It was the nude. The blowjob video. Months of sexual harassment literally knocking on her front door. It was all crashing down on her now, and she was sobbing, and she was drowning in it, and there was nothing for her to hold on to.

Nothing but me.

I held her. And I cried a little bit, too.

“I’m here,” I said. “I’ve always been here.”

“I know,” said Willow—sniffling, smiling in spite of everything. “I know you have.”

TWENTY-ONE

THE NEXT DAY, ROSCOE texted me: Hey, wanna hang? Which was great because I needed to gush about yesterday to someone, and Wynonna was already sick of me talking about it.

“It’s great,” said Wynezra. “Really, it is. BUT CHILL YOUR LITERAL PANTIES, BRO, IT WAS JUST A SLEEPOVER.”

“How can you say that?” I asked. “Someone believes us!”

“Which is great. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re still stuck like this.”

Okay, so, she had a point.

I couldn’t tell Roscoe the full story anyway, but I could tell him a version of it. That was good enough for me. Mostly, I was just excited and needed to spew words. Lots of them. And Roscoe would listen to me talk about anything, no matter how boring—algae, the keto diet, maybe even Atlas Shrugged.

I texted yes, and called him. He picked up on the first ring.

“Hey,” he said. He sounded flustered, which was weird since he had texted me.

“Hey, yourself,” I said. “Sonic run?”

“Actually, I’m feeling fancy. How about dinner at my place?”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, dinner. I’m a regionally renowned chef, you know. It’s a cardinal sin I haven’t cooked dinner for you yet.”

Again, I felt it. That creeping guilt that I was wading too far into this role. That maybe I wasn’t even doing this for Wynonna at all.

That maybe I was doing it for me.

Naturally, I pushed that thought away—out of sight, out of mind.

“I like food,” I said.

I’d been to Roscoe’s apartment once—two Saturdays ago—for breakfast. The place was nice. Simple. Clean. Which seemed suspicious for a single dude. (I had no doubt he cleaned the place like a serial killer at a crime scene before I got there.) His walls were decorated in minimalist art—lots of lines and squares, occasionally going crazy with an unruly trapezoid. He had several potted plants, including an adorable little bonsai tree on his coffee table. He even had a vinyl player with records like Damien Rice’s O and Bat for Lashes’s Two Suns. His whole thing seemed to be: hard on the outside, sweet and gooey on the inside.

Like Gushers, basically. Roscoe was a giant Gushers fruit candy.