Finding Eden(36)

The first week after Paul walked out his door, Danny drowned his sorrows in the affections of sorority girls whose requirements for a sexual partner were minimal. All he really had to do was manage to get it up and then lie there looking hot.

Men were off the menu, perhaps permanently, because when he thought cock, he thought about Paul, and that was counterproductive to say the least. By the second week he had figured out sex with shallow college girls didn’t ease the pain; if anything it made it worse.

He gave up meaningless sex for a self-medication technique that hit much closer to home. Danny started drinking heavily, bending his no-cock rule by making a phone call to one of his older, richer lovers, and giving one unenthusiastic blowjob in exchange for a truly impressive amount of beer and liquor. He might as well have saved himself the effort. The only thing the booze cured was a nagging insecurity that haunted him every time he took a drink. Danny discovered he was officially free from the curse of his father. He would never be an alcoholic because five days spent sick to his stomach, with a headache throbbing at his temples, was enough to cure him of that affliction forever.

Deciding to go with vices he was good at, Danny spent the past two days chain-smoking and lining up beer bottles. Who the fuck was he to give Paul shit about therapy? Danny wasn’t so heartsick he didn’t see the crazy in spending forty-eight hours arranging beer bottles.

His mother was right. He probably needed to go back on the medicine the doctor had prescribed him for this particular problem. She had left it on the kitchen table along with some Spanish bean soup, Cuban bread and a desperate pleading with Danny to get out of the house. He felt bad that she’d had to ask one of her friends to drive her out to his house to begin with. She must have been really concerned to ask for a ride when usually she relied on Danny or his father to drive her places. Hating to see her upset, he promised to take her to Ybor City for shopping and dinner.

Remembering that only now, he looked at his watch, frowning at the time and seeing he had flat-out lied to his mama. Eleven made it too late to do anything. The guilt overwhelmed him. For the first time in two weeks, he felt something past the dazed agony losing Paul had caused.

Being mindful of the bottles, Danny crawled to his cell phone lying on the floor in the living room and picked it up. Seeing nineteen missed calls, he was compelled to open it. Only five were from his mother, the rest were social calls. Several were from Denise and Melissa, who sounded as concerned as his mother, but many more were from other girls. He remembered now why he went primarily cock after high school. Straight girls were annoyingly high maintenance.

While listening to a long, concerned message from his mother his phone started ringing in his hand. Danny groaned, thinking entirely too many people had his number. He stared at the caller ID, not recognizing the number, and answered hesitantly, “Hello?”

“Carlow?”

“Yeah,” Danny said, putting a face to the unrecognized number. Surprised at who it was, he actually pulled away and frowned at the phone. “Arty?”

“Listen, I got your buddy over here,” Arty said, a shiver of nervousness sounding in his voice. “Adam.”

Danny raised his eyebrows. Hope surged through him when he realized Arty was talking about Paul. He wasn’t surprised Paul used the name Adam to play his twisted games, considering how deeply he pined for Eve. He certainly wouldn’t use his own name, not unless he was insanely stupid, and Paul was a lot of things but stupid wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah, what about him?” Danny asked once he came to his senses, the feeling of hope being replaced with something much more sinister. An icy wave of fear punched him in the gut when he realized Arty was calling him. They knew each other, but they certainly weren’t on phone-call terms. If he called about Paul, no question, something was very wrong. “What happened?”

“If you care about him,” Arty started, his voice terrifyingly somber, “you’ll come get him. The doc doesn’t trust him with the Dommes he’s with and he’s not responding to us.”

“I’m coming.” Danny sent bottles rolling across the floor when he jumped to his feet. His heart was hammering the hell out of his chest as the most sickening wave of terror he’d ever experienced settled in his stomach and he scrambled for boots and keys. “Is he okay?”

“Just come get him,” Arty said rather than answer his question, which magnified Danny’s fear at least twenty-fold.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Danny said, realizing too late he was outside without a shirt.

He drove fast and reckless, being confident enough in his ability as a driver to run stop signs and red lights in the name of an emergency. Parking at Arty’s when he was having a party was a fucking nightmare. Danny knew he was blocking several cars in, but didn’t care as he turned off his car and jumped out to sprint up the long, winding driveway.