“Harold,” I warn again, my voice firm. Insistent. “What’s the fuckin’ rule?”
“I’m not allowed to talk about him in a sexual manner. I don’t get to mention his name. I can’t ask you questions about his cock as I masturbate. He’s off limits.” His lip trembles, but then a sneer spreads across his face. Ah, shit. Not this again. The man is a ball of emotional instability, and I’m getting really fuckin’ tired of his moodswings. “He blocked me on OnlyFans. Did your precious fucking boy tell you that?”
“Not the OnlyFans story again,” Johnny whispers, pulling the pillow he’s clinging to closer to his chest. “We’ve heard it ninety fuckin’ times already.”
“Oh, you better believe I’m going to tell you the OnlyFans story,” Harold says. “It’s the whole reason you’re here and he’s not. When that little psychic faggot blocked me—”
“Watch your goddamn mouth,” I growl. “I don’t give a shit which letter of the alphabet you fall under, it don’t give you the right to use gay slurs in a hateful tone. If you ever call my Ezzy the f-slur again, I’ll drag your ass across my knee and lay into it until it’s black and blue. I’ll fuck you up. Gut you like a fuckin’ fish. I’ll spank that ass, Harold. I’ll spank you hard, and I’ll spank you rough.”
Harry looks like he’s going to throw up. “Ugh. No. Keep your smelly, old-man hands away from me.”
“I’m younger than you!”
He nods. “Not young enough. I like them ripe off the vine. Moist with an unknowingness of all things sex.”
I gag. I try not to, but I can’t help it. “That sounds like the siren song of a goddamn pedophile, if you ask me.”
“It’s a good thing no one is asking you,” he says, staring at a picture of Ezzy he’s got hung on the wall by the window. It’s an old profile picture of my boy, black and white, printed on copy paper, but it’s still a touchstone. A reason for going on. To find our boy. To get him back. To show him he’s loved and safe. “If I knew it was both of you in the car, I would’ve let you fucking drown in that ravine. I only stopped because I knew the license plate number by heart.”
“How?” Johnny asks.
“And why?” I ask.
“It was in one of his videos. I zoomed in and used AI to enhance the numbers.” He turns and glares at me. “And I did it because I fucking wanted to. After I discovered it was you, I improvised.”
“Bubba?” Johnny whispers.
Harold steeples his fingers, and his left eyebrow rises to disturbing heights. “I had a bit of an epiphany, you see.”
“Yeah, Johnny Boy?” I ask.
“Is he giving one of them movie-villain speeches where the bad guy lays out his whole damn plan, even though no one fuckin’ asked?”
I nod. “I think so. In ClitMasterHarold’s defense, technically, I did ask.”
Johnny’s eyes narrow. “You opened us up to this bullshit.” I offer a shrug, because what the fuck else am I going to do about it?
Harold twinkles his fingertips, never breaking the steeple, and a sinister smile stretches across his face, making him look like the damn Joker. “I wasn’t even gay before I signed up for his profile. Did he tell you that?”
“Ah, for fuck’s sake. Land the fuckin’ plane, Harold.”
“Stupidly, I thought I could use you as leverage,” he shrieks. There’s no reason for him to scream, but the guy’s all over the damn place all the time. I’m just rolling with it.
“No one’s stopping you, bro,” I say.
He flings his hands in the air. “Stupid me for thinking your absence might bring me closer to Ezra. He's gone completely off the grid, almost like he’s happy to be rid of you.” He twists his neck and stares daggers at me. “Did you do this? What did you do to scare him off?”
“I didn’t do a goddamn thing,” I argue. “He was kidnapped, the same way you’ve kidnapped us. I realize it’s highly unlikely that all three proverbial love interests in the story of our lives would meet this fate, but what’s done is done, and here we fuckin’ are.”
Harold just rolls his eyes and hops up from the bed, skipping gayly to the other side of the bedroom, grabbing a voodoo doll. Ezra in effigy, I guess. It looks like Ezzy. Same swooping brown hair, even though Ezra’s is pink now. Same big brown eyes. Same smile meant for Me and Johnny, and no one else. Certainly not this guy and his denim jacket dreams and corduroy themes. Ezra would laugh him out of the damn room.
“Does he talk about me? Does he whisper precious secrets, chronicling the lore of our love?” Harold asks, sounding more frantic than before.
“The fuck did you just say to me?”
“Bubba,” Johnny whispers, shaking his head, but still not looking at me. “Don’t argue or he’ll keep talking for hours.”
He’s right, of course. Playing into Harold’s twisted web of unrequested drama only makes things worse, and time after time, I allow him to bait me into a verbal bloodbath. Part of me knows it will only ever lead to chaos, but the chaos reminds me of Ezra. My little man is a showman, and he lives for the drama. As creepy as this motherfucker is, Ezra would be eating this shit up. Fuck, I wish he was here.
