That gets me to open my good eye and glare. Really? “I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t ballroom dancing.”
“I guessed that much on my own,” he grits, studying my injuries. “Can you stand?”
Before I manage a response his arms slip around me, and he’s carrying me as if I weigh nothing. I’m not sure if I’m impressed or completely emasculated.
“I can walk,” I offer politely through stiff lips, leaning my heavy head on his shoulder to soak in his strength.
I don’t think I’m lying. I could walk. But this is nice too.
“Did you get a good look at them?” The question pierces the fog I’m drifting in. “I only saw the one, but I’m hoping you can describe them in more detail to the police.”
“Of course,” I mumble into his neck, inhaling his woodsy aroma distractedly. “It was Billy Ray and Asshole.”
Strong arms tightened around me. “You know them?”
“Asshole is my neighbor’s ex-boyfriend. The other guy was my date.”
Carter is swearing under his breath until we reach a brand new, shiny black truck. “Brady was right after all,” he says finally, managing to unlock the passenger side door while balancing me on one knee. “You have shit taste in men.”
And you can’t get laid to save your life.
Tell me about it.
Chapter Three
I lived in Texas. That fact keeps rattling around my battered brainpan as I sit in the passenger seat beside Carter and watch him white-knuckle his steering wheel.
I had fast, forbidden and sadly unsatisfying sex with a closet case—in Texas—and I’d never been harassed or beaten by any gay-bashing stereotypes before.
It happened here. In a liberal city, at a gay friendly bar, with a man I’d let pick me up at my home. The unexpected nature of the attack somehow makes it worse.
Growing up with Rick and Matilda—foster parents who’d given me nothing but total acceptance since I was four—I’d thankfully missed the prayerful reprogramming, physical bullying and verbal abuse that too many people I know had to suffer through when they came out to their friends and family.
Matilda had taken me out for new sneakers and a haircut, handing me a giant bag of chocolate kisses that I’d munched on throughout the day until my stomach ached. She said her mother had done the same when she’d gotten her period, and it was the only rite of passage she knew. Over dinner, Rick took his turn at being supportive in his own unique way, listing off every important figure in history that also happened to be gay. Then he quizzed my brothers and me to make sure we’d been paying attention.
I was lucky.
I’m still lucky.
Logically, I know they didn’t attack me because of my sexuality. That was all about me getting between a victim and her abuser. The fact that I was gay just conveniently allowed them to trick me into a date in order to get me somewhere alone for our chat. It didn’t make what happened any less disturbing.
“Fag.” Punch. “Queer.” Punch.
I don’t like the way I’m feeling after that. I’m not talking about the physical discomfort, though I won’t lie. Everything hurts right now. What I hate is that they made me feel vulnerable. Weak.
But the text I got from Toni as we left the police station was much worse.
I’m sorry.
She knew. She somehow knew what happened, what they’d done, and all she had to say was sorry?
Tomorrow I’d try to be more understanding. I’d remember all the psychology classes I’d taken and realize she probably didn’t believe she had a choice. She’d spent years being someone else’s punching bag, and he’d convinced her that was all she was. All she was allowed to be.
But tonight a woman I’d still been defending as I filled out a report on my two attackers left me to be beaten in the parking lot of a bar. One text can’t make up for that.
“I should take you to the hospital.”
I glance over at my scowling savior. “I’m not doing the suffering in silence thing,” I promise, even though I kind of am. “That one cop with EMT training felt me up. He says, and I’m quoting here, that I’m damn lucky. He also swears nothing is broken, I’m probably not bleeding internally and I’ll most likely feel better tomorrow. I’d rather not spend hours in the ER waiting for them to tell me the same thing with a higher price tag.”
“A cop felt you up?”
That was all he got from that? I would laugh if I weren’t worried I’d dislodge a rib. “He had a hairy mole on his cheek,” I tell him with mock-solemnity. “I was too distracted by it to resist.”
A vein in his temple throbs, so I don’t think I made him feel any better.
All I want to do is cuddle up to a few dozen icepacks and go to bed. But there’s no way I’m going back to my apartment tonight, and I should probably tell him before we go too far out of his way. “Could you drop me off at the Hyatt around the corner? Just turn left at the next stopli—”