AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Danny, and Kevin and Mark by the sounds in the backseat, only managed to breathe again when Sean came to a stop in street parking, gasping hard as the car halted.
“You fucking broke up with him over a fucking email,” Sean snarled, twisting in his seat to glare at Danny, easily the angriest Danny had ever seen him.
“Wh-what,” Danny stammered, pressing against the door as some part of his brain screamed to get as far away from the man in the driver’s seat as possible. “N-no! I didn’t-”
“Yes, you fucking did,” Sean roared, not reaching for Danny but not calming down either. “I was forwarded the message! You little prick! After he kept you all safe, you do that the morning he gets home?”
“It had to be-” Danny started then stopped, blood draining from his face. “No,” he breathed, staring at Sean. “No.” His voice cracked as his vision swam. “I didn’t hit send! I was doing the letter to get my feelings out but I didn’t hit send!”
Sean scowled at him, sitting back. “Apparently, you did,” he said, turning back to the wheel.
“No,” Danny choked. “No. Snake must have—” He recoiled as Sean’s finger pointed at his face, the man still not his brother.
“Do not,” he breathed, “finish that fucking sentence. I have warned you before about accusing him of those things. I warned you of the consequences. You fucked this up. No one else.” He pulled out of the spot once traffic cleared. “Nothing excuses what you said to him in that email.”
Danny quivered, his guts like water as his vision swam. He had been angry and hurt when he had written that email, letting out all of his fears and anxieties and paranoia onto the screen. But he hadn’t meant it. Not like that. Not so cruel and hateful as he sounded in that email. “I need to see him,” he whispered, pulling out his phone.
“Not happening,” Sean retorted bluntly. “You ended things. It’s done. You don’t get to have a final word and Thomas doesn’t want one. Trust me, I offered.”
Danny tried to not think about what exactly Sean meant by that as he tried to message Thomas again, then checked social media to find he couldn’t see any of Thomas’s profiles anymore. “He blocked me,” he breathed.
“I suggested that,” the man that was not Sean said coldly. “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Sean, please,” Danny said, looking at him, then back towards Kevin and Mark.
Both were on their phones, thumbs tapping on the screens.
“Kev, let me see your phone,” Danny said, reaching out for it.
Kevin glanced up at him, the same rage twisting his face. “Fuck off, Danny,” he spat.
“Kev, it’s not— Fuck— Mark—” He looked to Mark, but Mark didn’t even lift his eyes.
“We have known each other for ten years, Danny,” Mark said, his voice quiet, “and I don’t want to throw a friendship like that down the drain, but if you did this? If you kept hurting Thomas when he was already so broken… I really don’t want to talk to you right now. Because I don’t make any of the rash decisions that I’m really, really tempted to right now.”
Danny stared at his friends as Sean continued to drive, watched in shock as Kevin reached across the gap of the bucket seats to take Mark’s hand and hold it. Slowly, he turned around and faced forward, unsure when everything had gone so completely out of control.
* * *
Thomas was laying with his head in Jessi’s lap and his legs across Ceri’s as they watched a movie, or they watched a movie and he drifted in and out of a nap. Jessi’s fingers were alternating between combing through his hair and braiding pieces of it.
He was in one of his half-dozing states when he felt Ceri move and the two of them start one of their “not quite words” arguments above his head. “What’s up,” he murmured, peeling open his eyes to look from one to the other.
Ceri had her phone in her hand, the screen turning away from him quickly.
Jessi was staring her down, lips pursed as her chin jerked down towards him.
After a few more seconds of Jessi obviously trying to get Ceri to tell him something and Ceri not wanting to, he sighed. “Danny wants to talk to me,” he guessed. He had expected it. It was the signing all over again. What did his therapist call it? Love-bombing?
“You don’t have to talk to him,” Ceri said immediately. “You don’t owe him anything, least of all your time.”
“I know.” He made himself smile. “I’ve been thinking about how to handle him coming back all week.”
“Well, we’re glad that you know, baby,” Jessi said, her fingers freeing the braids she put in his hair. “And however you want to handle Danny, we support you. You protect your peace however you need to.”
Thomas nodded slowly. “I want to meet with him,” he said, having made the decision some time ago. “I want some answers before he leaves.”
Ceri sighed, frowning as she squeezed his leg. “Okay, Tommy. If that’s what you want.”
