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He shook his head slowly as my words sunk in completely. “Well… um… yeah, well…” He drained another scotch, eyeing me as he sat the glass down on the table. His stare made me wonder if a car crash had just happened behind me. “Yeah… so, that is not happening,” he admitted. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t see that headline coming, buddy.”
“Sorry,” I expressed, not sure what else to say to him.
He stood up, still eyeing me warily, like I had to be joking. “No shit, man?” I nodded that I was indeed telling him the truth. He threw a twenty on the table, picked his empty drink up to give it a second look in case there was a smidge left, and showed his displeasure. “Wrong town, and definitely wrong guy.”
He turned and walked straight out the door, not looking back once. I assumed he believed me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Chad
“So how is he?” I asked, finally getting to the real purpose of my call, checking on Clint. Lucas was quiet on the other end. I sensed bad news. “What’s wrong?”
“I wish I knew how he was,” he said. “Perry and I haven’t seen him in more than a month.”
I was silent as I took in his surprise news. Clint and Lucas were close. They’d survived a harrowing experience. “That’s not like the two of you,” I stated.
“We had words,” Lucas confessed. “Not good ones.”
“Uh-oh,” I whispered. “But hey, you guys need to let it go. Clint made up his mind that I wasn’t the one, and that’s how it is.” Lucas cleared his throat and hesitated to say any more. “I appreciate you defending me and hoping we’d figure things out, but we didn’t,” I added, hoping to make him feel better since I assumed he and Perry had been defending me to Clint.
“That’s not it, buddy,” Lucas said. “Hey, hang on a second.” I heard a bell chime as he walked out of his gas station’s front door. “Sorry about that. I needed to get out of earshot of Clayton Hayes, my new hire. He’s friends with Clint and…” He stopped mid-sentence.
“And?” I asked.
“Jesus!” he muttered. “I didn’t want to have this conversation today, Chad.”
“Then you don’t have to,” I said. “I don’t want to cause your friendship with Clint any harm.”
Lucas let out a long sigh. “We don’t have a friendship with Clint any longer,” he admitted.
His news was shocking. Clint adored, practically worshipped, Lucas. And with me and Clint pairing up and becoming fast friends with Lucas and Perry, we’d all been very tight.
“No way,” I insisted. “Is it me?”
“I wish it was you, buddy. At least then we could make sense of it.”
Now I was worried about Clint and pushed further. “Can you tell me?”
“You aren’t going to like this,” he began. “Perry and I are still confused by the whole thing.”
“Lucas, please,” I begged.
“He’s taken back up with Rhonda,” Lucas revealed.
His announcement floored me. Rhonda was his ex. Her primary concern after Clint was shot was whether she’d get paid out on his life insurance if he didn’t die within thirty days. Apparently, Clint only had accidental death life insurance.
“No, he didn’t,” I stated.
“Chad! Honest. He did,” Lucas confirmed. “I wish it wasn’t true.”
“But… but, why? How?” I garbled, panic running through my brain.
Rhonda was toxic. She ruined Clint’s friendships and reputation after she found out he was living in upstate South Carolina with me, and was in a gay relationship. There wasn’t a soul left in Beaufort, South Carolina, that she didn’t tell that Clint was a ‘big ol’ fag.’ Her exact words.
Her words destroyed every friendship he had, distanced his already distant and limited family, and caused him to lose two jobs while we were living in Beaufort before returning to Columbia for college. In fact, he primarily agreed to move because of the problems she’d caused him in his hometown.
“Perry and I tried to figure out why he’d do such a thing, but he’s shut us out since we discovered the news.”
“I’m stunned,” I admitted. “I mean, after everything she put him through. None of this seems possible.”
