Page 3 of His Reluctant Savior

“Well, you learn something new every day. And I’ll be sure to use that against her the next time I see her.” If Ieversee her again. A pang of loss suddenly hit me. “Regardless, avoid her.”

“Got it. While she’s good, I’m better. Anything else?”

I sighed and took a sip of my brandy. “I knew you loved me.”

Veil scoffed.

“Anyway, just find him, and quickly. He’s running out of time, as am I.”

As soon as we hung up, Veil texted me with a link. I sent him the files electronically from a USB that came with Dalton’s file. I would hold on to my phone until I heard back from Veil, and thenI planned to destroy the SIM card. But after two days, I needed to get rid of it. Hopefully, I heard something back before then.

After a quick bite to eat for dinner and another drink, I started packing some clothes and essentials. Any important or incriminating documents were hidden away already. I kept nothing in my home. To anyone investigating my house, all they’d find was an average, wealthy man who was the vice president of a successful travel insurance company.

As I packed up my car, I got lost in my last memories of Dalton, and how shitty I’d been, along with stealing my first boy kiss from him. God, I’d been such a weird fucking teen, but it hadn’t been entirely my fault.

I didn’t get invited to the party, but as always, I forced myself into places I didn’t belong. While I hide and hate, I also need to be a part of something. It helps fight loneliness and isolation.

No one wants me there because noone likes me, and I don’t like them. I hate kids who have healthy home lives. Those kids never have to wonder if they’ll be woken up in the middle of the night to being touched in places that aren’t allowed to be touched.

It makes me so angry and jealous. I hate them all with their smiles, laughter, and friendships.

Mostly, I crash the party because I knowhe’llbe there. Everyone likes Dalton Reed—the boy who was voted most likely to succeed and the most likable boy in school. The straight-A student. The fucking Boy Scout. The goodie-goodie asshole. Of course, he’s the fucking superstar football quarterback, and all the girls want him. He’s a goddamn walking, talking cliché.

And I’m obsessed with him.

Even if I torment him, I’m drawn to him like no other.

I chug back whatever whiskey shit this is, watching him flirt with a girl. But he doesn’t like girls. I can tell. It’s all an act. He’s been playing pretend throughout high school. When the blonde girl he’s talking to and flirting with looks away, his smile drops. He’s tentative when he reaches to touch her arm, but he won’t pull her close to him like the other guys do with the girls they’re talking to, always pushing them for a kiss.

There’s a little crack in Dalton’s perfect walls, and I’m the only one who notices. Those closest to him are completely blinded by his shining light. But I see right through him.

He likes boys.

I smile inwardly, knowing his little secret. God forbid he couldn’t have anyone knowing and dimming his sunshine.

Because of my home life, I’ve become hyper-aware of my surroundings, ever watchful of people, trusting no one, so it isn’t hardto see through his walls. It helps because I’m gay, too, though I keep that knowledge as close to me as he holds his. That kind of detail, if discovered by my family, could get me killed, not that my abuser gives a fuck, since he routinely takes advantage of that little fact.

Dalton’s long dark brown bangs fall in his face, hiding the truth in his dark brown eyes, filled with innocence—innocence I strangely want to corrupt right out of him. Those are eyes that have never suffered. He has full lips and a classic all-American face. One look at Dalton, and you know he’s the football star and the most popular guy in school.

And he’s my complete opposite.

What pisses me off even more is the realization that I’m just like the very people I fucking hate. I want Dalton Reed as much as anyone else in the school. But if I corrupt him just a little, maybe he’d like me back.

He suddenly notices me out of all the fifty or so kids at the party. Even though I’m tucked away, it’s like he senses me instead of seeing me. My body thrums with some weird electricity at his attention, as if his eyes actually touched me. It doesn’t matter if it’s negative attention, judging by his scowl, because it’s still attention. Let’s just say I haven’t been the kindest to him.

I swallow down the rest of the nasty whiskey, never taking my eyes off Dalton. I want more to drink, but I don’t move, not wanting to break this spell we’re under, and I’m more than curious to see if he severs it first.

He looks away when that same girl tries to get more of his attention. He smiles briefly before he looks up at me again, but by then, I’m bored, so I saunter off toward the kitchen to find something better to drink.

When I find myself some expensive tequila, someone calls out to me.

“The fuck you doin’ here, Virgil?” says the second-string quarterback, who could never hold a candle to Dalton’s ability. He stands next to two of the linebackers on the team, Dumb and Dumber. I’m big myself, so they don’t intimidate me.

“Drinking,” I say flatly.

“No one invited your ass.”

“How do you know?”

---