has a reason, but every time I talk to him lately, he says things are great, fine, wonderful.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to worry you.” Like I hadn’t wanted to worry Daniel after the first encounter with Kyle. “What can we do?”
Daniel flung himself down on the sofa beside me. “I need to think about it. When it comes to Minty, we have to approach things carefully.”
“What if we don’t have time to be careful? What if he gets with this Kyle guy again—tonight even—and what if Kyle hurts him, or even kills him?”
Daniel stood up. “Fuck, okay, yeah. Well, we should head up to campus now, go to his dorm, confront him about this before—”
Thunder crashed, followed by more rolling booms. The lights flickered and went out. The blackness was absolute.
“God,” Daniel cursed. “Stay there. Don’t move. Fuck.”
I held still on the sofa, listening to him stumble around in the dark before a match was finally struck, and a long, formerly just-decorative candle was lit. He walked toward me and sat the candle and its holder on the coffee table.
Even down in the basement, we could hear the rain outside. A downpour of epic proportions.
There was no way either of us was driving in this mess.
“I don’t know what to do now,” he said, sitting down beside me again, sounding lost and defeated.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you about this.” It wasn’t his job to fix his friend. He already had so much he had to deal with. I was supposed to be helping him byeasinghis burdens, not bringing him new ones.
“No, it was the right thing to do.” He pulled me close against his chest, kissing my hair.
“Was it?”
“Yeah.” He brought me down to lie on top of him on the sofa. “I’m the only one he listens to. I know that. You know that. We all do.”
“Sometimes he listens to Robert.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. I couldn’t see him well in the low light, but somehow, I just knew he’d rolled them. “Not really.”
“Barry, then.”
Daniel shrugged, conceding.
“We could call?”
“A phone call isn’t the best way to handle this,” Daniel said. “He’ll just hang up and go find the guy to get himself even more hurt.”
“Why is he doing this?” I asked after a few long minutes passed of us just resting together on the sofa. Daniel stroked my hair, as both of us considered it in silence.
