“But now you’re here. Stretch out a bit and let yourself relax.” Bing got off the bedroll, and Walter all but collapsed onto it. He set his face right where Bing had been so that he could feel the leftover heat and smell Bing’s scent. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
Bing remained quiet, and Walter was so grateful. The last thing he needed was someone picking at him—not when he was spending so much time wallowing in his own self-destruction.
Eventually he spoke into the fabric. “I sucked.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Bing responded.
“But was it good?” He didn’t have to lift his head to see Bing’s expression. He could hear it in the long silence.
Hell.
He rolled over and glared at Bing. “You’d do better.” He said it like an accusation because he was being pissy.
Bing shrugged. “Do you remember my first attempts at writing a teleplay?”
“For the wolf TV show. Yeah.”
“Did I suck?”
Yes.“You were just starting. It was really good for a first try.”
Bing arched a beautifully sculpted brow, and Walter closed his eyes against the wash of despair. He understood what the man was trying to say. He grasped that this was his first real attempt at acting. He didn’t have Bing’s training, nor the years of practice or study behind him. “It was the only way to get the movie off the ground. And Auntie Sand convinced me I’d be great.” Because he was still pissy, he added a sulky dig. “And you were gone.”
“And I was gone,” Bing echoed sadly. “It sounds like we were both set up.”
That startled Walter enough that he lifted his head to look at Bing. “What are you talking about?”
“We already know who screwed me over.”
“Grand Master Asshole screwed us both over.”
“But that wasn’t his intention. He wanted to remake the movie with you and Kong.”
Walter dropped his head back. “That wasn’t going to happen.”
“You were loyal to me,” Bing said, so softly that Walter wasn’t even sure it was said out loud. When he looked, he saw so much gratitude in Bing’s eyes that he was confused.
“You thought I’d screw you?”
“You didn’t have a choice. It was a logical—”
“Ididhave choice,” he argued. “And it’s really insulting that you thought I’d join forces with the evil grand master.”
Bing swallowed, and Walter saw how very deeply the man was moved. What would it be like to expect your closest friend to fuck you over? Bing dipped his head a moment—a move Walter now understood as something he did to hide his emotions. A few months ago he’d thought of it as a personal rejection. What an idiot he’d been.
Walter forced himself to sit up. “Bing—” he said, but Bing cut him off.
“You went to Auntie Sand rather than work with Wu because you were loyal to me.”
Why did Bing keep going over the past? “Yes! It’s not like I had a lot of options.” He would not say that Bing had disappeared. That he did the best he could. That—
“You know about the paranormal now,” Bing said softly. “What do you know about Auntie Sand?”
“That’s she’s rich. And who the hell knew that? She lives above her shop in Chinatown and has for as long as I’ve known her. I still haven’t figured out where all of her money came from.”
“And how is she related to you?”
Walter rolled his eyes. “She’s my dad’s second cousin. He hates her, but Mom always liked her, and she’s always been super nice to me.”
