Read Online Left on St. Truth-Be-Well by Amy Lane - Free Book Online Page B

trouble. I found out about it the same night you and me had a meet in a broom closet. So I get that it’s nice for you to pretend that I’m the world’s biggest fucking manwhore, but the truth is, when someone with a good smile is nice to me, I might just be ready to give them the time of the fucking day, are we okay with that? Oh fuck. Jesus, how long have you been there?”
    Apparently the reason Stassy had disappeared from the dresser was to let Dale in while Carson was midrant.
    “Long enough to hear that you’re okay with me being nice to you. Are you ready to go?”
    Embarrassing. Just no other word for it. Carson snagged the shaving kit off the bed and rolled it up in his change of clothes as he spoke. “Yeah. Enjoy your privacy, Stassy. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow morning.”
    Stassy nodded, looking miserable in the corner of the room, and Carson sighed. “Look, we’ll bring you something good for breakfast, okay? Bagels, some shmear—it’ll be okay.”
    “Toby?” the kid said forlornly, and Carson just wanted to pat him on the head and make it all better. Young love, right?
    “We’re working on it. Don’t forget to call Ivan.”
    Stassy’s grimace was reassuring. If you were looking like you didn’t want your parents to know something, that meant you were at least a little engaged in saving your own skin. “Yeah, I will. If I tell him I’m gay, he’ll believe me. If you tell him I’m gay, he’ll think you turned me that way.”
    “Oh Jesus fucking Chri—”
    “I’m sorry, Carson! You’ve got this rep. Maybe you’re right and you don’t deserve it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t got it!”
    “I’ll tell you what I got. I got to go eat something, and I got to go find out who killed the idiot in your old hotel room, and apparently I got to go surfing tomorrow because my life will fucking end if I don’t. And somewhere in there, I got to have my head examined, because I can’t even fucking believe this is my life!”
    Carson tucked his little roll of shame under his arm, double-checked his pocket for his key, and then stalked out the door. He heard the slam behind him and knew Dale had followed, and he looked around for the pickup truck Dale had talked about.
    He saw it: big, candy-apple red with a roll bar on top. It could have been one of those obnoxious ones, a redneck’s dream machine, but it had primered spots on the back and the bed had a big toolbox and a surfboard rack, and generally it looked lived-in, so Carson forgave it for being fuck-me red and really freakin’ big.
    “Looks comfy,” he said, trying not to sound sarcastic, because he wasn’t being that way. “Needs a dog.”
    Dale nodded with unexpected enthusiasm. “It does, right? I’ve been combing the ’net for something big in our area. I want, like, a cross between a Newfie and a Great Dane, you know?”
    “Why, so it can eat Manhattan?”
    Dale laughed and nodded like a little kid. “Exactly!” He pulled the passenger door open for Carson, who rolled his eyes and boosted himself up onto the bench seat, and did the belt.
    Dale swung himself up into the truck and paused, looking at the keys in his hand. “Did you love her?” he asked into the sudden stillness.
    “Sherri?” Carson asked, not even wondering anymore how much Dale had heard.
    “Yeah. Did you love her?”
    “A little,” Carson admitted on a sigh. “She was fun, you know? I like fun. You sort of value people who make you laugh.”
    Dale glanced at him sideways. “Yeah. Yeah, you do. Is there anyone out there you loved a lot?”
    “Not so much. You?”
    Dale thought about it, and his smile amped up extra high, with a blinding edge of smartass. “The girl who first put out for me. Man, I will love her to the day I die!”
    Carson laughed, and then his throat got tight for no reason he could put a name to. “What about your first guy?”
    A considering silence. “He was great. He was a friend, still is. Moved to Des Moines,