“He walked out—after.”
“Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Jamie whispered. “I think he knows.”
“Since when?”
“I dunno. He’s just been different lately,” Jamie said, which said a lot.
“You okay? I mean, are you safe? You know Momma would welcome you at our house.”
Jamie gave a wet chuckle. “I know, but I can’t leave Mikey here.”
I snorted. “Uh, he can take care of himself.”
“Yeah,” he breathed as if he might go on, but changed the subject. “I hope Luke gets his head outta his ass.”
“Would be nice.”
“When’re you comin’ back home?” he asked, breezing right over our fight as we always had. Forgotten. The past. Nothing we’d hold on to.
“Sunday. Gotta be back before classes start on Wednesday. You comin’ over?”
“Of course.”
“Good. We got the duck hunt.”
Jamie groaned, then laughed. “We’ll be there.”
“Reckon I’m on Michael’s shit list for upsettin’ you.”
“Who knows. So were you nervous as fuck around his parents?”
“Nah. Sorta. They’re the worst. Like, not just bigots but everything, all of it. Racists and elitists and assholes.”
Jamie huffed. “Pricks.”
“He’s on a call right now with his daddy, and I dunno who’s gonna walk out his office door. The man who’d begged for more on my cock last night or the grumpy fart who he was around his folks.”
“He sounds like more trouble than he’s worth.”
Before I could defend Luke, Michael grumbled, “Dump his ass.” Wherever he’d gone off to, Michael must’ve remembered it wasn’t around Jamie and came back.
“Tell him he’s a bad influence.”
Jamie didn’t get to, but his squeak ended with Michael’s growl in my ear. “The fuck you say?”
“I jumped down some dude’s throat at a car show and about had my ass handed to me.”
“How’s this my problem?”
“You always had my back, asshole. Got me thinkin’ my balls are bigger’n they are.”
Michael snorted. “That’s on you, weak ass. What happened?”
“Nothin’. I calmed him down.”
“Good thing that mouth gets you outta trouble same way it gets you neck-deep in it.”
