You Love Me(You #3)(68)
“Oh, so I suppose you got the pills for a ‘friend’?”
Yes. “No. Look, I heard a rumor that bad stuff was going around… I just wanted to get it off the streets so some kid doesn’t OD again.”
“Saint Joe of the Stockyards.”
“I’m not calling myself a saint…”
But it’s true, Mary Kay. I did save a life tonight, maybe more than one. Oliver lectures me about the danger of drugs and people who deal in narcotics as if he’s my tenth-grade guidance counselor and he won’t let me keep my stash. He forces me to fish the bag out of the garbage and he reminds me that he’s watching. Always. And then he sends me a link to a fucking David LaChapelle photograph of Whitney Houston called Closed Eyes and this is the first item that doesn’t show the cost. Price upon request. And I should be buying this for you not for Minka but really I should be buying it for no one because no one needs to own this fucking photograph.
Riffic trots into the room and hisses at him. Good cat. “Sorry,” I say. “But Oliver, this is getting out of control. I buy you every little ‘antique’ you want and you break into my house because I go for a ride?”
It’s like a bolt of lightning hits and Oliver the artistic and Oliver the detective become one. “You seem to forget that I have video of you holding a dead body, my friend.”
I DID NOT KILL HER. “I didn’t forget. But you said we were in this together.”
“Joe,” he says. “I’m a little disappointed in you. I thought you were smarter than that…”
FUCK YOU, OLIVER. “I have you on a loose leash because when people feel free… when they feel relaxed… they fuck up. And now I know what you’re up to—and now you know that you can’t go out and cop a score. It’s not just about your health. We are in this together, my friend, and if you blow your money getting high… that’s no good for my art fund, is it?”
The pills weren’t for me and Oliver is never going to believe me and I contact the seller and request the fucking price of Closed Eyes and now I have to wait for an answer and Oliver is watching me, Mary Kay. He really is. More than I knew. The worst and most dangerous eyes in this world are the private ones and I could stand up and knock him out and end his life but then his brother would end my life.
“Well,” he says. “They hit you back yet? What’s Whitney gonna cost us?”
By us he means me and I dream of my sunken living room imploding, pulling him into a sinkhole, but like my plan of Phil testing the waters with M30s, it’s not gonna happen. I refresh the 1stdibs app and think of what Dr. Nicky would say right now. Something trite but true. Everything happens for a reason. I am a good guy and good guys find the bright side—it’s like that Stephen King quote on the sign by the gas station near (RIP) Beck Road—It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.
Maybe that’s true. Maybe the universe sent Oliver into my life to teach me a lesson. He picks up Licious and Licious doesn’t fight him and you were right, Mary Kay. Licious is a stupid fucking name. “Well?” he says. “Any word yet?”
“The guy says he’ll get back to me tomorrow.”
He takes a selfie with my cat and sends it to Minka. Ugh.
Oliver is an asshole, yes, but he’s trying to make his girlfriend happy by fixing up her home. My heart races in the good way. Not paranoid about fentanyl in the air. (I googled. I’m fine.) I have to be like Oliver.
When he leaves, I bring my kitten-cats into my bedroom and give them a loose roll of toilet paper. They play on my bed—so fucking cute—and I send a video to you with a simple, honest Guess I have to get more toilet paper. You like the video and send me a smile and now you’ve seen my bed. We need these moments because you maintain your distance at the library—I get it—but I won’t let you forget that you love me. I exist.
I hightail it down to my Whisper Room to watch you. You’re in bed next to your rat—he’s only taping his shit show three nights right now and he doesn’t go downstairs until Nomi is asleep—and you’re eating tortilla chips out of the bag—yes!—and he pokes you. “Do you have to be so loud, Emmy?”
You shove chips in your mouth. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.
Your rat rolls over and you pick up your phone and scroll and then my phone pings.
@LadyMaryKay Likes your photo.
You fucked up. The picture is old. You unlike it and hang your head and Stephen King is the Master of Darkness but I am the master of your darkness. I turned off the lights inside of you and your rat reaches for your body and you swat him away. No more breakup sex. No more makeup sex. You don’t want him. You want me.
25
We’re making so much progress, Mary Kay. Oliver got invited to an extended bachelor party in Vegas. It’s one of his best friends from home and he whined about FOMO and I stole a page from RIP Melanda’s playbook and worked him over with reverse psychology.
Sucks you can’t go. That’s life being a Quinn bitch.
Poor Boys Club rules: Gambling is for trust fund kids who don’t know the value of money.
Imagine Ray’s face if he found out you left me here on my own. Not that I’d ever tell him but man. He would SNAP.
So of course, Oliver is in Vegas to prove he’s not a Quinn bitch and we’re in this “together.”