Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 119011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
He was relieved to see all three of his so-called-friends leave and didn’t bother getting up from the chair, knowing they could let themselves out.
Whisky tasted unusually bitter on his tongue when he had to remind Neil that he wasn’t expected to stay any longer than the others, and he had to repeat himself when Neil offered to wash the dishes.
That was that.
He was alone in his castle.
His friends had left, minutes passed, and Leo wasn’t coming back. He couldn’t have driven off somewhere after Zolt had given him the ultimatum, could he?
Hoping Leo was simply pissed off at him and didn’t yet want to come back, Zolt cleaned up after his guests, but that only took so much time, and soon enough he stood in the middle of his pristine space, unable to bring himself to look at the remaining mess inside the store and uncertain what to do about Leo.
So Zolt was a bastard, but he did have a heart, and guilt was slowly eating its way through his stomach. After fifteen more minutes with no Leo in sight, he broke his resolve to wait him out and grabbed Leo’s favorite chocolate-covered marshmallows before heading into the corridor. He stopped in front of the door, still hesitant about what he was about to do, but in the end, he pushed it open and stepped into the night.
Relief sank in as he breathed in the dusty air and saw the back of Leo’s head poking out from the bed of the pickup truck, but the fact that he hadn’t come back to sleep on the sofa, preferring to sit in the cold half an hour after Zolt’s guests had left didn’t bode well.
“Are you asleep?” he asked, his muscles stiff as he stepped out of the house and into the cool air.
Leo yelped and turned around so fast he hit his chin on the metal parting at the back of the truck. “Jesus! Fuck. Stop scaring people. I’m not asleep. What do you want? If you’re here to tell me clean up the chicken, forget it. I’d rather see it rot on your fucking floor!”
“I already dealt with that,” Zolt said, approaching the pickup in slow steps. “Were you planning to spend the night here?”
Leo shrugged and looked away. “Maybe. What do you care?”
The aggressive tone almost had Zolt backing away into his lone kingdom, but he reminded himself how shitty he felt about the way things had unfolded and approached the pickup instead. “You’ll be useless as security if you get ill. Unless you want to kill the Jackals with the flu.”
Leo shook his head. “They’re murderous hippies, so they’re probably anti-vax as well. Might just manage.”
Zolt tossed the bag of marshmallows at him. “Eat something. Maybe it’ll make your hangover easier tomorrow.”
Leo pursed his lips but picked up the bag without a word. It was unnerving to see him so miserable, because he was usually the sunshine, and Zolt the grump. “Are you trying to earn yourself a bed-warmer or something?” Leo asked, once his mouth was full.
Zolt took a deep breath, walking the edge between charging in and leaving Leo to lick his wounds, but when the gray-blue eyes darted toward him, he stepped closer and sat on the edge of the truck bed, next to Leo.
“No.”
“Good, ‘cause you’re not getting any.” Leo hunched over his bag of sweets like a leprechaun guarding a pot of gold.
Zolt pressed his lips together and rolled the situation in his head, but his mind felt like a muddy field that wouldn’t let him get anywhere. Still, the silence disturbed only by the distant sounds of the city and the chewing right next to him, weighed on him. He was tempted to break through the impasse by touching Leo, remind him what their physical closeness felt like, but that would have been another shitty move. And exactly how Brad had always handled any conflict between him and Zolt.
“I think we need to talk.”
Leo turned toward him with a scowl, despite his mouth being full of white sugar puffs or whatever else marshmallows were made of. “You think?!”
Zolt balled his hands into fists until his knuckles ached. “Whatever you want to tell me, say it now, and then we can talk.”
Leo took a deep breath through his nose, swallowed the food, and words came out of him as if his mouth were a machine gun. “You’re a fucking asshole, that’s what I want to tell you! I know I should shrug it off and tell you it’s fine, but it’s not! I’ve never done anything like that, and you use me to ‘blow off some steam’? I bet you told your buddies all about it, huh? It hurt, I’m still aching, and I fucking hate myself for loving it despite it all. I don’t do hate sex, and I would have never treated a girlfriend, or a one-night stand like this. So yeah. I thought you liked me, and now I know I’m a sucker, just like my brothers always tell me. So that’s it. All I’ve got to say on the topic. End of story. We can get on with our lives and never talk about this again.”