AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A stirring sound came from the other side. “Yeah, c’mon in,” he answered in a groggy voice.
He clicked off the TV and propped himself up in bed, running his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. He pulled an elastic off his wrist and gathered it into a short pony tail.
“Guess I fell asleep.” He looked everywhere except at me. “I’m sorry about this, everything.”
“Yeah. What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I felt really down, so stopped by a bar. I was gonna have only one…”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
He ran a hand over his face. “I know. I fucked up.”
“Well. You want some water or juice?” I offered.
“Nah, I’m good.”
The shit he’d gone through.
“Hey, I can pay for you to go back to that rehab place you liked. It was much nicer than that halfway house you’re in right now.”
“I know. I appreciate it.” He finally looked at me. “But you can’t just keep throwing money at me and my problems. It’s not that simple.”
This was a familiar conversation.
“I don’t throw money at you. I want to help.”
“Var, you are a fucking rock star, and I’m your loser little brother. It’s just the way it is. You can’t spend your way out of this.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I said. “We might just as easily have ended up in each other’s shoes. You could have been the successful one, and I could have been the one who’s a mess. So much of life is a fucking crapshoot.”
I looked at Beau and saw the scared little guy I’d left behind when I escaped to college. At that moment, I hated myself more than he hated himself, if that were possible.
There was nothing fair about life. Not a goddamn thing.
“I’m not giving up on you. Even if you give up on yourself.”
Beau looked at his hands and said nothing.
“G’night, bro.” I switched off the light and closed the door. I had to get out of there.
Chapter 20
Saffi
I sat in front of a blank computer screen most of the day, unable to write a damn thing. Ed had inquired about my progress on the Club Silk story, but of course I lied. Aside from describing the setting, there wasn’t much to say yet. I’d gotten pretty much zero information from the folks I’d met there. ’Course, I could always share some of my personal experiences, but I wasn’t writing for Penthouse, was I?
Maybe I should be, though.
“Hey.”
My heart slammed against my chest and I shrieked. Christ, it was Tom. What did he want? “You scared the shit out of me.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Why the hell are you so jumpy?” He craned his neck to see what was on my computer monitor, but I switched windows.
“I was deep in thought.”
He helped himself to a corner of my desk, propping his ass right on the story I’d written about Little League.
