Time Out of Mind (Suncoast Society #43)(71)

Staring at his wrist, he wondered where Doyle was right now, if he was okay.

If he was safe.

If he was happy, or at least healing.

No matter what, he’d never hold it against Doyle, never hate him for leaving.

All he wanted for his Master was for him to be happy and at peace.

Brushing the tears away, he headed for his car.





Doyle lay awake in bed, hands laced behind his head, staring at the shadows cast on the ceiling by a nearby light outside his window. He kept his bedroom door open so he could hear if Pippa got up and tried to leave.

Fortunately, she had turned out to be a very motivated client, and had not given him a lick of trouble.

In fact, she’d eagerly, if not a little skeptically, tried everything he’d suggested to help with mitigating her remaining pain that the surgery hadn’t helped.

None of that mattered right now.

In the dark of the night, he couldn’t escape Mevi’s blue gaze as he stared up at him.

The feel of running his hands over the welts he’d left in the man’s ass.

The expression on his face the first time they’d made love.

Ironically, it was now other self-doubts and recriminations that crept into his mind in the silent hours filling the darkness.

Had he been so gullible as to be duped by a very skilled narcissist, or had Bonnie been lying to him in the hallway?

Had he overreacted due to his own pain and issues?

At this point, it really didn’t matter, even though doubt tried to creep in sometimes.

His old phone lay turned off and probably with a dead battery in his suitcase. He’d gone online and logged into his account to actually shut down his voice mail for now. Only the message played. He hadn’t even checked his work e-mail, for which he’d also set up an out-of-office auto-responder, giving the same message as on his voice mail. He called The Compound a couple of times a week to check in. Clark and Tilly had both called and left messages for Doyle to call. The Compound had been instructed to ask callers if it was an emergency and to note it if it was. In that case, they were to call his new phone and leave him a message, but under no circumstances were they to give the number out.

So far, no one had called him.

Any patients who were from The Compound were to be passed on to another counselor. Anyone calling and wanting his SC services, they were to take a message and get their number and give it to him when he checked in.

Again, no one had. And that wasn’t unusual.

In fact, Tate had another client who’d just been admitted to rehab a few days earlier and was looking at a minimum ninety-day stay in-patient before being discharged. He was supposed to start filming three weeks later, on location in Italy. By the time Doyle finished with Pippa, that man might be ready for his services.

Doyle hadn’t given Tate a firm answer yet, though.

It depended on how he was doing. What he really wanted to do was hibernate for about a month, away from people.

He missed his apartment.

Worse, he missed Florida.

He missed the dreams he’d foolishly allowed himself to indulge in.

Worst of all, he missed Mevi, and knew he needed to wipe the man from his heart no matter how difficult that was.

Only trouble with that was the fact the he didn’t want to be with anyone else, couldn’t imagine himself loving again. Unlike after his divorce to Kathy, when he’d known after a period of healing he’d be able to move on.

Mevi, despite his flaws, had been perfect for him. Mainly because of his flaws. Because Mevi’s flaws meshed perfectly with his own.

Maybe I was too stupid to know I was being played.

Still, that didn’t feel right.

Unfortunately he knew only an idiot would try to assume Bonnie was lying. Why did she have any reason to lie? She didn’t know he and Mevi were an item. Hell, she didn’t even know Mevi was gay.

Or, maybe Mevi wasn’t gay after all. Maybe he was bi, or had been playing Doyle.

Why shouldn’t he take Bonnie’s words at face value?

And Mevi’s nearly frantic scrambling to keep their relationship a secret, seen in that light, made perfect sense. Maybe it wasn’t so much about protecting Doyle’s anonymity but Mevi’s public image.

He didn’t cruise the Internet looking for information on Mevi or the band. That would be too masochistic for him, not to mention he didn’t want to rip his heart to shreds again.

And again.

And again.

He didn’t want to see if Mevi had gone back to dying his hair, letting it grow out.

He didn’t want to know.

He wanted to insulate himself from as much painful stimulus as he could so he could be there for Pippa.

Pippa—his job—was the only thing keeping him reasonably sane and sober at that moment.

And for the first time in years, he’d actually bought a bottle of alcohol. Fortunately, he’d gotten his head screwed on straight and poured it all down the sink without even tasting it, but the smell had driven through his brain like a sharpened corkscrew and sent nerves firing and screaming for a drink harder than they had since he was a kid and had just stopped drinking.

He’d spent an hour doing tai chi and meditating after that, Pippa fortunately asleep through all of it.

If she hadn’t been there…he likely would have drunk himself into oblivion to escape the pain inside him.