A Friend in the Dark - Gregory Ashe Page 0,72

Adam’s apple bobbed a few times. “A Rufus thing…. Three years ago I decided to kill myself. But my building is only four stories—fifty percent probability. So I found a taller one.” Rufus laughed, but it was pure reflex. His grip tightened to the point of pain on Sam’s wrist. “When I was up there… I decided I didn’t want to be the cause of someone else’s shit night.”

Lowering himself onto the coffee table, Sam locked his free hand around Rufus’s wrist, turning them into a chain, Rufus holding Sam, Sam holding Rufus. “Why’d you want to do it?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Thank you for telling me. And, so you know, you can always tell me you don’t want to talk about something. It’s better than trying to figure out if I messed up or if I made you mad.” Sam hesitated. “Are you still thinking about hurting yourself?”

Rufus glanced up, his green eyes bright and wet behind locks of disarranged hair. His face and neck were flushed. “Sometimes, I guess.”

Nodding, Sam said, “Are you getting help?”

Rufus laughed again, but it was very bitter, and very hurt. “You’re kidding, right?” He disengaged from Sam’s hold. “I don’t want to keep talking about it. I just wanted to tell you another Rufus thing.”

“We don’t have to talk about it right now. You don’t ever have to talk about it with me, not if you don’t want to. But you have to talk about it with somebody. Soon. I want to help you. And I care. And there are other people who care too. That waitress, Maddie, or whatever her name was. She cares about you. Jake cared about you. So you don’t have to talk about it right now, but we need to get you in to see a therapist as soon as we can. And if you talk about money, I swear to God, I will put you over the arm of this sofa and paddle you until your ass is as red as your hair.”

Rufus had begun to protest, was stopped numerous times as Sam kept talking, then offered a brittle smile. “I might like that.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “That sounds about right. Christ, what day is it? Friday? I mean, we can try to do this tomorrow, but it might not be until Monday. I don’t know. This is a big city. They’ve got to have walk-in places for situations like this even on the weekend.” He glanced back at Rufus. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

Rufus jumped to his feet and sidestepped the coffee table. “No. Stop. I’m not talking to a stranger about this.”

“Ok. Hey, come here.”

But Rufus didn’t. “You’re making this a huge deal, Sam.”

“It is a huge deal.” Sam stood up faster than he meant. The coffee table toppled behind him, and the crash climbed the walls of the studio. “You’re a huge deal, Rufus. You say stupid things about how you can’t figure out why I like you. I like you because you’re fucking incredible. And then you tell me you’re thinking about hurting yourself. You’re goddamn right I’m going to make it a huge fucking deal.”

Rufus’s face was red now, fists clenched so tight that his knuckles were white, and his breathing came quick and shallow like a small panicked animal. And then, without warning, huge tears rolled down Rufus’s cheeks and he broke into a sob. “Please stop,” he begged. “I can’t—I can’t.”

“Christ, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I yelled.” Sam scrubbed his face, and then he took a single step toward Rufus. “Ok, come here. I’m not going to say anything else. Just come here, I’ll be quiet if you’ll just come over here.”

Sam expected more of a fight, so he was surprised when Rufus immediately closed the distance between them, wrapped his arms underneath Sam’s, and pressed himself against the bigger man’s body.

“Talking about it makes it worse,” Rufus said between hiccups and tears.

Wrapping arms around Rufus, Sam lowered his chin into the red crow’s nest. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for telling me.” He kept saying it over and over again because he thought he’d been saying the right things, thought he’d been doing it right, and somehow he’d only made it worse. “You’re ok. We don’t have to talk about it. We’re both ok.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Based on the gray-blue light filtering into the studio, rising up toward the loft like incoming tides, Rufus suspected it was close to six in the morning. The sun would cast a