by Anyta Sunday
He shut his uncle’s laptop in frustration after the tenth call he’d made for a job they had already filled the position for. There was always the chance to work at the supermarket, but he preferred working nights since he couldn’t sleep anyway, and he was good at waiting and bartending. At least he had the references for that kind of work.
It wasn’t as if he really needed the money—he had enough in his fund to last him a couple of years without pay—but doing nothing just gave him more time to reflect on things. Not to mention emphasized how far into nowhere he’d gotten.
His cell phone buzzed. His uncle. He picked up.
“Rory. I just got a call from Sammy’s mother. Sammy’s sister Willow is still a little under the weather today and Alice is taking her to see the doctor. So Sammy’ll be having dinner with us tonight. I’m on my way home now, but could you run down to the Mediterranean Food place on the corner of Daniel and Constable Street and pick up a loaf of sourdough? Also, it’d be great if you could duck into New World for some milk and juice for tomorrow morning. We’re nearly out.”
“Sure thing,” he said, jotting down a list on the back of an old receipt he’d pulled from his wallet.
“Another thing . . .”
Rory stilled the pencil, waiting.
“Alice is looking for a part-time nanny for the next couple of months before Willow starts school. You interested? I vouched for you, and she said you should give her a ring. Here’s the number . . .”
Rory had minded children before, and had had fun doing it. He rang Alice and accepted the job the moment she offered it. He’d start in a couple of days.
After purchasing the sourdough, Rory headed, as directed, to their local supermarket. A harmonica-playing busker sat huddled outside the mall, and Rory threw a couple of dollars into his cap.
He stopped his playing. “A good day to you too, bro.”
“That’d be nice,” Rory mumbled back and hurried inside. At the juice section, he scanned the different choices. His uncle liked good quality stuff, judging by the bread he’d just bought. Maybe he’d best grab a freshly squeezed juice or—
“Excuse me,” came a voice he recognized, not directed at him but in the aisle over, “do you know which of this stuff is best for a small cat, er, kitten?”
“Not really, sorry. But that can has a cuter cat on it.”
Rory blindly pulled any bottle of juice from the shelf into his basket, in an effort to peer into the next aisle, but it was blocked. He snuck to the fresh meat counter, where he could see down the pet produce.
Eric stood with his back to his trolley staring at two cans of food he held in either hand. The bright white light from the ceiling made the ink on the guy’s arms and neck stand out brilliantly like the night he’d first met Eric behind Kings . . .
Rory blinked the memory away. What the hell was he doing just standing there looking at him? He had shit to buy and then he needed to get back for dinner.
But Rory didn’t move, just stood there, watching as Eric shrugged and put both cans into the trolley before moving to the dry food.
Rory gripped his basket handle harder. Maybe the reason he wasn’t moving was because here was his opportunity. Rory could make amends and finally get that apology out he’d meant to say the night before.
He stepped toward the aisle. A supermarket trolley swerved to avoid him. “Careful!” some woman snapped. “Look where you’re going.”
Eric raised his head slowly toward the end of the aisle and him. Rory hesitated. Suddenly Rory couldn’t stand it for Eric to see him. He ducked out of view.
“Rory?” he heard Eric say aloud.
Stupid. Crap! He needed to get out of there. He forgot the milk and threw the money on the counter for the juice he’d bought, then snatched it up without waiting for a bag. He wasn’t sure, because he couldn’t turn around to see, but he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as if Eric were watching him.
All through dinner, Rory barely concentrated on the conversation. He smiled and nodded his way through everything, managing only a low murmur about how pumpkin was his favorite. Thing was, he couldn’t get that Eric guy out of his head. Why couldn’t he man up and apologize? Why did he have to make an idiot of himself by so obviously running away? He was a little chicken shit, wasn’t he?
As soon as he could, he excused himself from the table.
Uncle Davy fixed him with a stare. “Did you call your mum yet?”
He hadn’t. His silence spoke for him and his uncle’s gaze hardened.
“So . . .” Lily said, breaking the sudden tension. “We’re all gonna go see Moonchase Vigils. Wanna come, Rory?”
“It might not be his thing, Lil’,” Sammy said, “It’s sorta chick-flick. But we could go see something else?”
“Not too girly if Dad’s seeing it too.” Lily tightened her hair into a ponytail.
“I’m going because you need supervision when you go out at night.”
“So uncool,” Lily grumbled.
Uncle Davy checked his watch. “Do you want to go or not?”
“Fine.” Lily looked at Rory. “So, are you coming?”
Rory inched toward the door, shaking his head. “Nah, go see your movie. I’m good.”
He dragged himself to his room, away from Uncle Davy and his unspoken order to ring his mum, and collapsed onto the bed. His mum would just have to wait a day or two.
Something was digging into his side and he rolled over. It was the case of pencils he’d chucked there earlier when he thought he might have the chance to draw.
Shuffling off the bed, he grabbed his sketch notepad and sat himself on the armchair in the corner of the room, pointed toward the bed and the windows over the desk. Evening light covered duvet and pillows with trapeziums of light, and Rory outlined the scene with quick lines of his pencil. The lighting made the bed seem inviting, but it didn’t beckon sleep. No, the unsmooth surface of the bed, the crumpled pillows as if someone’s hand had fisted them in the throes of passion . . . it summoned sex.
And that left Rory, poised with his pencil to the middle of the bed, unsure of his next stroke. He heard Eric in his ear: Are you?
Rory forced his pencil across the paper . . . a hand on one pillow, the curve of a hip and breasts, ankles crossing . . .
He willed himself to like it, to imagine the woman stretched across the bed before him curling a finger at him before sliding it toward her center. She rubbed herself, hair tumbling over her shoulders as she arched, moaning his name to come join her. He even imagined her trailing the hand she’d just used to her mouth and sucking its length, eyes lit with a promise.
But it was a promise he didn’t care for. He felt nothing. Not a single stir of his dick.
He kept drawing, changing her position so he could only see her from behind, but the arse wasn’t right. He tried her on all fours . . . legs spread . . .
Five pages . . . six . . . seven. Still, nothing.
His eyes blurred in frustration, and he continued to draw blindly. At page eight, he stopped forcing his hand and let it work without him.
He knew what the final product would be. What it always ended up.
He stared at it. The broad shoulders and chest tapering into a slim waist, the hint of a tight arse, and the hard cock pointed toward him. A year ago it would have been like a finger wagging at him, saying, no, shouting: I know what you want, you pervert!
But now the shouting seemed to have died down—not disappeared completely, but he never felt the need to throw his notepad across the room anymore. He stared at the picture, tracing his finger over the figure, smudging it.
He was a fag.
He’d known it a long time. Of course he did. He’d bloody well been in love with his best friend since the first time they’d met.
He hung his head, chin bumping against the collar of his t-shirt.
From the corner of his eye, he caught his art container blinking at him in a wedge of light.
He went to
it, picked it up, and slowly caressed the lid. “William,” he croaked, and twisted the lid open.
He pulled out the thick sheets of paper, curled from storage and smoothed them out onto the bed. Some of the pictures were the size of his hand, others were bigger. The biggest was a life-size sketch, close to six foot long. He left that one in the container, only counting the smaller ones. One hundred and twelve.
He trailed his hand over each of them in turn. In the beginning, he thought that he could be the Pied Piper. But with art not music. And instead of children, he just wanted William, and he wanted to draw him from the underworld back into this world. His world. Their world.
It’d taken him two years to give it up. But he still hadn’t thrown away the pictures. They travelled with him. His container of pointless hope.
He picked up a portrait of William’s face, bringing it to his nose as if he could smell the mix of Lynx and sweat on him.
“I will burn you,” he said, just like the last time. “I will bury you. It’s time to say goodbye. You have to go, understand? You’re never coming back. Just let go of your hold over me. I need to live again.”
He squeezed the edges of the paper, feeling it crunch in his palms.
Then he let go, and it fluttered to the floor. He picked it up, cursing himself as he carefully straightened out the creases.
“I want my life back.”
He slipped the drawings back into the container, sealed it, and hid it under the bed.
Chapter Three
Third day into his job working in the IT department for a company specializing in ice cream production, and Eric wanted to bang his head against something hard. Like the concrete façade of the building, or the metal bar dividing the exit/enter doors. Gawd, he’d had more of a challenge selling camping equipment at Doyles back when he was at school. This job felt like he’d entered the British comedy The IT Crowd. Most of his calls so far had been solved by simply restarting the computer.
Eric entered the building with a lethargic step. A guy he’d not seen before sat behind the front desk. He had dyed blond hair and a scar on his forehead that could only have caused him grief after Harry Potter came out.
The guy looked up and flashed him a dimpled smile. Scar or not, the guy was cute.
Eric wanted to pause and take a moment to say hey, but the clock behind the guy’s shoulder glared at him. Crappity. Dropping the kitten off at the vet this morning had taken longer than he’d thought.
He passed by the front desk, and almost tripped when the guy spoke to him. “You’re the new IT guy, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Just a warning, but the boss is in a mood today. And I think he headed into your office.”
“Crap!”
He raced to his office. Great. Just as the guy said.
His boss sat in his chair, jaw hard, eyes trained on the clock. Damn clock.
“Tardy in the first week, Mr. Graham?”
“Sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“No, it most certainly better not.”
Eric ducked out of his shoulder bag. “Was there something I can help you with?”
His boss shook his head. “Just checking in. I like to do that on occasion. . . .”
By the time his boss had left, the heavy plastic table was looking like a real fine place to—
The phone rang. He listened, closing his eyes with the shake of his head. “Press control, alt and delete. . . yes, that’s right. . .”—he pinched his brow—“that be all? . . .Fine. Bye.”
He looked at the clock. Minutes had never dragged by this slow. Not even his trip with Rory in the pickup. Though maybe that wasn’t the best comparison, the journey had started slow, but that moment where they’d both groaned at the time . . . He’d barely looked at the time after that. The guy infuriated him, but apparently plotting all the ways he could make Rory eat his attitude or even better suck it back up his ass made the rest of the journey fly along quite nicely, in fact.
So maybe all Eric needed to do to get through this day was plot his boss’ tragic demise. Mwahahaha.
The phone rang again. He stifled a groan at the request. “I’ll be there to check it out in two.”
In four, he was back in his office. He laughed as he gave in and knocked his head on his filing cabinet, then groaned. Was this who he was now? All he was good for?
At eleven o’clock, and bored out of his mind from reading the company manifesto, production processes, history and culture of the company that his boss had given him to “integrate him into the team,” he opened his gmail chat and binged his friend—and old office mate from uni—Will.
me:
will this week never end?
Will:
I’m quite hoping it won’t any time soon
I’ve got to get this chapter finished. But . . . poor you?
me:
god, I’m jealous. Wanna swap lives?
Will:
ok Mr. Melodramatic, what’s up?
me:
nothing’s up. That’s exactly the problem. Melodrama would totally be welcome here.
Will:
this about work? Hate it, huh?
me:
understatement of the year.
Will:
could always get another job.
me:
not much out there. Well, not much that will take someone who got fired.
Will:
your grandpa was ill! That wasn’t exactly your fault.
me:
maybe not, but it’s still a fact. Anyway, it’s more than just the job.
Will:
what else?
It took Eric a moment to collect his thoughts. He entered and deleted a message, then entered it again. Will was his closest friend, and the only person he shared everything with. It was great because they were both open enough to just be honest. There were few people he could do that with. But Will had once opened up to him about how his boyfriend’s mum had called him William after her dead son, and how challenging it was to be around so much grief. Eric had been there for him, and he knew, just knew Will would want Eric to confide in him too. Still, even knowing how great Will would be it took him three tries typing and deleting before he hit send.
------------------------------------2 minutes
me:
I hate that grandpa is gone
Will:
ahhh. . .
me:
I mean, who’s gonna clap me around the ears and tell me when I’ve screwed up now?
Lol.
Will:
I don’t know. I would gladly take on the role if I could.
me:
haha. Yeah.
Will:
Maybe you need a boyfriend?
I’m sure there’s someone out there who’d jump at the chance to clap you around the ears. :P
Eric lifted his hand from the keypad and ran it through his hair. Boyfriend? He knew his grandpa would be nodding his head in approval. It won’t be only you for long. And a part of Eric wanted that, but most of him wasn’t sure he could handle it. It’d mean getting close, and caring, and what happened when the guy ditched him? No, he wasn’t quite ready to grieve again so soon.
----------------------------------- 1 minute
me:
No boyfriend for me, thanks. Unless you’re offering. ;) You’re perfect.
Will:
LOL
Not perfect.
And I fall for Heath more every freaking day.
me:
*groans* sappy Sally, you.
Will:
not all sappy. Heath’s being a bit . . . distant? lately.
me:
distant?
Will:
dunno. He keeps going off for long walks on his own saying he just needs time for himself. To think. :/
Whenever I bring up our trip to the States next year, he blanches. And it’s not because he hates to fly.
(Not only, lol)
me:
talked to him about it?
While Eric waited for the reply, he reluctantly scanned through the manufacture flow chart. No matter how quick and boring his tasks were, he knew he shouldn’t shirk off on them completely. He read through the stage headings: blending, pasteurization, homogenization, blending, ageing, hardening . . .
His thoughts drifted off to how his cat was doing. No one had called about the grey whiner yet—he’d put posters around the neighborhood—so it looked like he’d have to buy some more for it to eat . . .
A little shiver passed through him as he remembered the last time he’d bought cat food. Rory had been there too. There’d been a fleeting moment when Eric had thought the guy was going to come down the aisle and talk to him. He was so sure he would never want to talk to him again. That had been Eric’s initial thought, at least. That was until he’d seen that moment of indecision in Rory. He had to admit; it made him sorta curious—
Bing!
He checked the chat box.
----------------------------------- 3 minutes
Will:
Heath calling. Brb.
Eric went back to the flow chart, but the image of Rory was still in his mind. This time it was of Rory in his pickup as Eric had told him what he really wanted. Rory’s lips had parted and his breathing had quickened . . .