“I was nine when he first fucked me. Actual penetration. I hated him for it, but then when I was alone I couldn’t even get my dick hard without thinking about him, of all people.” He adjusted his bow tie. Something that I learned was pretty much his only nervous tick.

“Where was your mom?” I asked. “You said she was neglectful. Did she work a lot?”

“The bitch was right there. Right fucking there, under the same tin roof of the same piece of shit trailer. Tim, he was the guy who had his card punched the most in my mom’s ever revolving door of losers she needed to support her own habits.”

“Where is she now?”

Preppy shrugged. “She left me. With him. Just ran away and left me with Chester the Molester.”

“You don’t need to joke.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s not fucking funny.” He ran a hand down his beard.

“Do you know where she is now?”

“Fucking rotting in the ground, hopefully. I don’t waste a lot of time thinking of someone who’s a waste of space on this earth.”

“After Tim…” he glanced over to me, “left?” I smirked and this time it was Preppy who squeezed my hand first. “I was a wild kid and I was free. King and I got our own place and things were great. I realized that what Tim did hadn’t changed who I was deep down inside.” He smiled. “I especially knew this the moment I saw April Trenton, from ninth grade, in a tiny blue bikini top. That was life changing.”

I laughed and nudged his shoulder.

“King’s the one who told me that living with regret and hatred would just give Tim the power he wanted over me. Said it was no kind of life to be living, so I decided to embrace the good along with the bad and I did, never looked back. Stop being alive and start living, he’d told me and it stuck. Never even felt a shred of guilt for a damn thing I did since that very day until…”

“Until when?”

“Until today.” He looked me in the eye. “I didn’t mean.” He blew out a breath and looked at the wall. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It wasn’t just you. I freaked out. I saw,” I sucked in a breath. “It’s just all so fresh.”

He let go of my hand and rolled over onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow to face me. “I want us to be friends, Doc.”

“Friends? Why?” I said, unable to help my smile. “Because your other friends aren’t around?”

Preppy reached over and pushed some hair out of my face, his fingers lingering, tracing my cheekbone and then my lips. “I have no fucking idea. But what I do know is that I’ve never been friends with a girl before, so you’ll have to walk me through it.”

“I don’t know how much help I can be. I pretty much ran all my friends off,” I said.

“Good. Then we can learn together. Especially, since we’re kind of stuck with each other since I’m blackmailing you.”

“That you are.”

“And since we are going to be working together.”

“Working together on what?” I asked.

“Tomorrow, bright and early. I’ll show you what I mean.”

Preppy stood up and I thought he was going to leave, but he kicked off his shoes and took off his shirt, folding it neatly on the nightstand. He tugged off his jeans revealing black boxers underneath. “What are you doing?”

“We’re friends now, right?” Preppy asked, with an excited look in his eyes.

“Yeaaaaaaahhhhh,” I drawled, suspicious of why he needed to be undressed for us to be friends. “But we’re not THOSE kinds of friends.”

“The kind that have sleepovers?” he asked.

“Are we twelve?” I wasn’t able to hide my laugh as Preppy maneuvered his body into the twin bed. I had no choice but to either scoot over or be crushed. The only way for him to fit was for both of us to lay on our sides. He laid his head on the pillow facing me, his thighs pressed up against mine. Our noses only inches from one another as our knees and thighs tangled together.

“I don’t sleep much,” he admitted.

“I don’t either,” I admitted. “Too much on your mind?”

“That and the blow.” Preppy’s arms moved under the covers and suddenly a large warm hand was covering my breast. “Good night,” he said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. I grabbed his wrist and pushed it back. “Friends don’t fondle one another.”

“Bullshit, sure they do,” Preppy argued, his eyes popping back open.

“Do you fondle Bear and King?”

Preppy yawned, closed his eyes again, and settled into the pillow. “Ummm. Sure. Every day and twice on Sunday’s.”

“You make me laugh, Preppy,” I said.

“You make me confused as fuck, Doc, but I realized something today.”

“What’s that?”

Preppy’s voice was a distant whisper as his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. “That we’re the same.”

Oscar chose that moment to grunt his way into the room. He nudged Preppy with his snout. “Preppy?” I whispered.

“Yeah, Doc?”

“Will you please tell me what’s up with the fucking pig?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DRE

Oscar was a service pig.

This is not a joke.

Apparently, a pigs sense of smell is better than that of a dogs and they’re smarter too, but since they aren’t as convenient as a dog they’d been passed over for that position and instead used for other things.

Like bacon.

“So you bought Mirna a pig?” I asked. We’d spent the morning in the grow-room and Preppy was showing me the ropes. And by ropes, I mean hoses. There were a million yards of different hose that needed to be installed in each of the rooms. The ventilation aspect of the operation was of Preppy’s own design and very impressive. It was disguised as a window air conditioning unit and it kept the smell of the plants not only from the inside of the house so the Granny’s wouldn’t be bothered by it, but it also kept passers by from smelling what was going on inside the house. He showed me how to install a basic system, while explaining to me how the recruitment process worked.