Both of you take care of each other. I love you so very much.
Your loving partner,
Carter
As much as it hurt to read the words, it did something to me too, made me feel better than I had in a long time. Yet the voice in my head still said, “He didn’t mean for you to screw his little brother.”
I sighed and massaged my forehead again. “What am I going to do?”
Chapter 9
Shane
The door to West’s office was still firmly closed. I knocked lightly, but the only response that came at me was the same one I got almost an hour ago. “On the phone. Out in a minute.”
Irritation ate at me, and I knew I should go, do the only fucking job West had given me—which was make dinner—but the food was already finished, and now he was holding things up. West was keeping me from doing the task he gave me.
My work being ruined drove me crazy like an itch I couldn’t reach. I stood there outside his door for what felt like forever. I’d dressed up a little this afternoon, hoping he would notice, but at about quarter after five, he’d come straight in the house, steamed through the living room to his office without even taking his jacket off, and then closed the door. He didn’t give himself a chance to see that I’d worn the jeans that made my ass look super tight, or that I’d worn the black Henley I owned that showed off my chest and abs.
No, West had fucking ignored me.
My eyes watered and my throat got tight.
No, Daddy had ignored me.
The thought that he might not care about me enough to even bother with the food I made fucked with me. Part of this irrational fucking bad mood had to have something to do with my actual father—I wasn’t stupid enough not to think about that during the hour I fucking stared at a closed goddamned door in my face—but I hated that he’d ignored me. I hated that he’d shut himself in the office, and now that I wasn’t sleeping all day or avoiding him, I wanted his eyes on me every second I could get them.
It was crazy, but I felt trapped into standing here.
“No, listen, Lawrence.” I heard West’s raised voice again, always some guy’s name when it got loud like that, and my stomach trembled. This was lame. He was probably working, but what if he wasn’t? I tried to shove those suspicions aside, but they wouldn’t leave me alone.
Really? He got me off and then went out and met some guy named Lawrence all in the same week? That made no sense, at all. I knew it couldn’t be true, but then he hadn’t fucked me yet, either, so what the hell did I know? Was he telling this guy about the crazy, clingy brother of his dead ex that he’d fucked around with and now he couldn’t get rid of him? Was Lawrence someone he’d been seeing before and didn’t tell me about and now he was in trouble with him?
Or was he working?
The bad thoughts festered. He was supposed to be Daddy when he got home, and I was almost scared by how much that meant to me right now.
I spun on my heel and stomped toward the kitchen, finally breaking out of my trance. I had the food I’d made in the oven, so there was really nothing much to do. I got out a ball of Mozzarella, one of the few things I always had in the fridge that reminded me of growing up, and stood there eating it like an apple while I stared at the kitchen doorway, waiting for West to come out of his office—but he didn’t emerge. I finished off the damned cheese and knew I wouldn’t be hungry for dinner now, but I wasn’t doing this make-real-food thing for me so much, as because he’d told me to do it. All I wanted was to make him happy.
And West was busy on the phone instead of coming out here to enjoy the food he’d specifically told me to make. Eventually things started to smell off, so I pulled the pan out of the oven and plopped it on top of the stove, then lifted the lid and groaned.
“Who said I could cook?” I muttered, poking sadly with my finger at the dried-out lump of meat in the roasting pan. I burned myself and hissed, sticking my pointer into my mouth while I stared.
Admittedly I felt better in the last few days since I started cooking in the evenings, but when West informed me that I would be doing this, I hadn’t realized how daunting the task was. I’d seen my mother cook meals every night of my life while I still lived at home, and she always breezed through it.
My heart raced as I stared at the gross food, and I tried to bring myself under control, but it was no use. This was a disaster. I’d fucked it all up. West had made me ruin it. The sky outside was turning that grayish-blue color, and the sun was already disappearing. This recipe was the only thing I’d actually tried to do today, and I’d failed. I hated messing things up, with a passion. I used a fork to poke at the meat again. I knew there had to be a way to rescue this, there was an entire world of possibilities out there, but I had no clue how.
I felt hopeless and helpless and small, and this was why I’d been sleeping so goddamned much without classes.
I groaned and tossed down the fork.
Maybe it would just have to be a pizza night. But pizza would mean money, and I had none. I sighed and picked up my phone, meant to start searching ways to save ruined meat and make it edible, but all that ran through my head on an endless loop was West in his office talking to someone with that tone. He was placating another man. I slammed my phone back onto the counter and slunk through the living room to the hallway where I took up a vigil outside the door again.
I was being weird and creepy. The wood of the door was cool under my fingertips.
“Lawrence, Lawrence you have to stop. This isn’t going to work—” And then West’s voice sank into a low patter again. My face flared hot, and something ugly clawed inside my chest. I backed away and leaned against the wall opposite the door for a long while, hugging myself. I gave in and knocked again.
“I’m busy,” came a huffy reply.
Something inside me snapped. I’d spent the entire day worrying about this fucking food, hoping he’d get home on time or maybe even early, wondering what we might do together. I pushed open the door, and he stood there with his mouth open for a second before he quietly said, “Excuse me for a moment,” into the phone. He narrowed his eyes and his face flushed ruddy. The firm set of his mouth had me scrambling backward a few steps.
“Are you hurt, Shane?”
“What? No.”
“Then you’re going to have to wait.” West’s words were cold, much harsher than anything I’d heard from him in the last few days, and my insides curled up. He closed the door softly, didn’t slam it, but the sound of the latch clicking was louder in my head than a thunderclap. I stared at the door between us for a few seconds and anger rolled through me, pure and bright. He’d ordered me to do this meaningless chore each night, hadn’t said a single word to me when he got in, and now this? I slammed my fist on the door and stomped off. I tugged on my shoes and grabbed a hoodie, my entire body shaking as I walked out the front door. I didn’t have anything with me, never mind a plan or a direction, but I got on the sidewalk and walked.
But West had told me not to do what I’d done the other day again, so I didn’t go far.
I paced around our neighborhood once, twice, three times. The fourth time I passed our front lawn, West was standing in the grass with his phone pressed to his ear. He lowered his hand when he turned and laid eyes on me approaching, and then his expression went furious.