Page 63 of Due Dilligence (Takeover)
Fazil couldn’t breathe. “I’m guessing it wasn’tanythinglike in porn.”
Todd barked a strangled laugh. “No. Not at all.” He slid his gaze over and there was curiosity there. “Youlikethose kinds of videos?”
He flinched and pressed against the seat. “Well, I did.” But now his gut twisted. The pain that must have led Todd to that place and time.Wasn’t my fault, bullshit.
Todd grunted. “Anyway, that year I spent working in the shop, then getting as much anonymous sex as I could, as often as I could, pretty much any way they wanted it.”
Fazil wanted to sink through the floor of the car. “That...” He took a breath. “Did you... get hurt?”Raped? Beaten?
“By some miracle, no. The sex was really rough, and I figured out pretty fast I didn’t like bottoming, especially to older guys who saw me as a piece of meat to pass around.”
God.Fazil pulled his legs up and hugged his knees.
“But each time, I said yes. When I said no, I was big enough that no one argued. But that was also partly luck.” He shook his head again. “It was such a foolish thing to do.”
The apology tasted of iron and dust and all the things Fazil couldn’t change. He kept it behind his lips, as promised.
Todd reached over and squeezed his knee. “It’s over. I’m fine.”
Fazil could only croak.
“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. You’d take it badly.”
“How am I supposed to take it?” Words made of ash.
“I don’t know. I mean, it was bad. But I did it to myself, Z.”
Because of me.Fazil bit his tongue.
“Anyway, one night I was out cruising, and this guy sidled up next to me. He was dressed nice. Button-down. Slacks. Fancy watch. You could tell the jacket and tie were out in his car. He looked at me and said, ‘What the hell are you doing here, kid?’
“And I, the not-so-suave guy that I was, said, ‘Wanna find out?’ And I nodded at the bathroom.
“Guy downs half his drink and laughs. ‘I don’t fuck in bathrooms. And I don’t fuck people I don’t know.’ Then he pulls out his wallet and hands me a business card. ‘Call me,’ he says, ‘when you’ve had enough of this shit and we can have a beer.’ Then he paid for the drink he didn’t finish and walked out of the place.”
Holy shit.Fazil unfolded. “What did you do?”
“I stared at the card for a while. Guy was a fuckingdoctor. Worked over at the University of Pennsylvania. I looked around the bar and I wasdone. Like this switch flipped inside me. I left. Went home. Didn’t go to another bar until I came looking for you. Got to use my real ID for that.”
When Todd had gone to California. Fazil stared at his hands. “Did you call him?” The doctor who’d changed Todd’s path.
“About a week later, after I figured out I wanted to do more than work for my dad in his dying auto shop and be a man-whore in my spare time.”
He couldn’t help the flinch. “Todd—”
“Don’t!” The word came out painfully sharp. Fazil twisted away from it. Todd sighed. “I don’t want you turning this into more pain. You’ve had enough.We’vehad enough.”
That was true. His bones ached with memories and regret. He straightened out in the seat. “If I’d stayed in the Philly area...”
“You wouldn’t be who you are. I wouldn’t be who I am.” Todd tapped the steering wheel. “I’m gonna have to stop and get gas soon.”
He could use a break from staring into their past. One more thing he wanted to know. “The doctor?”
“Martin Peters. He was a cardiologist. I called and asked if he was serious about that beer—though I couldn’t actually drink it. We ended up at a nice restaurant in Philly and we talked. I’d turned nineteen. He was thirty-seven and hot as sin.” Todd merged and took an exit off the highway. “We dated for a year and a half until he got too busy and I was ready to move on. Shouldn’t have worked, but it did.”
“You... he...” Fazil struggled to organize his thoughts. “What do you mean, ‘ready to move on?’”
Todd pulled into a gas station, up to a pump, and turned the car off. “He helped put me back together after I’d taken myself apart, but we both knew from the start that anything between us wouldn’t be long-term.”
