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I remembered the kid from high school, a couple years behind us. He’d been loaded and gorgeous. Last I’d heard, he’d been named one of Boston’s hottest bachelors who refused to ever settle down.
“Are you staying busy and out of trouble?” I asked.
“Work is crazy as fuck right now. We’re starting a huge apartment building project down along the Merrimac River in the next couple of weeks. And as for the rest, that Missing Link app of yours definitely keeps me busy in other ways but not out of trouble.”
Ash and I had never focused on the hookup aspect of our app beyond its build, but fuck knew we had plenty of people happy for its use in fulfilling fantasies even if their end goal wasn’t a committed polyamorous relationship.
“Maybe it’s time to think about giving up your man whore ways,” I suggested as I’d done once or twice before.
Colton had grown up in the system, jumping from one foster home to another because he’d been an antsy kid. And once he lost his virginity, there wasn’t anything keeping him from hopping into a bed with willing girls and guys.
“I like variety,” Colton stated. “Makes for a life void of boredom.”
“Also void of real love, something steady and certain. Someone to go home to every night.”
“Never had it, never will.” He sounded so sure—beyond resigned.
While I was no romantic, I had such a person. “It’s possible,” I argued. “You just haven’t found him or her yet.”
“If I did believe in happily ever afters outside you and Ash, it would be me between both sexes. A soft, curvy woman to hold me and a hardened older man to slap my ass.”
A barked laugh ripped from my lungs drew attention from other diners, and I coughed, smothering the noises coming from me with my palm over my mouth.
“Don’t yuck on my yum,” Colton muttered. “Have Ash redden your backside sometime. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t need or want a daddy, thank you very much.”
“Shit—I don’t want a daddy-type either. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a heavy hand now and then. Done right, a good spanking can take you outside your shitty head and make everything fuzzy and fucking fantastic for a while.”
“Fuzzy and fantastic does sound perfect,” I said, all jollity gone from my voice. I wondered what it would be like to give control to someone besides Ash—
“What’s going on, Rhett? You sound like a dog shit in your shoe.”
I exhaled heavily and told Colton about my mom and that I’d flown to Florida on my own. He knew why I wouldn’t allow Ashton to come with me—he’d spent quite a few of those anniversaries alongside the two of us, keeping my boyfriend from getting too down.
“There’s nothing that can be done?” he asked, his voice as serious as I’d ever heard it.
“No.”
“Damn, man. I’m sorry. Anything you need me to do?”
“I appreciate the offer, but my hands are tied. It’s just a waiting game at this point. Hopefully, my dad comes to terms with the future he has no power to change and allows the doctors to pull the plug.” As usual, my statement came out matter-of-fact. Unmoved.
It is what it is.
How many times had that saying whispered through my head, the very thing my mom had said whenever I’d faced turmoil as a kid and had gone to her for comfort?
I remembered that day I’d shed a final tear in front of my mom, hoping for a hug or words to lessen my sadness.
And now, she lays on a hospital bed, a machine supplying the oxygen her body requires to fill her lungs.
Brain-dead.
Already gone.
Shouldn’t I have sensed something other than cold numbness? I wasn’t completely void of emotion. Ash drew them out of me without difficulty when we were intimate.
Perhaps it was the pain of my being ignored as a child, my feelings taking a back seat to whatever it was my parents thought.