That was funny. “You’re gonna walk to Ashton Heights?”
It would take a sober person at least twenty, thirty minutes. Sloan wouldn’t make it past this street before he passed out in the gutter.
He made a face and sought out the nearest street sign. “Where are we?”
“Crystal City,” Tate answered.
“Oh. Right.” Sloan looked like he was gonna be sick again.
“I’m guessing you’ve been at Carol’s,” I said. Once in a blue moon, they had dinner together with the children, and it usually ended in a fight.
“Whatever,” he mumbled, clearly not wanting to talk about it. “Just take me home.” He pressed a hand to his stomach, his face contorted in discomfort, and he picked up his beanie and walked unsteadily toward the truck. “Not goin’ to your fuckin’ whore ranch…”
Oh-ho. My eyebrows went way up there. I invited my new partner to stay with me, and now I was running a whore ranch. Damn.
With a heavy sigh, I turned to Kingsley and Tate. “You’ve done more than enough—you can head on home. I’m sorry I woke you up.” Really, I was.
“No problem at all, buddy,” Kingsley assured.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tate stated bluntly. “We’re staying until—”
“And you know what?” Sloan interrupted forcefully and turned back around to stagger toward me. “I’m sick of you not seein’ me.” What the fuck? “You bitch about bein’ lonely, but what am I? Shit under your shoe? A seat filler until you bring home the next bottom? Hell, I could be a bottom for you.”
No, really, what in the fresh fuck.
He didn’t just say that.
I frowned. My brain slowed down when I needed it to do the goddamn opposite—but he did not fucking say that.
“What did you just say?” I managed to get out.
I could be a bottom for you.
Was this where I burst out in laughter? Because I couldn’t take him seriously, right? He was drunk off his ass.
“Never mind.” Sloan was shutting down. His expression turned blank, and he headed for the truck once more.
That right there, the shutting down, the “never mind,” caused my pulse to skyrocket. How many times had we edged too close to an invisible line and then backed off again? And in that moment, I realized they’d all brought me a jolt of unease, almost too quick to notice, definitely too quick to sit down and analyze, but I felt them now, each occasion, in retrospect. Exactly how I’d felt about missing Archie in retrospect. It was the weirdest fucking feeling.
Then Tate felt the need to be helpful. “He said he could be a bottom for you.” He enunciated every damn word too.
“Tate,” Kingsley warned.
“Don’t you ‘Tate’ me,” Tate argued. In the meantime, Sloan climbed into the truck on the passenger’s side. “This is one of those things they would sweep under the rug, but I say fuck that.” Tate turned to me, and I cocked a brow at him. “Sloan can be a bottom for you, Sir. Discuss.”
It took some self-control to keep from smirking at the boy. He had balls, I could admit that.
“Yeah, we’re leaving.” Kingsley grabbed ahold of Tate’s arm and made a move to leave. “Greer, good luck with…that.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the truck. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I dipped my chin in acknowledgment and watched them leave, Tate bitching for quite a while until Kingsley shut it down with a solid threat.
I refocused on the drunk in my truck and heaved a heavy breath.
What the hell had Sloan and I done to each other?
I couldn’t predict a single thing about our future; fifteen years of close friendship—one I depended on—had given me a lot of fears and worries. But I stood firm on my demand. He was done pulling away from me, and he was done resisting on the matter of where he lived. Sloan needed to recover and regroup. He needed to breathe easier and relax. And that wasn’t happening in a town he could no longer afford.
A glance at my watch let me know it was going to be a bitch to do my morning chores.
Two thirty in the morning, Jesus Christ. Now with a ninety-minute drive to look forward to.
Sloan’s lucky All Stars could suck my cock.
“You’re…takin’ me home, right?” Sloan muttered, half dead to the world.
As he had been for the last hour and twenty minutes.
“Absolutely, buddy.” I finally reached our exit and felt no need to slow down. The roads were dead. “So, did you have dinner with Carol and the kids earlier?”
“Mmpf. Mommy’s the best because she’s giving the kids new bikes.”
That didn’t sound bitter at all.
I understood him, though. It was rough.
“Sounds like you’re sobering up a bit.” That was always something. Back in the day when we could still raise hell together at parties, he thanked his ounce of Irish blood for never being hungover.