There isn’t much left to say. We stand like that for a long time, me glued to Carlo, Carlo sort of hugging me back but mostly just sipping his whiskey. I bury my face in his jacket and finally let the tears come. My belly wrenches. I just can’t believe it. Of all the sick, f****d-up things that could’ve happened, did it have to be this?
“Life isn’t fair,” I sob.
“No,” Carlo says matter-of-factly. “It isn’t.”
The next afternoon, Nario and I drive out to another of my nightclubs, Decadente, to use the gym there. It’s right at the back of the building, an old-school gym with nothing much except weight plates and bars. It’s time I worked my body hard, cut or no cut.
Because right now I notice myself feeling something real for Hazel.
It’s getting more difficult to pretend, to her and mysel
