Page 72 of At The End Of The Day

He cast a curious glare and shook the saw dust off his sweaty arms. “Huh?”

“Why are you avoiding me?”

A sneaker squeaked on the cement floor with his sudden halt, eyes bulging. The color draining from his face, his Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. “What are you talking about? I’ve been taking care of you every day for over a week.”

“You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about, Vin.”

He huffed and shifted his weight to one leg, his hands on his sides. “Because it’s the right thing to do, Dash.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, we ain’t in danger no more. Jack is dead, the cops ain’t after us, and neither are the Serpents. We’re home now, so everything can go back to normal.”

Scowling, I scoffed and splayed my hands out. “What, exactly, are you implying here?”

He clucked his teeth and went back to the sawhorses, grunting as he hoisted another two by four on the tops. Hooking the end of his tape measure to one end, he dragged it along the length, plucked the pencil tucked behind his ear, and marked ten feet. As he released the button to let it automatically roll back into the case, he grumbled, “It means, we ain’t gotta live in death mode no more.”

“Death mode.”

Aggravated, he threw his arms out so his hands slapped to his sides. “When we was in Georgia, we had no idea what the hell was gonna happen to us. We lived every day out there like it was our last cuz we had no way of knowing if we could actually get to Jackyl before he got to us. When you think you’re gonna die, you do stupid things.”

I did a doubletake and my stomach sank. “Stupid things?”

“Yeah, stupid things.”

“Like what, exactly?”

“Like me thinking I was falling for you and you thinking you’d actually wanna be with a man. You’re a proud homophobe, Dash. Why you think I never told you what I was really about? Now, all of a sudden, things are different? Get the fuck outta here, we both know that ain’t true. We thought there was a good chance we was gonna die and it made us do crazy things.”

He turned his back to me, picked up the saw, and turned it on, drowning out anything I might have said in response. Truth was, I had nothing to say. What if he was right? After all, I was still mourning Mary’s death, and I had gotten turned on watching Violetta and Tyler fucking. A woman with a beautiful pussy and amazing tits. I was lonely, missing my wife when everything started with Vincent. Had we leaned into one another intimately because we were running on adrenaline, trying to survive? Could our newfound connection be a form of trauma bonding?

Angry with his response, I braced myself for the pain, heaved my weight to my feet, and grunted, shuffling for the house. By the time I was reaching the door, the saw cut off and he shouted my name, finally realizing I’d left the wheelchair. Ignoring him, I made my way through the house to the master suite and locked myself in, collapsing to the mattress. I rested against the headboard and closed my eyelids, my teeth gritted.

He had to be right. Like he said, I was always the first in line to have something snarky to say about gay men. Gay women had never bothered me because who couldn’t use an extra cunt or set of tits? An extra dick, however, and something inside froze with a trace of fear.

Cursing under my breath, I snatched the remote from the nightstand and cut on the television over the armoire. Whatever. He was right, it was best to act like nothing happened. I wasn’t gay and we were back in the real world. It was time to move on from Mary and what happened in Georgia.

As soon as I was strong enough to take care of myself, I was taking Piera on an extended vacation, far away from Alabama, Vincent, and the Serpents. Hell, I might even go back to Italy and never come home.

Chapter 30

Vincent da Silva

Friday 09.27.2019

Dread sank its icy talons into my chest, crushing my heart under the pressure. My stomach twisted in knots, I stared at the text from Billy.

Becca is leaving for the weekend for a bachelorette party in Savannah. We’ll have three whole days. When can you be here?

My chin on my chest, my sight shifted to the side at Dash sitting in his wheelchair, just outside my walk-in shower. Pulling a long, slow breath, I tipped my head and scratched behind my ear. Once upon a time, a text like this sent me into a tailspin of excitement. Today, shame pumped through my veins.

And, shockingly, a tinge of spite. She was leaving for a bachelorette party. That wasn’t something she just woke up this morning and decided to do, this had been planned for a while…yet I was just hearing about it? The morning of? Why did he wait so long to let me know? And why was I just now realizing this was a set pattern? Billy always kept me dangling on that hook, ready to jump the second he snapped his fingers. It was degrading.

I coughed and hit the reply button, typing, Sorry, man. Can’t do it. Busy. Sending it, I set my phone on the counter, tugged off my tee shirt, and strode over to Dash. He looked at me, the shower, and then yanked his attention back, his eyelids widened slightly as he raked his focus over my chest.

There was that trace of excitement. It was still there, but it was directed elsewhere these days. Somewhere else it had no business being. One of these days, my heart and emotions would be on the same page as someone else and I would finally have what I always wanted. An open, secure, solid relationship with someone I loved who loved me just as much.

That would never be Billy who was married to a woman, and definitely not Dash who was opposed to homosexuality. Right now, he was still confused about everything that happened on that mountain in Georgia. The regular screams from nightmares proved he was still stuck in that house. As soon as he broke those chains, he would steer far away from me and never look back, leaving behind whatever sparked between us, as well as our friendship.