Page 58 of Worse Than Wicked
“That doesn’t work either,” he says. “I always did that, whatever’s fun, whatever feels good in the moment. It just hurt more people, and I still feel like shit afterwards. So I do another thing to feel good, fuck another girl, take another pearl, and I feel good again. But when it’s over, I feel even worse. I just keep getting lower and lower. It’s like I don’t have a rock bottom.”
“Okay,” I say. “What if you don’t? If you know that, will you stop trying to reach it?”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice a tortured groan. “Why can’t I get over this, Baron? Everyone else moved on and is living their lives. They probably don’t even think about it, and when they do, they just think they did the right thing, so it’s okay. I’m the only one fucked up over it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because look at them,” he says, gesturing around with one arm. “Royal and Harper are happy in New York. Devlin and Crystal are still fucking, making babies, living in his fucking house like they don’t even remember they’re the reason he’s not in it. It’s just another day in the line of work for King and Eliza. They kill people all the time.”
“Has this been bothering you?” I ask. “Is that why you’re acting different?”
“I don’t know,” he says morosely. “Probably.”
“Let me see if I can make you something,” I say. “When we go home in the fall, I’ll get back in the lab for you. If I could make you a drug to cure your whiskey dick, surely I can make one to cure you of a conscience.”
fifteen
Duke Dolce
“Are you happy?” I ask, glancing sideways at Mabel as I pull through the gate into our old neighborhood.
She thinks about that for a moment before she asks, “How can I tell?”
“You know,” I say. “You feel happy with your life. Like good, in general. You like the way things are.”
“I think so,” she says. “I’m satisfied with our arrangement, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Why what?”
“I mean, why would you be happy with that? Baron’s a monster to you.”
“And you’re not.”
I cruise along past Devlin’s place, then turn into our drive. “But how can you be happy with us?” I press. “He hurts you. I hear you screaming.”
“But you don’t hear anyone else screaming,” she says calmly.
“So you’re happy with him because he doesn’t fuck other girls?”
“Exactly.” When I park, she picks up the basket from under her feet and climbs down from the car without waiting for me to go around.
I meet her at the front of the car. I catch her elbow, and she stops and looks up at me, waiting.
“Are you happy with me?”
“Of course.”
“You’re happy with both of us?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you more happy with?” I insist.
