Page 83 of Play Dirty

I shrug. Because I… guess?

“Are you gay?” he asks.

“I guess bi counts as gay. I dunno. I like women too. I don’t really want to fuck dudes. I just want more. I don’t know why, Ixion. It just makes me…”

“Happy?” he asks.

I nod. “Yeah. I just like it. I like not being the only one. I like sharing. I like… kink.” That last word. Kink. It comes out soft and low. Like I’m ashamed, which is stupid. Because everyone already knows all this about me. There’s not a person in my inner circle who doesn’t know what I am. What I like. What I want.

Even my father knows this. Somewhere along the way he just… accepted it. It’s not a secret. I’m not hiding who I am.

So why is it so hard to admit it out loud to my best friend?

“I hate your father,” Ixion finally says, breaking my silence.

“I don’t,” I say.

Ixion huffs out a laugh, then sighs. A long, loud exhale. “He was always mean to me. Trying to make me stop being your friend. He was a dick. And when I got out of jail, after… you know… he called me up one day.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Ix says. “It was the usual sorry-for-your-loss bullshit. But then right before he hung up, he said, ‘You killed them. That stunt you pulled in LA was what killed them.’”

“Jesus Christ,” I say. “I’m so fucking sorry, Ix.”

“Wasn’t you. I mean”—he huffs—“I blamed you, I did. But it wasn’t you who killed them. And it wasn’t me either. And you know what?” He stares at me. His eyes glassy. Blurry. Bloodshot like he’s been up all night driving out here.

“What?”

“Fuck him. Fuck my dad, ya know? He cheated on my mom all those years. And fuck her too.”

“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t—”

“Don’t what?” He laughs. “Don’t tell the truth? I mean, look. I took the fall for you because I didn’t want your life to get screwed up over such a stupid mistake. And fuck Augustine for believing I was the one who made that sex tape. And fuck Alexander too. Fuck everyone. They all thought I was that kind of guy, ya know? The kind of guy who’d make a sex tape of his friend to ruin her life.”

“You’re not, I am.”

“Yeah,” he says. “You are that guy.” And then he laughs. “But I don’t even care that you’re that guy. Because deep down we’re all fucked up. Everyone is fucked up. We all have secrets. We all have shame. We all have something in the past we’re not proud of. We all make mistakes. And if he had just left you alone, you’d have been fine. I always knew you loved me. I always knew that, Jordan. Because you wear your love all over your face. And I stuck around anyway.”

“Why?” I ask.

He shrugs. “That’s what friends do.”

I just stare at him. And now my eyes are glassy. “I’m fucked up, Ix. I’m really fucked up. That girl, that night, here… she called it playing games. She played a game with me. And somehow I took that and made it who I was. Somehow—”

But Ixion has crossed the small space that separates us. He sits down on the couch next to me, puts his arm around my neck, and pulls me in to a hug.

Not a bro hug. A real hug.

“Somehow,” I continue, “I took her game and made it mine.”

“So what?” he says, still hugging me. “So what?”

I pull back, wiping my eyes. “So I fuck with people. The way she fucked with me. I scare them, and make them uncomfortable, and I like it. Because she did that to me and I hated it. I want to be her, the one in control, and not me, the scared kid. I want to hurt people, Ixion.”

“You’re stupid,” he says. “Who have you hurt?”

“You,” I say. “Augustine. Alexander. I ruined everything because I played these stupid games. I ruined all of us.”