“Hell yeah,” I reply, and he chuckles beside me.
We grab our food from a drive-through and waste little time getting to his house. It’s surprisingly a ways out in the country. I glance at the clock and count back, realizing he must drive thirty or forty minutes to and from work each day.
“Do you still live in that old, retro-themed house?” I ask.
He glances over at me from the driver’s seat, melting me with those liquid-metal eyes of his. “You remember the retro theme?”
Of course I do. And the ugly linoleum.“I remember a shiny metal table and chairs set that had red accents or something. Oh, and some really ugly faded linoleum flooring.”Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said ugly. Whoops. He didn’t frown, though, I don’t think.
“Sorry,” I say, biting the inside of my cheek. “That was a bit insensitive.”
He laughs. “No way. That flooring was awful. I remember it all too fondly.”
The way he says “fondly” sounds laced with sarcasm to me. I wonder if the floor is a sensitive subject. But why?
“And, no. I do not still live in my childhood home. After my father died, I found out he had changed his will at the last minute. He basically wrote me completely out of it. So, all of his belongings, the house from my childhood, the house my mother helped decorate and make something out of, all went to River and Snake,” he says.
And once again, I feel the need to shove my size eight foot in my mouth.
“But this is close to where you grew up, isn’t it? I mean, I lived not too far from you, in the subdivision on Calderwood.” I pause, wondering if my family home is still standing. “Will we pass my old home, by chance? Do you remember?”
Ruin glances at me, his smile replaced by a look of uncertainty. “They tore that subdivision down for a strip mall. I’m sorry, Avalee. I actually used to go over and sit in the tree in your backyard after you had left. I even climbed up on the roof once, just looking at the stars and moon, and wondered if you were looking at them too. But then some new developer came through with his construction crew and contracts, and they tore down that subdivision and the one across from it. They even built a playground in that field that separated the two.”
I imagine what it all looks like and decide I don’t really want to see it. I would rather hold on to my childhood memories than have to see it all destroyed and new.
“Sorry,” he says again.
“Don’t be. Unless you were the developer,” I joke.
“No. I was pissed when they showed up. But not too long after that, I was thrown behind bars. By the time I was released, the whole community was in shambles, and new concrete was being poured,” he says, staring hard out the windshield.
He turns his car up a winding driveway and presses a button that opens the garage. From the outside, the home is beautiful. I take in the view of the wood-and-stone structure and smile at how much I can see Ruin’s personality shine through in the slate-colored shutters and black-shingled, intersecting roof.
“Welcome to my home,” he says, guiding me and an overly excited Stormy—who’s stuffing his nose into everything as we go—inside the house through a surprisingly clean and organized garage.
We step through a mudroom, and the smell of fresh linen fills my senses. This place, like the man before me, feels like home. He flips on a light, and I follow him down a hallway and into a living room.
“You can set your things anywhere. The backyard is entirely fenced in, so if you want to just let Stormy go through those doors,” he says, pointing to a pair of French doors to the left, “then we can dig into dinner while he plays and scopes out the place.”
I nod and walk Stormy over to the door. He paws at the wood and whimpers, ready to be set free. I’ve barely opened the door, and Stormy rushes through, galloping around the yard and stuffing his nose into more things. It’s like being in the garage all over again.
While Ruin gets our food set out on plates, I start to take in my surroundings. It’s clearly what most might call a “bachelor pad,” but it’s also very tidy and minimalist in decor. The walls are a light beige color throughout, and above my head, exquisite exposed beams stretch across the ceiling. Against the wall is a bookshelf loaded down with all sorts of fun-looking titles and genres, and a big flat-screen hangs over an electric fireplace. It’s cozy, simple, and masculine.
I move to the bookshelf and thumb through the different works. Most of the books are a mix of fantasy and literature, but he also has a shelf dedicated to classics and one area of mostly just nonfiction. He doesn’t have a single photo on the walls or shelves, but there are a few paintings and a wall clock.
Ruin returns a moment later with our food and milk shakes and waves for me to join him on the couch facing the flat-screen. He pulls a glass coffee table close and lifts the armrest of the love seat by the couch to reveal a pair of remotes.
“Movie while we eat?” he asks.
I think about it and then shake my head. “Maybe after we eat. Right now, I just want to spend some time with you,” I say.
He smiles and sets the armrest back down. “Sounds good to me.”
We both clean our plates and drink our milk shakes, while chatting between bites and sips about work, our week, our favorite holidays, and so on. It is fun relearning some of Ruin’s favorites and also learning some of the new things he has gotten into since we were younger.
“Oh, remember when we snuck out one night the summer that I moved?” I ask. Heat bursts to life in my core, and I realize I’m a fool. But a part of me is curious if he does remember that night.
His face drops, and his eyes seem to calculate something. “I remember the last night I saw you. Are you talking about the night that I took you for a midnight picnic?”
