Page 60 of Darling Venom
Exactly as he’d left it.
“You have to move on with your life.” Terry’s voice floated around the room like a green toxic cloud.
“I have. You’re the one stuck in place, still trying to ride the wave of success from a book you wrote almost a decade ago. Get out.”
He shot up from my couch, outraged. “You’re going to let me live on the streets?”
“Yup.” I popped the P, opening and closing the cabinets, not looking for anything. I hated this place. I wished I had the balls to move, but turning my back on this house felt like letting go of Kellan completely. “I’ll throw in a nice sleeping bag as a housewarming gift.”
“You’re a monster,” Terry cried out.
“I am yours.”
“I’ve never been this—”
“Please.” I raised a hand, already bored. “There’s nothing more embarrassing than people singing their own praises. Are you done?”
He looked around at his surroundings. It wasn’t a dump, but it was a far cry from the glamorous life he’d led since writing The Imperfections.
I made great money, but remodeling the house required moving shit around, an
d everything needed to stay exactly how it’d been the day Kellan did what he did to himself, down to the grandfather clock that no longer worked. Even the ugly clay mug Kellan made for his mom for Mother’s Day in third grade still held my morning coffee every day.
It’d be great to get rid of this house and move to a clinical, soulless skyscraper with a cleaning service and a doorman.
“I’ll take the couch,” Terry said with conviction.
“Hard pass. I like it in my living room. Gives the place character.”
“I mean I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Hmm, that’s a no, too. I’m not in college anymore. My days of sharing space with drunken, shady roommates are long gone.”
“You have to help me.” He clutched my shirt again. “You must.”
“I beg to differ.”
“If you don’t help me, I’ll be on the streets, then what do you think is going to happen? Someone’s gonna notice, and before you know it, it will be all over the news.” His hands framed the headline in the air for emphasis. “Literary legend Terrence Marchetti is homeless when, just a few miles away, his hotshot doctor son lives in a glitzy Manhattan brownstone.”
He wasn’t wrong, unfortunately, which was why he was still in my life in the first place. With my wholesome reputation, I couldn’t let him die on the streets. However, the days of my paying his fifteen thousand-a-month rent were also over.
I bit my inner cheek, suppressing a chain of curses. “There will be rules to abide by.”
“I can do rules.”
“Rule one—no alcohol or drugs. Not just inside my house, but at all. I mean it. I don’t want this shit anywhere near me. I find it, I hurl you to the curb, my shoe still deep inside your sorry ass. It will actually be perfect, because when the press comes knocking on my door, I’ll have the perfect excuse—you brought into my house the same shit you fed to your late son.”
“I gave him the clean stuff to keep him away from the poisoned drugs off the street. Rat poison, talcum powder, laundry detergent…” Terry trailed off. I hoped he wasn’t waiting for his Father of the Century Award to arrive in the mail. “What else?” he asked through gritted teeth.
I didn’t think he realized how serious I was about the drug and alcohol clause. I was counting on him to fail so I could kick him out before he even moved in, and he was counting on me to turn a blind eye.
“No bringing anyone here. No smoking indoors. You have to work every single day—I’m dumping your ass at the local library on my way to work and picking you up when I’m done—and above all…” I raised a finger in the air. This part was crucial. His eyes followed my movements religiously. “Don’t you dare set foot in Kellan’s room. Don’t touch anything. Don’t look in its direction. Don’t even breathe in its direction. Am I understood?”
“Yes.”
“Louder.”
“Yes!” he boomed, throwing his arms in the air. “Heaven help me, yes.”
