Chapter 46
46
DONNIE
The interlude with Toby on the stairs brings a smile to my face after the disastrous events of our night out. I never meant for the boys to see me at my worst. I sure as shit never wanted anyone to hear how I still feel about that night…especially Eric.
After my mouth fucked everything up by saying the quiet part out loud, Shiloh snatched my keys right off my belt loop and stormed off to the car, dragging a flabbergasted Toby along with him. I said a rushed goodbye to the rest of the guys, but Eric grabbed my wrist before I could run off.
“Do you really mean that? Do you really wish you had died that night?”
I probably looked like a fish with the way my mouth opened and closed repeatedly, but in the end, he didn’t want my answer – not really.
“I sometimes do, too.” His voice was pitched low enough that it didn’t carry to any of the others, and I looked at him. I really looked at him, probably for the first time. I finally saw that he truly doesn’t blame me in any way. At the same time, he and I will always be marked and scarred by that night. He just got better at hiding the darkness. I just became a hermit.
The door closing behind me shakes me out of the memories from earlier. I look back at the entryway to see Toby toe-ing off his shoes and setting them next to Shiloh’s. I noticed that habit of his immediately when he moved in, but I figured it was just something Shiloh was raised with, but now I’m not sure.
“You don’t have to take your shoes off if you don’t want to,” I tell him as I head to the kitchen for a can of pop. “I usually don’t bother unless I’m in for the night.”
It would be a pain for me to have to constantly put them on and take them off during the days when I’m running up and down those stairs because I need something out of Walt’s records for the shop.
Cracking open a Sprite, I lean back against the counter and watch Toby explore the space for a little bit. I’m guessing Shiloh went to his room for something – or to calm down. I’ve never seen him like that since he moved in, and judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, it’s not common for him to get visibly angry.
The bit of happy that Toby managed to pull out of me vanishes as I remember the pain and anger on Shiloh’s face when we were leaving the club. He wasn’t supposed to hear me say that. No one was supposed to .
He watched his mama die. Matt’s warning about the boy swims up in my mind.
“Scott is a bit OCD, so no shoes go past the entryway unless they’ve been thoroughly disinfected.”
Toby’s voice pulls me back again and I take another swig of my pop to try and remember what we were talking about. Shoes! That’s it. I try to pull back from my worry about Shiloh to focus on the pup in front of me.
“I don’t think I’ve met Scott yet. Is he a student like yinz?”
Toby giggles and flops down on the giant bean bag chair I put in the corner of the dining room for Shiloh’s sun-napping. The thing instantly swallows him up. While he’s struggling to escape from the thing, he answers my question.
“Scott is thirty-four, maybe thirty-five. I’m not sure the exact year, but he’s almost old enough to be a father to me,” he says with a smile. “Actually, where I grew up, that would be a definite possibility. The fact that all of my friends in high school graduated without popping out babies was kind of a miracle. Although, Alicia was six months pregnant when we walked for our diplomas.”
Before I can get more amusing information out of the talkative pup, Shiloh emerges from his room in his pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that I recognize. He must have grabbed it from one of the boxes I tried to throw out. It’s my old Tibalt University Hockey Program workout shirt. How the fuck did that thing survive the initial purge five years ago?
Toby jumps up and races to his best friend for a hug, but my entire body seizes up in fear and shame. There’s no way this is a coincidence, right?
I lift my eyes to meet Shiloh’s gaze over the top of Toby’s blond head.
He knows.