Chapter 3
Midnight chimed around me as I made my way inside my apartment that night.
Evangeline had let me leave after the ensemble performance that we usually closed the main show with, not making me stay to help dance with the stragglers or clean up per usual.
She cited my private dance as enabling me to get off work early, deciding to take the win and head home despite the private dance with Qwill still working my brain over like a hamburger patty on a grill.
As I walked to my bathroom on autopilot and started the shower, I couldn’t escape my thoughts from going back to the private suite.
Dancing for Qwill had been confusing, to say the least. I felt a cacophony of weird emotions about how everything had gone down.
Pride, guilt, frustration. Pride over the fact that Qwill had been lusting after me for more than just tonight, guilt over ruining his fantasy by telling him that I was straight, frustration over him ending the session after shattering his illusions.
Why was I frustrated though? I’d still gotten paid, still gotten tipped in excess by his generosity and need to leave the session early.
That should’ve been a win-win for both of us.
So why was I stuck feeling like I’d just been on a date and the gorgeous specimen I’d been expecting to break bread with had just shown up only to cancel on me?
As the water sprayed over my body, I tried to let the thoughts wash down the drain.
Whatever was going on with me, it was obvious to me that I was all out of sorts because of all the change happening in my life.
While I grabbed my body wash and lathered my loofah, I knew what I needed to do.
I needed to take control back over my life instead of letting all this change alter my sense of stability.
And all of that started with talking it out with Troian.
I loved my brother. We’d been inseparable before our parents had died in a fate-changing car accident.
But in the years since their death, we’d grown more and more apart, mostly because of my twin’s decision to numb the sorrow in his life with any mind-altering substance he could claw his fingers into.
Drugs and alcohol were how he chose to deal with what happened.
Sometimes, I wondered about letting go as he did and letting something take away the pain.
The only thing that had stopped me from joining him was knowing that problems would still be there when I sobered up.
Why Troian had never seen it that way, I didn’t have the answer.
I guess that’s why I gave him so much leeway, trying to get him to see that using wasn’t going to make him better in the end.
After a few years of struggling, I’d cut him off entirely when he’d pretended to be me.
He’d gone to my bank, since we wore the same face, and siphoned the life insurance money I had left from our parents death.
His share was gone to his limitless substance abuse, so naturally, he’d figured ‘Hey, let me take Thayer’s share’.
After that, I’d been done, cutting him out of my life entirely.
Telling him that if he stayed in Piper, I’d go to the police and get him tossed behind bars for what he’d done.
Luckily, the guy he’d been with that had convinced him to steal my money, had plans for them to leave town anyway.
I hadn’t heard from Troian since, not until he’d shown up right as Bas was ushered to the hospital following the riots on the blood centers.
He’d given me space afterwards, which I was eternally grateful for.
But ever since Bas had told me he was moving in with Kroven, Troian was on the warpath to explain everything to me.
And now that I’d texted him last night and said I was ready to talk about everything, the time for me to cower at the idea of listening was over.
I had to follow it through for my own good and just hope I could at least find some closure at the end.
Following my shower, I’d crashed on my bed without a concern to the outside world, gratitude washing over me as sleep claimed me.
The sound of loud knocking against my bedroom door caused me to sit up abruptly in bed, fear pulsing through my veins at the sudden intrusion.
I took a quick glance at my phone, seeing multiple unread messages from Bas as well as a couple missed calls from him.
Of course, I’d also missed a message from my brother, but that could wait until I figured out why someone was attempting to beat my door down.
Unlocking my bedroom door, I tensed until I realized that the intruder was Bas himself, giving me a wide smile.
Rolling my eyes, I left the door open and prodded my tired body back to bed.
It wasn’t until I was pulling my comforter back over my body, covering my eyes and groaning, that I heard Bas stepping inside.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Bas chuckled but I just kept quiet. I needed to regulate my awareness now that I’d been forced to wake up. I really needed to revoke his access to the apartment now that he’d completely moved out. “I came to return my apartment key. I thought you’d be up by now.”
That’s right, Bas had mentioned a few days ago that he would drop off his key on my next day off and I’d completely forgotten. Grumbling, I whipped the comforter from obscuring my face.
“What time is it?”
“Almost five.”
Startling myself, I jumped out of bed. I never slept that late.
Granted, I usually got home a lot later than I did last night, but grabbing my phone and taking in the time, I realized that I’d slept for almost sixteen hours.
I hadn’t done that since I’d been a teenager, pulling all nighters and getting into trouble with my brother.
Thoughts of Troian continued to plague my mind as I swept my legs off the bed, head in my hands as I tried to get my shit together.
Also still lingering in my mind was the exchange with Qwill. I needed my mind purged something bad.
“Fuck,” I muttered, looking up at my best friend and giving him a nod. “Thanks for coming over and waking me up. Who knows how long I’d been asleep if you hadn’t come over. I forgot you even were.”
“Don’t mention it,” Bas smiled back, but then his eyebrows danced with confusion. “Didn’t you set an alarm like you normally do?”
He was right. With my hours beings so sporadic, I always made sure to set an alarm.
Checking over my phone, I huffed. “I forgot to set it when I got home.” That was so unlike me it was really getting under my skin.
All of this just because of the tandem thoughts of Troian and Qwill had me so out of sorts?
Fussing with my hair, I stood up and ambled over to my dresser, pulling out a pair of black denim shorts and a t-shirt with a picture of Sailor Moon on it. Bas grinned back at me when I turned to face him again.
“In Usagi we trust.” We said, miming the sign that Catholics did when they prayed.
Rolling my eyes with a smile, I waved him off. We’d always bonded over our mutual love of Sailor Moon. And now, Bas had gone and gotten Kroven so obsessed with it that they now had a kitten named Diana.
We walked out of my bedroom and made our way into the living room, Bas pausing to make a display of leaving his key on the bar of the kitchen.
“Is everything alright?” Bas said to me as I flopped down on the couch.
I suddenly realized that Bas had gotten most of the furniture here in the apartment when we’d first acquired the lease.
Panic drummed through me at the thought of him wanting to take everything with him to Kroven’s, essentially leaving me with nothing.
I smothered those thoughts. If Bas wanted the furniture, he was welcome to it, but since he hadn’t said anything when moving out, I figured I was in the clear.
I really needed to get a hold of myself and quit forgetting shit I already knew. I fully wanted to blame the excess sleep for my brain not wanting to work correctly today, and until further notice, that’s exactly what I was going to do.
“What do you mean?”
Bas pursed his lips as he took a seat next to me on the couch, his eyes scanning over me as my mind throbbed with the initial whirring of a headache.
“You just seem…off.”
I sighed. “I think it’s just the change is finally settling in.
You moving out, Troian being in town. And now with my damn cowboy routine popping off and gaining a cult following.
” I scoffed, rolling my eyes again. I had approximately zero mental bandwidth to even bring up what I’d been dealing with at work.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Bas muttered with interest. “I mean, the routine is bringing in new people or keeping people interested in returning means more money, right?”
He was right. I just didn’t know if I could appropriately explain myself, not with this headache forming like dark clouds thundering in my mind. Attempting to try and rid myself of the dark storm gathering inside my soul, I looked at my best friend and former roommate with a somber expression.
“It’s all a good thing. You moving out to be with Kroven is fucking great.
I love you and only want the best for you, and him.
Kroven makes you happy and now you’ve got a cat together.
” Bas smiled, but let me keep going. “Having a stable routine does mean more money for me, for the club in general. It’s getting Downpour’s name out there more, Evangeline is getting exposure which gives us more time to earn.
Even Troian coming back, claiming he’s different and changed and wants to mend things between us is a good thing.
All I’m saying is it’s a lot of changing the way things look around me and that’s really scary, even if it’s for the better. ”
“Ahh, I see.” Bas stated, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder as his arm snaked around my frame. “Change is scary, I get it.”
I nodded. “I’ve been thinking about going back to group, just to talk things out like I used to.”
Bas titled his head. “Is all the change making you feel out of control, like when we first started going to the grief group?”
A sob lodged itself in my throat, but I refused to let it out.
Tears tickled the edges of my eyes, again keeping them locked under the scrutiny trapped behind my eyes.
Bas must have noticed, because I felt his grip on my shoulder tighten, giving me a gentle squeeze.
I just nodded, not wanting my voice to shake and betray any lie that wanted to pry itself from my lips.
Back when my parents had died and I’d met Bas at one of the local grief groups, I’d explained that I tended to recluse into myself when I was feeling out of control.
That’s exactly what I was feeling now that things were altering around me, scaring me back into the mindset of the scared little boy I’d been at eighteen.
I didn’t want to regress back to that version of myself.
“I just think it might help me to get a refresher.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Staring at Bas liked he’d just spoken Korean and I’d suddenly lost the ability to recognize it, I stared splintered daggers into his blue eyes. I always envied Bas for his baby blues, a strike contrast to my dark ones. Refocusing my thoughts, I shook my head.
“You don’t have to do that, Bas. I know you’ve got your own stuff going on. You have more responsibilities now.”
“Kroven can take care of Diana just as well as I can,” Bas countered with a flippant laugh. “If you want me there as an anchor for your first time back to group, I’ll be there.”
“But what if they ask you to speak?”
“Then I’ll speak if I want to, or I can decline.” Bas soured his features. “Which is exactly what you can do too, Thayer. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to either.”
“No, I don’t want to. I need to. I need to get out why I’m feeling this way so I can hurry up and move beyond it.”
Bas took his arm from around me, grabbing at my hand from where it rested on the couch with his. I followed the action with my eyes and then rested them to stare into his blue ones.
“Then I’ll be there. Whatever you need.”
His smile made me mimic the gesture, and I squeezed his hand back, grateful that I had a best friend that cared about me enough to put themselves out just so I could have some semblance of what appeared to be peace of mind.
I just hoped that I could make it until I could find a meeting that aligned with my less than routine type of work schedule.