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  “Kill me now.”

  The waiter brings us our drinks. I let my bottle touch the table for just a second before my own hand is wrapping around it, grabbing the thing and drinking half of it in one pull. Olly is smirking at me when I finish, but he doesn’t accuse me of being dramatic.

  Probably because I’m not. The last date Huck set me up on was with a guy named Nick who worked at the humane society. It wasn’t terrible. For the first three minutes. Then he told me, proudly, that he lives in his parent’s basement and owns seven cats. Seven. We spent almost the whole meal debating the topic of declawing. Or, well… Nick did. I just spent it drinking.

  “If it helps, he’s a great guy,” Olly says with a grin. “23. Cute. Lives on his own.”

  “Any cats?” I joke.

  “Don’t act like you hate cats, you grump. Every time you come over, Oscar and Steinbeck are your best friends!”

  I’ll give him that. Oscar is the kitten that Huck bought Olly for a Christmas present. Steinbeck is the kitten that Huck bought a week later after Olly batted his big blue eyes and pointed out that Oscar needed a friend. Olly is right. I do love those little troublemakers. Oscar is playful and adorable. Steinbeck is grumpy and lazy. It’s like hanging out with Huck and Olly, if Huck and Olly had fur. The best part is that neither of them shed all over my clothes. Huge bonus points.

  The cats weren’t the problem, though. Huck and Olly know that. I know that. Even if this new guy is perfect, I’ll leave the date feeling empty and frustrated.

  The worst part of it all is that I fucking try. I think Huck and Olly are under the assumption that I don’t, that I blow these dates off, but I really do try. I want to be happy. I want to feel something again with a man. But my body just… doesn’t react. I have to be hammered to even manage a goddamn erection, and even then, I never feel satisfied after. Hell, half the time, I can’t even finish. I just get them off and get rid of the condom before they can see that I didn’t come.

  With a sigh, and another drink of my beer, I ask, “What’s the even worse news?”

  Olly’s lips twist in a guilty smile. “We may or may not have made you a Grindr account.”

  “May or may not have?” I ask, trying to keep my composure because this is Olly, not Huck, and I don’t like getting upset with Olly. “Which is it?”

  “Have.” Olly passes his teeth over his bottom lip. “It’s your email, and the password is Stubbornidiotwhoneedstogetlaid7, with a capital S and no spaces.”

  “7?”

  “Yeah, ya know, lucky number and all.”

  “Ah.”

  Olly gives me a sympathetic smile. “You don’t have to ever download the app. But it’s there now, in case…”

  “In case the guy from your class doesn’t work out?”

  “Him.” Olly shrugs. “Or the hot neighbor I keep hearing about.”

  I groan. With Huck seeing Mr. Happy the other day, I should have known the topic would come up. Huck and Olly find my hatred for the man fascinating. I get what they’re saying, it takes an awful lot to get me upset and my new neighbor has somehow figured out how to do it nearly every time we interact, but it’s not because of any sort of attraction or feelings like they seem to think. I just hate the guy. And his stupid decorations. And his bright clothes. And his goofy grin when he’s teasing me. And his gorgeous ass when he wears those tight black pants that he wore last weekend on his date with the thief. And the way his ridiculous twinkle lights sparkle in his blue eyes when he stands there grinning as I yell at him. And the little blush he gets when I manage to get him flustered.

  Did I mention that I hate him?

  Because I do. I really fucking hate him.

  “He’s not even my type,” I grumble as our waiter places our food on the table. I give him a smile and thank him, Olly following suit.

  When we’re alone again, Olly tilts his head and asks, “What do you mean he isn’t your type?”

  “I like masculine men. Nice big muscles. Some body hair. Flannels and jeans. All that good stuff.”

  “Like Huck?” he asks with a look of jealousy that’s so fake that I laugh. His mouth breaks out in a grin, the false jealousy disappearing immediately. Both of us know he has nothing to worry about when it comes to Huck. That man would burn the world down for Olly. I wouldn’t stand a fucking chance.

  Besides, “Huck was never my type.”

  “What was different?”

  I don’t have to ask him what he means. He’s asking what was different with Chris. It’s always Chris. “I don’t know. Huck has always been good looking, but I never felt any sort of desire for him. Chris was just… Chris.”

  “So, maybe you don’t have a type. Maybe you just have Chris, and everybody else.”

  I frown down at my beer, my world view wobbling.

  “No,” I decide after a few seconds. “I’ve found other men desirable. Hell, before Chris, I was a slut. Ask Huck.”

  Olly just leans forward, his determined expression making me regret ever going down this road with him. “But did you have relationships before Chris?”

  “Well, no.”

  “He was the first man you loved?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the only man you loved.”

  “Correct.”

  “And the men you fucked before Chris – were they all the same type?” he asks, doing finger quotes around ‘type.’ “Or were they all over the place?”

  I don’t have to think about it too hard. One night I fucked a guy the same size as me who wore a backwards baseball cap, steel toed boots, and called me dude. The following night – yes, I already admitted I was a slut, when you’re a soldier on leave, you have to take advantage of every moment – I fucked a pretty guy with glitter stripes on his cheeks and cheetah print booties on his feet. Both were a great fucking time.

  When I see that Olly is still staring at me in expectation, I admit, “All kinds of guys. I fucked all kinds.”

  “So, maybe before Chris, you were a slut who banged whoever wanted to be banged. But then you met him, and you saw how good it was to be with someone intimately. To have a true connection. Now, after, the thought of unattached sex isn’t appealing anymore.”

  “I can have unattached sex.”

  “If you’re drunk enough,” he counters. “And there’s no guarantee you’ll come.”

  I point a finger at him, something cold and heavy forming in my gut. “That was information I told Huck. You shouldn’t know that.”

  Olly’s face goes red. He looks down at his food, picking at it, before mumbling, “Sorry. He’s just worried about you. We both are.”

  “Not everyone needs to be in love to be happy.”

  “I’m not asking you to fall in love. Just to put yourself out there a little. Connect with someone.”

  “Like this guy from your class.”

  “Or your hot neighbor.”

  I laugh, the sound harsher and angrier than I intended. “You all really have to let that go. I’m never going to connect with my neighbor.”

  “What about a nice, unattached, non-connected fuck?”

  “The neighbor isn’t an option, Olly.” I cut a hand through the air. “Drop it.”

  “I’ll drop it if you give me a good reason why.”

  This little shit… “You’re worse than Huck, you know that?”

  “Thank you.” He gives me a cheeky grin, clearly proud of this. “So, why is neighbor not an option?”

  Because I hate him? No, Olly won’t accept that. Because he annoys the fuck out of me? No, probably not good enough either.

  Because… “He’s too close. I don’t fuck men that I know. It just leads to a messy situation.”

  There. That sounded good.

  “Can you have rules about who you fuck if you don’t actually fuck anyone?” Olly asks, tilting his head in a way that I refuse to admit is endearing. “Isn’t that like saying you have a rule where you don’t drink diet soda, even though you never drink any soda at
all?”

  “I fuck. I just haven’t fucked recently. And tend to leave the encounters unsatisfied.”

  “Because you can’t get yourself to feel anything, right?”

  “That’s partly the issue, yeah.”

  “I hear your neighbor is excellent at making you feel things. Gets you downright heated. I bet the two of you would get really hot and heavy.”

  “I hate him. What part of that do none of you get? I. Hate. Him.”

  Olly smirks. “I hear hate sex can be lovely.”

  “I’ll check out Grindr, okay? I’ll give it a solid chance even. Spend more than 2 minutes on it. I’ll even message someone-” I put a finger up. “-if you drop me fucking the goddamn neighbor.”

  Olly puts his hands up, a shit-eating grin on his face. “That’s all I ask.”

  “Finally.”

  “Now, I have an idea.”

  I put my face in my hands and groan. “Is it about the neighbor?”

  “Nope!”

  “Thank fuck.” I drop my hands, take a sip of beer, and then wave my hand. “Go on then.”

  “It’s risky.” He winces. “Huck wouldn’t like it.”

  I press two fingers to my temple, sighing. “Why do I get the feeling I won’t either?”

  “Just think of it as a cop. Not as my family. Not as my boyfriend’s best friend. But as a detective, okay?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Olly ducks his head, avoiding eye contact. Something heavy settles on my chest. It gets worse when he says, very quietly, “I want to visit Tyler.”

  Tyler. The man who groomed an underaged Olly, made him fall in love, trapped him, and then held him captive while selling him to violent men for six fucking years. I don’t even have to think before speaking. “No.”

  “Fitz-”

  “No.” I take a breath, giving myself time to think now. Yup. Still a no. “Fuck no.”

  “He knows who bought me!” Olly yells. When he realizes he’s drawing attention, he leans forward and lowers his tone to a harsh whisper. “And he probably knows where Kessler is.”

  “He would never tell you.”

  “You don’t know him like I do. If he thinks he can hurt me with the information, he’ll take the chance. I just have to let him think he’s playing games with me.”

  I laugh humorlessly. “Because he will be playing games with you, Olly. That’s all he does. He’s a fucking expert.”

  “You’re thinking like family,” he accuses. “Like Huck’s best friend.”

  “Fine, do you want me to think about it like a detective? Here. Any information that Tyler gives you is compromised. He could lead our investigation in the opposite direction just to fuck it up. We could waste countless resources and valuable time on nonsense. It’s opening yourself up to getting hurt, yes, but it also opens our investigation up to getting fucked with.”

  “But-”

  “And if the information he gives you does happen to lead to something valuable, our hands are tied. We can’t do a single fucking thing with it. No judge in their right mind is going to give us a warrant to investigate information taken from someone who wasn’t under oath, didn’t have a lawyer present, and was talking to one of their fucking victims - sorry, survivors.” I put up a hand, softening my tone. “One of their survivors.”

  “But-”

  “No, Olly. Do you hear me?” I lean forward, looking into his eyes. “Don’t you even think about it. Not a fucking option. N. O. No. Do you understand?”

  Olly slumps back in his chair and wraps his arms around himself. He drops his gaze. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Fitz…”

  “Promise. And look at me when you do it.”

  Biting his lip, Olly slowly forces his gaze to meet mine. Then he nods. “Okay. You’re right. I promise.”

  I eye him, noting the dark circles under his eyes and his paler than usual face. He’s not sleeping. Again. “How are you doing, bud? No bullshit.”

  He tugs the sleeves of his sweater down, fingers curling around the extra fabric and holding it tight against his palms. His eyes fall back to the table. “This time of year is always hard for me.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “It was late Spring when things got really bad. With Tyler, I mean.” His tongue darts out, soothing his bitten lip. “My mom died in winter, around the holidays. I met Tyler shortly after. But, for a while, things with him weren’t bad. At first, I was just crashing on his couch, looking for a job, and he was helping me out. Even when we started dating, things were normal. Hell, even when he started making me sleep with his friends for money, I was still going to school most days.”

  “But not in Spring?”

  “No,” he says quietly. I notice that his lashes are wet when he blinks. “It was right around now that the brothers came. Or, not the brothers, I guess. Luke and Lance. Whatever.” He sniffles. “Spring was when I became a… whore.”

  My heart aches for him. I lean forward, nearly knocking my beer over, and reach across the table to him. He glances at my open palm before slowly putting his hand on it, sweater fabric still balled up in his fist. He blinks, a single tear falling down his cheek, and looks at me.

  “It’s so stupid.” He laughs, the sound shaky and lacking any humor. “You’d think the holidays would fuck with me, after losing my mom then. Or maybe the fall, since that’s when I was put in the hospital by those sick fucks that tried to kill me. Or summer, when Tyler gave me to-” he stops himself on that one, shuddering and squeezing his eyes shut. When he speaks again, his voice is so low, I can barely hear him. “But it’s apparently Spring.”

  I give his fist a small squeeze to get him to look at me. He lifts his watery eyes, his brows pinching together. “You’re not stupid. I have no idea how you wake up in the morning, Olly. Whatever you’re feeling, whenever you’re feeling it, is fucking valid. You’d never tell Abel he’s stupid for struggling, right?”

  “Right…”

  “Then don’t do it to yourself.”

  Olly pulls his hand from mine and wipes his cheeks with his sleeve covered palms. Then he laughs shakily and gives me a weak, but genuine, smile. “How did we go from me trying to get you laid to you psychoanalyzing me?”

  I laugh with him before shooting him a wink. “I’m an expert at deflecting.”

  “Apparently.” He laughs again. This time, it’s stronger. “You’ll have to teach me that trick.”

  “Or you could just stop meddling, and I’ll promise to leave you alone.”

  He smirks, the expression far too mischievous for someone who was just on the verge of a breakdown. “Nice try, but that one isn’t going to work. Sorry. I’m kind of a fan of meddling.”

  “Whaaat? You?” I fake a scoff. “I had no idea.”

  “Oh, fuck you.” He sticks his tongue out at me. “You won’t be complaining when I finally help you get laid.”

  I deadpan him. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “If you’re going to insist on talking about my sex life, I’m going to talk about yours.” I lean my elbows on the table and grin. “Great hickey you gave Huck the other night. Very teenage boy, Oll. Is he still into you choking him while you guys fuck?”

  Olly’s face goes bright red, his jaw dropping. “Oh my god, stop!”

  I toss my head back with a laugh that feels damn good, then point a finger at him. “See? Not so

  fun.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Olly throws a fry at me, grumbling under his breath about stubborn giants who need to accept help. “You win. New topic.”

  “Actually, don’t you have to get going?” I ask, mostly just to change the subject. He still has some time, but I’d rather send him on his way than deal with the subject of my love life yet again. “Isn’t Huck bringing you on his super-secret date tonight?”

  Olly’s eyes go wide. “Shit. Yes. I have to hurry and finish up here so I can get home and…” he stops, his face going red a
gain. “Do… things,” he finishes lamely.

  “Yeah, I bet you’ve got plenty to do to get yourself ready, huh?”

  “Shut up.” He shovels food into his mouth, speaking with his mouth full just to be an obnoxious brat. “Anything I can do to convince you to give me a clue on what Huck has planned for tonight?”

  “Not a chance.”

  We finish our meal quickly after that, Olly chatting about classes and pretending to be interested in what I have to say about hockey playoffs. He says something about touchdowns, and he’s just too damn sweet for me to even correct him.

  Later, I find myself lying on my couch, the TV volume low. Abel will be over in an hour, staying the night since Huck and Olly will be gone – Huck plans on bringing Olly out to the nature reserve to camp out and look at the stars – and Abel would rather be with me, intimidated and slightly uncomfortable, than home alone. I could be productive while I wait. Mow the lawn. Fold laundry. Deep clean the kitchen.

  Or I could just relax. Watch a movie. Take a nap.

  Instead, I find myself going to the app store on my phone. I download Grindr and sign in, grumbling under my breath at the stupid password my asshole friends chose for me. “I am not stubborn,” I tell no one. Even the silence of the room seems to roll its eyes at me.

  There is a surprising amount of men nearby. I click on the first picture out of curiosity. He’s less than a mile away. Before I can investigate him further, I’m getting a notification. Then another. And a third.

  I tap on the first. The guy’s picture is from the neck down, his stomach not sculpted, but not fat by any means. He sent a simple, Hey, what’s up?

  I switch to the other notifications, which were both sent by the same person. The guy has jet black hair, green eyes, and a full beard on his face. The first message is a straightforward, Wanna fuck? The second is – oh, yup, that’s a picture of his hole. Cool, cool…

  I back out, frowning. This doesn’t seem very productive. Especially when I begin to look at the profile my supposed friends set up for me. The personal description is completely blank. They used a picture of me on the beach, wearing only swim trunks, a backwards baseball cap, and a pair of sunglasses. It’s not a bad picture, but not the best. It’s probably just the only one they could find that was shirtless.