“It is a crime though.”
“I’m not playing the Danny Boy is a loser game. I hear it enough from my father. I don’t need to hear it from you,” Danny said in irritation. “Where am I taking you?”
“Can I stay with you?” Paul asked, his head falling back against the seat, his voice becoming heavy with exhaustion. “So fucking hard to study at the dorm. My roommate thrives off chaos, always got the radio blaring, the TV going, it’s just—really annoying.”
“Tell him to turn the shit off,” Danny said simply. “Or break it while he sleeps.”
Paul snorted. “Nah, he’s a rich boy. Always got a fat bankroll. He’ll just buy new, louder shit.”
“Then kick his ass,” Danny sighed, rolling his eyes at his best friend. “If he’s that fucking inconsiderate, you’ll be doing him a favor. You should make it a priority to give a reality check to every obnoxious rich boy you come across. That’s a charity worth the effort.”
“Danny Boy,” Paul said with a bark of laughter.
“What?”
“You’re an obnoxious rich boy. The worst of the lot.”
“You gotta have money to be rich, genius,” Danny said bitterly. “My bank account’s in the negative again.”
“Your dad’s got more money than God.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be damned if I ask him for anything,” Danny said, his voice razor sharp and vicious. “That’s what I’m saying, obnoxious rich boys without a reality check turn into obnoxious old men like my father who think the world should kiss their ass. I would literally lick a monkey’s asshole before I’d give him that satisfaction.”
“Thank you for the visual,” Paul said rather than argue, his eyes closing in exhaustion. “Can I please stay at your place?”
Danny sighed, hating when Paul stayed at his place because it made him ache for him even more than he already did. Instead of telling him to stop torturing him with what he couldn’t have, he just huffed in defeat, “I don’t give a shit.”
*
Though few would agree, Paul liked Danny’s place. A rundown shack of a house halted in its remodeling due to Danny’s father turning the job of reconstruction over to Danny with the vain hope he would learn some sort of work ethic. Instead it just provided Danny with a free place to stay. If he finished, he would have to move back home with his parents. Which was likely his father’s plan all along. Danny and his father were strangely alike when it came to their ability to fuck with people in order to get what they wanted.
Paul’s father just told him to get the fuck out. Danny’s used a remodeling job to have the excuse to constantly remind Danny what a fuck-up he was by not finishing it.
Paul wasn’t certain, but he thought he might have gotten the better deal.
The house was built over a lake, the wood aged and weathered well beyond its years. Less than a third of the wood flooring was laid down, the original floor having been ripped out by Danny’s father and his crew before the project was turned over to Danny. The windows were bare. There was very little furniture save a kitchen table and an old couch in the living room. Danny’s bedroom held only a mattress on the floor with a TV in the corner.
Yet for all its faults, it was a quiet, peaceful place to stay. They could fish and drink beer as long as they wanted without the interruption of real life that was constantly chaotic. To Paul, that made the beat-up shack Danny called home about as close to Eden as he’d probably ever find.
Rubbing his tired eyes, he blinked down at his textbook and finally had to admit defeat. He couldn’t study anymore. He was too tired to retain anything. Night had long since fallen and Danny’s considerable lack of lighting made studying almost impossible anyway.
He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and walked outside. The sound of the wind whistling through the trees and the crisp feel in the air signaled that autumn had officially arrived.
Paul found Danny sitting in a plastic chair near the porch railing and said, “I thought you were working. You said the porch needed sanding.”
Fishing pole in hand, Danny cast out his line, shadows playing over his handsome face and bare chest from the single light off a lantern he’d set on the dock near him.
“This is me working,” Danny said blandly as he started reeling in his line. “Grab a pole, stay awhile.”
Paul smiled, wishing he could tell Danny how much he appreciated more than the haven of his house, but the protection his friendship offered. Around Danny he could be himself.
Almost.
Rather than dwell on the secrets between them, he grabbed a pole and enjoyed the indulgence of fishing when life rarely gave him the time for much of it anymore. What little stress relief he did have didn’t include fishing poles, and required quite a bit of creative time management and colorful excuses to the man fishing next to him.