Page 57

Barret gets up, turns in a circle, and lies down again.

“Not you.”

I open the laptop. The screen lights the room blue.

For a moment, I only sit there with my hands hovering above the keyboard. Rain fills the silence. The theater screen in front of me reflects a dark rectangle.

I type Clint’s name first.

Too many results. Social media profiles that may or may not be him. An address that makes my stomach tighten because it’s ordinary and close and not mine to know.

Then I type the username Don gave me.

HotnReddy.

The results change. Links. Clips. Mentions. A cam platform I have never visited and somehow immediately recognize. My pulse changes with them.

“This is foolish.”

I click.

The site loads slowly. Dark background. Bright thumbnails. Bodies arranged in little boxes like a bookshelf of skin. I breathe a little easier thinking I’ll probably never find him.

Then I see him.

HotnReddy—Live.

There’s no face beside the name, only a cropped image of a tattooed shoulder and part of a jaw. I recognize both.

I click before I can decide not to.

The site asks for age verification. I confirm that I am old enough to know better.

Then the room opens.

Clint is live.

For one second, my mind refuses to understand him as the same person.

Yesterday he stood in my backyard, angry and then laughing, big and broad and in my face.

Tonight he’s on a bed or some low platform in a small room lit too brightly, white sheet pulled over just enough to hide the obvious, skin warm against the white. His mouth curves in a lazy half-smile that looks practiced.

He’s hard—fully, openly—beneath the sheet.

My hand jerks toward the laptop lid. A reflex. Or a last-ditch effort at dignity.

I do not close it.

On-screen, messages move beside him too quickly to read at first. Usernames. Requests. Tips. Little bursts of money.

Clint leans back on one hand and laughs, low and rough, at something in the chat. The first human voice I’ve heard since Don left the house hours ago.

I slap the volume down.

Baxter jumps off the couch and walks toward the stairs. Barret follows almost immediately.

“Cowards,” I whisper.