CHAPTER 9 #3
“Yeah, you had a bit too much. Ain’t no issue. I’m payin’ you back for you drivin’ my drunk ass home the past few times.”
“What time is it?”
“Two-thirty am.”
Victor rubbed his face vigorously. He needed to be up in another four hours, and he knew that probably wasn’t going to happen.
He felt like someone had filled his legs with lead.
His tongue still felt sticky and too thick, so he dropped his head back to the window and stared out into the darkness.
Dolly’s Rockin’ Years finished and what replaced it was a duet between her and Reba McEntire, which Johnny also seemed to know by heart.
It made Victor smile a little. Seems like Johnny was a bit of a Dolly fan. But then again, who wasn’t.
When Victor woke up again, he was home and Johnny had opened the passenger door to drag him out.
Victor had to grab Johnny’s biceps to steady himself, and his face was briefly pressed into the stiff cotton of Johnny’s shirt.
God. Victor had prayed so many times that he could be straight or at the very least, bisexual.
But all it took was a simple touch to convince him there was nothing in this world better than the smell and feeling of a man.
But what ran even deeper than the love was the fear, so Victor jerked away and upset his balance.
A second later, he was on his back staring at the starry sky overhead, wishing life didn’t have to fucking hurt so much.
Johnny squatted down behind Victor, slid his arms under his armpits, and dragged him upright. “Come on now, ain’t no time for layin’ around.”
Victor kicked his legs out with a spray of gravel.
Eventually he found traction, and he was able to get to his feet by pressing his back to Johnny’s chest for balance.
Johnny kept one arm around his back and used the other to grasp Victor’s elbow as they staggered toward Victor’s house.
The dogs were probably asleep inside already.
Johnny dragged Victor up the few steps to the porch and plopped him down on a lawn chair. “You got a key for the house?”
“Hmmm.” Victor patted himself down, forgetting which pocket he put his keys in.
Finally he found them in his breast pocket, and he held them up for Johnny to take.
As Johnny stood there unlocking the front door, Victor tipped his head back and admired him in the warm glow of his porchlight.
Maybe he didn’t have the face of a heartthrob in an old western.
He certainly couldn’t sing worth a damn.
But Victor liked him. He liked the smell and feeling of his cotton shirts, liked the little freckles on his lower arms and the scars on his face from his rodeo adventures.
He liked his goofy accent, the way he’d ramble on, the heart he always wore out on his sleeve.
He was good. He was kind. He was pretty much nothing like Diego, but they were similar in the few ways that really mattered.
These days it felt so hard to cry, but with all this booze in his veins, his eyes started to well up.
He missed Diego so damn much, and he was now falling for this man he was far too terrified to tell the truth to.
Johnny opened the door. “There we go. Let’s get you up again.”
“I can do it,” Victor insisted, trying to hoist himself out of the lawn chair and having little success. Johnny grabbed his hand and lifted him to his feet like it was nothing. For someone so skinny, he was deceptively strong.
The dogs were there to greet them. Victor clumsily patted them both before Johnny guided him to his bedroom. Once there, Victor collapsed face first into his bed. When he turned his head and saw Johnny heading for the bedroom door, he let out a groan of protest.
“What?” Johnny asked.
“Need my boots off,” Victor mumbled.
“Well if Your Highness insists,” Johnny said. “Roll your ass over.”
Victor flopped onto his back and let Johnny yank his boots off. He was drunk enough to think of asking Johnny to stay, but not so drunk that he did.
“Anythin’ else my liege requires?” Johnny asked.
“Nah.” Stay with me. Johnny would have asked Skyler and she would have curled up in bed with him without a thought. With women, that sort of thing was considered normal. But Victor had wanted into this world, and now he had to play by the rules, even if he hated them. “ ‘M good.”
“I’ll show myself out then.” Johnny moved toward the door, then stopped right before he turned out the lights. “You wanna tell me who Diego is?”
Victor’s whole body froze up. “Huh?”
“You kept muttering that name before you passed out.”
“Oh.” Victor’s brain was too disoriented to come up with a great answer. “That’s… just a friend.”
Johnny stared at him a second, and Victor wondered what else he’d said and forgotten about. But then Johnny shrugged and turned off the light. “Alright. Sweet dreams, Vic.”
“It’s Victor,” Victor muttered, but Johnny was too far away to hear it. Victor wrapped his arm around his pillow and squeezed it tight, imagining it was someone else.