When the door opened and the light was off, I heard the rustling of Angelo getting into his temporary bed mere yards from me.
The canvas border I had erected between us wouldn’t be enough for me to survive this week. I just knew it.
14
Angelo
I heard the steady hum of the ocean long before I had reached the cliff that overlooked it. Along the shore were a few open places, including the one I stopped next to, the sign above it reading, “Life’s A Beach.”
Breathing the chilly, wet air, I gazed at the vast ocean. I was so far from home that, looking west, beyond this horizon was another continent that wasn’t mine. I wasn’t homesick, but I missed feeling acclimated. I didn’t belong at home exactly, either. Not in my neighborhood, anyway. But I missed it tonight, in this town, in that apartment, with that woman.
I hadn’t found my place with anyone. Not even Amber. But at least she was uncomplex. At the time that I had proposed to her, I’d had enough complications in my life to appreciate that trait. In hindsight, that premature proposal had stemmed from my wish to cling to fun and simplicity, although it was due to bore me at some point, and her being from the music world only made sense. She had probably dumped me becauseIwas a complexity thatshedidn’t need or want.
Back at June’s, the antithesis of fun and simplicity, the first thing that caught my eye was the folding panels between the “bedroom” and the rest of the apartment. The effort she had put into making me feel welcome by setting up the bed while ensuring I knew my place by setting up the partition made me smile in the darkened apartment. She was a confusing mix.
In the still night, I was ultra-aware of her nearness. I thought I could hear her soft breaths. I wasn’t used to spending the night with a strange woman I didn’t sleep with. I didn’t have women friends. I had girlfriends, friends with benefits, or one-night stands. I had never had a wife, and I sure as hell had never imagined I’d have a fake, platonic wife.
To fall asleep, I counted the number of repeated riffs in Red Hot Chili Peppers’ hits. The method I had used to fall asleep before our last interview wasn’t something I could do now with her in the same room.
“Don’t waste it when I’m gone,” I recalled Amber saying while grabbing my crotch before she had left to play with her band in small Vegas venues after being turned down by several music labels.
“I’ll be the king of my castle,” I had citedSeinfeld.
“The what?”
“King of my castle, master of my domain.Seinfeld?” That episode where they had bet on who would break first and masturbate was one of my favorites.
“Never watched it. You’re so old.” She had laughed.
I hadn’t lasted long back then and wondered how long I’d manage to refrain now, living here with June.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I woke up to the sound of the front door clicking softly shut. I opened my eyes a crack and saw June with her hair tied up in a ponytail, the tips of which caressing her nape. She was in a cropped jogging tank top under an unzipped hoodie, dark jogging tights, and running shoes.
Even in my more asleep than awake state, I realized that, without her usual flare-y clothes, her body looked as it had felt that day I’d hugged her—lithe, toned, almost curveless. Yet, there was something sensual about the upright way she carried herself. Maybe it was her I-don’t-need-anyone aloofness that made me want to see herneeding. And maybe it was simply the fact that, while she was already back from jogging, the only thing I sported was a morning erection.
She moved quietly toward the bathroom, and as soon as the door closed behind her, I checked the time on my phone. Seven a.m. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she kept early hours.
When the hardness under my blanket had subsided, I got up and searched for a coffee maker in the kitchen to the steady sound of water running in the shower. When I had used that same shower yesterday, the spray had been rather dull and the showerhead a bit rickety.
A woman was naked in the shower not far from me, and I was concerned about not finding coffee.
When the bathroom door opened, a cloud of scented cinnamon and blood oranges washed through the entire studio. I turned to see June emerging fully dressed in those natural colors, flare clothes, her wet hair smooth on her shoulders.
“Good morning,” she said, halting in the bathroom doorway as if she hadn’t been expecting to find me in her home.
“Good morning.” I raised the empty mug I was holding. “I’m looking for the coffee.”
She marched toward me barefoot. Her feet were slender and beautifully arched. “There’s chicory. I don’t keep coffee.” She opened a cabinet and presented me with a canister containing brown powder.
“A what?”
“It’s a root, tastes just like coffee beans, but better for you.”
I stared at her.
“Try it,” she urged.
