Tokyo Love

by Diana Jean

  Micah turned, hot and sweaty from his travels back to his hometown for the first time in three long years. “I’m gonna be awhile.”

  The landlord frowned. “I only ask because the cleaning crew is on its way and—”

  “He’s paid up through the end of the month, right?” Micah growled. If there was one thing his father did consistently, Micah knew, it was pay in advance. After that, the aunt who had given Micah his father’s current address would be taking over his affairs. There were debts to pay, he understood, and no will, so … he wasn’t expecting much in the way of an inheritance. He supposed closure would be enough, which was why he had deigned to set foot back in Fiesta again—let alone his father’s apartment—in the first place.

  The landlord blushed and stared down at his feet. “Well yeah, sure, but when we spoke on the phone yesterday you made it sound like you’d just be stopping by to pay your respects.”

  Micah dragged the backpack from his shoulder and let it slide onto his father’s easy chair, kicking up a fresh wave of beer and potato chip fumes. “That’s right. I had a lot of respect for my father, so it might take awhile.”

  The landlord nodded, still lingering in the doorway. “Okay, sure. I get that. Fathers and sons, that’s a special bond, right? All I’m saying is, are we talking a few hours’ worth of respect here? Or a few days, or…what?”

  Micah smiled. At least the landlord was consistent. He and his old man had probably gotten along like gangbusters. “I need a cold shower and a black suit, mister. After that, I’m gone. Gimme an hour or two to pay my respects. Can you do that much for me?” Micah didn’t think he’d need that much time, but if he got the landlord out of his hair for a few extra minutes, all the better.

  The old man nodded eagerly, then paused, admiring the living room cluttered with furniture, walls covered in artwork. “You don’t want none of this?”

  Micah reached for the door. “Hell no,” he said, slamming it in the landlord’s face. The sound echoed through the cheap apartment, sending dust bunnies into hiding and, from the sounds of his slippered feet in the hallway, the landlord running. He felt bad for the old man, but he couldn’t help it.

  Micah had said he’d respected his father; he never said he loved him.

  Fact was, he and his dad had baggage—whole freight cars full of it. Baggage Micah had assumed they’d unpack one day, maybe over a cold beer at one of his dad’s favorite bars, hashing out the misdeeds of their sordid pasts, walking out of the darkness into the light, finally unburdened and free to start anew.

  Now that would never happen. A stroke, sudden and swift, had seen to that. He had meant to reach out to the old man over the years, once the pain of that one night so long ago had festered and, if not entirely healed, scabbed over somewhat. Maybe the old man had meant to reach out to him. Now Micah would never know.

  Micah sighed and went to the fridge, knowing there’d be a cold six pack inside—and not much else. He wasn’t disappointed. He grabbed one, ignoring the rest of the house and drifting into the bathroom, stripping off his damp, sticky clothes along the way.

  It had been a long bus ride from the Prestige Art Institute in Atlanta. Long, hot, boring, and dusty. He had fantasized that he might spot some sexy stranger along the way, following him into the men’s room for a quick tug and chug but, alas, there had been mostly single ladies or retirees, neither very much interested in the brooding ex-art student in the back.

  The bathroom was small and dirty; water stains surrounded Micah as he stood beneath cold water that never quite warmed. That was fine with him—he had enough body heat from the seventeen-hour trip to spare.

  His father’s death, and the summons to attend his funeral—ignored until Micah’s conscience could ignore it no longer—had proved a tipping point in his life. Rousing him from a weeks’-long slumber after being asked to leave art school, he had been drifting through a kind of dream state: unbelieving, uncertain, unsure.

  The decision to visit his father’s gravesite had proved a fateful one, pulling him out of his self-imposed sabbatical and forcing him to confront his oldest, and fiercest demons. Now that he was here, he felt no closer to relief than he had when he’d first bought a bus ticket for the long sojourn home.

  He dried off with a stiff towel his father had probably used, and wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He got rid of it quickly, his short hair still damp as he padded, naked, back into the living room. He hadn’t brought much with him, just what he’d worn on the bus and a few fresh pairs of underwear and socks shoved to the bottom of his backpack. He was fine borrowing a suit from the old man, but not his drawers.

  Standing up from tugging on his boxers, Micah noted the old record player in the corner. “Jesus,” he murmured, recognizing it from his youth and unable to resist. He let his fingers drift through the old album covers, settling on Miles Davis and smiling despite himself as the rich, chaotic tones filled the smelly old room.

  There had been good times growing up, before Micah’s mother passed from cancer when he was but a boy—and even afterward, when it was just him and his father trying to make their way through the wreckage that remained of their lives together and apart. Barbecues and cookouts, card games and old movies on TV, and, always, music. Jazz, mostly. Blues, whenever his father bought a fifth instead of a pint.

  But the good times were too few and far between, and even a shared love of good music wasn’t enough to drown out the shouting, the accusations and, ultimately, the dismissal.

  Micah drifted toward his father’s room, finding a cheap black suit, cheaper black socks, and polished black shoes in the closet. He tugged them on, studying the mostly fitting getup in a dusty full length mirror in the corner. Smirking ironically at the church suit, Micah stuck his hands in the pockets, striking an uncertain pose. He felt bills, several of them. Dragging them out, he found tens and twenties, two of each.

  Returning to the closet, Micah mined the half-dozen jackets hanging there to discover a hidden stash of loose bills, some crumpled, some folded, his father’s version of a piggy bank, he supposed. Micah smirked, pocketing the cash and wondering if that was why the landlord was so eager to return. He felt naked, somehow, without a tie, but couldn’t find one anywhere.

  He was turning from the room when he noticed a framed picture on the dresser by the drawer. He paused, picking it up with suddenly trembling hands. It was of his parents, both of them, so young and striking in their differences and similarities. It wasn’t a wedding picture, or even a studio portrait. It was a casual snapshot, shot somewhere relaxing, Micah’s mother—white and prissy in a sundress—clinging to his father, ebony skin dark in the sun as they shared a quiet moment captured by a family member or friend’s camera.

  Micah had known so little of his mother, it might have been his father hugging a stranger. And seeing his father in happier times only made him feel guilty about the years that had passed since they’d last spoken.

  Back in the hall, he saw one last room, past the bathroom, the door closed. Curious, thinking he might find a vast tie collection lurking just beyond the door, he opened it—and found a museum instead.

  It was his room, almost just as he’d left it after his father kicked him out the night of high school graduation three years ago. That hadn’t happened here, in this rundown fleabag apartment, but his father must have moved it here, either recreating it by memory or dumb, blind luck.

  Micah’s artwork hung from the walls, amateurish but inspired, framed and orderly all around the room. The bed had the same sheets and comforter; the same wicker chair sat in the corner, beneath the good lamp, where he’d sit up long after his father passed out at night, sketchbook in hand, drawing furiously until he passed out, too—drunk from art instead of beer or gin.

  And there, against the wall, his old skateboard. A little battered, a little bruised, but there just the same. It even had the same stupid peace sign sticker in the middle, frayed but permanent now, he supposed. Micah grabbed it, shut th
e door behind him, and didn’t look back.

  Skateboard under his arm, he snatched his backpack off the easy chair and reached for the door. Half-in, half-out, he paused, returning to the kitchen. The money feeling greasy and unclean in his coat pocket, he slid it in the fridge next to the six-pack, twisting off one last beer in exchange.

  To purchase this ebook and learn more about the author, click here.

  Praise for Sweet Tooth:

  “The love scenes are both tender and sexy, these are men who have waited years to finally be together, so you know it shouldn't be rushed.” — 4 stars, The Romance Reviews

  In the mood for more Crimson Romance?

  Check out Fool for You by Rina Gray at CrimsonRomance.com.