Page 25

Chapter 24

Louis

Eyes flock to us as soon as we enter. They’re all here: Maurice; his wife, Tara; Ravi…And Joshua of course, the little shit.

I order two whiskeys and hand one to Sparrow, thinking it ought to help him with that worried look in his eyes. He’s been on edge ever since we left the animal shelter, and I have no idea why. It’s just like what happened at Mumphrey Hill, and it frustrates the living shit out of me. Sure, the job of retrieving Joshua’s dog failed miserably, but all that aside, Sparrow and I are fine, right? I sure haven’t done anything wrong.

Speaking of the job, Joshua comes to stand by my side, and I glance at him from my seat at the bar.

“What?” I grunt.

“So? How did it go?” He looks around. “Where’s Denver?”

I take a big sip of whiskey. “Wasn’t there.” I’m sure Sparrow didn’t tell me the whole truth, but for now, this is all the info I’ve got.

“What do you mean, he wasn’t there?” Joshua snaps.

“Someone else must’ve taken him.”

“But you went there, didn’t you? You went and confronted that little bitch boy Antler?”

“Of course I did.”

“And?”

I raise an eyebrow. “What do you want to know?”

Joshua glances to the side, a crease forming between his brows. “I just…I haven’t seen him in a while. How was he?”

“How should I know?”

Joshua flashes a sudden grin. “Shame you never got to fuck him, eh? I wouldn’t mind tapping that, to be honest, but then again, I’m not a fucking faggot, so—”

I turn to him fully and seize his jaw in a brutal grip. He startles, offering barely any resistance as I hiss into his ear, “What did I tell you about letting that word past your lips? If you’re not careful, you might be the one who ends up getting fucked.”

I’ve had it up to my gills with homophobic assholes like him. My father was the same—always talking about gays like they’re the plague of the earth. I just stood there, deep in the closet, while he downed beer after beer and took his frustrations out on my mother. As a kid, I shivered with fear in the face of my father’s wrath, but I’m not shivering anymore; I’ve cultivated my strength and my fighting skills, and the Black Claws lets me solve problems in the ways I prefer, with fists rather than words.

Joshua gives a strained smirk. “I don’t think your little boy toy would like that.”

I follow his gaze toward Sparrow, who’s looking at me with wide, scared eyes, as if he doesn’t even know me. What the hell is wrong with him? It’s time to find out.

I let go of Joshua, shove him away, and grab Sparrow’s upper arm. “You’re coming with me.”

Sparrow strains against my hold. “Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Maybe not, but you’re coming anyway.”

“You can’t force me.”

I ignore him and keep pulling him toward the back room.

“Oh, that’s right,” he says. “You’re used to forcing people.”

That gives me pause. Without letting go of his arm, I turn around to face him. We’re standing in the middle of the bar, and although I feel people’s eyes on us, I couldn’t care less what they think. My tight-strung frustration is about to reach its boiling point.

“I’m not forcing you into anything,” I growl. “You’re the one who begged me to take care of you, for fuck’s sake!”

“Take care of me, yes!” His voice heightens, and he yanks away from my hold. “But not control my every step! You won’t let me try weed, you’ll barely even let me drink. You’re not my parent or anything; you just sleep with me. Someday you might even try to force me into it, won’t you?”

I narrow my eyes. “What?”

Now he’s really starting to piss me off. Why is he talking in riddles like this? And why won’t he come with me so I can explain, without all these people dipping their noses into our private matters?

My lips part, but I can’t get my words to obey. My brain is apparently too committed to my stubborn and terrible ways.

“You lied to me,” Sparrow says, gaze dropping to his shoes.

“And how did I lie exactly?”

“You told me I should never let anyone take advantage of me. That I shouldn’t let people fuck me while I was asleep or drunk. You said you’d never hurt me like that. But you lied.” Sparrow wraps his arms around himself, and now he looks more sad than pissed off.

I try to grab hold of him again, and again he evades me. “Let’s talk about this in the back room.”

“No.” Sparrow shakes his head, backing away from me. “I don’t want to talk to you. How can I trust you when everything you’ve said to me so far is a lie?”

“I haven’t fucking lied to you!” I bellow. “You’re the one who begged me to let you stay with me, to take care of you. And that’s what I’ve been fucking trying to do, you ungrateful brat.”

“But you’ll hurt me. You’ve already hurt someone.”

“Hurt who?” Fuck, is he talking about Justin? How did he find out?

He lifts his shoulders in a miserable shrug. “That Nathan guy. He told me.”

I sigh and rake my hands through my hair. “Well, he wanted it.” He was the one to saunter into this very bar, order two shots, and down them both. He was the one to chat me up. He was the one to show up out of nowhere, pull me away from my chat with friends, and drag me into the secluded room of Joshua’s house. Besides, I…“I didn’t even go through with it.”

“Yeah, but you would have, right?” Sparrow says, tears glazing his eyes. “If you weren’t interrupted. You lied to me. What else have you lied about?”

“Sparrow, for fuck’s sake…” I grab hold of him again, harder this time, squeezing his upper arms so tightly he can’t get away. I feel like shaking him. What doesn’t he fucking understand?

“Let me go,” he whimpers. “You’re hurting me, Louis.”

His blue eyes flash in my mind and merge with a long-suppressed memory—a memory of my younger self, and the person I loved staring up at me with fear and hurt in his eyes…Justin…I hurt him…And now…now I’m doing the same to…

Eyes wide, I let go of Sparrow as if he burned me.

The few people left at the bar have stopped talking to stare at our debacle. Even Ravi stops chatting up some woman to approach us instead.

“Louis, what’s going on?” He lays a hand on Sparrow’s shoulder. “You okay, kid?”

Sparrow visibly relaxes, and that expression combined with that single familiar touch sets a fire in me I’m helpless to control. Everything is turning to shit, and the realization dawning on me is the icing on the fucking cake.

Sparrow is more comfortable with Ravi than he is with me. Maybe that’s the way it’s always been; I’ve just been too blind to see it.

I scare Sparrow, and I hurt him, and even though his angelic heart has tried to ignore it, once he realizes his own worth, there’s no way he’ll put up with me. And that’s exactly what’s happening. I saw it coming from the very start, but I thought…Fuck, I don’t know. I knew I was bad. I knew I was horrible. But to see it confirmed in that minuscule flash of relief in Sparrow’s eyes hurts more than a thousand beatings, more than the deepest wound, more than the time I witnessed my father dunk my mother’s head into a wall.

Seeing red, I take a step closer and snarl to Ravi, to my best friend, “Lay a hand on him again, and I’ll fucking end you.”

Ravi’s mouth stiffens into a tight line. “I think you need to calm the fuck down, Louis.”

I glare daggers at both of them, chest heaving and fists clenched at my sides.

“You don’t have anything to say?” Sparrow asks, tears glittering in his eyes as his plump lower lip trembles.

Fuck, he’s so beautiful. I knew all along that I didn’t deserve him, and this does nothing but set that fact in stone.

“Just go, then,” I mutter.

His mouth falls open. “W-What?” he croaks.

“Just leave.”

He’s better off somewhere else. With someone else. I knew it all along, but my delusional mind granted me these scant few months to find refuge in this miraculously trusting, beautiful boy. But the world’s judgment would always fall down on me sooner or later, and now it’s telling me to protect Sparrow from myself, once and for all.

“I don’t want to see your face in here again,” I grit out.

“Louis …,” Ravi says.

“You heard me— leave .” I force my voice into a snarled growl—animalistic and terrible.

More than ever before, Sparrow looks like a frightened child, and with one last miserable look at me, he turns around and runs out of the bar.

Minutes pass of nothing but pain.

Then a weight lands on my shoulder.

Ravi’s hand.

Sparrow is gone, and Ravi is lucky my anger went with him. Otherwise, I would have sent him fucking flying. Instead, all I do is shrug his hand off and go get another drink. And another. And another.