Night by Night Read online

  And he included his phone number. After sending that, he copied Dox’s number and saved it as a contact in his phone, and even saved Dox’s Facebook profile pic so he could set it as the contact picture for him.

  Some of his life’s best memories featured Dox. Before he knew their parents were moving them to Pennsylvania, Hank remembered a time he could picture the two of them together all their lives, best men at each other’s weddings, raising kids together.

  Growing into grumpy old men together.

  Until life got in the way.

  Until heartache and tragedy got in the way.

  Until being an adult got in the way.

  Hank finished his drink and scrolled through Dox’s pics again, pausing when he reached one that included the two of them as kids. Dox had posted it over five years ago as a Throwback Thursday post, but hadn’t tagged him in it, hadn’t included a caption.

  But he remembered that picture, and had a copy of it in one of the boxes stacked in the great room. The two of them helping Dox’s dad work on his car, both of them filthy and grinning. Hank must have been thirteen or fourteen years old.

  He’d spent the night at their house, and the two of them stayed up until the early hours of the next morning lying in Dox’s bed and talking.

  That was something else he missed—how they could talk. About anything. There hadn’t been any topics off-limits between them. Maddox never busted his balls in a bad way, never made him feel self-conscious. Even when Dox had helped him with homework, especially math, which Hank had spectacularly sucked at. Hell, he wouldn’t have passed Algebra his junior year if it hadn’t been for Dox tutoring him. They’d been in the same grade and had a couple of classes together every year, but in math Dox had excelled while Hank struggled to pass.

  Hank turned off his lamp—also sitting on the floor, because he’d sold his nightstands—and rolled over after setting several alarms on his phone.

  He had an early, busy day tomorrow and couldn’t lie there thinking about a past that was long gone.

  He had too much of a future ahead of him now, a daughter to raise, and no one to help him shoulder the burden.

  * * * *

  It felt too tempting to shut off his alarm the next morning but Hank knew he couldn’t do that. He’d told his new employer he’d be in this morning after getting Jaylene enrolled in school and returning the trailer. Today would mostly be spent handling paperwork at her school and his new job, finding out where to go, meeting supervisors and crew foremen, all that kind of stuff.

  He sat up, his body groaning in protest.

  Coffee.

  That was one thing he’d made sure he unpacked last night—the coffeemaker. He didn’t have any milk, but he still had some powdered creamer, so that’d have to do.

  He got it prepped and stood there waiting with his travel mug ready while it brewed. He usually didn’t take sugar in it, something Lois used to tease him about—

  He sucked in a sharp, shaky breath as the memory of her laugh slammed into him.

  This isn’t fucking fair. We finally made it, sis, and you should be here with us.

  She’d missed JJ’s first day of school last fall. Missed Trick or Treating with them last year.

  Missed more than one Christmas now, not that they’d had fancy Christmases. Hell, last Christmas they wouldn’t even have had a tree had the guy across the hall from them—whose apartment perpetually reeked of weed and whom Hank was nearly certain was a drug dealer—not given them a three-foot pre-lit tree and three boxes of el cheapo ornaments three days before Christmas.

  The guy had apparently overheard JJ’s conversation with another of their neighbors while Hank had been checking the mail in the building’s lobby. She’d asked JJ if they were ready for Santa and had their tree up and everything. Before Hank could scoop JJ into his arms and head upstairs, she’d told the woman no, that it wasn’t in their budget.

  Because Hank didn’t lie to her. He wanted her to understand she wasn’t being punished, but that Daddy had to spend a lot of money to keep her safe, and that Christmas had to be about spending it with each other, not about stuff. Hank had also promised JJ Santa wouldn’t forget her, and he had secretly managed to buy her a couple of presents from her list.

  But two hours later, there’d been a knock on their door. When Hank looked, he’d found the stuff sitting there in their doorway, and across the hall the guy gave him a smile and thumbs-up as he was closing his own door.

  Hank brought everything inside, got JJ started putting it together, and had a quick cry in the bathroom.

  Once the tree was decorated, he’d had JJ get her crayons and showed her how to fold a piece of paper to make a card, neatly wrote Thank you, and Merry Christmas! inside it for her in ink, and then let her decorate and color it.

  Then he carried her across the hall and they knocked on his door and gave it to him.

  Christmas morning, there’d been another knock on their door. Hank had opened it to find presents not just from weed guy, but apparently from most of their building.

  You couldn’t convince him Santa didn’t exist, even if maybe he reeked of weed.

  It’d taken them a week for JJ to make thank you cards for everyone, but she did it.

  Just because it was a shitty building and a crappy neighborhood didn’t mean their neighbors were horrible. That’d been the only good thing about living there.

  The tree, ornaments, and cards from everyone were some of the keepsakes also boxed up in the great room, along with photo albums and pictures. Like hell would he leave them behind. They were a reminder of the good in humanity, something he’d desperately needed after everything they’d been through.

  A journey he’d mostly made alone, because he did everything possible to shield JJ from the worst of the reality. Thankfully, she hadn’t actually seen Lois get shot. When Cameron had shown up, Lois had quickly handed JJ off to Marla and Barry and asked them to take her into the restaurant, and they had.

  That’s when they’d heard the shots.

  Barry grabbed JJ from Marla and they both ran, Barry half-dragging Marla by the hand through the restaurant and out a door on the other side, to go hide in a store next door. There’d been a cop sitting in his cruiser in the drive-thru. He’d heard the shots and immediately taken Cameron down, shooting him in the shoulder.

  Too bad he didn’t kill the fucker.

  Hank dug his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed away his tears.

  I should have been there with her.

  Then again, as everyone told him—including the prosecutor—had he been there, maybe both of them would have been dead, and then who would be raising JJ?

  He drew in a shaky breath, held it, and blew it out again. He couldn’t afford to take any time off to recover from this move. Hell, he hadn’t taken a day “off” in over three months. When he wasn’t working or taking care of JJ, he’d been hustling to work some under-the-table home repair jobs and sell everything he could to bank as much money as possible for the move. He’d worked his last day on Friday, spent that night and Saturday morning loading the trailer, and then they left Pennsylvania for good late Saturday morning and he’d driven straight through.

  He needed a paycheck, and he wouldn’t get his first one from his new job for two weeks. Right now he had less than two hundred dollars in his checking account. His last paycheck from his previous job would hit his account via direct deposit by Wednesday. At least his bank was a national one, with a couple of branches in the Sarasota area, so that was one less thing to worry about.

  Once that check hit, it would give him almost a thousand dollars in the bank, total, because he hadn’t worked a full pay period the last week at his job.

  It was also all the money he had in the world, because he’d paid out the first, last, and security deposit on this place, the electricity and water deposits, and the deposit for the Internet service. Fuck, he couldn’t even afford a cable package right now. Thankfully, he had a Fire TV Stick and Netflix
, and JJ knew how to find her favorite shows on that.

  He’d have to pay to switch the license plate on the truck, and get a Florida driver’s license, but that could wait a couple of weeks. He also had his cell bill and auto insurance coming due. At least the truck was paid off and in decent shape. He took a risk by only having collision on it, but it saved him an extra hundred a month.

  He wanted to update his truck one day, because he hated that he didn’t have a backseat for JJ to ride in. He knew having a car seat in the front passenger seat wasn’t ideal, but it was the situation. Lois’ car had been older than his truck, with far more miles on it, and in bad shape. He sold it when she died, and he’d needed a truck for work, anyway.

  JJ received a small Social Security death benefit every month because of Lois’ murder, but he stashed that into a savings account and refused to touch it, unless it was an emergency and his last resort. He wanted that there for her if she decided to go to college, or a trade school, or whatever. Once she was eighteen he’d give it to her. It was her money, not his.

  He did have a couple of credit cards, but they had a zero balance on them and he intended to keep them that way. They were his first-tier emergency backups, so he hopefully would never have to touch JJ’s money. It’d be too dang easy to start using them, and before he knew it they’d be at their limit, and he’d have a real emergency he’d need them for. They had enough food in the house to make do until he got paid.

  Besides, he had no idea how much child care was going to cost him. If he had to tap those and had already run them up, he was screwed.

  After he poured himself a mug of coffee, he headed back to his bedroom to take a shower. When he spotted his phone on the floor next to his bed it was tempting to grab it to see if Dox had replied yet but he opted to hold off. He couldn’t afford to get sidetracked and run late this morning, no matter how exhausted he was.

  They were in Florida now. He would make it through today, come home, get JJ fed and bathed, and then collapse early. He wasn’t even going to screw with unpacking anything else until this weekend, if then. It could wait. Wasn’t like he had any place to put the stuff for now.

  And even if he did unpack stuff, it’d only be after sleeping as late as JJ would let him Saturday and Sunday.

  Another good thing about this job—he would have weekends and holidays off, meaning no worries about needing a weekend sitter. An elderly woman in their old building had taken cash to watch JJ after school and on weekends when he was working. Maybe not the ideal arrangement, but JJ had been safe and cared for there, so he couldn’t ask for much more than that.

  This week, his job would let him take off early in the afternoons to get JJ, until he could arrange after-school care for her. He hoped someone at the school would be able to give him some leads. If not, he’d ask Bryce if he knew of anyone. Putting her in an expensive daycare wasn’t an option right now, unfortunately.

  I just have to hang on for a few more weeks until I can breathe. It’s only going to get better from here. It has to get better from here.

  Chapter Three

  Early Monday morning, Maddox sat on his toilet and stared at his phone. He hadn’t even had his first cup of coffee yet, but he was now wide awake.

  He’d spent the night dreaming about Hank, probably due in no small part to the fact that right before he fell asleep he masturbated to old fantasies he hadn’t thought about in a while.

  Like having his blue-eyed friend under him in bed and slowly plowing his ass while Hank stared up at him in wide-eyed desire and need, begging Maddox to make him come.

  Or to let him come.

  Because…yeah, tease and denial was haaaaawt.

  Right now what had his full and undivided attention was Hank’s reply to his message last night.

  Had his pulse throbbing.

  Especially the last line.

  Let’s get together this week and catch up. Sooner, the better.

  He read and reread it.

  Yep. I’m officially an emotional masochist.

  Because obviously the man was a father now, and probably involved with someone. He’d referenced unloading “our” stuff.

  He wasn’t…unattached.

  That meant Maddox knew his hottest fantasies would forever remain tightly tucked within his mental closet, never revealed.

  But Hank was back and wanted to see him.

  This week.

  No hypothetical, wishy-washy maybe someday. No oh, we should totally get together sometime.

  No “should.” This week.

  A definitive.

  God, I’m a dumbass.

  Because as Maddox looked at Hank’s pictures again, showing the handsome man he’d grown into over the past fourteen years since Maddox had last seen him, he realized how much of Hank’s life he’d missed. He wasn’t at the man’s wedding—

  Well, if there’d been a wedding. Maybe there hadn’t been.

  He hadn’t made a better effort to stay in touch with the man who’d been his best fucking friend.

  The love of my life.

  Then again, in some ways it had been easier to let their relationship naturally fade away, hadn’t it? It meant he hadn’t had to make an official acknowledgement in his brain that it was over, that there would never be anything between them other than friendship.

  No reason to finally accept in his brain that his darkest and most fervent fantasies had no hope whatsoever of coming true.

  Except as he thought back to his fairly dismal romantic track record, he realized he’d never truly felt about anyone the way he’d felt about Hank. Especially not Kelly, who’d been the closest he’d ever come to settling down, before she showed her true colors and nuked his world.

  Didn’t that say…something?

  He’d fucked blue-eyed guys before and pretended they were his Hank.

  Pinned their hands over their head and long-stroked them as he stared into their eyes and remembered the sounds Hank made when he came while rubbing one out over computer porn.

  A sound that had tripped him over the edge, because he hadn’t been paying attention to the porn.

  He’d always sit so he was watching Hank without him seeing him do it. Watching how Hank had stroked his cock, how he’d focused on the head, different than how Maddox stroked his own cock.

  He’d never touched or tasted the man’s cock, but he’d memorized every tiniest detail he could, under the circumstances.

  God, I miss him.

  It was only five thirty, so he couldn’t text him yet. For starters, it was too damn early.

  Secondly, it’d make him look needy and desperate.

  Which, okay, he was, but that was beside the point. That was his own cross to bear, not something he would put onto Hank.

  The guy had a beautiful little girl who looked so much like him it drove a painful stake through Maddox’s heart.

  I wish I’d been there for her birth.

  To congratulate his friend, at least.

  To maybe be Uncle Dox to her, proud to love his guy and his guy’s daughter from afar while trying his damned best to be civil to the mother of his guy’s child.

  Which was another odd thing…

  Hank didn’t list a partner on his profile. He had his relationship status listed as single, and he didn’t have any pictures of a woman on there, either. No mention in any of his few postings of a wife or girlfriend or baby momma.

  Weird.

  Maybe she had a sensitive job or something.

  Or maybe he’s…divorced?

  Did he dare hope for that, even though it probably made him a shitty person to hope that?

  He let out a sigh and finished what he needed to do. He wanted to hit the gym before work this morning. Another method he’d used countless times over the years to distract himself, by working out. Dumping his frustration and loneliness and previously unnamed pain into machine reps, and miles on a treadmill or recumbent bike, or curls with weights.

  He wasn’t exactly a gy
m rat, but he wasn’t in bad shape.

  It was sort of his hobby now because he hadn’t had a romantic life since returning to Sarasota.

  Hell, he’d sort of hoped to maybe meet someone at the gym—man or woman—but even in that respect he’d bombed.

  Maybe I should start going to the dungeon on a regular basis.

  Vanilla dating didn’t do it for him. Kelly hadn’t been as kinky as he’d wished, but he’d never force someone to do something they didn’t want to do. That held zero interest for him. She’d been into rope and a little playful slap and tickle, wearing a collar for play and made to kneel to give blow jobs, but she damn sure wasn’t a masochist, much less what he’d really consider a submissive.

  His ego also still stung from the breach of his trust. That he’d been so thoroughly taken in by her he’d honestly had no clue she’d been stepping out on him.

  At least the guy she’d cheated on him with had dumped her fucking ass. He’d felt a little satisfaction about that factoid.

  Serves her right. Goddamned ho.

  He’d be far more careful next time. But when he was in a relationship, he gave total trust and expected it in return. He never even considered cheating on her. It just wouldn’t happen. He never had a problem with her going out with friends without him, either, because he expected she’d be faithful.

  Until it turned out she wasn’t.

  He still wasn’t sure how to deal with that. No, it wasn’t his “fault” but he wondered what he’d missed, at the time.

  He’d told her at the start if she ever wanted out, or wanted to change their dynamic, all she had to do was speak up and say so. Hell, if she’d wanted to be poly, he would have considered that, too, except she’d said she wasn’t and would never cheat.

  He’d never make that mistake again, either.

  He wasn’t built for poly or nonmonogamy. He’d thought it was something he could handle, but no.