Chapter Two #2
“You’re the one who asked him if he was homophobic. Besides, plenty of self-loathing closet cases out there, babe. They’re practically our bread and butter.” Troy tugs my hair a little. “Wes messed with our friends. And he’s a breeze to fuck with. You can’t tell me it wasn’t fun.”
Troy’s right. That look of utter confusion on Wes’s face after he leaned his head back against my stomach, mouth parted when he came. At one point he’d looked right at me. Pupils wide, lips puffy from biting them together, caught between pleasure and panic.
I felt that way the first time a guy touched me, too. At least my first guy was Troy.
Well…now that I think of it, Wes’s first guy was also Troy. Not sure that fact was as comforting for him.
“It was fun,” I admit.
“I asked last time we were at the hotel. He’s working the night shift these days. Six at night until six in the morning.”
I put my hand over Troy’s to stop him fussing with my hair. “And?”
“And…” He bounces his eyebrows. “Like I said. He’s fun to fuck with.”
Uh-oh. When Troy’s fixated and he’s got you in his tractor beam, there’s no getting out. I know this because back in the ninth grade, I was the one caught in Troy’s tractor beam.
“Why him?” I almost whisper the question.
How much do I need to worry about this?
“He’s fun to fuck with,” Troy repeats. I wait, because there has to be more.
“Is this about him trying to break up PJ and Fallon?”
We know Wes partly because we spend a lot of time at the hotel where he works. We got to know him better when our friend and former sex worker started dating a client. That client was Wes’s brother. And boy, did Wes have some big feelings about that shit.
Honestly, I can kind of see the whole thing from his perspective.
After a minute, Troy runs his fingers through my hair again. “He’s fucked up.”
“Everyone’s fucked up.”
Except, knowing Troy the way I do? I think I get what he means. He’s always been good at seeing when a person has ghosts. He can pick out insecurities and traumas as if they were following a person around and holding up glittery signs.
Right now, I’m not sure I like it.
Troy and I became close because we realized that our baggage and fucked-up-ness vibrated at the same frequency. The second we met, it felt like we’d always known each other. Our fathers hating us and hating each other only sweetened the deal.
“You want to play with him?” I ask. “Or is this something else?”
A nervous tremor shimmies up my spine. Troy’s fixations can be a problem, especially if the person on the receiving end doesn’t feel the same, and I get the feeling Wes would rather forget the time we both got him off in the Belle Argo University locker room.
The shower shutting off barely registers with me.
I can predict what will happen because we’ve been here before.
Ruby will come out and get annoyed that Troy is still in here taking up my attention.
She’ll huff and put on her clothes and go home.
It’ll be a few weeks or even months before I hear from her again. That’s how it goes with us.
She comes out in nothing but a towel, grabbing my boots from beside the bed as she passes.
“I need to borrow some cash.” She pulls out my flip phone and a wad of bills. “It’s super gross that you keep your money in your shoes, you know?”
Troy rolls his eyes, even though he agrees with her. When you live the way he and I have, you learn not to make it easy for people to steal your shit. Troy carries an actual wallet now. Me? The shoes may be nicer, but consistency and routine have kept me alive this long, so I’m not stopping now.
Troy narrows his eyes at Ruby. “Didn’t I hear you offer to buy breakfast this morning?”
“I have a credit card, which my father monitors. Meals once in a while are fine. Anything else I have to buy with actual money or steal.” She gives him a look.
“And unlike some people, I’m not cut out for jail.
” Then she crawls across the bed, giving me an over-the-top, exaggerated kiss where she seems to be checking all my fillings with her tongue.
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to do this again,” she says as she pulls on her clothes. “At least not for a while. Father’s holding my engagement dinner tonight. Unless Cam starts talking and gets his parents to agree to call it off, the wedding is still on for next month.”
There’s nothing I can think of to say in response.
It sucks that she’s going to have to marry a guy she doesn’t want and who it sounds like doesn’t want her.
Still, it’s not as if I was ever going to be her alternative.
Even if Troy had been cool about it, she’d have gotten tired of slumming with someone who gets paid to let other men fuck him.
Troy decides to shove the knife home, because he’s that kind of asshole. “Ooh. I love weddings. Can I be Adam’s plus one?”
While I’m busy elbowing my friend in the ribs, the slamming bedroom door announces her exit.
It’s like I said. This thing with Ruby was always temporary.
But Troy? Whatever his interest in Wes, I won’t let him use it to leave me. All these years he’s protected me. It might be my time to protect him in return.
Like Ruby, Wes isn’t made for our kind of life. And Troy’s stuck with me.
I’d kill him myself before I let him go.
It’s not a threat or anything. Just the truth.