Page 65 of The Master

“Thank you for coming over,” I said as I let my neighbors inside.

I gave them a grim smile as they handed me two plastic containers full of food and a six-pack of beer. This wasn’t going to be a fun night, but the four of us would accomplish much more than I’d have been able to do alone. And having them here would keep me focused on cleaning rather than mourning what I’d lost.

“The super said we can use the building’s dumpsters at no extra cost,” Gary said. “So, you don’t have to worry about needing someone to haul away anything big that can’t be salvaged.”

“Remind me to get him a thank you card,” I said as I reached into my shopping bag and pulled out a box of garbage bags and then several pairs of work gloves. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt. Please wear gloves at all times and make sure your shoes have thick soles. The last thing we need is a trip to the ER.”

“Gary and I have an air mattress you can borrow once we get space cleared on the floor,” Perry said. “And you can use it as long as you want.”

I hugged them both, letting the embrace say what I didn’t have the words for. My mattress was beyond help and getting another one would put a dent in my finances. Nate and Finley would both offer to buy me one, I knew, but I wasn’t going to count on them or Mom for anything. I wasn’t too proud to accept gifts, but I refused to ask for help unless absolutely needed. The air mattress took the weight of at least one of those decisions off my shoulders.

“One thing,” Perry said with a smile. “We can’t do this without music.”

He tapped a few times on his phone and music started to play. As we began to go through things, I was glad that he’d thought of it. A lot of my now-destroyed possessions were items I would’ve eventually had to replace anyway since I’d gotten them second-hand here and there over the years. It made me angry that I had to get new ones now because someone decided to throw a temper tantrum, but they weren’t what made cleaning up difficult. No, it was the irreplaceable knick-knacks and silly toys I’d collected. The picture frame I’d specifically bought for a picture that was torn in two. The music covered the sound of occasional tears and gave me the privacy I needed without the awkwardness that came from people seeing that grief.

The things that could be fixed or repurposed went in a pile next to my couch. Unlike my mattress, I could stitch the couch cushions well enough to make them usable again. As that pile grew, some of the ache in my chest eased. That was another small victory, being able to fix the things that had been broken.

A good analogy, I realized as the night wore on. Whoever had done this had intended to break me, but I would never let that happen. Not to me, and not to the relationships with the people I loved. When Nate was ready to talk about the issue with Finley and Isti, I’d be there for him and help him do what was necessary to fix his relationship with my father.

By the time the floors were cleared and the air mattress set up, it was well past midnight, but my helpers weren’t complaining. In fact, they waited until I was entirely sure I felt safe enough to be alone, and even then, they all reassured me that they would be within shouting distance all night.

When I locked the door behind Owen, I clicked into place the extra locks that had been added to the new door, but it was the knowledge that I had friends looking out for me that made me feel safe enough to shower and then go to bed.

I was still trying to get comfortable on the new-to-me bed when my phone buzzed. Nate had sent me a text.

Hey, babe, I hope I’m not waking you up, but I’d really like to see you tonight. It’s lonely in my bed without you.

I read the message a second time, then turned on my light. As I dressed, I sent back a reply saying I was on my way, then sent messages to Gary and Perry, letting them know I was going to Nate’s. Owen was my last text because he was my ride. It didn’t matter that it was nearly two in the morning. Nate needed me, which meant I was going.

Forty-Three

Nate

Today sucked.

I scowled at the empty glass in my hand. I’d drained the last of my Blanton’s Whiskey a few minutes ago and was now trying to decide if it was worth the effort to get up for another one. Finley had given me the bottle for Christmas a couple years ago. At the time, I hadn’t wondered how he’d known that this particular brand was my go-to for lousy days. Now I knew. He’d been spying on me.

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the back of my chair. No, that couldn’t be the case. Even my buzzed brain knew that was false logic. For one thing, I hadn’t been ‘allowed’ to drink Blanton’s when I lived with Isti. I’d gotten a taste for it at a party she’d taken me to, and afterward, she’d given me a twenty-minute lecture on the importance of choosing the right scotch to speak to the sort of person I was. Why she had an issue with that particular brand, I still didn’t know.

I hadn’t been with her long when we had that conversation, but it had been enough time for me to know that what she really meant when she talked about me was how I reflected on her. She wanted people to know she was powerful and attractive enough to snag and keep a guy like me, but as much as she liked to remind me of where I’d be without her, she didn’t want anyone else to know that I wasn’t as refined and wealthy as her.

I honestly wondered who she thought she’d been fooling. It wasn’t like I was someone she’d plucked from obscurity. Sure, I hadn’t moved in the same circles socially, but I had spent time talking to people with money, asking for investors. And gossip in high school had nothing on the way news traveled in high society. Everyone knew that I’d been looking for financial backing and that Isti liked her boytoys. It hadn’t taken a genius to put it together, but she’d always refused to acknowledge it in public when someone brought it up.

Two pieces of previously unrelated information came together with a loud click, and I cursed. I now remembered telling Finley about liking Blanton’s, and he’d said the same. It was the only whiskey his mother had liked. Finley hadn’t gotten me Blanton’s because he knew from Isti that I liked it, but rather Isti hadn’t wanted me to drink it because Finley and his mother did.

“This is so fucked up.” I was alone in the house, but some things just needed to be said out loud.

I wanted to say that I couldn’t believe Isti would be so vindictive as to have kept the secret of her connection to Finley for years, just so she could wait for the opportune moment to drop that particular bombshell, but that was exactly the sort of person she was.

I pushed myself up from my chair and went back to the bottle I’d left on the kitchen counter. I’d had a reason for leaving it there instead of taking it with me, but I couldn’t remember what it was now. Probably something to do with believing I’d be less likely to get drunk if I had to keep getting back up to refill my class.

Fuck that.

I left my glass and took the bottle to my seat. I made a pathetic picture, sitting here in the dark drinking straight from a bottle but couldn’t find it in me to care. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone was here to see me anyway. I’d told Ashlee to stay away. For her own good. She needed to take care of herself, not me, and I wasn’t in the right mindset to be the caretaker today.

Not that I’d done a particularly good job of taking care of her when she was around. If I’d been as good of a Dom as I thought I was, we wouldn’t be in this whole mess. I would’ve been able to control the situation, bend it until it went the way I wanted. What good was I if I couldn’t even take care of the woman I loved?

Loved.

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