Beneath The Skin(26)

“I am actually bisexual. Ladies and lads do it for me. You’re the one in denial, Brant, not me. Bi-erasure. Look it up. You’re being a fuckin’ simpleton. Shit.” He snorts and looks away. “You made me cuss.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. “Dude, you always cuss.”

“I’m trying not to. It weakens my fucking writing. Shit, did it again. Fuck.” He groans and leans into the wheel, sighing with frustration. “I don’t want to go home.”

“Hey, hey.” I slap his back and give it a rub. “Screw them all. Riley. Eric. Nell. Screw ‘em. Let’s go throw some balls tonight and get drunk. It’s Saturday. Our bowling bags are still in your trunk from last time.”

“I’m driving,” he whines. “Who’s Nell?”

“Leave your car in the lot, then. We’ll walk home or call for a cab. C’mon, you need this. We both do.” I scratch behind his ears like a cat. “Purr for me, Dmitri. Purr for your Master Brant.”

He slaps my hand away with a laugh, then grips the wheel with new conviction. “Alright, you got me.” He flips the car back into drive, then hits a hard left toward the bowling alley. I smile at the side of his face, suddenly feeling good about everything in the world. I throw an arm behind his seat and kick back as he takes us to my favorite spot.

Deep down, I experience a pang of frustration at the fact that I’m spending all this time with Dmitri and hanging out with him doing things that Clayton and I used to do. Clayton’s the one I would have texted to pick me up after my “experience” at the art gallery. Clayton’s the one I’d actually confess to what happened, what Nell did to me, and—maybe more pressingly—what Nell is doing to me. For some reason, I don’t feel the need to confide as deeply in Dmitri. With Clayton so wrapped up in his own life now, I’ve been doing a lot more of standing on my own feet. And yeah, they’re shaky feet, at best.

Even my bowling game’s off. It’s the first thing Dmitri notes after we arrive at Tricky-10 Lanes on Kingston, park in the back, grab our bags out of the trunk, enter like we’re kings, slip on our snazzy shoes, order drinks, claim lane 7, don our gloves, pull out our balls, and bowl five horrible frames. I shrug and blame it on the beer, even though I’ve only had a sip or two. Okay, maybe I’m on my third bottle.

“Is Nell the girl from the art school? Or the dancer?”

“Art school,” I answer, grabbing my blue-and-orange ball from the ball return. “How’d you know her name?”

“You mentioned her in the car.”

“I did?”

“Sure did.” Dmitri lines up for his shot. He takes a breath, pulls back, lets the ball loose. It hits everything but two pins on the side.

“That sucks. Gonna have to ride the lightning on your next one.” I shake my head and kick back the rest of my beer. The empty bottle bangs hollowly against the table. I pick up the little plastic menu. “I need fuel, dude. Want the cardboard fries or the plastic pizza?”

“I want the scoop,” he shoots back. “Tell me about this Nell girl.”

For some reason, I don’t want to talk about her just yet. I feel like she’s some precious secret I need to protect. “She’s … opinionated.”

He laughs at that so hard, his thick glasses bounce. “Opinionated?”

“Don’t swing too close, dude, you’ll go right into the gutter.” I twist around and flag down a waitress across the room.

“What do you mean opinionated?” He lifts his ball, preparing to go.

The waitress, a girl with soft, bushy brown hair to her shoulders, drifts up to my side. Her eyes become especially flirty when she smiles. “What can I get you, big boy?”

I grin, kicking back in my seat. “Which one will I regret less: fries or pizza?”

“Nachos,” she murmurs softly, biting her lip.

I give her a wink. “I’ll take the nachos, then. Two of them. And another beer, please. Samesies,” I say, tapping my empty bottle. Dmitri bowls and the ball slips into the gutter almost right away. “What’d I tell you, dude?? What’d I tell you?”

The waitress leans unnecessarily far over the table to get my empty bottle, her breasts grazing my shoulder. I look up at her quizzically. When her gaze meets mine, she wears a questioning expression of her own. “You got anything going on tonight, Brant?”

I blink. She knows my name? “Just shooting some lanes with my bud and getting smashed,” I answer carefully, a list of twenty-thousand girls’ names racing through my head at the speed of light as I speak.