“Fuck holidays! That’s like five percent of your time.”
“Life can’t be a permanent holiday.”
“Why not? Who decides that?”
“Everyone you have to pay money to. Bills don’t pay themselves.”
Cormac gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes. So exaggerated that Quasimodo stirred. “Now you sound like him.” He lifted his head slightly. “What’s happiness for you?”
“My father giving up alcohol and being a father again.” I wanted to take the words back as soon as they were out. That was a level of honesty I hadn’t signed up for.
“Does he have a drink problem?”
“Yeah.”
“Tried rehab?”
“Yeah. It didn’t stick.” There was a ball in my throat. One that threatened to grow and grow until it engulfed me if I let it.
“What about your mother?”
“Dead. Died of ovarian cancer a few years back.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
Cormac’s hand came to rest on his stomach, fingers stroking over the fabric of the T-shirt he’d donned. “Your father has to want to stop drinking.”
“I know that. I just don’t understand why he can’t make himself want to.”
“People are complex and they rarely admit to their greatest fears.” As if realizing he’d displayed hidden depths he hadn’t intended to, Cormac flashed a smile. “Or so some bullshit psychologist on a late-night TV show once said.”
“What show?”
“Dunno. I can’t remember what it was. I just remember how true I thought those words were. We all put on this front that we want the rest of the world to see.” Even lying on the floor, with a cat pinning him down, he still spoke with his hands, the movement dragging his T-shirt up a few inches.
I stared at the taut muscles of his tanned abdomen, heat rising in my gut as I recalled what the rest of him looked like from my extended perusal while he’d taken a shower.Why don’t you goover there? See what he does.That was my new friend, vodka, whispering in my ear.Why do you think he asked you to stay? Why do you think he plied you with vodka?
“Take Katrina, for instance.”
“Who’s Katrina?” Despite asking the question, my mind was still on how to play it.Crawl over there? Walk? Go straight for his cock, or be a little more subtle about it and work up to it?
“My girlfriend.” He grimaced. “Ex-girlfriend.”
Bisexual, then. Not a problem. So was I. “Recent?”
“Very.”
“How recent?”
He heaved out a sigh. “Recent enough that I needed to get away for a while.”
“Ah,” I said, propping myself up on one elbow. “And now the truth comes out. You came here nursing a broken heart.”
Quasimodo chose that moment to climb off Cormac. Seizing on the opportunity for freedom before the cat could change his mind, he sat up. “Not even close. I was the one who ended it.”
“Why?”
