“Okay, first of all, who the fuck takes molly to ‘relax your nerves?’” He uses finger quotations around the words. I roll my eyes. “He’s a client, right?”
I nod.
“So, did you go there knowing you’d hook up?”
“No! I had every single intention of leaving at the end of dinner like I had the other two times.”
“But…” he urges.
“But the molly kicked in as soon as I sat down, and when he asked me to come up to his room with him, I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to say no.” I pull my legs up, wrapping my arms around them, and resting my cheek on my knees.
“Does he know about the molly?”
Chuckling dryly, I reply, “No.”
The rain kicks up intensity outside. It’s pounding on the window so loudly, I’m surprised Elias even heard my response.
“I wouldn’t beat yourself up, Bo,” he says after a few beats of silence. “You aren’t a horrible person because you enjoyed yourself. And about him being your friend’s dad… it’s business. I’m sure he isn’t the first or the last father of someone you know who you’ll have as a client.”
It’s so much more than that, but I don’t say that. That’s a whole other set of baggage I’m not ready—and probably never will be—to talk about. Frankly, I don’t even like tothinkabout all that baggage, and why exactly I’m fucked up for sleeping with Jules. Or even entertaining him at all.
******
Summer Before Junior Year
It’s another bad night.
They seem to be getting more and more frequent as time passes, but tonight takes the cake. I’m walking to Ryan’s house right now, trying to pull myself together. There’s a bitter taste on the back of my tongue and my eyes are all puffy. There’s no way Ryan will look at me and not know I was crying.
But I need him tonight. I need my friend. After what happened tonight, I need to feel safe. And I feel safe with Ryan.
Crossing through the backyard, I tap lightly on the sliding glass door with my knuckles. He walks up and opens it immediately, letting me in. The warmth of the house mixing with the wetness of my clothes from the rain outside causes goosebumps to break out all along my skin, a shiver wracking through me.
“Shit, you’re soaked,” Ryan rasps, his deep voice washing over me and warming my chest. “Do you want something to change into?”
I’ve finally lost enough weight that I’m almost the same size as Ryan. He’s more muscular andmuchtaller, but I’ll at least fit into his clothes. “Sure, thank you.” My teeth chatter while he goes into his room, coming out with a pair of black sweats and a plain white t-shirt.
I get dressed in the bathroom, and when I come out, he’s got a can of beer for each of us, handing me one as I get closer. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”
“Where did you get these?”
“My dad has a fridge upstairs in his office. It’s got tons of beer in it, so I brought a handful down for us when I could tell you were having a bad night on the phone.”
Cracking it open, I take a long sip. I don’t normally drink alcohol. I’m never invited to parties with kids at school, where most drinking takes place, plus it’s filled with empty calories I don’t need. But he’s right, I could use this, and those extra calories will be tomorrow’s problem.
We make our way through a handful of beers each over the next hour or so, all the while not really saying much. He has some old movie playing on the TV, but the volume is low.
“What happened tonight?” he finally asks, as he comes back from upstairs with two bottles of water.
He has a general understanding that my dad and Charles are assholes, but I’ve never told him specifics. I’ve never told anybody. I don’t know if it’s the beer running through my bloodstream when I hardly ever drink or simply the mental exhaustion of keeping everything to myself all the time, but the floodgates burst open, and I can’t stop them even if I wanted to.
The words spill from my mouth as tears fall hot down my cheeks. I tell him as much about tonight as I can without telling himeverything. By the time I’m done, I can hardly catch my breath and I feel like an idiot. Ryan scoots closer, pulling me to his chest as he wraps his thick, muscular arms around me. I’m engulfed in his clean, sweet scent. I hold on to him like a lifeline as I bury my face in his warm neck. He smells so good… he feels so good.
“Shh, shh,” he coos, his mouth next to the shell of my ear. “It’s okay. Let it all out. You’re okay.”
Being held and comforted, being told it’s okay, is such a foreign concept to me. Ryan holds me while I calm down for several minutes. Not saying anything, just holding me and letting me work through my feelings.
Everything happens in a blur. One minute, my face is pressed up against his neck, the next I’m peering up at him, with his concerned eyes and the slight downward slant to his lips… the lips that look so soft and inviting. I move before I can tell myself not to, our mouths colliding in a brutal clash. Ryan’s arms, which are still around me, seem to stiffen and almost try to push me away for a single moment before he tightens his grip, pulling me into him.
