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He had everything.
“I know you want to help, and honestly, you haven’t done anything wrong,” I said, standing up and kicking the pizza box aside. “But you have to go. I need you to back off from me for a while. I need to figure my life out on my own now. I don’t need you here trying to fix me.”
“I don’t want you to feel alone,” Daniel said, rising too. He towered over me. “I never want you to be alone, Minty.”
“There you go. Thanks, but no thanks,Dad,” I let the full weight of sarcasm fall on the last word. “Just stop. Please. Save all that fatherly support for your sister and brother. Save it for your mother. Hell, save it for Peter if that’s your kink, but get it away from me. I don’t want that paternalistic bullshit right now.”
“What do you want then? I’ll do my best to give it to you.”
I opened my dorm room door. “Right now, I want to be left the fuck alone. Go home. Take some pizza with you—” I said, moving to shove a piece into his hand as I grabbed the beer from his other. “Leave the beer behind, though.”
I took a swig from it. A six-pack would go a long way to quieting the simmering rage beneath my skin. “Just go.”
“Don’t forget I love you,” Daniel said, dragging his feet toward the open door. He still carried the piece of pizza. “Please don’t do anything crazy. Should I call Barry? He can get his friend to—”
“I don’t need Barry or his ‘friend’ or you. Please get out.”
Daniel’s eyes filled with tears, and because I was in full dickhead mode, satisfaction welled up in me seeing them.
“I just want to help,” Daniel said, gruffly. “We’ve been best friends for a long time, and we’ll get through this, but you need to—”
“Butyouneed to go,” I said, shoving him out of the room. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk. Don’t call me.”
I shut the door in his startled face and leaned back against it. Ifelt like I should cry, but I wasn’t even close to tears anymore. I was humming, buzzing with anger and anxiety. I downed the rest of Daniel’s beer, picked up mine and downed it too.
After peeking out my peephole to make sure he was gone, I grabbed my keys from my desk and decided on a course of action. I had a few places I could go to get out of my body, out of my head, and into another world—
Kyle’s dorm room.
Or Luke’s basement.
And a third option that I hadn’t taken advantage of in a few months.
I strode down the hallway of my dorm, down the stairs, and out into the autumn light. Daniel’s figure was visible heading toward the library where Peter worked—no doubt going to cry on his shoulder. I turned the opposite direction.
It was the opposite direction from Kyle’s dorm too.
I tracked down my truck where it was parked on Neyland Drive and jammed my keys in the ignition. Two beers didn’t make for an entirely sober Minty, but I was far from drunk either. My liver was good at filtering all sorts of alcohol and drugs. I’d tested it plenty of times.
Pulling out into traffic, I pointed my car west. We’d see if I could handle this in a different way. With a different kind of pain. In another space.
Chapter Ten
‡
Luke
“Ithink I’min over my head,” I said, sipping a beer and watching Barry wipe down the bar. His bald head glinted in the low light, and he moved slower than usual. He’d been at the library earlier working a shift, and I could see he was exhausted.
He and Robert were building a house on land he’d inherited out in Strawberry Plains, but scraping together the necessary funds was taking a toll. Between Robert in the guise of Renée doing her drag act in Nashville the last few weekends, and the expense associated with trying to get her documentary film about the art of drag into the festival circuit, the financial stress was coming down hard on Barry. I could tell.
I’d recommended professional domination to him a few times as a much more lucrative side gig. With Barry’s background and his easy but firm manner, he could make some good cash. But Barry had shaken his head when I suggested it. He and Robert had an open relationship, he said, but that kind of thing would feel like cheating.
“I’m not just in the deep end of the pool,” I went on. “I might be in the deep end of the ocean.”
“With Minty?” Barry asked, looking up from working out a stain on the bar, his eyebrows furrowing.
I nodded and took another sip.
