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Part 4
Owen walked back into the living room after Sterling had left and stood quite still for a moment as he tried to add up just how many mistakes he'd made in the last two hours or so.
Or maybe even longer than that, starting with going to the club on the one night that Sterling had chosen to walk on the wild side. Carol had wanted to see a friend, and he'd overruled her, being petty, exercising control over her in a way that karma had punished with a heavy hand.
What in God's name had possessed him to take on a new sub so soon after freeing himself from Carol, as if he couldn't go a single day without knowing that he had someone to be responsible for? Pity, sympathy, fellow feeling? Or something less altruistic…
“Next time, I should just adopt a cat,” he muttered. God, this was so stupid. Sterling could ruin Owen's career with a few misplaced words to a friend—and get himself kicked out in his final year too. He could see the lurid headline
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Owen gestured at the room. It was on the top floor, a corner room, with some cheap paneling on the walls that looked subtly askew. Not that much of it was visible; the room was a cluttered mess of furniture, each flat surface piled high with random objects. “There's always one in every house, I guess. The room you never quite get around to decorating; the one where you dump all the stuff you don't want to throw away but don't want to keep. Except I do want to throw a lot of this away—or donate it to charity—because this room would be perfect as a library. I'm sick of having my books scattered around the house where I can't find them.” He gave Sterling a sidelong look, noting the unenthusiastic expression on the boy's face. “I meant it when I said I'd pay you for helping me to renovate it. You're giving up an extra shift to help me today, I know, and I don't want you to lose out.”“You don't have to pay me,” Sterling said, somewh
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