Page 82 of Wingmen

There was a bottle on the shelf in the door, which he took out, closing the door behind him with his foot as he stood.

Because you are in a foreign country, buying a controlled substance with a fucking skull and crossbones on the side of the bottle.

He went across the room to the desk with the pills in one hand and the bottle of water in the other.

Which you had to lie to a pharmacist to get…

He tipped the pills onto the desk so he could crack the lid off the bottle of water.

…and which you’ve been telling yourself is sensible tapering off behavior...

He set the lid on the desk and scooped the pills back into his hand.

…but you know that’s bullshit because if this was sensible, you would’ve told Jordan you were coming.

He shook them all together in the center of his palm and did a quick recount to make sure there were actually ten there.

The phone buzzed on the bed.

He looked up and stared at it across the room. Then went back to see what it said.

I miss you.

Goddammit, Elliot.

God.

Dammit.

Dustin couldn’t move. He felt like something had shut down inside him and stuck him to the floor.

He stared at the phone. The pills in one hand; the water bottle in the other. The passport on the nightstand. The red carpet and upholstered chair tucked under the desk. Maple leaf red. Because he was in Canada. He looked around at where he was and what he was doing, and a voice in his head said, “Stop.”

It was Tom’s voice, weirdly, and it sounded exactly like it had the day Dustin had been trying to get Marisol to give him one more run at that agility ladder.

“You have just lied to a person you care about,” said Tom. “This is not ‘sensible tapering off behavior’, Bennet. This is just textbook drug stuff.”

Dustin sat on the edge of the bed with the pills and his water bottle. He was going to have to put one down if he was going to pick up the phone.

He tipped the pills onto the bed and put the water on the floor and picked up the phone and typed,Miss you too.

He didn’t send it.

But he picked up the pill bottle, scooped the ten pills backinto it, took the bottle into the bathroom, dumped everything out into the toilet, flushed it, closed the lid, sat down, and called Jordan.

Jordan’s voicewas surprised and slightly suspicious as he picked up on the other end. “Hey! Did I miss a chat?”

Dustin sat with his eyes closed and the phone against his ear, not knowing how to begin.

“Hello?” said Jordan. “What’s up?”

“I’m in Vancouver.”

“Oh! Great. Are you coming by?”

“No. Ah – no. I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Oh. Alright. Well… Hold on, let me put you on speaker.” Jordan was probably washing dishes or wrangling May into pajamas or something. He sounded distracted, and Dustin hated that he was about to blow apart his evening with what he was about to say.