The Rebel (Red's Tavern 2)

He’d never been trying to protect me. He was a manipulative, narcissistic asshole, through and through.

“You cannot be in my house,” I said through my teeth. “And I need the money. Badly.”

“I needed the money, too,” Colin told me. “I almost pity you sometimes, Hardy. Everyone here kind of does, actually.”

He hung up abruptly.

I was left staring at my phone until the screen went black, rage coursing through me.

I wanted to throw the phone at the wall. I wanted to punch a pillow until my hand was numb.

And of course, as always, what I really, really fucking wanted was a drink. Ice cracking in a glass as golden whiskey poured over it. The sweet relief that came when the liquor hit my blood and the world began to slip away, or morph into something that didn’t feel intolerable.

Instead I had Colin’s words ringing through my ears. He had the nerve to say he pitied me, when he was the most pitiful person I’d ever known.

And yet—even now, in a blind rage so potent I could barely think straight—I couldn’t deny that it was my own fault.

Everything up until this point in my life was my fault.

I had been the one who fucked everything up for other people all the time, simply because I was too busy being intoxicated. For years, friendships had eroded. The only business I was able to make it in was porn, because I had a penis that people enjoyed and I came pretty hard.

None of it was anything I built.

I was born broken. My parents had known it. I had known it since I was a young kid. And now even Colin knew it. He was right—I had been ignoring every phone call from my manager Tim, even though he didn’t deserve that treatment from me.

And the biggest fuck-up of all was that I had squandered the best relationship I’d ever had when I drove Red away ten years ago.

My throat felt tight as I thought about how excited Red was about the video we’d filmed. How hopeful he was about the money. I had disappointed Red so, so many times, and because I was too chickenshit to upload a video, I was about to disappoint him again.

I’d never heard excitement in his voice like I had in the past week.

And that’s when I realized, definitively, that I had to do it.

I had to release the video.

It didn’t matter if it hurt my feelings. It didn’t matter if putting that video online felt like tearing out a portion of my heart and letting tons of strangers masturbate to it.

I was on complete autopilot as I sat down at my damn computer, finished the last of the editing, and went to the Hardy Productions website to upload it.

For a few months now, the site had just had a big “coming soon” message, but nothing else. But I already had a whole launch page ready to go.

My heart was pounding as I reached for my phone and checked the time. I was very late to the celebration at Red’s by now. I could picture it: a bunch of people drinking, being happy, kissing hot people, all without a care in the world.

I’d be an outsider there. I was an outsider.

I dialed Red’s number, holding the phone up to my ear. It rang and rang. I wasn’t surprised that Red probably didn’t have time to answer right now.

His voicemail message came soon after.

“Howdy. Red here. Leave a message if you’ve got to.”

Just hearing the sound of his voice on the recording made my heart feel like it had a fucking brick on top of it.

I cleared my throat. “Hey there, Red. Hi. Um, I just wanted to let you know that I am uploading the video tonight. That means that as soon as a week from now, we’ll have the money start coming in. I… I know you need it, Red. And I’m sorry it took me so long. I think we really made something hot. Beautiful, even.”

I bit my lip, taking a deep breath.

“I’m not going to make it tonight for the celebration. I hope you have an amazing time, though, Red. You deserve this. And I’m… I’m so fucking happy for you.”

My heart was lodged in my throat when I hung up. I saw that the video had completed its upload.

In another half hour, I was ready to publish the thing for the whole world to see. My finger hovered over the button, but I didn’t click. I stood up and made my way to the kitchen, opening every cabinet and looking for something that would give me some semblance of calm. Of course there was no alcohol, and all of the food I had seemed unappealing at the moment.

In the end I wound up in front of my computer again, and without thinking, I just pressed the button.