I didn’t resist. Just cried into her blouse while everyone stared at me with regret. Not Jere, though. There was something else in his steely eyes, something I’d become familiar with lately but was too afraid to examine at this moment.
“Okay,” I said sloppily. “I’ll move back home.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jere
I saw the sadness playing across Danny’s face as he looked at all his stuff packed in boxes and bags as if he were reliving how he’d acquired each and every thing from his expensive work clothes to recent splurges like a motorized tie rack.
The fancy clothes he’d purchased after landing his dream job had been neatly folded and bagged by Mrs. B. as if she were certain he was going to need them again very soon. His polished shoes were individually boxed and placed in an even larger box while his favorite soaps and shampoos stood upright and perfectly straight inside of a plastic container. Ronnie had personally packed his espresso maker, ensuring to wrap the hard edges and more fragile components with bubble wrap. Even Biscuit’s cat tree and toys were covered in heavy duty garbage bags to ensure a safe move.
Relocating had never been an affair for me. As a child, I’d owned little besides a few pairs of stained clothes. My toys had been cardboard cut-outs of swords and guns wrapped in electrical tape for durability. They were the kind of things that only needed a duffle bag to move around. More recently, the only thing I’d cared about back in Springfield, was my set of weights but even they were inconsequential. So the way Danny mourned losing his apartment and took such great care with his belongings, was foreign.
To help ease the transition, we’d agreed to let Danny run the show. He’d put me in charge of getting his host of house plants covered in safety bags down to the moving truck without breaking the colorful pots. It was a job I took a great deal of pride in. Green things made him happy, after all, and I wanted to get them to Mrs. B.’s house without a chip or crack.
“Oh, be careful with that,” Danny said as Sean lifted a box that jingled in his arms. “Those are my Mathletics trophies.”
Sean cocked an auburn brow at him. “They give out trophies for remembering your multiplication tables?”
Danny chuckled with a hint of true amusement. “Yeah.”
I asked Sean, “What’s 36 times 540?”
Sean frowned at me, opened his mouth, gaped then stroked his beard.
“Nineteen-thousand and…four-hundred…forty!” Danny said with a beaming smile. “Every one of them were hard earned, so be careful with them, please.”
Sean whipped out his phone and did the calculation. He saluted him. “Point made.”
Of course, Danny being the math geek he was, couldn’t resist. “But most of those rewards are for solving quadratic equations in record time. Multiplication is easy.”
“Sorry? What?” Sean said. “Care to speak like a normal person?”
I liked Sean because he was a lot like me. We both enjoyed developing our bodies and shared a general hatred of assholes. And the way he teased and joked with Danny reflected my relationship with my best friend. Most importantly, Danny liked him.
“Okay, smarty pants. How do you spell boobies on a calculator?” Sean said.
“5318008 upside down,” I cut in.
Sean gave me a solid high-five. “Yes!”
“Only meat-headed machos like you two would know that,” Danny said good-naturedly.
When Mrs. B. disappeared out the front door with a box of clothes, Danny motioned to me. He leaned in and whispered, “My chest in the closet?”
“Already taken care of it. It’s in my car safe and sound.”
“Did you…look inside?”
“Not intentionally.”
He buried his face in his hand. “Oh, God. You must think I’m a slut. Please don’t let my mother see it. She will never look at me the same way again.”
“You think she doesn’t know what her son does with dicks?”
“Jere! Jesus.” He bit his lip, something shining in his eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he was mortified or amused. He looked around me to see if anyone had heard but the elbow-grease was in the hall and loading up the dolly from the sound of their chatter. “Okay, thanks. My plants—”
“Will be waiting for you at your mom’s house as they are now. Don’t worry, Danny.” I flexed my biceps. “It’s like I’ve been training for this moment all my life with the endgame of getting your plants safely to their new home.”
