Many hours later, I would rise from my eldritch slumber and work on the comic until Finch came to collect me in the afternoon.
While I was at the university “teaching” my evening “class,” Lucas arrived back at the flat and cooked and cleaned and puttered and did whatever domestic tasks functioning humans did to maintain their living environment. After class, Finch would return me to the flat.Thistime—the no-man’s land of late evening—was by far the most dangerous, the most likely time we would run into each other. But luckily for me, Lucas tended to be out most nights and every weekend so far. One assumed he had that unthinkable condition known as a social life.
I’d had one, once upon a time. The kind normal people have. Even after I’d got clean, I’d still gone out with Sam and some of the other dancers after work—my sponsor, Karim, had said it was good for me, that there was nothing like a drinks do with friends. The danger was when I isolated myself and started drinking alone.
I thought this as I unpacked the bottle of Wild Turkey I’d ordered, grabbed a mug from the cupboard, and headed into my bedroom to work for a few hours before supper.
Just as I shut the door and started kicking off my shoes and unbuttoning my trousers, there was the jingle of keys, the creak of the front door—
Ohgod!
I immediately dropped into a crouch and held my breath. He was home. Lucas washomeand I was home as well. We were both home! He was out there doing things, and I was in here making an utter arsehole of myself.
I could hear him humming, puttering around the kitchen, tutting at the wrapping materials I’d left on the counter, and there must have been something about this mess that seemed recent, because then—
“Armand, are you here?” He sounded almost nervous. I heard him take a step, then another, drawing dangerously close to the door of my room. “Mr. Demetrio? Armand?”
Oh bloody hell. I was a grown man curled into a ball on the floor of his bedroom, hiding from a flatmate who merely wanted to ... what? Say hello? Talk to me? At the very worst, admonish me for not tidying up after myself?
I could see his shadow moving under the door. No.No. Goaway!I clenched a hand in my hair, bit down on a knuckle, and squeezed my eyes shut.
Knock, knock ... knock.
Breathe, Demetrio, just breathe. And stop being so bloody dramatic!I should have responded. I should have stood to my feet and opened the door like an adult capable of human interaction—I’d talked to so many people today already, why was the idea of talking to Lucas so much more bowel-liquefying than that had been?
Why had this one man, this one demonstrably friendly albeit passive-aggressive man, become my social kryptonite?
Lucas heaved a softly disappointed sigh and padded back down the hall toward the kitchen.
I only allowed my body to relax once the door to his room shut. Then I collapsed onto the floor like the ridiculous creature I was and took a few deep breaths before doing my absolute best to lose myself in work and whiskey. I had to answer his texts, I absolutely had to. This couldn’t continue.
But deferred pain was still an absence of pain, and sometimes that was the best one could hope for.
July 21st
I sat in the coffee shop and gnawed at my fingernails. I was looking back and forth between the door and the chair across from me. The empty one. The one that Skyler would sit in when he got here.
This was everything I’d ever dreamed of, wasn’t it?
Adate.
My first ever, with a gorgeous knight in shining armor who had already seen me at my most ridiculous and had still saidyes.He’d. Love. To.
And yet, ricocheting through my body was a loud and high-pitchedHelp!
I wasterrified. All my life, all I’d wanted was a cute boy to like me and go on a date with me. But now that it was happening, I was almost too scared to breathe.
I swear to god that when the question had left my lips, the only response I’d expected from him was laughter. But he’d said yes. He’d even seemed happy about it, as if ... as if he was interested in me.
What the hell do I do now?
I closed my eyes and took a few deep calming breaths through my nose, fanning myself with the menu.
“Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes and nearly swallowed my tongue. Skyler was standing over the table, with a concerned, amused smile. He was wearing a plain T-shirt and jeans, but forever looked as if he’d just stepped out of the pages of a magazine. Especially backlit by the very last rays of a classic late July sunset.
Swallowing my nervous scream, I tried to grin up at him in a nonmaniacal manner. “I’m fine! Hi!” I sprang to my feet and grabbed the back of the chair across from me, holding it out and waving my other arm toward the seat like I was presenting a car on a gameshow. “This is for you! I mean, this seat, sh-should you choose to accept it, is yours. You can sit down here. If you want. Please.”
