Page 119 of At The End Of The Day

“You think anyone else figured it out?”

“How could they, Vin?” Tinkerbell asked, fanning her hands out. All we saw was a blurry figure with a dark gray background. Ain’t no way he knew who that was.” She smiled and leaned forward, stretching for the baggies of pills. Pulling them closer, she followed suit, collecting them to put in a larger bag. “So, when y’all getting married?”

We both went rigid, my heart lurching. Looking his way, his eyes were bulging, the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

I took a drag off mine and tapped the ashes off in the tray. The paper with my notes on tonight’s activities fully shredded, I touched the cherry to the edge of a piece, setting it on fire. “You almost sound happy for us.”

She clucked her teeth and rolled her eyes, carefully zipping the bag and tossing it aside to start another. “It is what it is. I mean, at least now I know it had nothing to do with me every time you rejected me.”

My focus snatched to hers, my eyelids rounded. “And I told you that each and every time.”

“You know how many times I heard the whole, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ spiel? I thought you was just blowing smoke. My bruised ego has been vindicated.”

The guys chuckled which further startled me. Holding my palm out, I said, “Whoa, wait. All y’all seem to be okay about this.”

Wads shrugged, going to the kitchen. Bending over and opening the door beneath the sink, he gathered the bottle of Clorox spray and paper towels, returning to the table. “Like you said the other night, ain’t nothing changed. Y’all still the most solid dudes I know. I dunno, it almost makes sense.”

“Besides, we all already knew about you,” Einstein muttered, also rising from the table.

My stomach bottomed out, horror ripping through my core. My voice cracking, I screeched, “What?”

“Hey, hey,” Bishop urged, twisting his waist to look toward the stairs. “Keep it down, will ya? This ain’t like Tiny and Jackyl’s old place, if that kid comes around the corner, we got no time to hide this shit.”

Lowering my voice, I wheezed, “What the fuck you mean, y’all knew?”

“Well, most of us knew,” Wads chuckled while shooting a wink her way.

“Yeah, why didn’t you say nothing?” she whined.

He shrugged, lifted his ass from the seat to stretch for the money since Dash was still frozen, and dropped back with a grunt to begin counting off. “Wasn’t none of our business. Besides, we figured he didn’t want no one to know.”

“Not only that, but Jackyl woulda lost his damn mind. I mean, anyone else, he probably woulda just made snarky comments and messed with us, but you?” Bishop said, pointing my way. “Hell, naw, ain’t no way he’d let that happen.”

One side of my face scrunched, my head bobbing that way.

“Yeah, the only weird part about this is you,” Einstein said, pointing at Dash. “How the hell does someone as fucking homophobic as you turn gay practically overnight?”

He coughed, finally shedding the haze. Taking a drag, the arm closest me draped over the back of my chair so he could bend closer and tap the cigarette on the ashtray. Briefly pausing to use the cherry to push pieces of paper into the small flame, he said, “If you knew what that dick could do, you’d spread for him, too.”

Everyone burst out laughing but I was dumbfounded, my jaw on my chest, my sight slowly roaming over every single face that had been a regular part of my existence for nearly twenty years. All this time, hiding in fear, worried I’d be ostracized and cast out of the only family I’d ever felt accepted by for nothing. Years of letting Billy Wagner hide me because I thought he was my only shot, for nothing.

A brow arching, his tone turned almost sinister as he looked at Einstein. “But I fucking dare you to come near mine.”

Another burst of laughter while my insides flipped over at his possessiveness. Holy shit, that was fucking hot.

“No, but seriously. How did that happen?”

He shrugged and took another drag, squinting against the smoke. “Not too sure, honestly. One night, we was just talking and, I dunno. Had a lot of shit going through my head about Mary disappearing on me,” he said, continuing the ruse for the couple who didn’t know the truth. “Jackyl was fucking hunting us like animals,” he grumbled, lowering his chin. “Literally every day out there felt like it was our last.”

The group fell quiet, the mood shifting from light to heavy.

“When you think you’re gonna die, you do crazy shit.”

My insides started to harden and turn numb, not exactly liking that answer. He was just repeating words I’d said to him at one time, but it still awakened that lingering fear planted in my gut, the fear of all my hopes and dreams falling apart.

“But you ain’t in danger no more.”

“Yeah, I know. I dunno, though.” He tipped his head to stare at me, searching my face. “Once it kinda started, there wasn’t a single voice in my head telling me to stop it. I mean, there were times I questioned my sanity,” he snickered, turning to look at them again. His lips pursing, he shook his head. “Nothing telling me to stop. In fact.” He chuckled and took another drag before smashing it out. Speaking through the smoke, he said, “That little inner voice kept pointing out all the things that just fit between us.”