Johnny shakes his head. “No. I don’t want that. I like when he fucks with me. I think I like fucking with him too.” He stares up at the clock hanging over the exit, telling us we’ve got a little over an hour left in our shift. “If you’re serious about taking us out tonight, you should probably call and tell him to get ready. It takes him three hours to get dressed.” He reaches into my pocket and grabs my phone, and neither of us acknowledge the way his pinkie grazes my bulge. He types in my unlock code and hands it over, but he pauses and looks up at me. “I need to say something.”
I arch an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound very hopeful.”
“It ain’t bad. I’ve just been holding something in, and I think I need to say it. I need you to know that you hurt me.” His lip trembles,and it’s a sight that makes me want to burn the world to ash with my welding torch.
“It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can say it, baby.”
A tear drips down his cheek. “You were supposed to wait.”
“Wait for what?” I ask. He looks up, and when I see the hurt in his eyes, he doesn’t even have to answer. I know exactly what I did wrong.
“You were supposed to wait for me, Bubba. When I left, you were supposed to know I just needed a little time. I know I didn’t say it, but—” Whatever he’s trying to say ends on a cracked whimper that rips my hearts to shreds. “You know me. You knew I would come home. I had to find you with him.”
I press my forehead against his. “Johnny.”
“I know I hurt you when I ran off, but you threw me away like we weren’t worth fighting for. You didn’t even try to come find me. You didn’t try to get me to come home.” As more tears fall down his cheeks, it rips me up inside, because he’s right. Maybe I was bitter because he left, so I left my heart wide open, ready to be taken. Maybe I was hurting just as bad. It doesn’t matter what I was feeling, because he’s right. I let him down. I knew my boy would come home, and I let myself fall for Ezzy. ”How could I mean so little after loving me for so long?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it comes out choked. “You mean everything to me. Everything. I don’t have an excuse. I know I let you down, and that this isn’t what we were planning for. I don’t how I can make it up to you, but whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.” Swallowing, I try to raise my courage enough to raise the only question that matters. “Do you need me to end things with him?” Tears are forming in my eyes, but I try to blink them back, because I’m the only reason they’re there. “I loved you first, and I’m going to love you for the rest of my life, but if you need meto—”
His eyes shift from heartbreak to rage in an instant, and he bares his teeth like he’s ready to strike. “That would break his fuckin’ heart, and it’s been broken enough. Don’t you ever fuckin’ say that again! How could you even think of doing that to him after everything he’s been through? He ain’t disposable, he’s ours!”
We’re both silent for a second, each of us in awe of the passion in his voice.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
He’s breathing heavily, and his hand finds my thigh, his fingers digging in deep. “Call him. Call Ezra.” I’ve never seen him so feral before.
I click Ezra’s contact info and look up at Johnny again. “I mean it, Johnny Boy. I’m sorry for letting you down. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.” Leaning closer, I kiss the corner of his mouth, because I need him to know I mean it. “I love you.”
He squeezes my knee again. A way to say the unsayable.
Together, we place the call to Ezzy. When it connects, Johnny groans at the sight of Ezra, but I can’t keep the smile off my face. Ezra is wearing his usual psychic getup; a pink crop top that says, “I see the future, I see the past. I can see your load in my ass,” a hot-pink jockstrap, and a pink scarf on his head. He must be slutting it up on OnlyFans, and I love that for him. I’ve asked permission to subscribe, but every time I brooch the subject, he turns me down, claiming if I saw him fast at work, I would be so captivated by his ability to see between the folds of time and space—whatever the fuck that means—I’d be unable to see him as anything less than a prodigy, and the power balance between us would be off. I don’t know about all that, but I know I’d give anything to see the content on his page. Austin is a subscriber, and a few weeks ago, I held a can of hairspray to his face and placed a lighter in front of it, demanding he tell me if my little guy had been showing off his LittleEngine that Could, but the asshole refused to answer. Dallas walked in shortly after and dragged my ass outside by the back of my neck for scaring his boy, then busted me upside the head a few times. It ain’t the first time we’ve come to blows, and God knows it won’t be the last, but that’s the magic of our Core Four. We could beat each other senseless, then turn around and pop the tops off a couple of beers, our scuffles forgiven and forgotten in seconds.
“What do you want, and why are you bothering me?” he asks, placing the phone on the dinner tray he’s converted into a psychic setpiece for his videos. There’s a crystal ball visible to the side, and a deck of cards to the left. “You’re lucky I just finished my last reading. I was about to masturbate and call it a day.”
I look around the background for Ezra’s best friend. “Where’s Austin?”
He scoffs. “He stole the four-wheeler and drove into town. He’s going to get hair dye.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Is he?”
Ezra nods, and a smile spreads on his face. “I’m dying mine pink.”
Fuck. The thought of my boy in his pink crop top and jockstrap, looking like a goddamn feast with pink, wavy hair that hangs just above his pretty lashes is enough to get me half-hard. I want to see it. I think Ineedto see him like that. Johnny must agree, because he leans a little closer to the screen, staring at Ezra, probably trying to picture how he’d look.
“That would be real pretty, Ez,” Johnny says, making Ezra and I both do a double take. Johnny bites his bottom lip and stares down at his shoes, absentmindedly rubbing his bald scalp with his hand. “I bet it’s fun to be able to change your hair color whenever you want. You can change your whole look—become a whole new person—in under an hour.”
Ezra shares a concerned look with me, and in an act that leaves my heart fluttering with so much pride, my boy says, “Johnny? You’ve got a really pretty beard. I bet it would be super cute in pastel.”
“What’s that?”
“Pastel?” Ezra’s eyes widen and a look of complete contempt covers his face, but whatever sass he’s planning on spitting out must die on his tongue when he notices Johnny’s cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“I’m straight,” Johnny says, but he doesn't sound very convinced. “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t know all this sassy gay lingo.”
“Sassy gay lingo?” Ezra asks, looking utterly confused. “It’s a color scheme. Soft blues and pinks and purples. Think cotton-candy chic.” He leans closer to his phone, his eyes focused on what I’m assuming is Johnny. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Why?”
