Page 21 of Hold Him Like Gravity

To his credit, he did give that some thought for a moment.

Ultimately, though, his loyalty to his friend was stronger than his own moral code.

“Jake wouldn’t have let it happen if he didn’t have a good reason.”

He did.

He fucking did.

But arguing with Bobby on this was like screaming into a void.

I didn’t need Bobby to believe me. Even if, in a small way, it did hurt that he didn’t. That he wouldn’t side with me. After all the shit he’d seen me put up with when it came to Jake.

Especially after everything I’d done for Bobby.

Including once agreeing to go in cosplay with him to one of his comic conventions just so he could show off to his friends that he could get a girl to go out with him. And that outfit had consisted of little more than a bra, a skirt that would show everyone myPlaystationif I bent over, and eyelashes so big that it was hard to keep my lids open.

Oh, well.

I wasn’t really losing something if I never had it in the first place. Bobby would always side with Jake. No matter how wrong he was.

“You know what, whatever. I don’t care if you agree with me or not,” I said, and I got a small bit of satisfaction from him looking a little wounded by that. “I just need to know where heis. Fuck knows he doesn’t have a real job. So where is he right now?”

“I don’t know. Really!” he said when I advanced on him in a way that no one else in the world would probably find threatening, considering I was half his size. But he actually backed up against the counter and held out his hands. “He hasn’t been here in a while. That’s the truth,” he added with a frantic nod.

“How long is a while?” I asked, brows furrowing. Where the hell else would he go? He was paying rent to live here. And, lord knows, he never had much money to spare.

“Couple weeks, I guess.”

“A coupleweeks?” I asked, spine straightening.

“Yeah.”

“What about rent? Bills?”

To that, Bobby shrugged.

“You’re covering for him?” I asked, shaking my head. That was a new low. I mean, Bobby did okay. He worked a nighttime job doing IT over the phone. Still. It was asking a lot to make him carry all the bills. “He hasn’t been back at all? To get clothes? Nothing?”

“No.”

“What happened the last time you saw him?”

“Nothing really. I was in the middle of a video call D&D game. So, I wasn’t really paying too close of attention,” he admitted. “But he came in—“

“Alone?”

“Yeah, alone. He came in. Then he went into his room. Maybe he came out with his backpack. I don’t really remember. But he said he’d see me in a bit. Then he left.”

“Have you called him? Texted?”

“No. Didn’t have a reason to.”

Save for the rent being due. But Bobby was, by nature, a pushover. Which was what his old man raised him to be. It was sad, though. Especially because guys like Jake didn’t hesitate to take advantage of that kind of character flaw in someone.

Look at what I’d put up with from him.

No.

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