Page 116 of Unloved

But I can’t.

When I was younger, my dad took me to Vegas for a game—and then a casino and strip club. It made eleven-year-old me queasy and uncomfortable, especially how he and his friends were with the girls, who looked so sad.

I was too scared to tell my mom, so I used a phone in the gas station next door and called Archer on the number he’d made me memorize.

Archer flew to Vegas that night to come and get me, still dressed in his pajamas. We ate at a twenty-four-hour diner, and after I apologized for making him come to my rescue, he looked across a full spread of breakfast food, burgers, and pies, and said, “Anything you need, Matty, I’m always a phone call away. Always.”

It was easy then, to shed the shame I’d been carrying like a second skin, leaving it behind with the neon lights as Archer took me home.

Now, it’s hard. The shame I carry is protection as much as it is a prison.

There’s a desperation to use that get-out-of-jail-free card once more, but after six months of silence it’s unfair to him. He shouldn’t have to deal with this version of me.

I ball my shirt in my hands and throw it hard across my messy room before closing my eyes and letting myself sink further into the shadows of my self-hatred. It’s like greeting an old friend.

CHAPTER 42Freddy

I’m not in my bed. That’s the first thought that swirls through my head when I wake up.

I rub my eyes furiously with one hand, the other reaching and fumbling across silky sheets until my phone is in my hand. I look at the screen:

11:30 a.m.

16 missed calls & 24 texts from Princess

10 missed calls from Captain PeanutButterCup

4 missed calls from Rein or Shine

30 texts in FIRST LINE FLIRTS

Fuck—

Someone’s hand crawls across my chest, nails sporting a perfect French manicure sliding over the bare skin, down, down, down toward my hip bone before I grab the bracelet-clad wrist.

A sinking feeling hits my gut as I turn my head to see Carmen Tinley, wrapped in a sheet with mascara flecks on her cheeks, smile bright and seductive all at once.

I’ve been here before, several times, but this feels…

Wrong.It’s always been fucking wrong—this is fucked up.

“I’m glad you’re here, sweets,” she whispers, and for a moment itfeels good—to know that forsomeoneI did something right. That I pleased her. That I was enough for—

No. Stop.

“How did I get here?” I ask, raising myself up to lean against the headboard and rubbing my eyes. A deep ache has already settled between them.

She chuckles patronizingly, rising out of the bed and sliding on a robe matching her usual black silk set. “Someone got a little too crazy at the Howler last night.”

The Howler.

God fucking damn it.

It shouldn’t be that much of a shock that I sought comfort in the one place I vowed to never step foot in again. Specifically, the Howler, a dive bar nestled between Waterfell and Boston, somehow in both cities and neither at the same time. I think I was their youngest patron when I first showed up there freshman year, trailing behind my professor like a dog on a chain. I was probably still their youngest patron last night, considering the significantly older clientele of regulars.

Carmen and I utilized the spot for dates because she couldn’t be seen with me in Waterfell. At the time, I thought it was because I was a student. I never imagined she might be embarrassed of me.

Or married.

---