Page 10 of Never Say Yes To A Stranger

Smack, chomp. Smack, chomp.

“Aright,” he caves. I’m not buying his scowl. Underneath that is relief. Doesn’t anyone ask him about his life? Doesn’t anyone care enough to see the real person underneath? Maybe he’s scary to everyone else. I can see how he’d come across that way and how people would call him heartless. Just because he has a firm touch, I wouldn’t say he’s heartless.

Firm.Touch.

Jesus, look at me go off here, lighting up like a light bulb on top of this haybale. My lady bits are practically singing. I try not to look at Beau after having that thought, but I do, and of course,I imagine him without that suit on, giving a proper roll in some very legit hay right here in the barn. I also imagine myself licking his hard, lean body. He’d have a firm touch, alright. He’d please me exactly the way I wanted him to, and after, neither of us would apologize. It would just be good. We’d pick hay out of each other’s hair and laugh.

No. Don’t you even go there. Just no.

He swipes a hand over his face and leans forward, clasping his hands in front of him. “My mom only found my birth parents because I got sick when I was younger. I was twelve years old and healthy…until I wasn’t. No one knew what the hell was wrong with me. They thought I was dying. I’m not sure who she convinced, but she made someone see it was literally a matter of life or death that she gets my family’s medical records. She ended up finding out that my biological father was a diabetic. The doctors would have figured it out sooner or later, but I’d lost so much weight that I looked like a skeleton. Anyway, now I think they do more efficient tests, but my parents didn’t have a lot of money. They did what they could. My mom fought so hard for me. She was the one who taught me how to give myself my shots, figured out my diet, and got my sugar straightened out so I wasn’t always high or low, crashing or exhausted. She put so mucheffortinto caring for me. My dad, too, but it was mostly my mom because he was working two jobs since she had to take off from hers when I got sick. I wasn’t even their kid, and they did so, so much for me.”

That takes me aback. He’s back on the expressionless route again, but I know he’s hurting. He has to be. I feel bad for bringing this up, but maybe it was the right thing because he’s here talking about it, and he wouldn’t be doing that if he wasn’t completely unwilling. I didn’t threaten or cajole. I just put it out there and waited. If he told me to go to hell or asked me abouthay or cats or the farm, I would have talked about any one of those things instead.

“They adopted you. You were their child,” I insist softly.

“They were the kind of people who thought so, yeah,” he huffs, but that sarcastic sound has more to do with what’s coming. “And then, I did basically nothing for them when they got sick. All I could do was watch them die. I didn’t have the money to get them the care they needed. My dad’s insurance only covered a portion of the drugs he needed when he got cancer. Ever watch someone die from cancer? It’s terrible. It came fast for him. Four months. He didn’t have to suffer for years.”

“Jesus. I’m so…” I leave it hanging because saying sorry never makes anything better, and I don’t want to be so token. “I’m so sad that you had to go through that. That your dad suffered through it, and he passed.” What does he care if I’m sad? What is that going to do for him?

He turns to the wall and looks at a shovel with absolute disinterest. He’s not a robot right now, but his voice is so bland. It doesn’t fool me. This guy denies himself cookies, but I could see how much he wanted one. I’m not sure what kind of life he lives now, but his past hurt him, and he’s out here talking to a stranger about it instead of someone who could be there for him, caring for him.

That makes me sad. Again. Not that someone else’s sadness ever did anything for anyone else. It never made anything better, just like sorry is a pathetic word when all else fails.

I’m alone out here because of what someone else did to me, but it’s my choice. It’s not going to be forever.

I’ve always known money was just blah when it came to a lot of things. It can be fun, but what happens when the fun wears out and gets old?

“My mom went the same way. Cancer. But she fought for three years. I took every single job I could find, but I was still payingstudent loans, and the hospital bills were expensive. In the end, she wanted to be at home, and I quit all the jobs I was working so I could be with her. I had endless bills and debt collectors calling me all the time. So much unpaid everything. My parents had set a bit of money aside for their funerals, so I didn’t have to pay for those. They’re next to each other now, at least, though small fucking comfort, that is.

“The house had to be sold to pay off some of the debts, and when I was cleaning it out, that’s when I found out who they were. My mom kept the information in her safe in a token brown file folder. The kind you always see people keeping important stuff in on TV. It was just like that. I’d never gone in there before. Never had a reason. My parents didn’t keep money or fucking jewelry in there. They didn’t have any of that. I just knew they kept files, receipts they needed, passports, birth certificates, photos on a USB, and stuff you wouldn’t want to lose if your house burned down.”

“You contacted them then?” I ask.

“I did. That’s how I made my money.”

“I’m sorry….I’m not…how?” I dig my nails into the bale. I didn’t realize I was sitting on the very edge of it until now.

“My birth parents had me when they were thirteen. Yeah, super young. But then, they stayed together, got married, and had two other kids. They never told anyone what happened. My mom’s family did the whole going away for a few months to visit relatives thing, so no one even knew about me except my dad, his parents, and my mom and her parents. They met with me and told me all of that, and they said they were sorry, but they liked their lives the way they were. My dad made a lot of money doing stocks, and he’d created a corporation to help other people learn how to get into trading. He had a public image to think about. They both did. So they offered me a quarter of a million dollars to stay quiet.”

“But you didn’t take the money?”

“No. Of course not. What’s two hundred and fifty thousand? I wanted a million.” Holy crap and a half, he’s so honest about all this. He’s decided he’s going to tell me, and he’s leaving out nothing, not even the heavy dose of self-depreciation. “If they were going to do the blood money thing, I thought I might as well make them bleed. Their offer was an insult.”

“Of course it was. Who pays their own child to stay out of their lives like they are a dirty secret? The child is a person!”

I want to jump up. I want to throw up. I want to get mad. The cats are done eating now. They’ve finished and vanished, and I wasn’t even paying attention. We could both use some cat love right now. Cats lower blood pressure, and I need mine lowered. I need mineseriouslylowered. I half want to jump up and walk around this barn, venting, and the other half of me wants to lift these walls by hand and jack them up with my own body because I’mthatpissed at hearing this. Pissed power. It’s a thing.

“No. I mean, well, yes, but I’d done some research on them before meeting with them, and I knew exactly what his net worth was, and it was far more than that. He could afford a million. When they gave it to me, I thought I’d be a real asshole and try and make my money the same way he did. It worked out for me. I guess I have the same talents.”

“That’s…”

“Horrible? Dishonorable? Yes, well, I was an unwanted child, born in shame. I guess it set the tone for the rest of my life. Apparently, there’s only so far that nature goes against nurture. My adoptive parents loved the hell out of me, and I was like a curse that came into their lives, nearly bankrupting them and then doing nothing but watching them die.”

“Holy shit, Beau.” It feels weird saying his name like that. Like I care, I’m so sorry about all of it, and I know how he feels, even though I don’t. I can’t even imagine. But I do want to makeit better because who wouldn’t? We don’t have to know each other well, have been friends for a long time, or be something more than that to have a spark of humanity flare up between us. “Don’t say things like that. You weren’t a curse. You were just a kid. Did you invent chemicals that cause cancer? Do you decide people’s DNA? Cancer has been a thing for centuries. Did you personally cause all of that, too?”

He blows out a harsh breath, but it’s not in relief. It’s in anger. Something crosses his face that is half shadow and half hatred, and I don’t know who he feels it for. Someone else? His birth parents? Himself? The world, in general, for being such a cruel bastard?

“I could have found them before. My birth parents. If I had, then I could have gotten the money sooner. Maybe, with better treatment, my parents would still be alive. It was all such a fucking waste. When I got the money, I paid the debts, took the rest, and invested. I kept doing that, not even caring if I lost it all. I didn’t actually even give a shit whether I lived or died at that point or how I did it. One morning, I was dodging creditors, so in debt that I knew I’d never dig myself out, and then the next, I woke up and had over a billion dollars. I don’t even know where the years went in between those two mornings, but they happened. They did happen, and I did a lot of shameful, stupid shit in that time.”

---