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“That’s one beautiful dog you got there,” Dad said to Michael. “Friendliest thing I’ve ever met, even more than Jackson’s Dog.”
“Who’s Jackson?” Kenny asked.
“Someone I work with,” Michael replied, not ready to delve into that right now. That he’d failed to sell the house and had gone back to blue-collar labor to make ends meet and take care of his ailing father. He could imagine the way Kenny had probably sneered at the town as he drove through it on his way here. “Let’s go inside.”
He held open the door, and Dad wheeled directly down the hall to his room. Even though Michael’s stomach gurgled softly for supper, he perched on the middle of the love seat, leaving the couch Kenny’s only spot to sit. Rosco stood in front of Michael until Michael patted the cushion. Then Rosco jumped up. Good to see Kenny hadn’t slacked on his discipline. Rosco was allowed on furniture but only with permission. It had made it a lot easier to take him to friends’ houses for visits.
“Why are you really here?” Michael asked. No pleasantries, no polite requests for something to drink.
“I told you, it’s almost Thanksgiving, and I wanted to see you. You won’t answer any of my texts.”
“Gee, I wonder why?”
Kenny rested his ankle on his knee and leaned forward, hands in his lap, a familiar position he took whenever he wanted to charm someone into agreeing with him. “Look, baby, we both behaved badly this past year, and we were so good together for so long that I don’t want us at odds forever. Can’t we find a way to be friends again?”
“Why? Don’t you have a bazillion friends back in Austin? What do you need me for? You made it very clear your only use for me was as an ATM, and once you got everything you wanted, you kicked my broke ass to the curb. Or am I remembering things wrong?”
“Water under the bridge, baby.”
“Please stop calling me baby. I am not your baby anymore, and I am with someone else.”
Kenny blinked hard, his confident veneer cracking the tiniest bit. “Really? You managed to find someone else in this tiny village of obscurity?”
“Yes, I did. He is kind and generous and doesn’t give a shit about the money I do or don’t have, because he can support himself just fine. Unlike someone else in this room.”
He frowned. “I supported myself.”
“Off my creativity and talent, not your own. You saw a meal ticket early on, knew I was someone desperate for approval and acceptance, and I fell for it. Hook, line, sinker, and fucking boat. But I’m not that same gullible college graduate I once was. The only thing you have that I still want is right here, and you know it.” Michael placed his hand on Rosco’s neck. “That’s why you brought him with you. To manipulate me into something.”
“I brought him because you love him, and I wanted to be generous in the spirit of the holiday.”
“Fine. Say I buy that for a hot second. You didn’t drive all the way up here just to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving four days early. What do you really want?”
“Look, Michael, I made some bad decisions. I shouldn’t have dumped you the way I did, and I shouldn’t have manipulated the contracts to push you out of what you deserved. I am so sorry I did all that. I was selfish and egotistical to think I could do this without my number one guy. Without you.”
Alarm bells dinged inside Michael’s head. “Do what without me? You got away with millions, Kenny. Where’s the money?”
For the first time in the last twenty minutes, Kenny melted into a picture of misery. “It’s gone. I got taken in by a long con, okay? I lost everything. I’ve got my car, a few hundred in cash, and that’s it.”
Michael’s initial impulse to gloat about Kenny being in the same position he’d left Michael in warred with his empathy. He knew exactly what it felt like to be almost broke with no immediate way to fix it. And Kenny didn’t have the cushion of a parent to go home to and live with while he got back on his feet. Kenny’s parents had been incredibly homophobic and unaccepting of him, having turned their back on him a long time ago. But Kenny had also lied, cheated, and manipulated Michael, and those things were not easily forgiven.
Not by a long shot.
“You lost everything in two months?” Michael asked. “Including the app I created?”
“Yes, okay? I met someone who promised me everything. He wanted to change the app so it appealed more to the younger generation, and I bought what he sold me. Then he took everything, and I am so sorry I did that to you, Michael. I never truly understood how much I hurt you until someone did it to me.”
“You know, as much as I want to take some sort of perverse joy in seeing you like this, I don’t. And again, I don’t know why you’re here and not crashing with one of your dozens of friends.”
“Same reason you left town.” Kenny’s eyes glistened, and Michael was glad to have a dog on half his lap, because he hated seeing Kenny cry. “Some friends only love you for your money, and they disappear when the money does, too.” He coughed. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Michael let out a long, disgruntled breath as he stroked Rosco’s neck and back. Rosco began licking his front paw, a familiar gesture of contentment. “I’m sorry you’re stuck, but I don’t know what you expect me to do. The house hasn’t sold. I live paycheck to paycheck right now so I don’t have anything to loan you.”
“Loan?”
“Yes, loan. Do you think after everything that’s happened I’d just give you money if I had any to give? I can give you forty bucks for one night at the local motel, but that’s about as far as my finances stretch right now.”
“Motel? But you’ve got this big house. Surely there’s a guest room Rosco and I can stay in.”
