The pizza arrived while Jensen was draining the sink. Alec said, “You’ve got good timing, bud. I’ll get the door. Do you have a card? I’ve got cash somewhere and a card, too, but shit’s so fucked around here that I forgot where I put my wallet.”

If he didn’t think he had the best excuse in the world for forgetting shit, Alec would have felt embarrassed. Jensen ordered the pizza, so he could pay for it. He said, “Yeah, here, let me wipe my hands a sec, and then I’ll give you the card. Give me another thirty seconds, and I’ll be there to sign the receipt.”

The delivery guy was cute and young, probably still in college. Alec had a fleeting impure thought about him before he tugged the pizza out of its warming bag. After Jensen signed the receipt, Alec took the pizza box and smaller box of wings to the coffee table. He said, “You would have fucked him, wouldn’t you? I saw where your eyes went.”

“You didn’t look there, too? He was sweet.”

“We weren’t talking about me.” Alec grabbed a slice of the pizza and held it over his opposite hand. “I got to see what you like to fuck.” He bit into the pizza. It tasted good. It was the best-tasting thing he’d put in his mouth since Coral arrived.

“Are you okay with me snagging another of those beers? I don’t ever drink this early in the day, but it tasted good.”

Alec said, “You can have it if you bring me one, too.”

Jensen carried two beers back to the living room, and he set them down next to the boxes of food. He sat at the opposite end of the couch from Alec. Jensen said, “Here you go. That pizza looks good. Is it?”

Alec stretched one leg out along the back of the couch while the opposite foot rested on the floor. “It’s fucking great. You get another point for the suggestion. By the way, what is your name? My brain’s in such a fog that I don’t remember. I’m sure you told me sometime. I might have gotten distracted looking at all of your dead flowers.”

“Jensen. It’s my mom’s maiden name. And you’re Alec, right?”

Alec held up a finger while he finished chewing the next bite. “Yeah, Alec, and that’s with a ‘c,’ not an ‘x.’ Sometimes I wonder if I should change it. They’ve been getting it wrong for so much of my life. Half of my teachers couldn’t get it right. It’s Greek, though, and I want to keep it for that.”

Jensen downed a mouthful of beer. Alec watched him relax. He was glad that his neighbor didn’t appear to be freaked out about hanging out in a house where a now dead woman was living only a few days ago.

Jensen said, “I know I asked, and it was none of my business, but you never said what you do. Is it a secret? Are you in the witness protection program?”

Alec sucked pizza grease off his thumb and laughed. “I should screw with your head and tell you I’m a gravedigger.”

Jensen smirked. “I’d probably believe you.”

“I work on computers at a hospital. It’s boring as hell like it sounds. I used to hang lights for concerts and shows. It was one of the few things that I’m good at, and it paid well, but I fucked up a show, and I had to find different work. I’m not much good at anything else. I manage to get by working on the computers, but I’m never gonna be rich.”

“Hey, maybe you know my buddy, Les. He works as a lab tech at the cancer center at St. Agnes.”

“Nope, different hospital.”

Jensen asked, “Do you own this house?”

“My mom’s grandparents built it. An aunt and uncle lived here for about ten years. They rented it after that, and my mom convinced them to sell it to me at a low-interest discount when I decided to settle down.”

Jensen smiled, “That sounds like a good deal.”

Alec shrugged. “For me, the jury’s still out. I feel tied to this house and the city now. I could make more cash if I moved to a different city where I don’t have a bad reputation. I could start hanging lights again, but I’m living here without rent or house payments.”

“Could you sell the house?”

“It’s been in the family for around one hundred years. Considering selling it sounds like really bad ju-ju to me. At least that’s what I told myself for a long time. Now my mom sort of died here. I’m starting to reconsider.”

Alec watched as Jensen grew more and more relaxed. He had a healthy skepticism in the back of his mind about his neighbor. He didn’t understand why Jensen waited until the death of a relative to express an interest in tearing down walls. Still, Alec lived a lonely life. He occasionally met friends for drinks in local bars, but his social life dribbled to next to nothing in the months before Coral’s illness.

Jensen’s next question startled Alec. “Why are you single? You seem like a nice enough guy once you get past the crusty exterior.”

“Crusty? Damn, you make me sound like I’m 82. Umm, you’re single, too?” Alec knew that he was pushing Jensen in the direction of addressing their age difference. Alec guessed that he was at least a decade older than his neighbor.

Jensen nodded. “By choice. Cupid shot me with a few crooked arrows in the last few years. I’m thinking about wearing an arrow-proof vest from here on out.”

Alec laughed. He appreciated the sense of humor. Since Coral arrived, it felt like a dark cloud descended over the house. The laughter managed to poke a few holes in the mist.

Alec said, “Count me as gun-shy. I had a partner, Satch, for three years when I was probably younger than you are now.” Alec paused for a moment, and he fought back tears. He wasn’t going to cry again over Satch, particularly in front of his neighbor. “I would have beaten the shit out of him for leaving when he did, if I could.”

“Wow.” Jensen pointed at the pizza box. “Are you going to eat that last piece?”

“Knock yourself out. If I get hungry, about half the box of wings is left. I guess I should shove those in the fridge soon.”

Alec watched as Jensen sprawled wider on the sofa. He was pleased that his neighbor no longer looked terrified. Alec knew that he sometimes had a fierce bark, but he hadn’t physically injured anybody since he was a sophomore in high school and beat up the bully who was preying on Lance Seaver.

The Seaver kid was one of the smartest in the school, and rumors swirled that Lance was gay. Alec knew that rumor was false. He asked Lance about it once. He was curious because he thought he might have an opportunity to play around if he got a “yes” answer. Lance was a geek, but he was smart, and Alec always thought smart was sexy.

One day Alec caught three guys lined up taking pokes at Lance. They’d taken off his glasses, and they weren’t hitting hard enough to cause serious damage, but it was easy to see that Lance was terrified. When Alec interrupted the incident, and they tried to turn on him, he made sure that none of the three ever forgot to stay away from Lance. One took the message in the gut, the second on the chin, and the third in the nuts. If the law wasn’t standing in his way, Alec would have castrated all three of them then and there.

Jensen interrupted the memory by asking, “So what do you do for fun?” He looked directly at Alec. He stared intently enough that it made Alec slightly uncomfortable.

“What the hell is this? An interrogation? An interview?”

“No, but I thought, maybe, we could at least be casual friends now that we’ve chipped away at the ice. Maybe I can invite you over once in a while. I can show you that I know how to cook something other than lasagna.”

“Oh, hell, let’s not start getting so cozy over one visit. I could kick you out of the fucking house, but I’m too damned tired and down to be a bastard today. Anyway, I haven’t had much fun lately. Taking care of your mom when she’s in the process of dying isn’t fun. I wouldn’t wish it on you or anybody else. It’s like she’s suddenly the baby, and I’m her dad. It sucks.”

“Aww, shit, yeah, I can’t imagine.” Jensen paused, and then Alec saw a smile again. He grudgingly admitted to himself that Jensen could be cute when he smiled. Alec liked that Jensen wasn’t clean-shaven, but he kept the facial hair tidy. For the first time in what felt like more than a year, Alec wanted to reach out and touch another man. He wanted to rub his fingers along Jensen’s jawline. They had similar beards, but Jensen’s was denser and darker.

Jensen asked, “Can you ever go back to working the lights? I think it sounds like a cool job. It’s not like you killed somebody, is it? I could never do that kind of work because I get a nosebleed looking over the railing of a third-floor balcony. I guess I need to share what I do to be fair.”

Alec didn’t want to address the complexities of the accident that happened when the show Cats came to town. He still felt raw about it. He said, “That’s only fair.”

“I work as a counselor at a middle school. I help put together programs for kids with academic trouble and hold one-on-one sessions when necessary for either emotional or academic issues. Often I refer them to people more equipped than me. It’s hard work, but I like it. I hope I can move up to a high school or a position at the school district headquarters, but for now the middle school is a good place to be.”

Alec shook his head. “Don’t you go thinking you can make some kind of shrink project out of me. I might be a mess in a lot of ways, but my head’s mostly screwed on straight.”

Laughing and rolling his head back, Jensen said, “I work with kids. I only talk to adults for information about how the kids relate to them. I’d be pathetic at counseling an adult. That’s not to say counseling couldn’t be helpful for you. I’m just the wrong guy to do any of it. Did you talk to anybody?”

“I don’t do shrinks. Can we drop the topic?”

“Yeah, no problem. I don’t much care to talk about work when I’m home anyway. All of the sessions are confidential, so I can only talk about shit in a big general, vague sort of way.” Jensen paused and then stuck with the work talk, but he took it in a slightly different direction. Alec continued to feel like he was the subject of an interview, but at least it was conversation. He didn’t have to worry about his brain making up ghosts of Coral in his head.

Jensen asked, “What kind of work would you do if you could do anything? Would that be the lights? Or is there something else?”

Alec pointed a finger across the length of the couch. “Let’s have you go first on this one.”

“Okay, it’s easy. I wanted to be a rock star. I wanted to be a new generation’s Mick Jagger. He was my mom’s favorite rock star.” Jensen stuck his lips out to try and make them look thick and pouty.

“I’ve seen Mick live. You’ve got a long, long way to go.”

Jensen laughed. “I can’t sing either, and I’d probably stumble over my feet on stage. They’re about two sizes too big for my height.”

“How tall are you? I noticed you’re head reaches a little higher than mine, but you’ve got bigger hair, too.”

With a self-conscious sweep of his fingers through his hair, Jensen said, “I’m six feet one inch in my socks. That’s what the doc said at my last check-up.”

“You’ve got about three inches on me then.”

“Are you going to play along?”

“Oh, the fucking dream job thing?” Alec sighed.

“Yeah. I could guess, but it’s easier for you to tell me.”

“A riverboat captain.”

Jensen blinked. “Seriously? That’s not what I expected, but I can see that. There aren’t any riverboats around here. We’ve got that big lake instead.”

“Yeah, but when I was a kid, and my dad was still around, we lived along the Mississippi. If you stood at the front corner of our yard and leaned, you could see a little bit of the river. When my parents bitched at each other, I used to leave the house and walk the three blocks down to the park along the water. I liked watching the barges go by.”

“That would be almost like meditation.”

Alec nodded. “I guess it sort of was for a little kid. I guess I wouldn’t mind being a writer, too.”

“A writer?”

“Yeah, I’ve published a couple of short stories. The original plan was to stuff extra cash from the lighting jobs under the mattress until I had enough saved up to give the writing a serious go.”

Jensen smiled. “That’s a brilliant idea.”

“It is when you make enough from the lighting to have something left over.”

“What do you write about?”

Alec said, “I write stories based on what I’ve seen in my life. I don’t write about particular people. I sort of throw everything together until it comes out in a scrambled order. I’ve been told my stories are a little dark sometimes, but I guess I’ve seen a lot of unhappy shit.”

“Maybe that’s going to change.”

Alec watched as Jensen scooted closer to him on the couch. “I don’t hold my breath.”

Jensen smiled and changed the subject. “Hey, why don’t we watch some TV together if you don’t mind some company for the rest of the afternoon.” Jensen reached out and touched Alec’s leg through his jeans and close to his ankle. He rubbed lightly at the bony structure.

Alec stared at the hand. Suddenly, he pulled the leg back. “Hey, what the fuck? Are you trying to flirt with me?”

Jensen recoiled in the corner of the couch. “No, hey, no. I’m trying to be the nice guy. Flirt? No. Hey, we’re just friends.”

Alec sat up straight and pointed toward the door. “I think maybe you should go. I’ve had it rough, and I’m heading into sensory overload. That was a little much.” Between clenched teeth, Alec said, “Thanks for the food and all, but you’ve got to go.” He lowered his head into his hands.

Jensen stood up and walked toward the door. He hesitated for a moment. Alec looked up as Jensen started to walk back toward the couch. Alec shook his head. He wanted it to be a warning. Emotion was welling up inside, and Alec didn’t want to feel like he could lose control.

Jensen reached behind him for the doorknob. “Okay, yeah, and if you need anything, I’m right next door. Do you want my number?”

Alec shook his head no.

Jensen sighed. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m only trying to…”

Alec scowled, and the fury in his expression was enough to cut the words off. Jensen stepped through the door and shut it firmly behind him.

Lowering his head into his hands, Alec realized he was breathing fast, and his heart was pounding. He pulled both of his feet up onto the couch, slid down and laid his head on the armrest. He closed his eyes tight and hoped for sleep.