CHAPTER 24
The next few days passed in a fog. Victor hauled all the horses back to Oklahoma from Fort Worth, and then it was business as usual.
No matter how much he wanted to lie in bed and mope, horses always needed fed, watered, and cleaned up after.
Between training sessions, he’d look at his phone and wish a text from Johnny into existence.
That never seemed to work. They hadn’t spoken since that night in their hotel room in Fort Worth.
Victor wanted to reach out to him but always ended up deleting the text after he wrote it.
What could he say that hadn’t already been said?
Victor knew that he should have thought good riddance if Johnny couldn’t accept the truth, but he was too invested in the man at this point to let him go.
Victor’s trans identity had been the only thing left to share between them, and Victor wondered if it’d be the only thing to shake them loose.
He’d already lost one love because of being trans, and now was he going to lose another?
Victor was about to slip into bed when his phone rang, displaying a number he didn’t recognize.
Typically after his usual work hours he ignored calls, but he was bored enough to make an exception.
Draping one arm over Bailey’s sleeping body curled up on the bed next to him, he clicked Accept and held the phone to his ear.
“This is Victor.”
“Oh good, it really is you. Johnny has you in his phone as V,” came a woman’s alto voice on the other line. “Wasn’t sure if it was you or his ex Vanessa he never deleted.”
“Uh, who is this?” Victor had to ask.
“Sarah, Johnny’s friend. You remember me?”
“Right, of course.” She sounded a little different on the phone, but now he recognized the smokiness of her voice. “Is Johnny okay?”
“Not really. That’s why I’m calling. Sorry to call so late, but I’m having a party at my place tonight and Johnny insisted on coming even though I told him he shouldn’t.
Of course he got real fuckin’ drunk and started some shit with my brother’s friend, so he’s now passed out in my bathroom.
I’m actually kinda worried about how much he drank.
He was throwing up so I put him in my tub, but he’s pretty unresponsive and I think he needs to get his ass home.
I’d take him but I got a buncha drunk ass people at my house right now and I’ve already kicked out two people for smoking meth, so I don’t want to leave the place unsupervised and have the neighbors calling the cops. ”
Fucking Christ. As much as Victor thought about telling Sarah to deal with it on her own—it was her party and her booze that got him in this situation—he was already sliding off the bed and reaching for his pants.
* * *
Sarah lived in a modest modular home on the outskirts of town, some place with lichen-spotted metal awnings and landscaping out front that hadn’t been touched since last spring.
The front yard was packed with parked cars, and Victor could hear the music from half a mile away.
He parked as close as he could manage and headed up the tire-gouged lawn to the front door, which had been perched open despite the near freezing temperatures outside.
He understood why that was once he got inside, because packing at least thirty people into your small house tended to make it pretty toasty.
When he squeezed himself into a hallway with fake wood paneling, a woman with long bangs careened out of a bedroom and suddenly grabbed him with both hands.
“Oh my God, Hunter? Is that you?”
“Huh?”
“You lost so much weight! You’re so cute!” She reached up and pinched his cheek, then giggled and leaned on him for balance.
Victor smiled awkwardly. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”
Another woman came stumbling out of the room behind her, latching onto her and yanking her away. “Anne, you dumb bitch, that’s not Hunter!”
“It totally is!” Anne objected. Victor gave them an impatient nod before squeezing himself past them and continuing down along the hallway.
He opened two doors before he found a bathroom, and it was in a state for sure.
The shower curtain rod had collapsed, taking with it the shower curtain, which now sat in a pile on the bathroom floor.
Several empty bottles of liquor were piled in the sink, and someone had thrown up in the toilet and forgotten to flush.
Johnny’s long body was tossed in the tub like a neglected doll, one leg hanging over the side and the other folded against the cracked tile at an awkward angle.
For a second Victor wondered if he was dead, so he walked over and checked his breathing.
Johnny’s complexion looked a little gray and there was still some bile dried in his three-day beard, but at least his lungs seemed to be functioning.
Victor straddled the side of the tub and lightly patted Johnny’s cheek.
“Hey,” Victor said softly but firmly. “Johnny?”
Johnny groaned and his head rolled to the side, but that was about all he could manage. It was better than nothing. Victor rose to a stand and grabbed a towel hanging from a rack over the toilet. He wet it in the sink, then used it to wipe away the mess Johnny had made across his face.
“You’re such a fucking idiot,” Victor growled, slapping Johnny’s face a little harder this time. “Johnny. Johnny! Necesitas despertarte o te mataré, hijo de puta.”
Johnny jolted, and his eyes wobbled open.
For a second recognition flashed across his face and he started to say something, but it came out as an unintelligible mumble before his neck lost its strength and his head fell back against the tile with a thud.
Victor realized there was no way he was going to be able to pull Johnny out to his truck by himself. He needed help.
Victor strode out of the bathroom and down the hallway to the living room, where most of the partygoers had congregated.
The music was so loud that it was hard to hear himself think, and the lights didn’t help much in distinguishing one person from another, but he finally spotted Sarah through the glass of the patio door.
He pushed past a few sweaty bodies until he was able to shove the patio door open and tap Sarah on the shoulder.
When she turned, she had a joint in one hand and a cup of beer in the other.
Nice to see she was so worried about her friend.
“Vic!” Sarah said with a relieved smile. “You’re here!”
“I need your help hauling Johnny out to my car.”
“He still passed out?” she asked as the guy with the trucker hat she’d been talking to laughed. Victor didn’t know what was so fucking funny about the situation.
“Obviously,” Victor ground out between clenched teeth.
“Alright. Wayne, hold my beer. Lemme go deal with this.”
“He was fun while he lasted,” Wayne said with a shrug, and if Victor was more confident in his ability to throw a punch, he might have. Clearly everyone here thought this was some kind of joke, which is why they called him instead of an ambulance.
Victor felt his temperature rising as he squeezed past giggling revelers on his way to the bathroom. He wasn’t sure who he was more mad at: Johnny for getting himself in this situation or everyone else for letting him.
Sarah bowled her way into the bathroom and over to the tub where Johnny was still sprawled out.
Instead of slapping Johnny awake, she filled up a plastic cup sitting on the sink with water and splashed it on his head.
Johnny gasped and tried to sit up, only to lose his balance and slide lower into the tub.
Sarah grabbed the collar of his shirt to haul him back up.
Johnny let out a long whine of protest and swatted at her to release him.
“You’re going home with Victor,” she explained to him. “Sound good?”
Johnny didn’t seem to comprehend all that well.
Victor tapped Sarah’s shoulder, and she stepped aside to allow Victor to straddle the width of the tub so that he could grab Johnny’s other arm.
Between them, they were able to get Johnny to a limp standing position, and from there Victor slid underneath Johnny’s right arm to support him.
Sarah huffed as she bore Johnny’s weight on the other side.
“Son of a bitch is heavier than he looks,” she grumbled as she and Victor dragged him out of the bathroom and down the hall.
Their path kept getting blocked by drunk or high partygoers, all of whom skedaddled with a quickness when Sarah snapped at them to move their ass.
Only once they were out of the house did they have a straight and simple path to Victor’s truck, though he had to park across the street due to all of the other cars blocking the driveway.
By the time they got to the truck, Sarah was huffing and puffing as she assisted Victor in shoving Johnny up into the passenger seat.
Once he was placed, Victor secured Johnny’s seatbelt.
Johnny muttered something as Victor clamped the belt across his lap, but there was no way to understand it.
He sounded a bit gurgly, so Victor went to the bed of his truck to retrieve a horse water bucket he’d left in there. He perched it on Johnny’s lap.
“Throw up in that if you have to,” Victor instructed.
Johnny had no response, so Victor shoved the door shut and enclosed him inside.
“Thanks for coming to get him,” Sarah said, shoving sweaty hair off her forehead. “I told him to take it easy but… well, you know how he is.”
“You know he’s trying to get sober, right?” Victor snapped, whirling to face her. “And you gave him alcohol?”
Sarah’s expression turned sour. “What am I, his mother? I can’t make him do anything. I told him he shouldn’t come and he came anyway. If he wants to drink, I can’t stop him. If he didn’t get wasted here, he would have done it at a bar or at home.”
“You could have kicked him out before he nearly drank himself to death.”
“And let him drive? He would have gotten fucked up at home. At least here we could keep an eye on him.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve known Johnny since we were kids. I know how he operates way more than you do.”
“Did you ever try to help him?”
“Dude, I’ve got enough addicts in my life, I can’t play therapist, coach, and mommy for them all.
I do what I can, but I can’t hold his hand.
You wanna do that, knock yourself out. Have fun being disappointed.
” At that, she left, waving at a car that stopped to let her cross the road before continuing on.
Victor swallowed the heavy lump in his throat and rounded the truck to the driver’s side.
He was glad when Sarah’s house disappeared from view and the nighttime darkness of rural roads engulfed them.
Johnny was still pretty listless, though he maintained a grip around the horse bucket to keep it from sliding off his lap.
When his body stiffened and his eyes popped open, Johnny leaned over and gagged into the bucket, a sound followed by a stream of vomit.
Once his body had ejected enough liquid, he collapsed back against the seat, eyelids blinking wearily as he moaned.
“Fuck,” he muttered. It was the first thing he’d said that Victor understood.
“I’m taking you home,” Victor said, but Johnny barely acknowledged him before falling asleep against the passenger window.
Victor left him like that until he pulled into Johnny’s driveway, which is where he parked, exited the truck, and rounded the vehicle to the passenger side.
He pulled the bucket out of Johnny’s lap, unhooked his seatbelt, and grasped an arm to shake him awake.
“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny mumbled, following Victor’s grip and stumbling out of the truck, only to practically land on top of Victor.
Victor managed to stay on his feet, loop an arm around Johnny’s waist, and start a slow shuffle to the front door.
Once they got there, Victor asked Johnny where he kept his keys.
“I dunno, somewhere,” was all he could manage.
With a sigh of frustration, Victor shoved his hand into Johnny’s back pocket where he thought he’d seen the slight bulge of keys.
He would have much preferred to be grabbing Johnny’s ass with them both sober, but as it stood, Victor made the contact as brief as possible until his fingers brushed metal.
With the keys he found, he opened Johnny’s front door, flicked the lights on, and continued to drag Johnny toward his bedroom.
Thankfully the place still looked about as clean as they’d left it a few months ago, albeit not as organized.
Once in the bedroom, Victor tossed Johnny onto the bed, then bent to drag his legs up as well.
He was ready to let Johnny sleep in his regular clothes, but then he noticed the streak of spit across the front of Johnny’s shirt.
So Victor wrangled that off, leaving only a tank top underneath.
He also took off Johnny’s belt, in case Johnny had to run to the bathroom suddenly and couldn’t manage to unbuckle himself from his jeans.
One would think the act of undressing him might be exciting, but instead Victor was furious at the world and frustrated by how little Johnny was trying to help him.
Victor flung the belt across the room before hunting down another bucket to put by the bed.
After that, he was done. He turned off the bedroom light and shut the door before stalking out of the house, rage filling every step.
By the time he got to his truck, he was amped enough to kick the horse bucket and send it flying into the brush.
He desperately yearned for something to punch or scream at, but instead there was just the quiet of a winter night and the hum of his truck’s engine, which he had never turned off.
Have fun being disappointed, Sarah had said. Victor hated how much he was starting to understand what she meant.