“Jesus!” Scott said, trying not to sound appalled by the amount of money involved in whatever the fuck Carver did for a living. “How much are you worth now?”
“On my own, raw market value? Probably eighty million.”
“What?” Scott exclaimed.
“What did you think I was worth?”
“Like, ten!”
Carver laughed. “Ten? Come on.”
“No offense, Carv, but who cares about fourteen million when you’ve already got eighty?”
Carver shrugged, removing his hands from his eyes and looking over at Scott. “Human nature.”
Scott shifted on the mattress, feeling out of sorts and self-conscious. This somehow felt like more of a revelation than thepaternity stuff. Who the fuck had eighty million dollars? “Now you’re gonna think I’m a gold digger,” he said.
Carver laughed. “Not with that very communist look of disgust you just got.”
“I’m not a communist.”
“You’re a little bit of one. Not in a serious, Trotskyite way, but in that ‘why don’t we all live in a big house and take care of each other’ way.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I actually like that about you,” Carver said, surprising him. “Look, I like money, and I’m good at making it, but it’s not — you know. I’m aware it hasn’t been making me happy.”
Scott reached up and stroked Carver’s cheek with his thumb. Carver’s eyes softened.
“Can you turn that light off?” he added. “I’m so fucking tired, I just realized.”
Scott got to his feet and hit the light, then sank back down in the darkness, returning to Carver’s warm body. Carver snuggled up into the crook of his arm, laying his head on Scott’s chest, and Scott held him and listened to his breathing slow as he fell asleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Carver woke up frantically the next morning, shooting up into a sitting position and trying to orient himself to the world around him before his vision had even cleared enough for him to properly see. He felt like he was late for something, or had forgotten something, and he had a vicious hangover that felt like someone had broken a bunch of glass inside his head and body. To his left there was sunlight, cool air and someone whispering “sorry, sorry” — Scott.
He pointed his face at Scott’s blurred form and said, dumbly, “What?”
“Sorry,” Scott said, touching his shoulder as he climbed back into the van and pulled the door shut behind him. Sunlight was now streaming through the van’s high windows. “I was trying not to wake you. Everybody’s gone, they all went to, like, a day-after wedding breakfast, so I went in to shower.”
Carver untangled himself from the blankets and examined his cum-flecked stomach and legs. “I want to do that,” he said. Every time he moved his head or blinked, his skull reverberated with pain. Under all this discomfort, though, was an analgesic and somewhat euphoric effect from last night’s good sex which made facing the day feel possible.
“Yeah, you should.”
“Why the fuck did I drink so much last night?”
“Uh….”
“Why did you people let me drink so much?”
Scott breathed a small laugh. “I think you know we were all trying to stop you.”
Carver closed his eyes, suddenly feeling ill. “You should have tried harder. You should have killed me so I wouldn’t wake up like this.”
“Listen, Carv, I gotta get over to the country club soon or they’re gonna throw my amps in the dumpster, they said.”
“When? What time is it now?”
