Melt Like Butter

by Daisy May

  I let out a sigh. Part of me was still hoping there’d be a clue in here that would only be noticeable by Laney’s blood relations. Surely being related to her had to count for something. But the only thing we seemed to share because of our blood was our attitude toward life. I could see myself doing the kind of things she did, if I were in a situation that made it necessary.

  But I wouldn’t end up in that kind of situation. I was going to find Laney, and once I milked her for all she was worth, I’d move on to Greg, my useless adoptive father. By that point, Sophie would’ve gotten dumped by the idiot she was dating, and I could go back to mooching off her.

  I could’ve had money now if I went to her and pleaded for it. But there was one thing in life that wasn’t for sale – my pride.

  My phone vibrated, and I lazily reached over to pick it up. I wasn’t expecting any calls. Could it be Mark, maybe? Laney’s old neighbor – maybe he’d thought of something for me. A ripple of excitement went through me as I picked up.

  “Hi. Tyler? This is Andy. Andy Knutford.” He gave an unexpectedly awkward chuckle. “Remember me?”

  “Um… yeah, I remember you.” I snorted, sitting on the edge of my bed as if getting ready to leap off and smack him. I could picture him now – his haughty features, his snobby expression. “How could I forget?”

  “Okay, that’s fair. I’m sorry.”

  “What are you calling me for?” I snapped. “Want to harass me some more?”

  “No!” He sounded panicked. “I mean I’m sorry. I had my friend look into you, and he said you’re on the up and up. I feel terrible about coming after you. It was shitty of me, and I apologize.”

  I huffed to myself, feeling oddly vindicated. Andy wasn’t completely wrong – I was in fact a terrible person – but I’d never planned to scam his mom or do anything like that. Celeste was a decent sort, and she’d been kinder to me than anyone had in a long time. I had nothing against her.

  “Thanks for that,” I said dryly. “Solves all my problems.”

  “Oh. You’re still… you’re not… oh.”

  Toying with Andy’s emotions was fun. He was clearly feeling guilty, and I wondered if I could parlay that into something useful.

  “You know, if you feel bad, maybe you should get that PI of yours to look for my mom.” I smirked.

  “What? I’m not going to do that.” He sounded horrified.

  Okay, I’d pushed for too much, too fast. “All right, then help me yourself.”

  “Are you crazy? How would I be able to help you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m running out of steam. Maybe you have some fresh ideas.”

  I was being half-genuine. I liked the idea of meeting up with him and making him feel as uncomfortable as possible. Judging by how he sounded so far, that would be easy. Plus, there was a small chance that he might actually be able to help me. Stranger things had happened.

  If I didn’t find a new lead in the next day or two, I’d have to give up for now and turn my focus to Greg instead. He’d be much easier to find – I knew where he lived with his new family. But I wouldn’t be able to extort him the way I would with my bio-mom. He hadn’t done anything wrong, other than divorcing Sophie and breaking off contact with me. Whining “I miss my daddy” was only going to go so far.

  For a long moment, Andy didn’t speak. Then, “You know what? Sure.” He let out a breath. “Why not? I’ll see what I can do.”

  *

  He came over to my motel around nine, which surprised me. He seemed so uptight, I would’ve thought he’d want to be in bed by this hour.

  I met him in the lobby with my phone, the one thing I’d managed to keep Sophie from taking back from me, and the file on Laney. We sat side by side on the couch, sitting close enough for me to be conscious of his body heat.

  “Hope you’re ready to get to work.” I handed him the file. “You any good at finding missing people?”

  “Never tried, but I had nothing better to do tonight.”

  I took the opportunity to scrutinize him as he flicked through the file. He was out of his work clothes, for once, although the sensible loafers and casual button-down he had on looked just as uncomfortable. His hair was fastidiously combed, but not gelled. He looked a little younger and a lot less smug. How accurate that was remained to be seen.

  “This is where you’re staying?” he asked. “Looks pretty, uh…”

  “Pathetic?” I glanced at the leaky roof and the yellowing walls. “I won’t argue with you.”

  “So… why?”

  Was he here to help me look for Laney or to make conversation? “I didn’t have a lot of choice.” I made no effort to keep the irritation out of my voice.

  He looked at the file again. “Okay. So… this is all you have on her?”

  “She didn’t exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs.”

  “Right. Okay.” He seemed a little flustered, which I liked. “She worked there a couple years ago. You went in and talked to them?”

  “How do you think I got the file?” I rolled my eyes more dramatically than necessary.

  “So they don’t have any information on where she is now? No forwarding address where they sent the last paycheck?”

  “Oh, of course!” I slapped my forehead. “I should’ve thought to ask about that while I was in the store talking to them. It never occurred to me that I should ask them where she is now!”

  Andy set the file down and looked me straight in the eye. “You don’t have to be a jerk. I don’t know what avenues you have or haven’t explored. I came here to try to help you – God only knows why.”

  I’d successfully annoyed him… so why did I suddenly feel bad about it? “That’s fair.” I dropped my gaze. “You can assume that if something’s obvious, I probably tried it.”

  “That includes Facebook and everything, right?”

  “I searched for her, and it didn’t get me anywhere. She could still have an account, though. A lot of people use fake names.”

  “Maybe you could drill down with her location and her job.” He hesitated. “I mean, if you knew them.”

  “Too bad I don’t.” I stared again at the file.

  “Well, give me a few minutes, and I’ll search for her. You never know. Sometimes different results come up for different people.” He opened his briefcase and plopped his laptop onto his knees.

  I watched over his shoulder as he typed in Laney’s name. He smelled good, I noticed – like citrus, maybe, or grapefruit.

  “Nothing’s popping up,” he said. There were a few hits, but all of them looked way too young or lived in different countries. “If she’s on Facebook, it’s under a fake name.”

  “She probably isn’t.” I sighed. “She doesn’t seem like the type of person to keep in touch with old friends.”

  “We could check some online dating sites,” he said. “Do you know if she’s single? Straight?”

  “No idea.”

  “That’s okay. We know how old she is, so it won’t take too long to check profiles.”

  This was an idea I hadn’t thought of. A spark of hope lit up inside me as I watched him set up profiles on different sites and search for thirty-nine-year-old women in the local area. This could actually get us somewhere. Although we didn’t know if she was in the local area… or if she’d be honest about her age. And then even if we did find her profile, we wouldn’t recognize her. We didn’t know what she looked like.

  “This is pointless,” I said. “We might as well give up. Thanks and whatever, but I may as well do this by myself.”

  “Oh.” He looked oddly disappointed. “I knew I wasn’t going to be useful.”

  “Then why’d you come?”

  He shrugged. “You asked me.” He closed his laptop and carefully placed it back in his briefcase. The way he moved was purposeful, and maybe a little bit cute. “I should talk to Wright again. Call in another favor.”

  “Oh, your PI looked into me as a favor? And here I was thinking you’d actua
lly spent money on me.”

  His cheeks went slightly pink. “No money. Wright’s a good friend, and my ex, so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.”

  “Your ex?”

  “Yeah, from a while back.”

  I looked him up and down, re-evaluating what I knew about him. Being gay didn’t seem to fit with the whole uptight accountant thing. But then, why not? Not every gay guy was a flight attendant.

  “What about you?” he asked, suddenly sounding shy. “I guess you’re single, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Straight?”

  “Not exactly.” I laughed. “I never cared what my partner had in their pants. Why would it matter? We’re all going to die anyway.”

  He frowned. “Um… right.”

  I stood up, ready to go back to my room. Hopefully once I got there, I’d be able to get a better idea of what to do next. At the moment, I was completely lost.

  “So, seriously, what are you doing here?” Andy asked, standing too. “Your family…”

  I looked sharply at him. “What do you know about my family?”

  “Nothing,” he quickly said. “I figured they’d be around somewhere. The ones who adopted you, I mean.”

  “Sure, they’re around. They’re shitty people, and I don’t want anything to do with them.”

  “That’s fair. Just…” He waved at our surroundings. “You couldn’t find anywhere better than this place?”

  “It’s fine for now. Once I find Laney…”

  “How would that make anything better?” He looked at me, confused. “You’re waiting to get a job until you find her?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.” He glanced around the lobby again, his eyes resting on a water stain on the floor.

  His words reverberated in my mind as he left. I wished I could confidently say yes, that I did know what I was doing.

  The truth was, I didn’t. And if some luck didn’t finally come my way soon, something was going to have to give.

  TEN – ANDY

  I stared at the spreadsheet on the screen, making sure the expenditures column totaled up to the amount at the bottom. The telecom company I was auditing had played some shady tricks with their accounting, and I needed to be careful to go over every detail with a keen eye.

  Which was difficult when my mind kept circling back to Tyler. He was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, as the saying went. The more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know. Days after I’d last seen him, I kept thinking about him. And the fact that he was interested in men.

  Not that I wanted to date him or anything. I barely knew him, and I still didn’t particularly like him. Being queer was something we had in common. It made me want to know more about him. Find out his story.

  That wasn’t likely. He was more guarded than anyone I’d ever met. He hadn’t willingly shared much of anything, other than whatever was relevant to his search for his mother. I still didn’t even know why he was so desperate to find her.

  Tyler confused me – both where he was from, and who he was now. I couldn’t make the pieces of the puzzle fit. I kept going through what I knew about him, and no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t make anything make sense.

  “Andy, how’s the audit coming?” My boss’s voice came from behind me. “Are you going to finish the report by tomorrow?”

  I turned to face him, forcing a smile. “Definitely. I’m almost done now.”

  He glanced at my screen, where the spreadsheet I’d been working on was still up. “Great! Looking forward to it.”

  As soon as he left, I slumped down. I was nowhere near being done, and that was because I kept daydreaming about Tyler.

  Normally I was great at my job. I took pride in what I did, and for good reason. I got my work done faster than anyone else while keeping my head down and staying out of office politics. I rarely made mistakes, and my supervisors rewarded me with a consistent yearly raise.

  They hadn’t made me a senior accountant yet, though. Most of my classmates from school had gotten that title after three or four years of work, and no one at my firm had even mentioned the possibility. But I definitely wouldn’t be allowed to advance if I kept spacing out like this. I had to get my mind off Tyler and focus on my work.

  By the end of the day, that still hadn’t happened. And I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about him unless I talked to him. I had to solve some of his mysteries so they’d stop nagging at my mind. In situations like this, you had to fight fire with fire.

  Or would talking to him only feed the flames?

  I called him the minute I got home. He answered, sounding puzzled. “Andy?”

  The fact that he either recognized my number or had saved it made me feel oddly warm inside. “Hey, yeah, it’s me. I was just wondering how you’re doing, and if you’ve made any progress with the mom thing.” I paced around my living room.

  “I’m fine.” He sighed. “No progress, no. I’m about to give up.”

  “You can’t give up.” The idea upset me more than it should’ve – maybe because then I’d have no reason to talk to him again. “That’s your biological mother. You have to find her. You need to know where you came from.”

  “No, that’s fine.” He sounded resigned. “I don’t care about connecting with her, or whatever touchy-feely ideas you had in your head. It’s not about that.”

  It wasn’t? I frowned. “What is it about, then?” Her medical history, maybe? Did Tyler have some kind of health problem?

  “Nothing.”

  “You seem pretty desperate to find her, considering it’s nothing.”

  He sighed again, louder. “Never mind.”

  “You can talk to me, you know.” Please talk to me. “I don’t know anyone in your life. There’s no one for me to snitch to if you tell me what you need her for.” Unless it was something illegal.

  He was silent for a long moment. I could just picture him pursing his full lips, his brow furrowing as he decided how to respond to me. I wondered where he was right now. In his dark, dingy motel room? Or out beating the pavement in search of Laney?

  “I’m not sure why you care,” he finally said. “I don’t need anything from your mother anymore. None of this concerns you at all.”

  “I’m not sure why I care, either,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “I’ve asked myself a few times. The best I can come up with is that you brought some excitement into my very dull life.”

  He chuckled softly. “Okay, I can see that.”

  “So what’s the deal?” I asked, emboldened by his semi-positive response to my honesty. “Why do you need Laney so bad?”

  “Why is your life so boring?”

  I coughed. “I asked you first.”

  “Too bad. I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”

  I stopped pacing, wondering if I should hang up the phone right then. Clearly Tyler wasn’t going to make this easy for me. He might’ve even been lying – he could back out after I gave him my answer, or give me a fake answer or a half-truth.

  Still, the prospect of getting him to finally open up was enticing enough to make me open up.

  “I work a lot,” I said. “I’m trying to move up in my company so I can open my own one day. I’m close with my family, and I work out a lot and eat healthy. I don’t have time for much else.”

  “Surely you could still find time to fit some spice in your life.” There was a smirk in his voice.

  “I guess I’m not that spicy.”

  I resumed my pacing, unsettled by his comment. I probably could’ve found time to do fun stuff, or even go on dates, if I really wanted to. The truth was, I hadn’t made that a priority in a long time.

  “So you stick your nose into other people’s lives for fun,” he said.

  “If you want to put it like that.” I reached the wall and turned to pace back. “Your turn. Tell me wh
y you’re so keen to find your mom.”

  “Because she’s my mom.”

  “Nope, I’m not falling for that.” Surprisingly, I found myself smiling. “You already told me it’s not for any touchy-feely reasons. How about giving me your actual reason?”

  “I will.”

  “Yeah? Like when?”

  “When you answer my question properly.” There was a teasing tone to his voice now. “You gave me a half-assed answer. Why would I give you a real one?”

  “That’s not true. I answered you as best as I could.”

  “Then maybe you need to think about your answer some more.”

  I stopped where I was. I held my phone in front of my mouth, the better to yell into it. Even though he couldn’t see me, I put my free hand on my hip. “This is some bullshit,” I said. “I knew you wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”

  “And I knew you wouldn’t give me one.”

  “You’re infuriating.”

  “And yet you’re the one calling me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Clearly this was a mistake. Good luck, Tyler.” I started to hang up.

  “Wait.”

  I brought the phone back to my ear. “What?” I asked, more snippily than I’d intended. “Are you going to keep the promise you made me?”

  “I’m not the best at keeping promises,” he said. “But if you want to help me out again, you could come down to the motel tonight. I’m not doing anything.”

  I snorted. “If I want to help you? Like I’m just sitting here waiting around, hoping and wishing you’d allow me the privilege of helping you?”

  “You sure made it sound like that.”

  I had no response to that. “What do you think we’d be able to accomplish that we couldn’t do last time? I don’t have any fresh ideas.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But at least it won’t be boring, right?”

  I chuckled. That was true.

  Nothing could ever be boring when he was around.

  ELEVEN – TYLER

  I sat in the motel lobby, waiting for Andy to arrive. I’d taken a little extra care with my appearance, combing my hair and shaving my stubble. I’d shelled out to get my clothes washed the other day, and they were still relatively clean. My days of throwing my things on the floor until Sophie picked them up and washed them were behind me.