“You’re shit-faced,” I shout at him over the music. “How the hell do you keep winning?”
“I’m an expert at pool,” he shouts back. Whisky spills over the top of his glass.
Women in short dresses circle us, leaning in to show off their cleavage. It’s wall-to-wall rich assholes in here. Pure debauchery.
None of it touches me.
It’s a feat, because this place is packed with people. They sprawl on all the available furniture. Most of them are high or drunk or fucking.
I don’t want to fuck someone in one of the staterooms, or on the curved leather sofa, like the couple going at it now. I don’t want to get high. And I don’t want to jump off the side of the yacht into black water.
It’s hot and loud and exactly the kind of scene I spent years seeking out. I drowned myself in these places before. Escaped from my head.
I lose another three hundred dollars to Zach.
He gets pulled away by two women and replaced by a guy I don’t know. He takes Zach’s pool cue, bets me four hundred, and we play.
Can’t keep my mind on the shots. There are too many bodies in the room. Too much heat. It’s a large yacht, though not as big as mine. Still not enough room.
It’s not safe.
The guys were right. I’m not a good time anymore, and it’s because I can’t help noticing how dangerous this is. It’s not likely that there will be an emergency on the yacht, but if there is, there’s going to be a crush of people. Somebody could get hurt.
They’re already in danger from the sheer amount of drugs and alcohol. An overdose isn’t out of the question. And nobody’s looking out for each other at this point in the evening. People will take advantage.
Another game of pool. Another loss. Six hundred this time. At least two thousand dollars of my money is in other people’s pockets.
It was always this dangerous.
The realization comes on slow.
I was in danger at these parties, too. I was in danger when I drove fast cars without any regard for the speed limit. I was in danger every time I visited the underground casino.
It didn’t matter.
My future trapped me, but it also freed me. I could take any risk I wanted. I could sit at the illegal poker table until the cops were bursting through the door. I could go to illicit boxing matches on nights when the crowd was bloodthirsty and out of line. I could drive as fast as I wanted, turning out the headlights to speed through black nights.
Because it would be almost a blessing if I died that way. Any way, before the ugly, lonely end.
“I might have a death wish,” I muse to the guys at the pool table.
One of them blinks at me. “You’re just terrible at pool.”
I’m not even trying. Am I trying in my life, or am I just pretending? Either way, Eva doesn’t need me. She’s a better parent than ten thousand men and women put together.
In fact, she has everything. Wealth. Ability. A sound mind.
Finn: I’m sorry.
She doesn’t answer my text.
I abandon the pool table and push into the crowd. Eddies of people suck me in to dance. My body moves mindlessly, swaying for long enough that they spit me back out again. None of them smell right. None of them is right. None of them is the brave, beautiful Eva Morelli, who deserves so much more than I can give her.
Half of me is searching for her on the yacht. I reach for her in every tight clutch of people, my palms looking for the particular curve of her hips. The fall of her black hair. I won’t abandon you, Finn. Not for anything.
“I’m nothing but pain.”
“You’re hot.” A blonde woman looms in close, a strobe light flashing on her face, champagne spilling from her glass. “Let’s find someplace where we can be alone.”
I laugh at her, and she ignores me.
I didn’t want Eva to ignore me. I wanted her to look at me with those huge, dark eyes and never stop.
Well, I should have been careful what I wished for. She saw past the playboy shell. Oh, she loved visiting the underground poker club. Eva got a rush from betting on an underdog. But she knew. She saw what I was trying to hide.
That I’ll break her heart every day until I’m dead.
“Finn,” someone calls.
Yes, I proposed. But it wasn’t real. It wasn’t how she wanted it to be. The proposal hurt her as much as telling her I didn’t care. The truth is that I don’t really want it. I don’t want her shackled to me by a wedding band. I don’t want her to see me drooling and senseless and afraid.
Fuck, I’m so scared.
It’s a broken champagne glass through my heart. Jagged glass. I put a hand to my chest and stumble out onto the deck of the yacht. Cool evening air makes it easier to breathe, but what’s the point?
What good does it do anyone, least of all me?
Eva doesn’t have to go down like this. She can be like my mother. It hurt when she left. I won’t pretend it didn’t. I spent a long time raging at her, if only in my thoughts. She found some happiness for herself, though. Some peace. That’s not on offer at home. Daniel Hughes doesn’t know who he is, more often than not. He doesn’t know who we are. His confusion makes him violent and unpredictable.
An image flashes into my mind. Eva, stoic despite her fear, her gorgeous mouth set in a firm line as she tries to fend me off. A boy with her hair and my eyes hanging back, watching his father attack his mother. I barely have to work to imagine it. I saw it happen at my own dinner table.
I could be sick.
Still no answer.
No son of Eva’s would let her face me alone. He’d be part of her family, too, for as long as she was in her right mind. And she has a family who won’t fuck off to Switzerland at the first sign of trouble. The Morellis have their problems. They sure as hell do. They’re all wrapped up in each other. Demanding too much from one another. Running hot.
I won’t abandon you, Finn. Not for anything.
She learned that loyalty from somewhere. I wish it could have been from me and not from surviving the tyrant reign of Bryant Morelli. But she had to know it before she could give it to me.
Try to give it to me. I can’t accept. It’d be the same thing as locking my hand around her ankle and pulling her underwater. It would be okay if I died a few years early. It would be a goddamn tragedy for Eva to spend a single day less on earth.
I barely had anything to drink but somehow I’ve ended up at the railing, my stomach in knots.
She doesn’t know what she’s asking me to do. She has no idea how it’ll feel to deal with my diapers and watch me stop loving her.
You wouldn’t ever stop.
“You’re full of shit.” The voice in my head doesn’t know. Does my father still love my mother? Sure. For thirty seconds a day, when he forgets that she left him. Soon it’ll be twenty seconds a day, then ten, then none.
Somebody runs into me.
Eva: I know.
Zach, with three of the guys from the office. He slings an arm around my shoulders and shakes. “There’s no fucking way you’re seasick. We’re not even moving. Did you have too much fun?”
“Way too much.” I’m basically sober at this point. Doesn’t matter. I feel like hell. Goose bumps pull at my arm hairs.
“Wanna have some more?” His mouth is a white cut in the night. The party’s all over the deck. Two guys collide with the railing further down. One of them is trying to fuck the other one. His pants are in the way.