Page 23 of Blackmail
Okay, on a regular day, there’s no way I’d consider stealing—ahem, borrowing—car keys from a guy I barely know. But I’m worried about Christian. He could be in real trouble.
My dress shirt is ruined, but it’s all I’ve got now. I’m doing my best with the buttons I have left when I hear a creak in the hallway.
“You’re leaving?”
Knowing exactly who’s standing behind me doesn’t prepare me for the reality of Sebastian standing in the half-dark hall with his hands on his hips. He’s wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and an imposing scowl, made more intense by that scar on his left cheek. Which isn’t something I realized I was into until this moment.
“Yeah, I’ve got—” I clear my throat to get some rusty sound out. “I’ve got an emergency. A friend of mine needs help.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrow. “Is that my first aid kit? And my keys?”
My face gets hot. This looks very much like I’m stealing from him. I wouldn’t blame him for thinking so, especially after I raided his husband’s wallet right in front of his face.
Let’s be honest, it’s not the first dishonest thing I’ve done, not even the tenth. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I don’t expect Sebastian to understand, but I also don’t want him to look at me like a criminal.
“Like I said. Emergency. I was going to bring them right back.”
“Right.” He grabs the keys out of my hand and walks back into the bedroom. I’m about to go after him to argue or explain, but he returns seconds later, wearing lounge pants and pulling a black T-shirt over his head. He also tosses me a clean shirt.
“I’ll drive.”
For a second, I’m torn. “You don’t have to?—”
“You said it’s an emergency. You want to stand here and argue?”
I think about PJ’s text. It’s a lot of blood, man. “No. Let’s go.”
Thankfully, Sebastian drives exactly like a rich guy with ticket money. I fill him in about the situation on the way.
We pull up outside a mossy trailer less than ten minutes later, and I rush inside to find Christian on the floor, holding a bag of frozen peas over his eye. PJ’s down there with him, trying to clean his face with a wet paper towel. There’s still a decent amount of blood around his nose and an oozing cut over his right eye.
PJ was right—Christian needs to see a doctor. I get on the floor and start working with the first aid kit.
“I can bandage this cut temporarily,” I tell him. “But you need stitches.” Possibly a head CT or an X-ray. Swelling around the cut suggests head trauma.
“No. No, I can’t.” Christian looks up, pleading. He’s older than me, but his wide eyes and skinny limbs make him look so young.
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget we’re all pretty young. This life ages you so fast.
As gently as possible, I push aside the frozen veggies and cover the cut with several stacks of gauze. Secretly, I’m grateful to have it covered. One of the things I learned in nursing school is to sort of mentally separate the wound from the person, but that’s hard to do when it’s my friend. And right now, I can see my friend’s skull.
“Christian. You need stitches. I cannot stress how much you need stitches.” I don’t want to tell him exactly how bad it is. He’s already freaked out. “And if your nose is broken, it needs to be set properly, or you could need surgery later. So many things go wrong if a broken nose doesn’t heal properly. Worst of all, you might wind up not looking as pretty. Which could be a good thing, now that I think about it. The rest of us will all make more money if there’s less competition.”
He manages a smile, which I’ll take as a win under the circumstances. Or a partial win, because he hasn’t yet agreed to seeing a doctor.
“I don’t have much money,” he whispers. “I don’t have insurance. And they’ll want to know what happened. Donny knows some cops. I can’t…” He trails off with a slight shake of the head.
“Why don’t—” I bite off the question before it can get out of my mouth. I can guesstimate how much he makes. Why doesn’t he have the money for a doctor? Probably because Donny took it all. I don’t want to make it harder for him by asking him to say the words out loud.
PJ tried to warn us that something was up, but I don’t think any of us knew it could be this bad. I’ve met Donny, and he seems kind of a dick. Kind of arrogant. But I didn’t figure he was violent. Knowing how his piece-of-shit boyfriend has been treating him makes me want to rage.
I don’t realize Sebastian’s beside me until he kneels on the floor. “Hey, Christian? I’m a friend of Simon’s. I came to help out. Is there someone who can stay with you while you’re at the hospital so you’ll feel safer?”
“I can stay with him.” Michael comes out of the bedroom, holding a large duffel bag. I’m used to seeing my friend in designer suits, looking smooth and refined like a young Idris Elba, but this morning he’s wearing polka-dotted pajama pants and a paint-splattered tank top. Sebastian and I weren’t the only ones rolling out of bed to be here.
“I can stay with him too,” PJ adds. “He can crash at my place until he figures something else out.”
“He’s gonna kill me,” Christian mumbles.
