by Shawn Keys
Drake deposited his burden onto the counter. “That’s really nice. Why here? If you were all friends before, don’t you have a hometown somewhere?”
Tricia shrugged. “Sort of. None of us are super close to our families. And the place for our factory is here on the coast. It was the right combination of tax shelters and small business incentives. Since we could live anywhere, we figured we might as well be here in case something happens. We can rush down and help fix it, instead of having to get on a plane.”
“Makes sense.”
Chuck wandered over. “Nice job you two. If you are finished gabbing, maybe I can grab Tricia here to get started chopping some of this stuff into useable chunks?”
Tricia nodded enthusiastically. “Can’t wait! Carting stuff around isn’t my forte. Chopping and dicing? I’m all yours.”
Drake chuckled. “Mind if I go see how the other two are doing? I’ll come back and help you hack the potatoes down to size in a few minutes.”
Chuck huffed. “Can’t take the heat? Out of the kitchen you go!”
Tricia brushed a fond hand along his arm. The gentle flirtation sent a thrill through his core. “Hurry back. Don’t let them hog you.” She spun in place like she had a tail to fluff in his direction, then trailed Chuck over to the work bench.
Drake let out a long breath. He couldn’t help but feel almost normal. It was wonderful, and exactly what he needed. He knew darker thoughts awaited. The cold, hard streets were not far away. But he would deal with that when it came. He was determined to focus on the here and now. Pleasant company. And helping make a difference.
Those made him feel a little more human again.
* * *
Drake leaned against the archway leading into the shelter’s basement laundry room. A touch of déjà vu scratched at his mind. There wasn’t much in common between this place and the expansive, industrial washing area in the mall. But there was enough similarity to the warm air, the rumble of tumbling clothes, and the scent of soap to tease him with what happened yesterday. Yesterday? Hell, barely more than 15 hours ago.
His focus was mostly on Cara, who was roughly stuffing a bundle of sheets into a low-slung washing machine. He was glad he didn’t summon her attention immediately. She had taken off her coat, and her black sweater was not exactly clinging. Bent over as she was, the collar-line dipped, giving him a wonderful view of her ample cleavage. It might be his imagination, but he swore she was wearing a lacey bra that was in no way appropriate for this sort of work. It tempted him to push her up against the machines, strip off the sweater, and get a closer look.
He let that mental image float in his brain for a bit, then cleared his throat loudly enough so that she would know he was there.
Her face came up, and she smiled. She didn’t straighten up immediately, and her grin was almost too saucy. Is she giving me a deliberate look down her clothes? Drake dismissed that almost as soon as he thought about it. Nah. Don’t let fantasy run away with you, Drake’m’boy. The crash back to reality is going to be hard enough as it is when you’re back on the street.
Banishing temptation, Drake asked, “Did you draw the short straw?”
Cara rewarded him with a small laugh, then continued her work filling the machine. “Depends on how you look at it. Tricia went with you to haul around heavy objects and then burn things. Karin was asked to breathe paint fumes for a few hours. I’m thinking I’m pretty lucky to be juggling a few machines on timers and then making some beds.”
“Handling someone else’s dirty linen?” He wouldn’t care, but a lot of people might.
Cara held up her hands encased in plastic gloves. “Just in case.” She shrugged. “Most of these were only used for one night. I gave Molly a hand checking for bed-bugs first, and it’s super great that there aren’t any. Took away a lot of my heebie-jeebies before doing this.”
“That’s the technical term for it, huh?”
“Don’t you dare mock the excellent, pioneering work of Professors Heebie and Jeebie in their fear-based research.”
“Heaven forbid.” Drake chuckled, enjoying the gentle give-and-take. “Brings back a few memories, though. Us idiots on basic training had to be punished somehow, and the Marines love to combine smacking fingers with productive labor. Doing the company laundry was one of the favorites of the drill sergeants.”
Cara smiled in sympathy. “How long were you in?”
“About 9 years, all-told.”
She tilted her head to one side, talking as she shifted over to another machine. “That seems like an odd length.” One of the dryers gave a bing. Cara pointed at it. “Can you get that? Fold the stuff onto that bench there?”
Having no problem with pitching in, Drake pried open the dryer and tugged the contents out. Settling it into a messy pile, he began to sort through it as he answered, “Didn’t end because I wanted it to. Medical discharge after I took a hit on deployment. A bullet tore up a large patch right here above my hip. Can still feel it in the joint most days.” He shrugged, telling the truth while avoiding any sign that he was trolling for her sympathy too much. “Not a lot of time to do flexibility and physio exercises.”
Cara nodded. “Ever try yoga? The girls and I don’t have time for much, but we force in a 90 min session every morning or we all start feeling terrible. Great for strength and flexibility.”
Drake had heard the same, but never caught on to it. “Not yet. Probably would if… well, you know.” He dodged the idea of how he would afford a professional instructor or even instructional recordings without enough money to even eat.
Cara did smile a little sadly. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” She paused as she went through an internal debate, maybe wondering if she should ask. Then she did anyway. “So, you came home? Can I ask what happened?”
Drake slowed down a little in his work as dark memories were churned up. He should probably just deflect. There was no reason to tell her. No reason he even should tell her. But that was the biggest reason he decided to. In the end, Cara didn’t know him. She was a stranger, and she’d be gone in a few hours. He could talk about this, and not have to worry about the long-lasting implications of what that would mean if she was a friend. No lingering pity. He never told anyone on the street his story. He didn’t need that. But Cara would vanish and take her pity with her. “I got a decent medical release stipend. Not huge. Probably wouldn’t cover anywhere close to the medical bills needed to clean up my hip for good. But it would have been enough to live on for a few months and get a job.”
He shook his head. “But my parents weren’t expecting me back. I was doing well. Got promoted less than a year before, and I was in the Force RECON special ops group. I was going to make a career of it, and they knew it. I had a few hard times before that. Won’t get into that. But, well, I lost someone I cared about a lot. They didn’t want to break me out of my groove or… well, whatever they were thinking. They loved me too much.”
He shrugged. “Got home to find my Dad was into his fourth year of fighting a real ugly lung cancer. Every time they had hope it was nearly gone, it surged back. The medical bills kept piling up. Each time they got a good prognosis, they said they were going to tell me. Then, he dipped again. Never bad enough to be on death’s door which they would have told me about. Just… up and down, for years. They didn’t want to worry me.” He closed his eyes, hating that he had been so selfish. They had cut him off so he could deal with his pain. That choice had cost him all the chance he had to help them fight the cancer together. And he hadn’t even noticed. He’d been too focused on his own shit to recognize the pain his parents were both in.
Struggling away from the hurt, he said, “I came home pretty much at the same time my father was told he had taken a massive turn for the worse. He was dead not long after.”
Cara had stopped working. “Oh, Drake, that’s terrible.”
He braced himself on the table. “Yeah, it wasn’t any picnic. At least I got to help him through those last few weeks. If he
had died while I was away, that might have finished me.” He shrugged. “Mom was frail from all the stress. She died of pneumonia not long after. That left me with bills I couldn’t pay. Selling the house came first. Life insurance helped. And my medical pension took care of the rest. When you reset to zero, there isn’t a lot you can do. I should have been looking for work while Dad and Mom were sick, but my heart wasn’t in it.”
Cara stood and walked over to him. She leaned in, hugging him from the side. “No-one can blame you for that.”
Drake huffed. “Doesn’t take blame. No-one needed to blame me. But that didn’t give me any place to live. I lived a lot further north. Being outside up there can kill you. So, I migrated here.”
“There are warmer places.”
“Yeah, well, even homeless people have preferences. I like to see the ocean. This felt like a place I could live, even if it didn’t want me.” Cities didn’t exactly love attracting more street folk. Wouldn’t find it on any poster, Drake knew.
“Hard times.” Cara squeezed him one last time in sympathy, then retreated back to her work.
Drake was grateful. It had been just about the perfect amount of sympathy, then backing off before it felt clingy and pitying. Either she had gotten lucky, or read him right. “Tricia mentioned her own hard times. Nice of you to throw your hat in her ring.”
Cara laughed softly. “Yes, well, she probably didn’t tell you my own tale of woe. I mean, I’m not trying to compete or anything. She had it roughest among us, and I wouldn’t dare say I suffered through what you’ve handled.”
Drake stopped her, “Don’t compare. If it hurts, then it’s real.”
Cara smiled over at him. “I’ll remember that. Nice way to put it.” She shrugged. “Had a bad relationship coming out of high school. Tricia probably didn’t tell you that is one of the reasons we moved away. He wasn’t quite stalking me, but I could see it going that way. I was in fear all through college. Then when I graduated, all the ‘great opportunities’ for business managers had either been lies or evaporated just in time for me to start looking.” She sighed. “So, sure, I’m doing Tricia a favor by tossing in with her. But to be honest, if I didn’t have this business to sink my teeth into, I have no idea where I would have found work.”
Finishing the first pile he was working on, Drake heard another machine give its final bing. He didn’t need to be asked to shift over, pull out more of the laundry, and start separating. “Doesn’t sound fun.” He wouldn’t offer any stupid platitudes like ‘oh, you would have found something’. He was sure she had tried.
Cara rolled her eyes, “I was so close to taking this job as business manager at a strip club. I mean, a job is a job, but you could tell the owner was more interested in getting me to moonlight as a performer. Not a good situation. Living on crumbs in a small duplex here and trying to make a start-up company work is way better. On every level.”
Drake chuckled darkly. “Except the ‘dressing as an elf and nearly dying’ part?”
“Well, yeah,” she laughed. “Honestly, the first time we got into those outfits, I was sure I would die with embarrassment. Can you imagine? I mean, how has that mall not been sued five-ways from Sunday?”
Drake shrugged. “It’s like Halloween. Sexy-cat-girl costumes are forgiven on All Hallowed Eve, as Sexy Elf costumes shall be forgiven during the yuletide season. That’s the law.” He flashed her a teasing smile. “Mind if I strongly suggest you consider a career as an elf? I know I’d support you three.”
She smirked. “Oh, I bet. We were there for the amusement of the fathers who had to suffer waiting with their kids. I get it.” Drake swore she had a hidden smile for a second, as if she found the idea of being stared at for hours at a time as an untouchable sex symbol might agree with her. She didn’t say it, but he swore it was there. A hidden kinky core she wasn’t ready to admit to a stranger like him.
Instead, she punched the button on her last machine, then exhaled in relief. “How’s it coming on your end?”
Drake plopped the last of his sheets on the pile. “Done.” He checked the dryers and their timers. “Looks like another 20 minutes or so before the next one is done.”
Cara pushed up to her feet. “Alright. Molly asked me to bring these up to her so we can make some of the beds.” She strolled closer, her gaze softening. “Thanks… you know, for talking with me. I wanted to know who you are.”
Drake didn’t hide why. “Easy enough to talk to strangers.”
“’Cause we’ll forget?”
Drake nodded.
Cara’s smile radiated affection. “Would you be awfully disappointed if I didn’t forget you?”
A small flush crept up his neck. “I think I could live with that.”
“Good.” Cara reached up and pecked him on the cheek. The kiss set fire to his senses in a way he just wasn’t used to anymore. That done, she tucked the laundry piles into a hamper, then swept from the room in search of the house matron.
Drake wasn’t in any state to go anywhere for some time. How long has it been? He couldn’t even rightfully remember. But the impact of that kiss and the memory of her caring hug lasted. He shifted his phallus around in his well-worn pants, trying to ease the tension so he could walk again. They hadn’t felt that tight in a long time.
When at last he could move with only the mild limp of his wound, he went searching to see how his last elf helper was doing.
* * *
Finding Karin proved easy. He simply followed the paint fumes.
It actually wasn’t that bad. The air flow down the corridor was decent. Honestly, most people would probably call it ‘drafty’ and complain about it. But what was negative in one situation was a positive when making sure the paint fumes didn’t build up and cause Karin any lasting harm.
As it was, she had a mask with a filter over her face. She had also found herself a set of white coveralls to temporarily steal and wear rather than her Christmas colored sweater and jeans. The coveralls were freshly cleaned, but they had clearly been used for painting before, because they were streaked with smears of dried-on paint that would never be fully washed out.
As Drake approached, his jaw opened a little. He was able to see through the sides of the coveralls. Her legs were totally hidden, but the front and back were panels with straps going over her shoulders. He could see the straps of her bra and the top hem of her panties though the drooping, open sides of the thick, white denim. She was down to her underwear inside of the coveralls! Drake could trace the sexy, lean lines of her side, get a glimpse of her trim tummy and sculpted back, and follow the generous contours of the sides of her breasts confined by a black bra.
She was up on her tip-toes, straining to get at the highest crook on the wall with a small plastic trowel. When she got off balance, she bounced back to the balls of her feet, and let out a cute little, “Whoopsie!” Then, she launched back at the task with an unwavering cheerfulness that couldn’t be denied.
Damn, is she ever cute.
The red-head continued her efforts for a good five minutes until she noticed she was being watched. Rather than complain, Karin pulled off her mask and flashed Drake a smile. “Hey there! Did you come down here to give me a hand, or just admire my handiwork?”
In an effort to seem like less of a lout, he actually looked at her handiwork instead of staring at her like a gaping fish. The bottom half of the walls were all old wood. Nothing expensive like oak, but the cheaper wood had been stained dark so many times that it looked historical. Lots of bangs and chips were taken out of it; traffic up and down these halls was often-times rowdy and not concerned with marks on the wall. But while the wood had obviously taken a few beatings, it just made the wear and tear that much more authentic.
The upper half of the walls were painted in a light sky-blue, which had taken its own fair share of wear and tear. Hand prints. Chips taken out. Smudges. Karin was in the process of smearing some fast-drying cement filler into the breaks and cracks and chips, so tha
t her or someone else could return later and paint over it all properly.
Drake leaned in and narrowed his eyes, taking a deeper inspection. The lines on the fills were flawless. Karin’s bright spirit made her look like she was having a lark, but the work was meticulous. Her craftsmanship and steady hand were showing through despite her bouncy nature.
With a huff, Drake said, “Molly wanted a couple of extra helping hands. But she’s going to have a whole new house before you three are done.”
Karin took it for a compliment. “She asked what we wanted to do. She’s such a sweetheart! When I asked if she had anything that needed touching up, she showed me these dormitory halls. Such a mess! I mean…” She flushed a little red. “I know homeless people are sleeping in here, but doesn’t mean it has to be ugly.”
Drake washed away her concern with a smile of his own. “Don’t worry. I know some people would say it doesn’t matter. Any roof over their heads is good enough. That sort of thing. But yeah, it matters. A little luxury can go a long way. In fact…” He looked left and right, considering the calming nature of the color. “Probably more than in most places. A cheerful splash of color and the fact that someone cared enough to paint it for them could break a person out of a depression cycle. Could save a life.”
His support banished her blush and brought out a smile. “Thanks! I like to think that’s true, too.” She went back to stretching for another crack above her head.
Drake figured he could help, but he hadn’t done a lot of construction. He’d take five times as long with smoothing out a single dent. The rest of them weren’t dry enough yet to paint over. Deciding he was going to give himself a treat, he merely leaned against the wall in a safe spot and continued to watch the flawless, lithe red-head in her strangely provocative attire. He muttered, “Life sure is strange.”