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My anxiety heightened during the following fifteen or so minutes of silence, because then thoughts of Franky tracking Cole’s location and showing up here needled my brain.
“Fuck.” I lunged toward the bed as the phone blared again, patting down Cole’s pockets with my clammy hands. I retook my seat at the edge of the futon, the call going to voicemail again as I stared at the word “Dad” until the tiny seed of terror blocking my throat sprouted into a golf ball.
I answered it on the first ring the next time, bringing it to my ear and scanning Cole for any signs that he may be lucid.
“Cole?” Franky’s cutting voice demanded through the line. His angry and worried voice still sounded the same, and I envisioned him scowling and pacing with the phone pressed to his ear.
His voice was sex and booze and scratch-offs. All things I’d had an obsession with at some point in my life. The former two still plagued me. I closed my eyes, sitting back and accepting that all the hard work I’d done to cut myself off from any feelings for him had been in vain. Franklin Kincaid still got to me. I didn’t have to let him know that, though.
“No. It’s me.” I waited for his breathing to escalate, waited for him to say my name, waited for anything that would indicate that hearing my voice didsomethingto him.Anything. Good or bad. I got nothing, which shouldn’t have hurt me as much as it did because nothing was what I’d already had.
“He showed up at Josephine’s,” I said, saving him the trouble of working out why I had Cole’s phone. The rest came out in a tumble. “He got pretty hammered, so I brought him back to my place to sleep it off. He said he found a bar napkin in your car. That’s how he ended up there.” At least this time he offered me a sigh. I searched my memories for what a sigh slipping from Franky’s lips meant and came up with a number of possibilities. One being his sigh of apology after unceremoniously doing whatever the fuck he wanted with my body—I immediately derailed that train of thought.
“You were there,” I said angrily into the silence. “This is your fault.” Had he stayed away instead of pointlessly seeking me out, my world wouldn’t be turning itself upside down right now.
“I didn’t know you worked there,” he whispered.
“It doesn’t matter,” I hissed, looking over at Cole again and lowering my tone. “You left me broken on the floor dripping your cum.” I took pleasure in the audible wince that pulled from him. It was vulgarity at its finest, said with a heartlessness I wished I could also feel.
“You had no right to show up in any space you knew meant something to me.” I exhaled a shaky breath. “And now what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do with him?”
“He needs someone,” he said. “Please, take care of him.”
“I’m no good for anyone—” The line went dead, and I caught myself before hurling the phone across the room, remembering that it belonged to Cole.
My chest heaved as Cole snored. I’d let him sleep it off, then put him out before the sun came up.
I strode over to the fridge, cracking open the bottle of Jameson I kept on top of it and taking a healthy swig. I let the Irish whiskey flow freely down my throat, hoping it would somehow burn my heart to ashes on the way down.
I wouldn’t get any sleep tonight, and more than ever I needed a hot body on top of me. I’d have even settled for being inside something soft and warm, although my mood called for something hard and unforgiving intent on making an example out of me.
Punching the pillow I’d snagged from the bed into submission, I spread out on the futon fully clothed.
“I’m not an easy man to love.”
Franky’s words from a time that felt both ancient and recent unfurled in my mind.
I craned my head around to stare at Cole. Knowing what he could expect from his father had me for once feeling sorry for someone other than myself. Franky shutting down, icing his son out wasn’t my problem, though. Who Cole had or didn’t have to help him through this rough timewasn’tmy problem.
Don’t do it, Leland. Don’t. Fucking. Care…
Chapter 24
Leland
In dire need of washing the scent of sex and alcohol off of me, I bypassed the small cluster of people waiting for the janky elevator and opted for the stairs instead. My ascent slowed to a full stop after spotting Cole sitting on the top step of my landing.
He’d shown up to Josephine’s four nights in a row now. Even had a favorite seat in the back where he ordered gin by the bottle, then spent the night drowning his troubles away.
I mostly ignored him, except when I couldn’t, which was all the damn time.
“Stalking me now?” I asked, too tired to pack the question with venom. I’d worked two shifts and managed to squeeze in a threesome. I was dead on my feet. Exactly what I needed to be to get some shut-eye tonight.
“I came to return your shirt, and to apologize for being sick all over your bathroom floor the other morning.” He got to his feet, holding out the laundered t-shirt I’d lent him. It’d been too small for him, but I hadn’t the heart or the time to tell him he’d have looked less indecent shirtless.
“That’s nice of you,” I said, taking the last few steps, “but you’ve seen me more than once since that morning. You could’ve returned this to me any one of those times. At my job. So why are you really here?”
“You know who I am.” It wasn’t a question, but I debated answering in the negative anyway.
