Probably.
Hopefully.
To be honest, Matthew was starting to have his doubts. It wasn’t like his father to overreact, which meant that he had to think there was something else going on—something serious. What did he know that Matthew didn’t?
The only difference between this bout of nausea and the last time Matthew had been sick was that he’d recently been on vacation in a faraway place. Was Fiji a hotbed for tropical diseases? Before they’d left, everyone in the household had gone in for a checkup to make sure they were up to date on their routine vaccinations, and at that time, they’d all been given a typhoid shot. Was there a vaccine they’d missed? Could it be a parasite?
The thought made Matthew’s skin crawl, and he had to fight off a new wave of nausea. He’d been swimming. At the time he’d been more concerned with sharks and jellyfish than with microscopic terrors from the deep, but it would be just his luck to have caught something. It was either that, or he’d picked it up from exposure to the sand. He’d seen enough episodes ofMonster Inside Meto know how it went. He could already hear the narrator announcing his doom.
For most vacationers, the sands of Fiji are a little slice of paradise—for Matthew Gwynn, they’re about to turn into a personal hell.
Oh, god. Oh,god.Matthew retched.
Why had he thought about it? He shouldn’t have thought about it.
Of all the souvenirs he could have brought home, why did it have to be this?
“Matthew?” his father asked softly when Matthew fell still. He set a hand on Matthew’s back and rubbed. The small amount of contact loosened all of Matthew’s limbs, and he folded onto the toilet, exhausted.
“I’m okay. I think that was the last of it.” Matthew cleared his throat and spat, hoping he was right. “I think I just… I just need to calm down. It’s not anything serious. People get sick all the time. I’m going to go to bed and take my temperature, and if it’s bad, I’ll tell you, okay?”
“Do you promise?” his father asked sternly.
Matthew lifted his head and went to nod, but someone had lined the inside of his skull with razor wire. Wincing, he abandoned the nod halfway through and opted for a simple, “Yes.”
“Do you need help getting back to bed?”
Matthew wanted to say no, but when he planted his palms on the tile and went to push himself off the floor, his knees wobbled. By sheer force of will he caught himself on the counter, but not before his father reached out to stabilize him.
“Um,” Matthew muttered sheepishly, more embarrassed than he’d been before. “Yeah, I think I might need some help. Can you give me a second to wash out my mouth? It won’t take long.”
“Of course.” His father gave him a worried look, then stepped into the hall to offer Matthew some privacy. When he was gone, Matthew slumped onto the counter to catch his breath. Holding himself together had taken more out of him than he’d thought. All he’d wanted was to fall apart, but with his father there, he couldn’t. If he did, his father would never see him as a capable, independent adult.
Sullenly, Matthew ran the water. He cleaned his face and lips, gargled with mouthwash, and brushed his teeth for good measure. By the time he was done, he felt a little more sturdy on his feet, but allowed his father to see him back to bed.
“If you start to feel worse, you come get me,” his father said once Matthew was settled. “If you don’t feel like you can walk, then give me a call or send me a text. I’ll keep my phone on ring.”
“You don’t have to, Dad,” Matthew insisted, but beneath his reluctance, he was glad for the offer. If he woke up worse, it was good to know someone would have his back.
“The offer stands. Goodnight, kiddo. I hope you start to feel better.”
Matthew offered him a pained smile. “Thanks. I hope so, too.”
When his father was gone, Matthew fished his phone out from the sheets and discovered he had two new messages. Both of them were from Damien.
Anything I want?
If I had it my way, you’d always be my good boy… and I’d be your Daddy.
21
Damien
If losing boys was a competitive sport, Damien would be the reigning world champ. Everything with Matthew had been going so well and then… nothing. Fifteen minutes later, his messages remained unread.
Distraught, Damien tilted his office chair back as far as it would go and spun in dramatically slow, listless circles. Somewhere, a very small violin played a sad, sad song. It had been another long, shitty day, and this was the cherry-scented urinal cake life had seen fit to toss on top.
“You’re so stupid,” Damien muttered under his breath to the universe at large. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. What’s your problem? Get your head on straight. If you’d stop freaking out for no reason, you’d see how batshit crazy you look right now.”
