Aunt Amy sits back down with her needlepoint while the kettle boils. She settles into her chair, her fingernails freshly polished, because she always does them on Saturday nights. She doesn’t ever have any callers, so why not? I look down at my own fingernails and try to picture them Man-Killer Red.
She turns to me. “Do you —”
“I was spying on him.”
She stops the needle midpoint. “What?”
“I was spying on him. The guy inthatbuilding. His name is Asher Douglas. And he caught me. That’s why. That’s how we’re…friends.”
She looks at me, mouth open, false lashes blinking.
“I just thought…I was worried he’d tell you, and you’d make me leave. You’d want me to go.”
She sets her needlepoint in her lap.
“But he’s not mad. I mean, I guess he’s not. He invited me over. I washed his motorcycle. So, it’s like we’re even.”
Her expression is all over the place, but mostly puzzled. She closes her eyes for a second. Opens them. “Um. All right. I suppose I should ask why, but you’ve been through a lot the past couple months. Just don’t do it again.” She leans forward for emphasis. “He could have called the police.”
I swallow. I nod my understanding. I hadn’t thought of that.
She picks up the needlepoint once more as if it’s this new chore. “And I’d never make you leave, Paul.” Her voice softens. “I want you to know that.”
The teapot whistles and she gets up to tend to it. I get up, too, suddenly anxious and unable to keep still. A wild dart of energy shoots through me, and I can’t wait anymore.
“I’ll try to be back beforeLawrence Welk,” I call to her and rush out the back door.
I just spilled the beans, and I can’t handle myself.
I wonder if someone else can.
I walk in as soon as he opens the door.
The sitting room is dim like it was yesterday, and I see he’s cleaned up the ashes I spilled.
“I’m sorry, if I’m, like, early,” I say, just inviting myself right on in. “But you said if I ever got bored, and I was bored, so…”
And then my eyes adjust, and I finally get a good look at him, standing there. With no shirt. Just his denim and…no shirt.
“Oh.” It comes out of me in a short breath.
The air in his apartment is moist and warm, the scent of Lifebuoy soap surrounds him. His skin looks damp, and his hair is smoothed back from his face.
“Come on in,” he says sardonically, wrapping a butter-colored towel around his neck.
And I have to look away, at anything, everything, but him. I can’t look at the dusting of hair on his chest, the soft lines of his biceps, or the scruff across his jaw. Because I swear to God,I swear to God, every ounce of blood I have will flow to my dick and that’ll be the end of it all right here. My eyes will roll back, and I’ll be face-down, splat, on his floor.
I look down and my glasses slip and I push them back up. “I didn’t mean to —” I look out the window behind the sofa. “I know you said later, or we agreed, later. Sorry.”
“You okay?”
I chance a glance at him and he’s pulling a T-shirt down over another soft thatch of hair around his navel. I feel incredibly disappointed, but it’s for the best. For now.
“Mhm. Fine.”
His eyes narrow. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
