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PROLOGUE
DASH
Life was wild sometimes. One minute I stood in my friend’s kitchen trying to have a heart-to-heart over the shit he said and, the next, I was outside staring at a man crying in the driveway who’d once fucked my brother. Then, because it couldn’t get crazier, I realized the man was pretty hot and wouldn’t mind asking him on a date.
Except, I didn’t date.
I licked.
I rimmed.
I sometimes bit.
I sucked.
I swallowed.
I got my partner off.
I came.
I left.
Because I didn’t do relationships.
After years of watching my best friends dance around each other and my brother pine over one of those best friends, who the hell wanted that emotional weight?
Apparently, I did. Seeing my best friends fall in love made me desire it too. And because there was something about Tristan.Once I saw him upset, I couldn’t turn away. I’d offered to help him.
As I watched his cute ass move around the asshole’s home he’d lived in, I suddenly felt a bit of domestication. Like this could be something I could do. Have a house with a spouse.
I chuckled in my head, so Tristan didn’t think I was odd.
A house with a spouse.
A mouse who would grouse.
And I could wear a nice blouse.
There was a reason Slater and Reed wrote most of the music. I clearly had minimal skill there. Sometimes I came up with good stuff, but I was better behind the drums with sticks in my hands.
Besides, this house wasn’t mine. The house I lived in was way better. Not only because it didn’t hold memories of horrible events, but because mine didn’t feel like a den of doom. Why was it so dark in here, anyway?
Tristan went from room to room while I trailed behind him with a box. Once it was full, I grabbed another. From what Tristan had said, Oscar liked to spend Tristan’s money, so there were boxes scattered about from what he’d bought.
Oscar Thatcher, otherwise known as Elic’s asshole stepfather, owned the house Tristan lived in with him. Elic had lived an awful life. He’d lost his mom and was forced to stay with his stepfather, who did horrendous things to him. Elic ran and lived on the streets for years, where we found him and came to his rescue. Reed was the first one off the bus. Now Elic was very much in love with Casper and Reed Ashford. They were stepbrothers and two members of the band I was in, Ruined & Relinquished. They were my best friends.
Turned out, poor Tristan was lied to and brainwashed by Elic’s stepfather. He thought he was dating a decent guy who had health issues and, therefore, money problems. Oscar had told Tristan his son was missing, and he needed to get him back.When Tristan met Elic today, Elic set him straight. Hence why we were here, packing Tristan’s belongings to get him away from this shitbox and the presently incarcerated man who owned it.
Yet, I couldn’t stop staring at Tristan’s ass. What was wrong with me? I should be doing something more productive than watching a guy rearrange his entire life, thanks to his lover being in prison for raping his stepson.
Jesus, I could write a fucked-up movie about this. I’d need a chart to connect all the players. Maybe one like they used in crime dramas where there were different colored strings and thumbtacks connecting the dots.
I snapped back to reality where I wasn’t a detective. Instead, I held a box Tristan put a few photos in. Looking down, I saw they were of Elic and his mom. All thought fled except the heartache I felt for Elic and Tristan. Neither of them deserved to live through what they had. While their situations were different, they still shared a link between them. Luckily, Tristan wasn’t raped.
When Tristan was on the last box, I started taping the ones he’d already filled closed and loaded them into the back of my brother’s truck. Inside the house again, I got the sudden urge to break everything in here. Who knew if douchebag daddy dearest would see the light of day again? I would have leveled this place if it wouldn’t get Tristan in trouble. That was the last thing I wanted.
I still wanted to do something, so I spit on the floor by the doorway on my way out. Fuck Oscar. I hoped the bank foreclosed and took all he had while still in prison. I wanted every aspect of misery to fall on him.
