“You don’t gotta worry about me having STDs or nothing. No one got to touch me and I never put my mouth on them. And they paid a lot. You wouldn’t believe how much they paid me.”
I shook my head, cursing softly. I’d wanted the full picture, no window dressing, as Jasper said. But it was painful to hear. Orion didn’t seem to sense my pain, however, and took my reaction as more judgement.
“I needed the money! There was no way I’d make enough by September just by doing readings and working at Claudette’s. I had to do something.”
“You had to do something.” I nodded. “Yeah. I get it now. I get it.”
Liars.
Thieves.
My head felt woozy, and I took a step back, pressing my palm to my forehead like I could push the bad thoughts away. It didn’t work. In my mind, the sky opened up and it rained anger and paranoia and betrayal. “You knew,” I said. “You knew I was coming to the beach club. You had to know I’d find out about this. You wanted me to know.”
“What? No, I never wanted you to find out! I knew you were coming tonight but not with Paul. And how was I supposed to know he’d tell you?”
I paced a circle, rubbing the back of my neck. “It’s all too neat,” I said. “It’s all too fucking neat.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You, Orion.” I pointed at him. “You, who my father calls a genius. I’m starting to think he’s right. I completely underestimated you.”
He stepped away from the seawall, his brow furrowed. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say.”
“You had to know if I found this out it would drive me insane. That I’d…” I growled and kicked the sand. “That I’d lose my fucking shit at the thought of anyone else being with you that way.”
A flicker of a smile crossed his face. “That really how you feel about me?”
“Of course that’s how I feel about you! You made sure of that!”
Orion flinched, and his smile slid away. “You think my feelings are fake. You think this was all a big hustle.”
“It’s called a long con, Orion, you should know. You knew when I found out about the sex work, I’d want you to stop doing it. Want you to stop so bad I’d offer to give you the money to open your gift shop.”
“What the fuck.” Orion stumbled back like he’d been punched. He rested his back against the seawall and doubled over, palms on his knees. “You actually think I set this all up to get your money. You actually think that.”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? Softening me up and making me…” I let out a stuttered breath. “Making me care about you and crave you, then getting me to trust you with all that ‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly take anything from you’ bullshit. So when the time came, I wouldn’t question it.”
Orion was shaking his head, back and forth, back and forth. “No,” he rasped. “How can you think that? I didn’t even ask you for the money. When the fuck did I ask you for money?”
“You didn’t. But that’s the beauty of it; you didn’t have to. That’s your gig, right? Convince people that giving you things is their idea?”
“Stop talking.” Wiping his eyes, Orion stepped away from the seawall. His chin trembled. “You’re hurting me.” He turned and started back up the beach toward the club.
“Orion! Get back here. We’re not done.”
He spun around. “Yes we are! We’re fucking done, Kurt! You stay the fuck away from me!”
I watched him jog off, and an ache ripped through me. The pain in Orion’s words sounded real. The way his voice broke. The ragged edge of anguish. Was I wrong? Had I been wrong about everything? But even if I wasn’t wrong, it tore me up. The echo of his voice rang in my head, making a lump rise in my throat.
The sound of a soft cough made me freeze, and I looked to my right, spotting a figure standing a few yards away in the shadows.
I stared, noting the orange glow of ash, and I smelled cigar smoke drift over on a gust of wind. I walked toward the figure, Mayor Gerry Spooner’s image becoming clearer as I closed the distance. The long nose and graying hair. Hawaiian shirt.
“Well,” he said, taking a puff of cigar and blowing it out in a funneled stream. “You sure blew it, didn’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Gerry, what the fuck, man. Have you been here this whole time?”
“Sorry.” He gave me a tight smile. “I was about to head over to my car up there when you two showed up. It started getting heated, so I didn’t want to just walk by. Figured I’d wait it out.”
“You should have made your presence known. That was a private conversation!”
He puffed his cigar, looking up at the moon. “That was a train wreck, is what that was.”
“I don’t need any commentary about it. Especially from you.”
He gave me a look, then flicked his cigar off into the sand as he stepped away from the wall. “Why especially from me?”
I looked away. “Forget it.”
“Oh, my.” He chuckled. “You don’t think…me and Orion?”
“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“No, please, I’m flattered. I’ve never been cast as the villain before. Makes me feel far more interesting than I am. But alas, Mr. Varley, you’ve got that all wrong. But then you got everything wrong tonight.”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.”
Gerry slipped his hands in his pockets. “I know your dad was always Orion’s protector.”
I looked at him.
He nodded. “Became like a father figure. But a whole lot of us watched Orion grow up. Around here, he was everybody’s kid for a while. I’d never lay a hand on him.”
“I’m sorry. I was just talking shit because I’m angry.”
“Yeah. You did a lot of that tonight.”
“Yes, please, keep rubbing it in. No, really, I don’t feel nearly miserable enough yet, Gerry. Pile it on.”
Gerry lit a second cigar, clouds of cherry scented smoke catching the air. “He came to me quite recently. Orion. Said he wanted to change his life drastically, and he didn’t want to wait. Needed to make a change right away. Because he’d met someone he was falling hard for. Jasper Varley’s son.”
My lips parted, and I forgot how to breathe.
A funnel of smoke left Gerry’s lips, and he glanced at me. “We were at the bank this morning. I cosigned Orion’s small business loan.” He flicked ash onto the sand. “It was approved.”
My legs wobbled, so I sat down on the sand. “He…he got a loan.”
“Yep. Enough to open his store, plus a bit extra. I knew he was good for it. Known him half his life. One of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen. And he’s got a solid business plan.”
“Fuck.” My breath caught. “He never wanted any money from me.”
“Nope. He sure didn’t.”
“He…fuck.”