Getting Lucky

by Daryl Banner

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “They always had the new games,” he kept on, my question going completely unacknowledged and unanswered. “All these big guns and fuckin’ goggles and crazy shit. Hell, they even—”

  “You really cuss a lot,” I teased him.

  Lucky gave me a look. “Were you serious about me not using language around you?”

  “Oh, use language. English, preferable. Just …” I sighed. “Fuck it. I don’t care anymore. Who am I to tell you how to be?”

  He shrugged, then shuffled his feet, his foot kicking into his backpack on the ground. “Nah. It’s cool. I can cuss less. Whatever. Don’t want you to have to, like, drink four Bloody Hail Marys on Sunday on my foulmouthed behalf.”

  “Drink?”

  He turned his face to me. His eyes smoldered, pitting my chest in the space of seconds. “I was making a confessional joke. Sunday. Church.” He gave me a flat-lipped smirk. “I thought you liked a sense of humor.”

  I chuckled halfheartedly and shook my head, looking away. I could only take so much of his smolder before I literally melted. “Sense of humor,” I agreed.

  “How much time you got?”

  I faced him again. “Time?”

  “Yeah. You feel like playin’ games ‘til four in the morning?” He slapped the buttons. The balls went flying. Chimes. Noise. “Got enough quarters in that big ol’ pocket of yours? Hey, I’ll make you a deal. Last hour is on me.”

  That last joke made me laugh. “Sure,” I said, then shoved two quarters into the machine next to him. It lit up, ready for me. “But that last hour is definitely on you. I’ll be out of quarters by then.”

  “Deal.”

  And that was how I spent my night, the two of us banging a couple of machines like horny no-homo frat boys tag-teaming a pair of hotties.

  It was after our second hour (and second round around the whole arcade sampling games) that everything went wrong.

  Deliciously wrong.

  “Alright, you need some serious guidance.”

  I gawked at Lucky. At this point, I felt like a damned expert, and we had gotten really comfortable yelling at each other across the room. But now he stood next to me, observing me with critical eyes as I played. “I got a five-figure score last game!”

  “Yeah, but you’re missing all the bonuses. That’s what gets—”

  “I got three bonuses last time!”

  “And I get thirty every time I play. Look.” He slapped the big button at the front, making the pinball machine come to life. The free hour had begun early tonight. “Get in front of your balls.”

  I smirked indignantly, even with how much fun I was having. “I am in front of them,” I stated with mock offense. “The heck does my stance have to do with anything?”

  “Your stance is everything.”

  And then he gripped my hips.

  I froze.

  “Stand like this,” he ordered me, shoving my body into place.

  Y’know. Putting me right where he wanted me.

  I had no choice but to comply, what with his big hands on my waist and his body right at my back. My head swam and I hadn’t even had a drop of alcohol the whole night long.

  “Go,” he then commanded.

  And I went. With a pull of the lever, my ball flew into action, and then the game came to life in front of me.

  Except this time, I had Lucky at my back, guiding me. I could feel his every breath crashing on my neck as he watched my every move, holding me in place as I played.

  My heart raced, thumping with every clang and bang of the bells, the chimes, and the digital melodies of congratulations.

  “There, right there!” he shouted out. “The target! Go!”

  I slapped the buttons on the side of the machine, aiming for the flashing target. My ball struck right at its center. The machine exploded into a wave of chimes that sent my score skyrocketing.

  “I did it!” I exclaimed.

  “Keep it up,” he ordered—right into my ear. “Don’t ever lose your focus. It’s all about building momentum. Shove, now.”

  “What?”

  “Shove!”

  I thrust my hips into the machine just as my big ball went careening across the board, spiraling up a metal track and then smashing into the bell at the top. My score doubled.

  “Holy shit,” I exclaimed.

  “Language,” he warned into my ear teasingly.

  Full disclosure: I was hard. Throbbingly hard. Cock-aching-in-my-briefs hard. How-were-my-pants-not-busting-open hard.

  And Lucky could not have cared less, blissfully unaware as he was to my situation. He spat orders in my ear, guiding me as I played the game. Or was it the game playing me? Or was it Lucky?

  When my last ball was lost to the greedy mouth of the pinball monster, my score was in the six digits. I gawked at it for a solid minute as the victory melody played.

  Lucky’s hands slipped off my hips as he took a step back to lean on the machine behind us. When I faced him, he was smirking my way. “Could’ve been better,” he muttered with a shrug.

  “You’re a tough critic.”

  “It’s the only way to get to the top.” He crossed his arms, which only emphasized how toned and sinewy they were. My eyes were drawn instantly to them. “Never settle.”

  “Never settle,” I agreed.

  His eyes lingered on me for too long. We had spent so much of the night together, I felt strangely comfortable around him—even with his stares that made me feel like he was choosing what sauce he wanted to pour over me as he devoured me whole. Hopefully teriyaki. If it wasn’t past the time that everything at the Crystal Dragon closed, I could have gone for some teriyaki right then.

  But the more the minutes ticked by, the more I knew the end was coming. It wouldn’t be long now before he announced his inevitable departure. I dreaded it with every passing second.

  Until my mind caught up: Where would he go?

  “Lucky.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, the sound of his name pulling him out of his strange, faraway daze. “Hmm?” he grunted.

  “I …” My heart was officially a professional percussionist. If I stood there any longer saying nothing, I was going to have a hole in my ribcage where my heart managed to jackhammer its way free. I had to speak. “I … well, I was sort of thinking, like …”

  “What?”

  He’s not making this easy. “I know you’ve had … weird people. And … propositions. I just want to, um … remind you … that I’m not one of those people.”

  He frowned and didn’t answer, waiting for the rest of it.

  I sighed and let it all out at once. “Listen. If you don’t have anywhere to go, I have a room for the weekend. That’s all I wanted to say. I have a room. A bed. You are welcome to it. A bathroom with a full shower. I …” The words were coming out so fast, I could hardly form them quick enough with my lips, tongue, and teeth. “I just want to offer it as a genuine, safe alternative to … to the street or … or wherever it is you go.”

  He stared at me for an eternity. Wherever it is you go. For two eternities. Wherever it is you go. My last words kept circling my head like gulls, squawking loudly, mocking me. Wherever it is … I gripped the pinball machine at my back so tightly in anticipation of any sort of response from him that I literally thought I might pull the buttons off with my bare hands.

  I had to shut up my last echoing words and replace them with some more. “It’s—It’s just an offer. Fresh bed. Shower. I … I don’t feel right having a room all to myself and … and not offering it to someone who’s …” I let out a sigh and realized then that I couldn’t bear another second of him staring at me with no answer. I turned my back to him and faced the pinball machine. “Offer’s on the table,” I threw over my shoulder. “Take it or leave it.” Then I started a new game, my hips in position, and my balls flying.

  A full minute later, he appeared at my side, watching me play. With the distraction of awaiting his answ
er over my head, I failed miserably, not even breaking a five-digit score by the time all my balls were eaten up.

  “Under one condition.”

  I turned to him, startled by the sound of his voice. “Huh?”

  “I’ll agree under one condition,” he repeated.

  I frowned. “I’m the one offering you to join me in my hotel room, and you’re the one requiring a condition?”

  He nodded, a knowing smirk teasing at the corner of his lips. “You get a six-figure score on your own.”

  I felt weightless when I smiled back. “You’re on.”

  Chapter 5

  JAMES

  The elevator ride up was ripe with the sort of tension I was certain I would never know again. The tension of a beautiful, mysterious, sexy young man at my side. The tension of not wanting to mess this all up. The tension of not letting my teeth clatter too loudly, for as nervous as I was.

  And why was I nervous? Really, nothing was going to happen between us. I was just giving him a place to sleep. I was being a decent human being.

  A decent human being to a strapping, gorgeous young man.

  “These smell so damned good,” he mumbled.

  He was referring to the doggie bag of egg sandwiches he held that I ordered to-go from the twenty-four-hour diner downstairs.

  I gave him a tightened smile. “Everything tastes better when you eat it after four in the morning.”

  “And you’re starved after two hours in the arcade.”

  “Three,” I corrected him. And a half.

  Ding.

  I forgot to count the floors.

  We stepped off the elevator and trudged the short hallway to my room at the loneliest corner of the seventh floor of Hearts Tower. It wasn’t until I pushed into the room and flicked on the lights that it even occurred to me.

  “Shit,” I blurted out.

  Lucky closed the door behind us and spun around, an eyebrow lifted. “What?”

  “I …” I shut my eyes and shook my head. “Honest mistake. I—”

  “What?”

  I sighed and gestured toward the bed—the one king size bed. “I swear I usually get double rooms. Like, always. I get the ones with the double beds, since my friends and I share two rooms among us, normally. I totally, seriously, genuinely forgot that I … that I got myself only one king size bed this time.”

  Lucky came farther into the room, still gripping the doggie bag in his fist, and stared at the bed. “That’s a big damned bed.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll …” I sighed and shook my head. “Look. You can take the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  At that, he frowned. “No fuckin’ way. This is your room. You should take the bed.”

  “No, no. Seriously. The … The chair is comfortable. It even has an ottoman. I’ll just kick back in that, and you can have the bed.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  After a second of hesitation, Lucky shrugged lightly, threw his backpack and the doggie bag on the bed, then sat down on the edge of it. In the next instant, he peeled off his fitted hoodie and tossed it next to him, revealing his chiseled body in that same white tank top he wore when I first met him last weekend.

  I don’t know how a kid on the streets kept up with a body like that. He must do pull-ups on fire escapes and bench press old discarded furniture. He wasn’t exactly a hulking bodybuilder—slender and lithe as his shape was—but he was intimidating. I doubt I’d find an ounce of extra body fat on him anywhere if I pinched every part of him to find it. The skin on his arms looked so taut, I could see the veins in his shapely biceps as he spilled the sandwiches from the doggie bag, snatched one up, then brought it to his mouth. Even the muscles at his neck and shoulders were tight and corded, flexing as he angled his neck to get another bite. He probably felt like marble and steel to the touch.

  I should know. I crashed into that body once already.

  All of this observation existed in the space of two seconds before I reached across the bed, grabbed my own sandwich, and took it to the chair to eat. I flicked on the TV at half volume, then flung the remote onto the bed. For the next ten minutes, the two of us watched whatever horror movie was playing on the hotel’s free movie channel while we stuffed our faces.

  He balled up the bag when he finished, his biceps bulging again for my viewing pleasure, then he proceeded to stare at the crumpled up bag as his mind went somewhere else entirely.

  I watched him, the rest of my sandwich forgotten. It turned out that I wasn’t very hungry after all, watching Lucky as he sat there, lost in thought. I couldn’t possibly know what was going through his head. Was he feeling thankful to have a bed tonight in a warm room? Or was he scared that I was just a question away from turning into one of those pervs he kept encountering?

  Then I told myself that it wasn’t about me. I tried to imagine what might make him feel better. My mind landed on one thing as I gazed at his dirty hoodie. “Hey, Lucky?”

  He looked up at me and grunted, lifting an eyebrow.

  “If … If you wanna take a shower, I have a spare set of clothes you can h-have.” I almost said “borrow” until I realized how dumb that sounded. “It’s just a grey shirt with a pair of dice on it. It’s … something I always bring here for some reason but never wear. And I have a spare pair of, uh … shorts. Red shorts.”

  He didn’t quite acknowledge what I said. He seemed drawn back to the balled up bag in his fist, like he was trying to lure some sort of dark, existential poetry out of it.

  I had no idea how much of my hospitality Lucky was willing to accept before things got plain weird between us. I mean, I was literally offering him a free set of clothes. My clothes. I even had spare socks if he wanted them.

  Was I overdoing it?

  I decided I wouldn’t make him suffer the humiliation (if that was what I could call it) of having to accept my offer. I rose from the chair and pulled open my bag. Lucky watched me. I took out the grey t-shirt and some red athletic shorts, then brought them into the bathroom and set them neatly on the counter with an unopened bar of hotel-brand soap resting on top.

  This isn’t weird, I told myself. You’re caring for another human being. Let it happen. He’ll appreciate it.

  I came out of the bathroom. Lucky was still looking my way. “I left you clothes on the counter,” I told him, my voice soft. “And there’s a bar of soap. Towels.” I ran out of words, so I just gestured awkwardly at the bathroom. “It’s all yours.” Then I stiffly made my way back to my chair and ottoman to finish my egg sandwich, my eyes glued to the floor as I took a hearty bite and chewed with conviction, saying nothing else.

  I heard Lucky rise off the bed. The sound drew my attention up to his tapered backside as I watched him—slowly, reluctantly, and without a word—stroll across the carpet toward the bathroom with his backpack hanging loosely from his left shoulder. I could visibly see the weight of his decision to accept my help by the subtle way his shoulders slouched as he went.

  Then the door closed behind him.

  I sat there with my half-eaten sandwich while staring at the TV screen at a horror movie that had lost all context. A scared, nameless teen in the woods, shirtless and wide-eyed, was hiding from a knife-wielding man-monster with a forked tongue.

  Maybe Lucky was the scared teen.

  Maybe I was the forked-tongue man-monster.

  When I heard the water twist on, I looked up at the bathroom door and listened. I struggled to imagine what Lucky’s life was like before he became homeless. Considering his build and facial hair, he had to be in his twenties. Maybe early twenties. Was he kicked out of his house? Did he run away from an abusive situation? Was he evicted from his apartment and had nowhere to turn?

  What if he used to live his life with pride, strutting through a gym somewhere in town (because let’s be blunt here: this ripped boy worked out) and exuding confidence? What if he was the king of his campus, all his friends looking up to him?

  What if
the homeless “dirty street rat” he had become was his living nightmare?

  I kicked myself out of the chair and pulled out my phone, then started swiping. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Maybe I just needed something innocent to fidget with while there was a hot, gorgeous young man showering in my hotel bathroom.

  In my endless scrolling, I landed on a receipt for my previous weekend. I stared at the number for too long, my heart sinking.

  I’d lost a lot of money to this place over time. Thousands.

  What if I really was an addict? What if I was addicted to the idea of breaking free from my life, from the bank, from the grind and the routine and the monotony?

  What if that hunger was enough to make me lose it all on the high-dollar poker table one of these weekends?

  Maybe I needed to stop feeling so much sympathy for Lucky and, instead, try to see him as an equal. Maybe I could end up just like him, on the streets, penniless, and desperate for help, despite every ounce of my pride refusing to accept said help from anyone.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the TV, not really seeing it. My phone hung loosely in my grip, ignored just as well. The soft drumming of shower water against the wall from the bathroom was all I heard for the longest time. I imagined what it must be like to take a shower after enduring the streets for weeks.

  Or months.

  How long had it been for Lucky?

  I doubted a real shower even compared to the occasional self-clean-up in the sink of a public bathroom, which I imagined was his only means to maintain any semblance of hygiene.

  I was giving this too much thought.

  Figuring I ought to get changed for bed myself, I stood up, my fingers fidgeting, and pulled out my last remaining pair of shorts: some blue ones with a white stripe down the sides. I peeled off my jeans, tossed them over the ottoman, and tiredly pulled on the shorts. My elbow pinched a bit when I took off my shirt and traded it for a white one that had two dragons battling each other on the front. I rubbed my arm, smirking, as I kicked off my shoes, then found myself plopped back on the edge of the bed, waiting.