Chapter 10
LUCKY
I opened my eyes to a bed that was all mine, bright as a sandy white beach midday, and the sound of shower water drumming softly against the wall. It was just past ten o’clock, and a growl of desperation quaked through my empty stomach.
When James came out of the bathroom, he had a strangely triumphant look on his face, like he just scaled a mountain. “Your turn,” he said, chipper, then tossed me a towel and whistled as he went for his bag to put away some things.
No idea what the happy hell was up with him.
Undressing in the bathroom, however, I discovered a mystery of what the happy hell must have been up with me at some point during the night. The inside of my shorts were stained and slightly damp, like I jizzed in them in my sleep.
That couldn’t have happened, right? There was no way that I creamed myself like a whimpering twelve-year-old in bed.
I just had a horny dream and leaked, I decided. I had a horny dream and I leaked … a lot.
I couldn’t even fool myself.
I balled up the shorts, then stared up at my naked self in the mirror. I hated seeing myself in the mirror. My ribs poked through where once I had a solid six-pack. I had lost considerable weight over all the months when I didn’t have regular access to a gym or a fully-stocked kitchen. The street was my gym. Playground monkey bars made friends with my hands. And every scrap I was able to stealthily acquire became my protein shakes.
But when James looked at me, it felt like he was looking at the guy I used to be back in school. He saw the cut, ripped, chiseled motherfucker no one wanted to mess with. He made me feel like my old self again, whether he knew it or not.
I twisted the knob of the shower, then let the hot water run over my body, filling the big hotel bathroom with steam.
Heaven.
It wasn’t until I was mid-shower that I realized I didn’t bring my backpack into the bathroom with me.
That was a first—an absolute first. I never let it out of my sight. Yet there I was, scrubbing my pits with a bar of soap as if all of my most valuable, earthly possessions weren’t sitting in a completely exposed black backpack wedged between the bed and nightstand.
I trust James, I reminded myself. I ought to trust him, especially since I may be going home with him today.
The whole notion struck me anew, as if I’d actually forgotten his offer the night before. I prayed that offer still stood. My whole life could change if I had a place to call my own. Even if it was just for a little while. Even if it was tragically temporary. A fully-stocked kitchen, I dreamed. A bed, an actual bed. A house. A roof …
And a person to share it all with. A person to trust.
But I also knew that people often showed their best side at first. I didn’t know what kind of person James truly was when he took off his happy mask. Was this a smart move, going to live with someone who might have a short temper, or major jealousy issues, or a dungeon in his basement he planned to keep me locked up in?
This was a calculated decision of utter recklessness.
Caution wasn’t an ingredient I could stomach any longer. The taste of caution was the same as suspicion, as wariness, as mistrust and paranoia and terror. Caution was something that made me sick to my stomach every night. Caution was what prevented me from getting more than three or four hours of sleep a night.
Recklessness felt freeing.
Recklessness gave me strength, and assuredness, and hope for a major change in my fortune.
And James was a man—perhaps the first in my life—who made me feel like I could take the wheel and call the shots. He gave me the control. He gave me the choice.
I knew what I’d choose.
When our bags were packed and that fateful noon o’clock was only minutes away, James eyed me with a tinge of anxiety in his eyes and asked the question that proved all his thoughts mirrored mine: “Did you think about my offer?”
I slung my backpack over a shoulder, then faced him. “Yeah, I did. Let’s do it.”
His eyes flashed. “Really?”
“You’re offering a bed. You’re a decent guy.” I shrugged. “I’d be an idiot not to take it.”
That made him smile. Then he let out a short chuckle and said, “Well, that sounds great! Especially after last night, I sort of feared that you’d … uh …” He shifted uncomfortably as he rubbed a hand through his hair.
I quirked an eyebrow. “What about last night?”
He lifted his gaze to me. “Uh … last night. The, uh … thing.”
“The movie? Don’t worry about it. It was just—”
“Oh. Uh, no. The …” He swallowed. “I meant during the night. In the middle of the night. While we …” He nodded at the bed.
I was so confused. “While we what?”
He looked pale, like he was about to pass out. “I …” He shook his head. “Y’know, never mind. My head’s in a fog. I could go for some lunch, since it’s too late for breakfast. How about you?”
I frowned. “What about last night?” I prodded him.
“Lunch,” he insisted. “And I gotta check out now, or else that bastard will charge me a late fee.” He clicked off the TV, tossed the remote at the bed, then picked up his bag. “Let’s go.”
I eyed him suspiciously as he walked by, but didn’t make any more of an issue of it, despite how lost I was. I was sure he’d bring it up later again.
If it was of any importance.
* * *
After checking out without a problem, James got us both some chicken tenders at the hotel diner downstairs where he told me a bit about what to expect in Little Water—small minds, prying eyes, and a lot of elderly folk on porches, to put it simply—and I learned that James liked his coffee drowned in so much cream and sugar that you couldn’t even taste the damned coffee.
His car smelled clean and leathery, which was expected; that fucker was the kind I bet washed his hands before and after he took a piss. There wasn’t a speck of trash on the floor nor dust on the dashboard. I sat in the passenger seat with my black backpack hugged to my chest. Our elbows kept accidentally touching, since we both apparently wanted to rest our arms on the center console. Eventually, we seemed to settle into sharing the console, though our elbows still flirted with one another, every bump in the road making them kiss. Other than that, we mostly listened to the radio the whole time while I stared out the car window, watching the city I knew shrink in the side view mirror.
It was strange to me how little I missed it.
Pulling off the freeway, it wasn’t long before we were driving past farmlands, rows of corn, and vast stretches of grass and nothing. It gave me a surreal rush of feelings I couldn’t even try to name, being in an environment like this. One of my first thoughts was about a friend in high school whose family owned a ranch. He was going to host a post-prom party there. I was so stoked about it, imagining how that night was going to go down.
I had no idea back then that I wouldn’t make it to prom.
I wouldn’t even make it three days into my senior year of high school before running away.
We pulled off the road onto a long driveway that led up to a very wide one-story house. The lawn stretched on forever, and the driveway was lined with uneven trees, the largest of which was nearest the house, casting a huge shadow over the garage doors, which slowly opened as we came closer.
Inside, his garage was spacious enough for two big vehicles side by side, though he only seemed to have the one. There was an empty workbench, tools along the wall, and a big green trash bin. The garage was otherwise totally empty and clean.
James parked the car, then took a breath. “Here we are,” he announced to the steering wheel as he turned off the engine. He faced me, his eyes shimmering with anxiety. “So, uh … you ready to see the house?”
Was it wrong to be addicted to how much of an effect I had on him? I made him so damned nervous all the time. I wondered if our flirting elbows charged him up the whole ride over.
And was it just me, or did James get even more good-looking since we left the hotel? His eyes were brighter out here away from all the smog, and there was an air about his face that was inviting.
I literally had an urge to lean in and kiss him, like we were boyfriends or some shit.
Now, I know I’m fucked up.
“You okay?” He quirked an eyebrow. “We can just sit here and do nothing if you want.”
I wrinkled my face, pulled from whatever daze I was in. “Why the hell would we do that?” I unclicked my seatbelt, then popped open my door. “Let’s get a look at your house already. My legs are cramped up in this car.”
“Yes, sir,” he muttered teasingly.
Once we climbed out of his car, James led the way inside. The door leading into the house opened into a huge, spacious kitchen. Seriously, I could have done three damned cartwheels and still not have made it to the huge refrigerator on the other side, which had a big glass door through which you could see all its contents lit up inside. In the center of the kitchen was a huge marble-topped island, upon which there was a stovetop and a slate cutting board.
No, I wasn’t going to react. I was going to play it cool as fuck, too above it all to make a single gasp or wide-eyed expression of awe at the staggering size of his house.
But seriously. Holy shit.
“Kitchen,” announced James unnecessarily, then tapped the side of the fridge as he glanced back at me. “You can help yourself to anything. There’s juice, milk, filtered water, and iced raspberry tea—my personal favorite. Snacks in the pantry right behind you.”
On the other side of the stool-lined breakfast bar of the kitchen was the most airy living room I’d ever seen. It was like the lobby of a resort with enough area to host an aerobics class without even moving the furniture out of the way. The room had dark wood flooring and was so clean, I could see reflections. An L-shaped leather couch with a lounger and a separate loveseat decorated the center, looked down upon by a flatscreen hung over the mantle of a mighty stone fireplace, its stones meeting a thick wooden beam at the top that ran along the vaulted ceiling.
“You live here all by yourself?”
James didn’t seem boastful or proud of his gigantic house in the least. He just shrugged. “Yeah … I do. Just me. I don’t even own a pet, despite having the space for one. Or two. Or six.”
“Hmm.” I glanced upwards. For a one-story house, the ceiling was so damned high that I doubted I could even reach it with a jumbo ladder and stilts.
“Truth is, this house was given to me by my grandfather who couldn’t bear to live in it after grandma died.” He stopped by the fireplace and adjusted a slightly off-centered picture that sat on the mantle. It was of an old couple, presumably his grandparents. “He shuddered at the thought of total strangers making a home of it. Really, I was doing him a favor to move here two years ago, even though it tripled my commute to the bank.”
“Sorry ‘bout your grandma.”
“Thanks.” Standing there in the center of the room, he looked so small, like a lone pawn on a chess board. “I loved her. She lived her last few years battling dementia. She kept calling me Carson. I have no idea who Carson is. No one did.”
“Maybe someone from her past,” I suggested as I took another couple of steps into the living room. Just the sound of my shoes slapping the hardwood floors echoed all around me. “Obviously he was someone who was special to her. Maybe that’s … what she thought of you.”
Ugh. Listen to me. Being a sentimental little bitch.
James chuckled at that. “I’ve never really been anyone much special to anyone.” He eyed me. “So do I call you Lucky or what?”
I was busy running a hand along the back of his couch and missed the question. I looked up. “What?”
“Lucky? Or … Lucas?”
For a brief moment, I didn’t know which name to prefer: the one I’d been given at birth, that all my old friends called me, that I wrote at the top of all my school homework and assignments, that I had seen on my driver’s license for the short two-ish years in which I had a vehicle … or the name I gave myself on the street because it sounded close enough to my real name, yet alien enough to not stain my character with the bad blood of what I might or might not have been forced to do to survive.
Was I sick yet of wearing the name? Or was it the name that was wearing me?
“Lucky,” I answered, not noticing quite how tightly I gripped my backpack before making the choice—tight enough to inspire a cramp and a light sheen of sweat.
Did it even matter anymore? He knew my real name. Why was I still being so guarded?
What exactly am I protecting?
“Lucky.” James gave me a smile and a tiny nod, then shoved his hands into his pockets. “Lucky it is.”
I met his eyes. It wasn’t my imagination. He was twenty times more attractive now that we were free from the city. Maybe it was some kind of psychology trick, but James looked kinder, smoother, more handsome, and maybe even stronger—despite the fact that I knew I could fold him in half at any moment if I wanted.
Not that I wanted to. If anything, I was ready to fold someone else in half, if anyone dared to fuck with James. Wasn’t he on my team now? Isn’t that what friends do?
Is that what this is? A friendship?
Why did that word seem so inadequate?
“So wanna see the rest of the house?” asked James brightly, unaware of any of my thoughts.
“Lead the way,” I responded.
We passed the front foyer where the large glass double front doors were and into a hallway that led to two closets, an office, a workout room, a bathroom, and one of his guest bedrooms. The hall dead-ended into a big ass game room with a red-topped pool table, a small black-and-white checkered couch in the corner with yet another flatscreen on the wall—this one considerably smaller than the mammoth one in the living room—and a modest bar in the other corner by a tall floor lamp that looked like a piece of art. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the walls, showing off a spread of gangly, overgrown bushes that half-shielded the field next to his house, past which you could spot his neighbor in the distance.
“Do you even know your neighbors?” I asked as I walked past the pool table, running a hand along the soft red felt. “Nearest one looks half a mile away.”
“My neighbors are more like acquaintances, really. They knew my grandparents.” James walked up and rubbed a spot on the window. “Smudge,” he complained to himself.
My eyes trailed up to the poolsticks lined up on a rack that was mounted to the wall. This dude had to be loaded. I was getting the creeping sensation that James wasn’t the modest, bumbling, unconventionally handsome guy I first took him to be.
When I brought my gaze back to him, he was still fussing with that smudge on the window.
My eyes trailed down his backside, and then I tilted my head.
James had a fine ass. And I’m not just saying that. James had the kind of ass that could make a pair of boring khakis sing. It was shapely, filled-out, and literally invited my hands toward them.
And my hips toward them.
And maybe my cock, too, if it won’t make him squeal too loud.
Maybe that’s the upside to having your nearest neighbor be a mile in any direction.
“So do you host parties here?” I asked, still staring at his ass.
He chuckled at that, glancing out the window. He didn’t even know my eyes were making a feast out of him. “Not really, but sometimes I have my buddies over to play pool or watch a game.”
I peeled my eyes off of him the moment he turned around. “You could have pool tournaments.” I lowered my eye to the table, as if to check whether it was level. “Fucking sweet.”
James came around to the other side of the table. “We … could play a game or two tonight. If you want. That is, after I show you the rest of the house, and you … get all settled in.” He rubbed at a spot on the felt. “Chalk,” he mumbled, annoyed.
I smirked, watching as he rubbed the felt. Was James actually self-conscious of his house, plain nervous, or just a clean freak?
We continued the tour by backtracking into the living room and taking another wider corridor at the back of the room. Yeah, I watched his ass the whole way, getting ideas. Could you blame me? I spent half the weekend passing him off as another perv who just wanted my nuts. Now that we’d connected and he let me into his home, I was able to see him for what he really was.
Y’know. A hot piece of ass, apparently.
The wider corridor at the back of the house led to a second guest bedroom, bigger than the first, with a door directly across from it that opened into his master bedroom.
I could have cried at the size of his room alone. It was huge to begin with, but its size was made all the more dramatic by the vaulted ceiling, which made its height seem infinite. The back wall was all floor-to-ceiling window looking into the backyard, which was full of weeds and spots of dirt that interrupted the otherwise green sea of grass. He had a wide dresser above which another flatscreen was mounted, facing a colossal bed that was sandwiched by nightstands. Doors led to a walk-in closet and a huge bathroom at the other end of the room, inside of which he basically had a Jacuzzi for a bathtub, a shower that could fit five or six full-grown men, and a two-sink counter.
“Please don’t picture me making all these design choices,” he begged with a nervous lilt in his voice. “My grandparents lived here. This is … all them. I just haven’t had the heart to mess with a damned thing. The house is paid off,” he quickly added. “I just pay taxes on it.” He gave a rueful glance at the bathtub. “I don’t ever really use that, to be honest.”
Literally, four of me could fit in that tub and still have room to stretch out our legs. I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Well, your grandparents had nice taste.”
James smiled with relief. “Thanks. Just …” He gestured at the bathroom. “Please don’t think of me as some over-the-top weirdo who lives alone yet thinks he needs a double-sink vanity.”
I shook my head. “Nah. It’s … fuckin’ roomy and shit.” I turned in slow circles, taking everything in as I strolled through his room. I stopped at the dresser where my eyes landed on a framed picture of an annoyed James being hugged tightly by a chubby-cheeked woman with pretty brown eyes and mile-long eyelashes.
James was at my side. “That’s my sister Jules.”
I nodded. “She kinda looks like you.”
“Does she?”
“Yeah. Same eyes.”
He turned to me suddenly. I met his hardened gaze just as quickly, thinking I’d said something wrong. When I saw the look of lightness in his eyes, I realized something else was happening.
Did I say something right? Or maybe I had just let on that I’d apparently looked into James’s eyes long enough to recognize them in his sister’s.
Our stare-off was abruptly disturbed by a shrill digital chime that rang through the house.
James sighed and took off. “It’s the door,” he threw over his shoulder as he went. “Again, don’t blame me for my grandparents’ taste. Obnoxious doorbell, never liked it.”
I glanced upward, my eyes meeting my own in the reflection of his mounted flatscreen, which stared back at me. I couldn’t believe I was going to live here with James. I feared it wouldn’t sink in no matter how many times I repeated it to myself.
James rushed back the next instant. “You have to hide!”
I gripped my backpack tighter. “The fuck? Why?”
“It’s …” James winced, his face going red. “It’s my mom. She’s probably mad about yesterday.”
“The hell happen yesterday?”
“Look, I’m really sorry to do this, but I haven’t really planned how I’d tell anyone about you or … explain you.” He wiped a hand down his face, blinking a hundred times. “Let alone to my mom, who will get one look at you and get all the wrong ideas. So I just need to deal with her really quick and—”
The chime blasted through the house again.
“I have a really big walk-in closet.” He yanked open the tall slatted doors. “It’ll just be for a minute. I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t really feel one way or another about being crammed away like a web browser full of embarrassing porn when the boss walked in. “Whatever, man.”
The second I stepped into the closet, the slatted door slid shut at my back. My whole world became strips of light coming in from the room. James’s hurried footsteps faded away, tapping along the hardwood as he went for the front door.
I stood there in the closet and listened. I could hear the front door open, and then a woman’s distant voice ringing in. The living room was so big that her voice echoed everywhere. Every word was as audible as if she was on the other side of that closet door.
“What the heck?” came her voice. “What took you so long? I thought I heard voices. You have a friend over?”
“Huh? No,” blurted James, his voice somewhat quieter, yet still carrying through the living room, hallway, and into his big, echoey bedroom where I stood listening in his closet.
“I swear I heard you call out that you were getting the door.”
“I was on the phone,” he lied with ease. “Just hung up. What the heck is wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Are you kidding me, James?”
He sighed. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I really am. I forgot to call and say that the work thing came up. Again.”
“You said the work thing was canceled!”
“It was. And then it was … un-canceled.”
“We waited a whole half hour before giving up. Your sister and I left you five texts apiece. And you know how your father gets when the potatoes go cold.”
James’s voice was annoyed, to say the least, reminding me of a scolded, sulky child. “I said I’m sorry, Mom. Plans changed. What else do you want me to do?”
“What do I want you to do? Answer your texts, moron!” Her footsteps brought her voice even closer, then abruptly stopped. “Oh, sweetheart. That backyard is an honest nightmare.”
“Mom. I’m a grown man. I have a job that sometimes needs—”
“You also have two thumbs and a fancy phone, James.” She didn’t seem to settle in place, constantly moving around, all her words bouncing across the floors and ceilings, filling every corner of the house. “I even drove all the way over here last night, but your lights were all out. I figured you were sleeping.”
“You drove over here??”
“It isn’t like you to ignore your phone for an entire day.”
“And yet it’s entirely like you to ignore yours. I’m an adult. You can’t keep expecting me to drop everything whenever you want just to return a text. Something came up. End of story.”
“Not when you committed to coming for dinner. You’re being stupid about this, James. Plain stupid. I had every right to panic.”
“Where are you going?”
“That overgrowth. Good Lord. I know you let go of that lazy gardener what’s-his-name, but you swore you’d hire someone else.”
“Mom. Come here. Stop. Why are you going into my room?”
I took a step back from the door, striped light shimmying down my body as I moved. Through the slats, I saw the shape of a woman as she strolled along the opposite end of the room, peering through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the back of the master bedroom, hallway, and living room. “You need to hire yourself a landscaper, James. Badly. You clearly can’t keep up with that mess yourself, as you’ve demonstrated.”
James was soon to follow. He gave one short glance back at the closet door—me—then addressed his mother, his voice lower. “Can we discuss my yard care another time? I’m sorry I didn’t text back. I meant to. I honestly meant to. Work consumed me, and … hell, I didn’t even cancel plans with a friend of mine who wanted to go for a drink last night. That’s two people I’ve let down.”
“Seven.” She spun around to face him. “Me, your father, your sister, her husband, your uncle, your friend, and Quinton.”
“Wait. Quinton was invited, too?”
“Of course he was! Why wouldn’t I invite him? He ate so much damned dessert, though, I had no leftovers to send back with your sister.” She huffed. “I knew I should’ve made three pies.”
“I’ll be at the next dinner, okay? Promise.”
“You realize some of these weeds left unchecked can eat clean through your foundation, right?” His mother tapped a finger to the window. “That lawn probably has snakes. I know someone, I’ll send you their number. Oh, sweetheart. And with such a beautiful house your grandpapa left you. Don’t you have neighbors out here complaining about this … this floral filth?”
“Floral filth. That’s a new one.” I watched through the slats of the closet door as James put an arm around his mother’s back, guiding her out of the room. “Next time you do dinner, I’ll be there. I’m sorry I missed out.”
“Your uncle hasn’t seen you since Christmas.”
“I’m sorry. Thousand times, sorry. And I love you,” he added, “but please don’t show up unannounced again.”
“Why are you pushing me out of here? What’s with you? You got a hot man hiding in your closet or something?”
James sputtered six unintelligible words before finally saying, “Yeah, sure, me. Maybe you forgot who you’re talking to.”
“That’s who you were talking to, wasn’t it? Bye, mystery hot man!!” she called out as she was pulled into the living room. “Ugh, you’re never any fun. Can’t I just imagine a hot man in your life?”
“Bye.” His voice was annoyed, to say the least.
“Seriously. When are you going to date again, sweetheart?”
“Why are we talking about my dating life suddenly?” he asked in a low voice that still, despite his meager efforts, carried.
“Your sister asked. You know, after we decided you weren’t showing up. She asked if you were seeing anyone, figuring that to be the reason for your weird behavior, then worried how it’d been almost five years since—”
“Mom,” James barked.
“We’re all looking out for you. That’s all. People who are alone too long, they get a little … weird. Don’t get weird.”
“I’m not.”
“You deserve someone. You’re a good person, James.” There was a soft shuffling of feet, and for some reason, I knew a mother’s hug when I heard it.
In the absence of words reaching my ears, my eyes wandered, having adjusted enough to see the shapes of clothes. I reached up and ran a hand along the denim of a hanging pair of jeans. Then I pinched the sleeve of a shirt, the material being of a cotton so soft, it felt like cream between my fingers.
I missed my mom so fucking much.
I missed her so much that it made me hate her for dying.
That’s pretty fucked up, I know. But if she was still alive, then maybe my father wouldn’t have married Countess Cunt, regardless of whether they were already banging behind my mother’s back during his “overtime at the office”. And even if it was inevitable that my parents divorced, at least I would have had my mother at my side instead of being abandoned. It was such a crushing couple of years, having no one in my own home who truly loved me. My dad just turned into a callous prick whose only love was a vagina half his age. He couldn’t have even bothered to lift a finger for his only son when I was grieving the worst.
I wondered at times if he regretted me being born at all.
Maybe I was an accident.
If there was an ounce of compassion in him that felt even the tiniest sting of guilt, he deserved it. And I prayed his guilt was the kind that collected interest, growing into a mountain of remorse he couldn’t possibly ignore any longer.
There’s a banker joke for you, James.
The sound of the front door opening and closing again yanked me out of my sullen thoughts. Then James’s footsteps approached as he crossed his living room and let out a long, drawn-out sigh.
I had stepped out of his closet already and stood in the short hallway. James froze at the other end, stunned by my appearance.
I smirked. “You always speak to your mom like that?”
James smirked. “She is always in my business.”
“You shouldn’t talk to her like that.”
He was about to say something else, then looked taken aback. “Did you hear her, though? She’s insufferable.”
“You shouldn’t talk to her like that,” I repeated.
“Alright.” He took a short breath. “Sorry … about you having to hear all of that. And for hiding you in my closet.”
“Five years, huh?”
James’s face went red. “So you heard everything.”
“Long time to go without getting a facial.”
He squinted. “Facial? What?”
“Y’know.” I made a jerking off motion. “All over your face.”
He looked baffled. I wasn’t sure if he was pretending not to follow, or legitimately didn’t know I was teasing him.
I shrugged. “Unless you prefer being married to your right hand. Assuming you’re right-handed.” I did the jerking off motion again, this time with a mocking smirk.
James looked away, his face even redder, and then he abruptly changed the subject. “Two guest rooms … I have two guest rooms. You can pick whichever one you want.”
“Probably right-handed,” I kept on.
He ignored me. “There’s the one on the other side of the house by the workout room and the game room, or the one here right across from mine. Both have their own bathroom, but this closer one here is actually attached to the room, so it’s more like a private bathroom. The other one is the one guests have access to.”
I crossed my arms and shrugged. “Your house. I’m fine with whatever.”
James bit his lip for a second, then nodded at the room across the hall from his. “Well, this one gives you your own shower and sink and all that. So … you can claim this room if you want. Call it your own. It’s all yours. I’ll, ah … bring you an extra set of towels from the closet. Some PJs. Whatever toiletries you need.”
I nodded, then took a step into the room. There was a big bed against the wall, a desk in the corner by a window that faced the same field as the game room, and a dresser with a bookshelf over it. Atop the shelf was a spread of books, all the same size, that were bookended by two colorful geodes cut in half to show the glittering insides. There was a closed door I assumed was a closet right next to another that was wide open, revealing the bathroom.
“You hungry?” he asked. “I can make us some more lunch to hold us over while you’re getting settled in.”
“Sure. Sounds great.”
James mumbled, “Cool,” before heading off to the kitchen, leaving me to my business.
After a moment of hesitation, I finally went into the room and dropped my backpack on the bed, unsure what else to do. I poked at the lamp on the nightstand, then inspected the titles of the books on the shelf. I noticed A Tale Of Two Cities, Autobiography Of Red, and A Separate Peace among them. On the desk, there was one of those metal magnetized figures of a pendulum with separate spinning arms, which I set into motion with a poke at its top, then watched for a little bit as it swung and came to life.
Was it strange that even after having agreed to the whole deal, after taking the long drive out there, after all we’d talked about and been through over the weekend, I still had an instinct to hop out the window and run?
I was always on the run. Maybe it was my go-to answer for everything in my life that sucked.
Run.
Instead, I made myself walk around the room some more, forcing myself to adapt to my new rural environment. But when I pulled open the empty drawers, worries flooded me all over again. How the hell was I expected to fill those drawers? With what clothes? What money? How was I going to get a job out there if everything was miles away? On the beach, there was a bunch of businesses within walking distance. I made money here and there by taking on an odd job whenever I could, like being a dishwasher for some scummy diner and getting paid under the counter.
But out there in James’s neighborhood, I didn’t even know where to possibly begin.
The sound of dishes touching the counter in the kitchen made me feel a stroke of warmth. It was something about how normal that made me feel for a second, the sound of a table being set, of cutlery being pulled out of a drawer.
You’ll figure things out later, I told myself. One day at a time. You can leave whenever the hell you want. You’re not a prisoner here.
By the time I came out of the room, James was pulling leaves off a head of lettuce on the counter. Perfectly sliced tomatoes were set on a saucer next to a plate of toast and another of bacon.
He looked up when I approached. “Hey, there. You can go ahead and put on the TV if you want. Get comfy, whatever. Lunch will be ready in a sec.”
“BLTs?” I came up to the counter.
“I still had some cooked bacon in the fridge, so thought I’d …” James shrugged and gave me a light, nervous chuckle. “BLTs. Does that sound good? I can make something else if you want.”
Seriously, this guy would go to any length to make sure I was happy. “Add some turkey. And I don’t want store-bought mayo,” I told him. “I want homemade, made from organic eggs.”
James’s eyes went wide, his lettuce-handling halted.
I smirked, then gave his shoulder a punch, which seemed to startle him even more than my demand. “I’m just fucking with you. Of course it’s fine. BLTs sound great.”
James let out another nervous titter, then he shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t tell with you sometimes.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You’re just so … hard to read.” He resumed pulling big leaves off the lettuce. “Sometimes,” he added.
Since his back was partly turned to me, my eyes were drawn down his body to his ass, which wiggled a bit as he worked.
Why did I take that as an invitation to draw closer?
I slowly came up to his back and began inspecting his work over his shoulder. At my mere presence, James’s work slowed. His whole body tensed up. He could probably feel me breathing on his neck. It was like he was expecting me to do something to him.
To be perfectly honest, I was resisting an instinct to grab his ass right there and really make him freak out. I bet his cheeks would fill my hands perfectly.
But I didn’t do anything at all except loom over him like the shadow of a brick wall at his back. Even his breathing changed, his throat all tightened up like I was exciting him.
Or scaring the shit out of him.
Then James turned his head slightly. “Oh, by the way,” he said in an everything’s-fine-and-I’m-totally-not-nervous voice, “If you need to, uh … use my laundry room, you can totally help yourself.”
I smirked. “You saying I smell?”
“No. Not at all. You smell great.” He cringed. “I mean, you smell just fine. I was just thinking about all the clothes in your backpack—your shorts, your hoodie, your tank top …”
“Keeping an inventory for me?” I teased him. I kept forgetting how observant James was. “You wanna smell my socks to see if they need to be washed, too?”
James finally got his pinch of confidence, straightening up his spine. “Yeah, sure. Stuff them in my face.”
“Don’t test me,” I warned him.
He was about to say something else, but stopped and thought the better of it. Instead, he just grunted and shook his head. “Hard to tell with you.”
I leaned against the counter right by James, too close to him, my body and my words deliberately invading his space. “So you’re saying I’m hard to read, huh?”
“The detergent is above the washer,” he went on, ignoring my taunt, “and both the machines are super easy to figure out. Like, they don’t need any instruction. Just pop in all your clothes, toss in a capful of detergent, tap a button …”
“I find you pretty easy to read.”
He lifted his gaze to meet mine. He said nothing in response.
Maybe it wasn’t all sexual tension I was sensing. Maybe James was having worries about bringing a total stranger into his house. He wanted to trust me, but also wondered if he’d made a mistake. His mind was still lingering on his mother’s impromptu visit and worrying over how he was going to explain me to his friends and family. Maybe he considered not explaining at all, hiding me here for weeks, or months, or however long I dared to stay.
And if I ever decided to leave, where would I go?
I only just got here and already am planning my exit route.
“Do you?” he finally asked, breaking eye contact with me to hastily assemble our sandwiches.
He took so long to respond, I’d completely forgotten what he was responding to. “Do I what?”
“Find me easy to read.”
“Oh. You shitting me?” I snorted. “You’re the easiest. Every thought you have is laid out on your face.”
“Is that so? Alright.” He puffed up. “So what are you ‘reading’ from me, then? What’s on my mind?”
He wanted to put me to the test. That, or this was his secret way of getting a peek into my brain and what the chances were of me grabbing him and bending him over his own kitchen counter. To be honest, I wondered the same damned thing. “I think you’re pretty nervous about having me here,” I told him. “Maybe second-guessing your generous hospitality a bit. You’re figuring out how to hide me when a friend comes over. I’ll probably get used to your closet after a couple more days of hiding. Hell, I already memorized half your wardrobe while your mother dropped by.”
He met my eyes. “You think I’m embarrassed of you?”
“Maybe. Or you just don’t want people getting the wrong idea, like you said. You know. That you met some nineteen-year-old you barely know and invited him to stay in your big house.”
“It’s not that big,” he argued automatically, his voice echoing down its cavernous depths to comically prove him wrong.
I shrugged. “I don’t give a shit, really. If you gotta hide me—”
“No. I’m not going to hide you, Lucas.” He froze, then winced. “Sorry. I meant Lucky. I meant to say Lucky.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s just that ever since you went and told me your real name, now when I look at you …”
“I said it’s fine.”
“Alright.” He sighed as his hands returned to putting together our sandwiches. Despite the nervous titter in his voice as he spoke, his hands worked with precision and care when it came to our lunch. “I don’t want to hide you. I really don’t. You’re a human being. You deserve …” He couldn’t seem to figure out how to finish his sentence. Then, just as he carefully set the final slice of bread on top, he gently slid one of the sandwiches in front of me. “A decent lunch,” he finally finished, then resumed making the second one for himself.
Maybe it was that one moment when I realized I’d made the best decision of my life to get in that car that morning with a man I barely knew. Sometimes, recklessness paid off. “Hey, James.”
He looked up from his sandwich. “Yes?”
“Call me Lucas.”
To that, he withheld a smile, said, “Yes, sir,” then brought his sandwich to his lips.