Truth. He could deal now, or have a few more years of denial, then another big meltdown like . . . He turned back to them, going to his chair. Arranging his robe carefully as he sat, pulling it around his pajamas as if he’d suddenly developed modesty.
Shuddering breath into his lungs, he said it: “I was scared.” He had to swallow down the lump that floated up into his throat with those words. “I’m still scared. People will judge me. I don’t—you don’t know . . . this is how my life is.” Something tickled his cheek, and he wiped it off. A tear. Staring at it, he found himself with more to say. “Everything is about appearances. My family, my upbringing, my social life, my career. It’s all about presenting the proper image of—fuck. I always felt, like, different. Like I had a fucking birth defect, and if this secret got exposed, I’d be cast out from, I dunno, the tribe of humanity.” He had to swallow again, and wipe more stuff off his face. He had to finish. “On my own. I don’t know if he did it on purpose or not, but that bastard used my fear against me.” He gulped another breath. “But I did it. I let him. D-didn’t I?” God, his voice broke, and then he was sobbing and he should be ashamed to break like that in front of anyone, but as he cried, and hands patted his back and rubbed his shoulders while people murmured things to him, he didn’t feel ashamed at all.
It was all relief now. No shame. And, for the first time in recent memory, the inmates weren’t torturing him anymore.
Dalton didn’t know much about how rehab or mental health inpatient programs worked, so he’d resolved not to worry if he didn’t hear from Tierney while he was gone.
Which was why he was definitely not preoccupied the next Saturday afternoon, as he was coaxing Blue into his cat carrier for the ride over to their new apartment. “You’ll be much happier there, I swear.”
Blue meowed at him nonchalantly and flopped gracefully onto his side. Up against the wall, under the bed. The bed Dalton wasn’t taking with him, so he and Sam hadn’t dismantled it, making it a convenient place for Blue to be aloof and recalcitrant.
“Please, baby cat, don’t make me come after you.”
Blue blinked and turned away from him.
“Want me to slide in under there?” Sam offered. “I’m ganglier than you.”
Dalton sighed, pushing onto his hands and knees, then to standing. “He’d slice you up like toilet paper.”
Sam scrunched his brow.
“He likes to unroll and shred bathroom tissue. And claw people other than me.”
Sam nodded, but the look on his face was uncomprehending. “Oh.” Clearly, he’d never owned a cat.
“Don’t worry, I know how to get him out.” He’d bought a special treat for just this instance.
In the kitchen, his preoccupation waylaid him, though. He couldn’t claim to be surprised Tierney hadn’t contacted him, and Dalton knew he couldn’t reach out himself. The man had stuff to work on, and who even knew if he had his phone? Would they have taken it away?
“Is it still bothering you?” Sam asked from right behind him, and Dalton jumped. “What’s going on with Tierney.”
He evaded the question, not that he’d be able to for long. “I was just staring into the fridge, wasn’t I?” He had one arm holding the door open and the other braced on the counter. How long had he been standing here before Sam came looking for him?
“Yeah.”
He rolled his eyes at his emo self and grabbed the little deli container of organ meat. Blech.
Sam made a face. “What’s that?”
“Bribery. Two cooked chicken livers. I’ll open the container and put it into the crate, and by the time we have the rest of the boxes in Ian’s truck, Blue will be in there.”
Sam’s face brightened, probably at the mention of Ian’s pickup rather than the imminent capture of the cat. Dalton was starting to get the feeling Ian didn’t often let Sam drive it, based on the way Sam bounced up on tiptoes every time the vehicle was even mentioned.
After their next trip to load more of Dalton’s stuff, they came back into the room to find Blue mostly in the cat carrier, long orange tail trailing out and switching back and forth. Dalton moved fast, putting the rest of Blue in with one hand and shutting the wire door with the other. The cat growled at him, then went back to his container of liver.
“That can’t be good for him,” Sam said, grimacing.
Dalton shrugged. “If he cooperated more often, he wouldn’t have to worry about overeating.”
Sam dropped onto Dalton’s former bed. “So, are we going to talk about what’s bugging you?” He had that inquiring tilt to his head, and was watching Dalton avidly.
“I guess.” Dalton had confessed most of what had happened last weekend when he and Sam met for lunch. It had been less than an hour after he’d said good-bye to Tierney, and he hadn’t had time to cobble his insides back together. Telling his friend about it had been cathartic, at least. Maybe talking about it now would help too. He leaned his weight against the wall opposite the bed. “I just don’t know what . . .”
“Is going to happen?” The excitement in Sam’s expression told Dalton what was coming next. “In a romance novel—”
“This isn’t a romance novel.” He really needed to have that printed on a T-shirt he could wear whenever they hung out.
Sam shrugged one shoulder. “Romance novels have an often uncanny ability to predict reality.” He smiled dreamily, eyes glossing over. “The wounded billionaire. Such a cracky trope.”
“Cracky?”
“Uh, like crack. Love-crack. You know, if you’re into, you know. Romance.”
“Tierney’s hardly a billionaire. Millionaire, probably.”
Sam waved that off. “Yeah, but ‘millionaire’ just doesn’t have the cachet it used to. You have to say ‘billionaire,’ even if he’s not, to fulfill the parameters of the trope.”
“Do we need to fulfill the parameters of this trope?”
Sam blinked a few times, then squinted at him.
That was probably answer enough. Taking a deep breath, Dalton brought up the one thing he most didn’t want to. “Do you think it’s possible he could get over Ian?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam said, nodding vigorously. “He only thinks he’s in love with my boyfriend.”
“How do you know he’s not?”