by Jaime Samms
“It isn’t like mopping a floor,” he said. “If it were, anyone could do it—”
“Excuse me.” Dusty’s smile turned wooden, and he shuffled past Conrad to the studio door. “You’re right, of course,” he muttered as he passed, and Conrad would have followed him, explained better, but Eliza was at his side then, staring at her hands and asking what music she should use for the final warm-up exercises, and he was forced to turn his attention to the class.
Later, as the girls and Adam worked their way through a simple if strenuous routine at the barre, he glanced through the wide windows into the office to find Dusty had pulled out the duffle he had brought with him. Inside was an array of empty jewel cases, which he used to replace the ones Conrad had broken in his fright over a tiny, innocent insect.
By the time class let out, Dusty was gone. The boxes of CDs were stacked in a corner with a note promising Dusty would clean and rearrange the shelves the next day, and not to worry, he knew Conrad would be teaching at the college for the morning, and he had a key from Mr. Penza to let himself into the building.
The next morning, Conrad waited until the very last minute before leaving for the college, but Dusty did not appear. Finally, he didn’t have a choice but to leave and hope Dusty would be there working through his routine of sweeping and mopping when he got back in the afternoon.
When he did return, though, the studio floor gleamed in the afternoon sun. His shelves above his stereo table were dusted and his knickknacks attractively displayed above the rows of CDs that had been arranged in alphabetical order.
Of Dusty there was no sign other than the shirt and socks he had borrowed the day before. They had been washed and sat on his desk, neatly folded with a scrawled thank-you note on top.
“Well, he can’t avoid me forever, right?” Conrad took the clothes up to his apartment and set them with the rest of Dusty’s clothes. He had meant for him to keep the shirt and socks. Eventually, they would cross paths again, and Conrad could explain himself. He wondered how Dusty had made it home without his shoes, but that, too, he could clear up next time.
Chapter 5
WAS IT cowardly to avoid him? Dusty figured it most likely was. Certainly Conrad hadn’t meant his comment how it had sounded. He hadn’t struck Dusty as that kind of elitist, but then Dusty really didn’t know him, did he?
“Dammit!” He staggered as yet another stone—probably about the dozenth one by now—dug into his heel between his skin and the bottom of his sandal. Hopping on one foot as he tried to shake the rock loose from the other, he dripped hot coffee over his fingers and down his wrist before he righted himself. Now not only was he freezing his toes off in the early-spring morning air, but his entire hand was sticky, and the breeze chilled his fingers. He should never have left the studio without his sneakers. After that first day, when he had snuck into the studio like a whipped puppy to clean when he knew Conrad would be out, he had rearranged his entire routine to avoid running into him.
He’d been slipping into the studio in the early-morning hours, mostly before the sun was even up, and out again by the time regular people who taught late-night dance classes would be rolling out of bed. On a few days over the past two weeks of this new schedule, he had heard Conrad padding about the apartment above and cut his work hours to the bare minimum to avoid seeing him. Dusty figured by now, he needn’t worry about it. Clearly, Conrad felt the same. He’d made no attempt to talk to Dusty. He hadn’t even left Dusty’s things out. He was afraid he was going to have to initiate a conversation to get them back.
“And so what? So what if he thinks I’m common? What did you expect him to think? You’re the goddamn janitor, for crying out loud. He owns the place—shit!” The stone that dug into the soft meat of his foot this time was sharp. He hobbled to dislodge it, which only forced the stone through the skin and caused him to drop his steaming coffee. It splashed over his feet and the cuffs of his jeans.
“Goddammit!” Would it be childish to sit there on the sidewalk and pout? Heaving a sigh, he picked up the empty coffee cup and lid and limped the last half block to the studio. At least he had discovered a well-stocked first aid box in a corner of the studio, so he would be able to clean the cut in the kitchen and bandage it up. He would get paid by the end of the day. If his sneakers didn’t reappear, he could buy a cheap pair of replacements until he managed to confront Conrad and get his things back.
He had just fished his key out of his pocket and was leaning on the porch rail when the door opened, and just like on that rainy day, he found himself staring into concerned summer-sky eyes.
“Are you all right?” Conrad’s gaze raked him over, top to bottom. “I saw you limping—”
“You were watching me?”
“Watching for you, yes. I called Marcello to find out if he required you to change your schedule or—”
“He didn’t.” Dusty set his foot carefully down to step around Conrad and get inside, but the pain of the embedded rock made him curse, and Conrad stepped out, gripping his arm to steady him. “This isn’t the only place I clean, you know,” Dusty said, trying to ignore his own gritted teeth and sweating lip as he shook himself free. He forced a calm expression as he hobbled from the door toward the studio. “I’m sure anyone can do what I do, but the fact is, I’m the one who has to make a living somehow, and even I can scrub a floor and alphabetize—” He stopped, caught by the sight of the stereo table and the stacks of CDs piled haphazardly over its surface, half the cases open and empty.
“I—” Conrad flushed. “Couldn’t find the level five music. It’s for classwork. By Schultz, I think.”
“And it didn’t occur to you to look under S?”
Conrad gazed at him, expression blank.
“I’ll get it cleaned up, but I need a Band-Aid, first.” He kicked off his sandal and nearly fell over trying to see the bottom of his foot. It was smeared with blood and coffee, as was the plastic inner sole of his shoe. “Dammit.” He wobbled, and would have toppled, but Conrad was there again, strong arms around his waist, easing him onto the tall stool next to the table. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. A few swear words aren’t going to shock me. Sit. Let me see.” He stole a quick glance at Dusty as he settled onto the stool. “And no, it didn’t occur to me to look under S. I was looking under L for ‘Level 5 Classwork.’ Now give me your foot, please.”
“It’s fine. Just a cut.” But he did as he was told, and Conrad crouched to get a better look.
“I think….” Conrad poked, and a searing pain knifed up from Dusty’s sole, clear to his hip, it seemed. He swore again, and apologized again for his lack of professionalism.
Conrad waved the apology away. “There’s something still in there.”
“You think?” Dusty jerked his foot out of Conrad’s reach and almost fell off the stool.
“Stay still!” Conrad shot up to steady Dusty, hands on his legs, a hip against his inner thigh. “Please. Let me help you.”
“I wouldn’t need your help, or anyone else’s, if I had my proper shoes.” He kicked at the offending flip-flop, and it skidded across the floor, leaving a smear of dirt and blood.
Conrad flushed deeply and averted his gaze. “Let me at least see if I can get whatever it is out.”
Dusty gritted his teeth and set his toes gingerly down to get his balance back. “I can’t sit up here. Let me down on the floor, at least. It will be easier.”
Conrad helped him up and then lowered him to the floor so Dusty could lie on his back and rest his heel on the edge of the table. It gave Conrad a clear view of his mangled foot, with lots of light from the window at the end of the room.
“I can see it,” he said as he gently wiped at the blood. “There’s glass in there.”
“Hurts.”
“I think I can pluck it out, but you should get a tetanus shot too.” He rummaged through the first-aid box and found a pair of tweezers. Before Dusty could protest, he had clamped a hand around his ankle to
hold him still and eased the sharp tips of the tweezers into the cut.
Dusty ground out a few curses, despite his attempts to act like a grown-up with a job and a sense of propriety, but then it was over and Conrad held a bloodied bit of green glass aloft. “There.” The note of triumph in his voice did more to set Dusty’s teeth on edge than the extraction had.
“Bully for you. Can you bandage it up now so I can get to work?”
“I’ll take you to get a shot—”
“Just clean it out and let me get back to work.”
Conrad glared at him.
“My shots are up-to-date, all right? I can be a bit….” He let out a heavy breath. “Let’s just say this isn’t the first time it’s come up recently.”
“Hurt yourself often, do you?”
“I have my moments. Can we get on with it? I have other places to clean today.”
“I thought I was your last stop.”
“It’s eight in the morning.”
“When you started, you came here in the afternoon. Is that how you’ve been avoiding me?”
“I haven’t been—”
“What I said the other day, about anyone being able to—”
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” Dusty struggled to a sitting position and curled his leg around so he had his injured sole facing up on his opposite thigh. The cut wasn’t as bad as it felt, and he supposed once it was cleaned and bandaged, he would be able to mince around on his toes for a few days until it was healed. He couldn’t afford to let it slow him down anyway. Rent would be due in a week, and he needed every penny he could earn to make it.
“It matters. It was a horribly insensitive comparison for me to make. It implied something I don’t believe at all.” He motioned to the table and the strewn CDs. “Clearly I can’t manage the simple ordering of a few silver discs.”
Dusty rolled his eyes. “And here I thought you were just trying to be a pain in my backside.”
Conrad held out a hand. His eyes twinkled, and his lips curled in a suggestive smirk, but his words were all innocence. “Get up. Let me clean that upstairs.”
Dusty sighed. “I have work to do.”
“It will wait.”
Dusty gazed up at him and wanted so much to agree that he had the luxury of fobbing off a day of work. But he didn’t. “It won’t, actually.”
“Long enough to clean your foot properly and make sure the bandages will stay.” Conrad winked, and a soft impression of his usual dimple peeked hopefully from his left cheek. “I’m somewhat of an expert at bandaging feet. I’ve been at it a fair little while.”
Well. That was probably true. “Fine.” Dusty eased his foot down and pushed himself to standing, conveniently not taking Conrad’s offered hand. He used the table, and a few CDs slipped from a pile and slithered toward the edge. Conrad caught them and set them back safely in place.
“I did notice that you replaced the broken cases,” he said. “What do I owe you for that?”
“Nothing. I had them sitting around taking up room. I don’t have the space for a lot of clutter. I organized mine into binders.”
“You have a lot of music?”
Dusty chuckled. “Not like you. I have some. Lots of classic rock and fifties’ rhythm and blues. Can’t dance a lot of ballet to any of that.”
“No Top Forties? Pop? Bit of One Direction, maybe?”
“I’m not that much younger than you. People always think I’m way younger than I actually am.”
“Oh?” Conrad held open the door between the office and the stairs leading up into a haze of morning sunshine. Dust floated like tiny specs of gold and bronze in the glow. Clearly, Conrad was a hopeless case of household ineptitude.
“Five years, tops,” Dusty hazarded.
“I’m thirty-six,” Conrad said, easing a hand under Dusty’s elbow to take some of his weight off his injured foot.
“Huh.” Dusty was conscious of the pale carpeting underfoot and the probability of bleeding on it. He glanced down with every step and held his breath, making sure to stay on his toes and praying he didn’t leave a mark.
“Stop worrying,” Conrad said. “It’s just a carpet. If we have to clean it, we will.”
Dusty lifted an eyebrow. “Oh we will, will we?”
Conrad smirked. A dimple dove into his cheek. The sight sent a tingle through Dusty. He wanted to hang on to his anger, but the man had a devil’s worth of charm.
“You didn’t say if your guess was right,” Conrad pointed out as they made it to the top of the stairs. The apartment was small, with stairs opening onto a main living area, and a compact kitchen along the far right wall. Another set of steps jack-knifed back, up to what Dusty presumed must be the bedroom. An open door immediately to the right of where they landed in the apartment showed him the bathroom. Conrad led Dusty to a kitchen chair.
“I was off by four years,” he admitted, adding the nine-year gap in their ages to the widening gulf of bad idea that separated them.
“So we were both wrong.” He had gone to the sink to wet some tissues, and now he returned and sat in another chair, motioning for Dusty to lift his foot.
For the next few minutes, they were quiet while Conrad tended the wound and bound up his foot. It seemed like a lot more bandaging than the little cut warranted, but Conrad pointed out that feet sweated and got walked on and otherwise abused, and that the covering would keep out any more dirt and protect Dusty from more pain than necessary. He didn’t let Dusty go until he had slipped a clean sock over the bandages as well.
“Thank you,” Dusty muttered, testing the foot on the floor and finding it hurt a lot less than he had expected.
“You’re very welcome.” Conrad held the other sock out and waited until Dusty accepted it. Once it, too, was in place, warming Dusty’s chilled foot, Conrad plucked a kiss from Dusty’s parted lips. “And I am very sorry about withholding your shoes. I was hoping their ransom would bring you around sooner.” He nodded to the coffee table a few feet away.
Dusty’s clothes sat on it amidst a pile of paperwork, costume catalogues, and other life detritus. In fact, the entire one-room living area, from the kitchen to the stereo in the far corner, looked like a tornado had hit it. Under the mess, he spotted beautiful art, statues carved of golden wood, candles, and other decorations that spoke of exacting, clean taste. If only it wasn’t blanketed by what was easily a year’s worth of dust.
“I know.” Conrad grinned ruefully. “I want to speak to Marcello about this place. He’ll probably suggest I let you see it before he gives you the additional job.”
Dusty groaned. He’d barely touched the real issues in the studio, and those he had seen to had been undone in less than a fortnight. “If I say yes, we need to set some ground rules.”
Conrad’s grin was at once sunny as a child’s and crooked in a way that set Dusty’s blood racing. “What kind of rules, exactly?” The leer in his voice was plain.
Dusty swallowed and opted for silence, lest his own voice give away the thundering of his blood and the dryness of his mouth. He headed for the stairs at a fast limp before he could do something really stupid, like suggest they start in the bedroom.
Chapter 6
CONRAD WATCHED him go, breath held, heart tripping, and blood thrumming. The instant he heard the door at the bottom of the stairs close, he grabbed up the phone and searched through his contacts. When he found the number for Penza Cleaners, he dialed and waited.
Marcello answered on the third ring. “Ciao. Penza Cleaners, can I help?” His thick accent warmed Conrad and brought a smile to his lips.
“Marcello, hello. It’s Conrad Kosloff.”
“So says my caller ID,” Marcello intoned. “Is there problem?” His voice had turned thunderous, his accent even thicker. “I know Mr. Hatch rearranged his schedule. I can insist he—”
“No!” Conrad quickly dispelled Marcello’s misconception. The very last thing he wanted was for Dusty to get in trouble. “No problem, Marcello
. The very opposite, in fact. He’s been wonderful and patient. In fact, I wanted to talk to you about hiring him to clean my apartment as well as the studio.”
Marcello groaned.
“Is that a no?”
“That is a heartfelt anguish for my young man. I have seen your apartment, my dear boy. You are asking for a miracle. Your own poor mother could never abide the door to your room be open.”
There was a whole lot his dear mother couldn’t abide, but Marcello was fond of her, so Conrad chose to ignore the comment. He’d grown up being chastised first by Marcello’s father, then by Marcello, for his slovenly ways. Marcello’s family had begun their business cleaning the houses in Conrad’s neighborhood. Marcello himself had spent a lot of time picking up after Conrad and, Conrad had to admit, enduring quite a few of Conrad’s long-winded, tangent-riddled explanations for the messes. But right now, Conrad didn’t have any inclination to get mired in a sticky conversation about his family.
Conrad’s brothers had all thought Marcello’s admonitions annoying as hell. Conrad was happy to have someone speak to him. His parents never had the time, and his brothers never had the inclination. Maybe they’d thought he had everything he needed with his twin sister. Who knew? All three of them had always been busy with football, polo, and a host of other manly things Conrad barely understood or cared about. Eventually, the silence from most of his family became so normal he stopped noticing.
When it came time for him to try out for the sports he’d never quite grasped, he’d thought he had made a lucky escape to a dance boarding school, thereby avoiding all the hassles of trying out and ultimately failing. Then Clarice had died, the twin bond had shattered, and the silence had become absolute. He’d continued on in his own bubble, until the one visit from his mother a month after he’d opened the studio. Now, years later, Marcello had reappeared in his life, chiding him about his bad habits again, with barely blunted barbs.