by Kody Boye
I closed my eyes and allowed my turmoil to engulf me.
The college, the tuition, the backstabbing bastard who’d taken nearly half a year’s work and passed entire passages off as his own without so much as batting an eye—all reigned supreme over my life, a black hole engulfing entire galaxies in space.
Only one person seemed to make all that despair go away.
Guy.
But how? Why? What was his reasoning? His need? How was he so invested in me already? And how—why—couldn’t I refuse?
It didn’t matter. One moment, my eyes were open, and staring at the ceiling.
The next time I opened them, it was nearly six in the morning.
I blinked, clearing the haze from my eyes.
I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep.
Leaning forward, I stretched my arms down toward my toes and stopped when I noticed the envelope lying on the carpet.
Past Due.
I blinked.
Was this supposed to be some sort of sign?
I didn’t really believe in miracles, and I definitely didn’t have any sway toward the supernatural, but after placing it on the counter in such a way that I was sure it wouldn’t fall off, this couldn’t be anything else but fate.
Standing, I picked both the envelope and myself up before heading toward my bedroom.
I’d made a decision.
Later today, I’d call Guy’s cell and ask if he was still willing to take me in.
Chapter Ten
The flex of his strong arms captivated my attention as he carried one of the heavier boxes from my second-floor apartment and loaded it into the trunk of his car. Brow beaded with sweat, tank top stretched to the limit and riding up his lower back, he lifted his eyes as I struggled to carry another box downstairs and took it before I could trip.
“Sorry,” I said, noting his particular care of the box of breakables I’d just handed off.
“Don’t be. You’ll end up hurting yourself if you’re not careful.”
“Guess I’m still a bit humble over this whole situation.”
“Hey,” Guy said, patting my cheek with the cut-off gloves he wore. “Don’t be. I wanna help. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He smiled and bumped his forehead against mine before starting back up the stairs. “How many more boxes we got?” he asked, casting a glance over his shoulder as he stepped off the final stair.
“Uh… three, I think.”
“Three boxes?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I asked because we’ve only brought two down.”
I apparently wasn’t quick to disguise my embarrassment, as Guy’s lips pulled down into a frown. “Ah” was all he could say.
I chose not to offer a comment and instead followed him into the apartment. As usual, I had to warn him about the slight rise from the platform into the doorway, otherwise he’d end up tripping and landing face-first on the woodwork flooring.
“You really got to put up with a lot of shit from these people to live in a place like this,” Guy commented, crossing the short distance to the living room, where he crouched and tested the weight of each of the boxes. “This place reeks of courthouses and easy settlements.”
“I didn’t want to bother filing a complaint after all the shit I’d been through.”
“How long have you been here?”
“This’ll be my third month.”
Guy frowned. “You told the landlord about all the damage though. Right? Pictures and everything?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry—I covered my ass on this one.”
“I don’t doubt you did.”
Guy’s pale expression brightened into a smile when I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. “Thanks for everything,” I whispered, no longer caring what kind of impression I gave off.
“Don’t thank me,” Guy replied, patting my back. “Let’s get the rest of these boxes in the car and get you home.”
Chapter Eleven
“This’ll be your room,” Guy said.
He deposited the largest and heaviest box labeled ‘clothes’ at the threshold into a white-carpeted room with an expansive queen bed and a dresser set beneath a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall.
“It used to be the guest room,” Guy explained as he followed me in, clicking on a series of switches that activated the lights and the overhead fan. “You’ve got your own adjoining bathroom to the side and extra storage under the sides of the bed if the dressers aren’t enough for you. Shelves by the windows have a few books in ‘em, but those can be moved. And there’s a desk here around the corner for your computer, though you can’t tell because it folds off the wall.”
I spun around the room, taking in my surroundings while at the same time awing over the events that had taken place in such a short amount of time. In less than a week, I’d met a man over the internet, then in person at a bar, slept with him soon after, and was now moving in with him after his generous and near-incredulous offer to help me get a fresh start. I’d yet to determine whether there was a catch, especially with the revelation that we would be sleeping in separate rooms, but it didn’t matter. I was happy. That’s all I cared about.
“So,” Guy said, breaking me from my train of thought. “You like it?”
I turned to face him. “I love it,” I replied. “Thank you, Guy. So much.”
“You’re welcome, Jason. Why don’t you get settled in? I’ll unload the rest of your stuff and we can order in.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Guy’s only response was a smile before he disappeared out the door.
With that said and done, I spread my arms and fell back on the bed.
I hadn’t been on something so soft since that first night with Guy.
Chapter Twelve
We ate pizza over six ‘o clock news on the coffee table in the living room. Outside, the beginnings of a Texas thunderstorm broiled in the sky, scattering miniscule droplets of rain shadowed only by the prediction that more would come.
“You usually eat on the floor like this?” I asked after taking a bite.
“Honestly? Yeah. Closer to the TV.”
“You’ve got a point there,” I laughed.
Guy lifted a fist and bumped my hand when I raised mine in turn.
A clap of thunder made me jump and bang my knee against the coffee table.
“You all right?” Guy asked.
“Sorry,” I managed, glad I hadn’t choked over my mouthful. “Don’t like thunderstorms much.”
“How come?”
“Notice my arm?” I asked. Not that it wouldn’t be hard to—the mark spread all the way from my shoulder down to the middle of my arm, ornate in composition but absolutely horrifying in backstory. “I got struck by lightning.”
“No shit?” Guy asked. “Fuck. I thought you said it was a tattoo, but I didn’t want to make it awkward by asking.”.”
“It’s called a Lichtenburg figure. Most people only get them for a few days or weeks after getting struck, but others—like me—get scarred. They’re supposedly caused when the capillaries are ruptured from the lightning strike.”
“Damn.”
“I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about it,” I shrugged. “That’s why I brushed it off when you asked that first night.”
“Well, we only had one thing on our minds.”
“Yeah.”
“When’d it happen?”
“When I was eight. Stupid me. Playing in a field, boasting all proudly that I wouldn’t get hit by lightning because I wasn’t the tallest thing around.” I snorted. “Look how far that got me.”
“Least you’re not dead,” Guy offered.
“Still don’t like thunderstorms,” I countered.
Another clap sounded, this one thankfully more distant. I was able to keep from jumping and pulled my legs out from under the table. Yawning, I stretched my arms over my head and cast a glance toward the kitchen. “What time is it?�
�� I asked.
Guy, far closer to the kitchen and at a better vantage point, leaned over and said, “Eight.”
“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” I said. “Thank you for dinner. And helping me bring all my shit over.”
“It’s no problem.”
“You want me to help clean up?”
“Nah.” Guy shook his head. “Go to bed.”
I pushed myself up and started for my bedroom. Guy, too, stood, but rather than reach down to put the pizza away, he brushed his hand along my arm. “Jason?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
He pulled me into a one-armed hug. “Glad you’re here,” he said.
I smiled before departing to my room.
Chapter Thirteen
I kept expecting Guy to come in sometime during the night, after I’d fallen asleep or when he suspected I had. However—not once did I wake up to the sound of the door creaking open or the mattress shifting beneath a second person’s weight. By the time I woke up the next morning, I realized he hadn’t come in at all.
The door hadn’t opened an inch.
Maybe he really was genuine.
I sat upright and ran the balls of my fists across my eyes in an attempt to help them adjust to the light streaming into the room. The lone window open, the white curtain billowing in the breeze of a cool new day, I turned my head to the bedside clock and gawked at the fact that it was nearly ten in the morning.
Shit.
I sprung from bed, pulled the window shut and the curtains in place, and dragged a plain white tee over my head before darting out into the hall to locate Guy.
No TV. No appliances. No footsteps.
Just as I’d expected, he was gone.
Had he already left for work?
I looked down at my scant attire of lounging pants and tee before venturing out into the hall, peering up and down the hallway to see if maybe I’d missed something. The guest bathroom door was open, as was his bedroom door directly down the hall, which meant that he was either gone or left it open in case I needed something.
As I expected the former, I stepped into the living room to see if his coat or keys were missing.
Both were gone.
“Guess I’m roughing it on my own,” I mumbled, starting toward the kitchen.
I slid into the miniscule space and was just about to open the fridge before I saw another sticky note affixed to its surface.
Frozen stuff in the freezer, it said. Sandwich stuff in the fridge, bread and condiments in the pantry.
At least he was thorough.
I prepared a slight breakfast of ham and cheese stacked between toasted bread and heated up a pair of hash browns before seating myself at the bar and reaching for the kitchen remote.
I regretted hitting the ON button almost immediately.
“Initial reports are saying that the body of a young man was discovered on the shores of Lady Bird Lake early this morning in the hours just before dawn. Though authorities are not releasing many details, the jogger who discovered the young man described him as appearing ‘frozen,’ giving rise to the question as to whether or not this young man was the latest victim in what police are calling The Lady Bird Killer, who’s suspected of storing their victims in extreme temperatures before dumping the bodies. I’m Taylor Armson, and this has been your morning news.”
“Shit,” I whispered, clicking the TV off with a resounding sigh.
I’d thought this was over—that the man, or woman, who did this had simply packed house and moved on to some other unfortunate end of Texas—but it appeared that was anything but the case. That trail had been abandoned for a reason. It’d become stalking grounds. But when the last victim was found six months ago in a city where crime was as scattered as it was varied, it didn’t take much to forget the idea of a killer being on the loose.
I glanced out of the living room window at the upper end of Sixth Street.
Thank God I’d gotten out of my jogging habit, otherwise I’d be dead.
My appetite soured, but unwilling to waste perfectly good food, I forced myself through the sandwich even though each bite felt like a tender knife within the corpse of an attractive young man until I was finished. One hash brown I ate half of. The remaining bits I ground up in the garbage disposal without much thought.
I stood there for a few minutes, glaring down at the sink as if it would answer the questions to all of life’s problems.
Soda in the fridge, a post-it said near the counter.
While I could’ve sworn Guy had leaned in sometime that morning to tell me such a thing, I opened the fridge to discover that there was, in a fact, a twelve-pack waiting for me—resting perfectly where a soda rack would’ve normally been placed.
After retrieving one from the pack, I walked to the sofa and cracked it open.
Bliss.
Chapter Fourteen
I spent most of the morning on the phone, arranging forbearance details with the government and straightening out my living situation with my former landlord. His thick accent and his frothy foam-at-the-mouth attitude made it almost impossible to discern what he was saying.
“You left?” he asked, nearly barking the words into the phone.
“Everything I own is gone,” I replied. “The furniture was left on the curb. The apartment’s as spotless as I could make it.”
“You wish to terminate your lease?”
“Yes sir. I do.”
The man on the other end paused. What sounded like a series of shifting papers, followed by a low string of curses in Spanish echoed into the receiver before the resounding shift of his mouth entered my ear.
“Look,” he said. “You’re past due on last month’s rent. I can cut you a deal, seeing as how you haven’t given me any problems. But I’ll still ask for last month and what you’ve stayed for this month’s.”
“That’s fine.”
“Total comes out to $952. Pay by Thursday or I retract my offer.”
“I will, sir. I’ll drop the check off in your box soon.”
The call ended without a goodbye.
“Well,” I mumbled, looking down at my phone. “At least I have two days to worry about that.”
The doorknob clicked once, then twice to release the deadbolt before it opened to reveal Guy, dressed immaculately in a finely-tailored gray suit and a pair of black dress pants. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I replied.
“Didn’t expect you to be up.”
“Lunch break?”
Guy nodded. He slipped into the kitchen and began scrounging through the fridge before he pulled out a carton of what looked like hummus and pita bread, as well as a soda. “Care if I have one of these?”
“You bought ‘em.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Guy laughed. He dipped the bread into the mixture and sluiced it about. “You ate?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” He tore a chunk out of the bread. “So,” he continued, “what’ve you been up to?”
“Student loans. Landlord.”
“You get the total we need to pay him?”
“About a thousand dollars.” I grimaced even though Guy made no visible reaction. “Sorry.”
“For what? I said I’d help you out.”
“I didn’t think it would be that much.”
“Compared to this place?” he laughed. “Trust me—I pay about that and more a month for this place.”
“You mind if I ask where you work?”
“Advertising—business, mostly, but I do independent work on the side. Guess I have a way with people.”
No kidding, I thought.
I smiled and made my way to the window. Parting the curtain, I looked out at the street and surveyed the steady stream of traffic below.
“Hope the sound doesn’t bother you,” Guy said, catching me off-guard. “I got the place for the view, but… well… it’s still downtown.”
“The sound’s fine,” I said. “I used to live near all the c
ity services—police departments, ambulance depots, fire departments.”
“So you’re used to it.”
“Yeah.”
The sound of a trash bin flipping open, then closing radiated throughout the apartment before a set of jingling keys entered my ears.
“What time do you normally get home?” I asked, turning to face him.
“Uh… four, usually. Unless there’s meetings. Then six, seven at the latest.”
“Okay.”
“If you need anything, I keep spare change in the urn there.” He nodded toward the black-and-gold fixture seated at the edge of the bar. “You know your way around.” Guy opened the door. “See ya,” he said.
“See ya,” I replied.
He closed the door and locked it without another word.
Chapter Fifteen
The jittering doorknob stirred me from sleep.
Splayed out along the couch with my head on a pillow and a thick wool blanket over me, I opened my eyes to find it was almost dark, and the rain had once again started up. My first inclination was that Guy was having trouble with his keys and had mistaken one for the other in the pale and somber light. Because of that, I rose and started crossing the distance between the door, head still fogged by sleep and legs struggling to maintain their balance.
“Guy?” I asked.
The doorknob stopped jittering.
I froze.
Something was wrong—very wrong.
The lock clicked out of place.
I lifted my head just in time to realize the bolt wasn’t done.
I slammed into the doorway the minute the door open, but I was instantaneously tossed away by the intruder’s brute strength. My back collided with the corner of the bar and I let out a stifled cry of pain as the shadowed figure entered the apartment.
His gun was drawn, pointed right at me.