The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Guide #1)(63)

They all laughed but Topher felt guilty for bringing it up and went quiet.

“I get what you’re saying, Topher,” Sam said. “But remember what you said at McCarthy’s? About letting Cash be human because he rarely gets a chance? Well, you were right. He let his human side show too much and now the whole world is painting him as some kind of scoundrel. So the least we can do is give him the benefit of the doubt. No one else seems to be.”

Topher smiled sweetly at him. Only Sam could tell Topher he was wrong about something but make him feel good about it at the same time. In fact, Sam was the only person in the world who made Topher feel a lot of unique feelings—and the longer he smiled at him, the stronger Topher felt them.

“I can’t even with Kylie Trig right now,” Mo said, and dramatically put her phone away.

“What’d she do now?” Joey asked.

“Apparently she’s trying to organize a Wizzer protest to march outside Cash’s house in Los Angeles,” Mo said. “She thinks it’ll persuade him to go back to work. I couldn’t bring myself to watch her newest video. Can we please change the subject? Let’s talk about anything else!”

“I really enjoyed the museum today,” Sam said.

“Oh yeah, it was awesome,” Joey said. “Such an incredible story.”

“I know, right?” Mo said. “It was like something straight off the pages of my fanfiction. Could you imagine loving someone so much you’d be willing to die for them? Be still my heart!”

“I’m beginning to,” Topher said.

Although Sam purposely didn’t look up at him, he could feel Topher’s telling gaze aimed in his direction. As if Topher’s eyes lit a fuse inside him, a powerful surge of guilt exploded in Sam’s core. It burned so strongly he worried it would give him an ulcer if he didn’t do something. Sam couldn’t keep the truth from Topher any longer. The next moment they were alone, he was going to tell him—and since there was no way of knowing how Topher would react, Sam dreaded the moment like an approaching plague.

Later at the Teepee Inn, Sam couldn’t sleep a wink with the looming confession on his mind. At midnight, he decided to go for a walk and clear his head. He gathered his things and quietly snuck out of teepee number 3 without waking his friends.

Old Town, Amarillo, was completely deserted this late at night. Sam kept a watchful eye for anyone or anything lurking in the shadows, but he was completely alone with his thoughts. He wandered up and down the street for a couple of hours, but the Old Western part of town didn’t offer any new solutions.

Sam had a seat on a bench just outside the Bundy and Claire Jailhouse Museum and hoped the ghost of Claire Carmichael might show up and give him advice on how to escape his own troublesome situation.

“Hey, Captain Janeway!”

Sam jumped at the unexpected voice. It echoed through the vacant street but he couldn’t find a source anywhere.

“Up here!”

He looked up and saw Cash sitting on the roof of the jailhouse museum. The actor held an open bottle of Johnnie Walker Black in one hand and sipped from a Dixie cup he held in the other. He had a crooked smile and glossy eyes, obviously intoxicated. Sam could smell the whiskey on Cash’s breath from where he sat.

“What the hell are you doing up there?” he asked.

“Gettin’ krunk.” Cash laughed. “You couldn’t sleep, either?”

“I’ve got a lot of college stuff on my mind,” Sam lied. “Nothing like what you’re dealing with, though. It’s no mystery why you’re still up.”

“Yeah, it’s been a fist-fuck of a day,” Cash said. “That and my teepee smelled like cat piss and mistakes. Want to come up and join me? No point in being insomniacs by ourselves.”

Sam shrugged—he didn’t have anything better to do.

“How do I get up there?”

“There’s a ladder in the back next to the trash cans,” Cash said.

Sam found the ladder and climbed onto the roof. The view wasn’t much different from the bench below but they could see some of the lights from downtown Amarillo and the neighborhoods in the distance.

“Care for a drink?” Cash asked.

Sam’s initial instinct was to deny the offer, but given his current state of mind, he thought he could use one.

“I’ve never had a drink before,” Sam said. “Will it help me sleep?”

“Like mother’s milk,” Cash said.

The actor poured whiskey into another Dixie cup for Sam and topped off his own. Cash threw his head back and drank his in one gulp and Sam copied him. Once it was swallowed, Sam coughed and gagged as if the actor had poisoned him.

“That tastes like battery acid!” Sam gasped. “How do you drink this stuff?”

“It burns at first but then numbs everything else,” Cash said. “And I could use a little numbing after today.”

The actor refilled their cups and they each took another shot. The second one was easier than the first, but still very unpleasant. Sam felt his cheeks getting warm and his mind started to slow down like he had taken too much cold medicine—it was a nice change. Also, words began spilling out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about them.

“I’m sorry the world won’t leave you alone,” Sam said. “It’s just cruel for everyone to analyze you like they are. It’s like everyone forgets you’re a human being because you’re on a television show.”