“Yes.”
“And you turned off your phone?”
“Left it at home, boss.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“You know,” Pete says, raising his eyebrows at me, “you have to step back from the door if I’m gonna get out. And I have to pee pretty bad, since I’m not allowed to stop on the way here.”
I raise my eyebrows right back at him. This is the kid who came to my company as a scrawny computer nerd, and now, with my support, is working on building his own indie video game. Hemight not technically be my assistant anymore, but that older brother vibe still remains between us.
“Fine, fine.” Pete laughs, rolling his eyes and raising his fingers to tick them off as he talks. “I woke up and left my apartment before dawn. I drove out of the city to pick up your supplies, since I already had the mail and the medicine. I made sure I wasn’t being followed, and I wore that stupid thing—” He gestures to the passenger seat, where a rumpled black wig has been discarded. It’s not my fault; Pete’s ginger hair would be a dead giveaway to his identity. And since he refused to dye it, the wig was the next best option.
“Okay,” I relent, eyes straying back down the road that brought him here. “And you’re sure you weren’t being followed?”
“Wouldn’t you have seen on the cameras if I was?”
He has a point. I let the subject drop and help Pete bring the stuff inside; the most important things — my mail and thyroid medication — and the luxuries, too. Packages of meat from the butcher with bacon, pork chops, ribs, and steak — all the stuff I can’t get out here unless I got my own pig or cow, which would bring with it a whole host of problems.
Vet visits, immunizations, and the need to buy feed. Plus, I’m pretty sure if I did get a pig or cow, I’d end up making friends with it and be unable to follow through with butchering.
I pull out more canning supplies, a new first aid kit, and a couple of other oddities. Electrical solder, some tools, and a new pair of work gloves.
And, at the very bottom of the box…
“Really?” I ask, lifting up the slim silver package of condoms, a single roll of them. Pete pauses, glancing up from petting Cheese. It takes him a second to recognize what’s in my hand, like maybe he forgot about this specific joke. When he does, he throws his head back and laughs in that stark, loud way he does.
“Oh, shit,” he wheezes through his laugh, standing and walking over to me, reaching for the condoms. “I forgot about that — that’s too good! I should have recorded that.”
I don’t remind him that recording me out here is thelastthing we want, and I yank the condoms out of his reach, dropping them on the table instead of letting him have them.
There’s no time or space to be embarrassed; the idea of me using those is impossible. As far as I know, nobody else lives this far up on the side of the mountain. And, even if they did, it’s probably just other guys like me, who want to be left alone and have no interest in making friends.
“Ha,” I mutter, but I do laugh a little bit. Maybe it’s funny to bring your kind-of-boss condoms out to the middle of nowhere.
After everything is brought in and put away — another three-month supply of medicine secured — Pete lingers by the front door, running his hand over the back of his neck.
Before, when I first moved out here, he’d tried to talk to me about the whole thing. Asked about when I would be coming back. I felt bad for him — I was his one real connection in the tech world, his mentor. Losing me couldn’t have been easy.
But I also made it clear to him that I wouldneverbe coming back.
“Pete.”
“Yeah?” he’s eager, and it makes me wince. He wants me to talk to him, and that’s never going to happen. Aside from being inappropriate — he’s my assistant, not my fucking therapist — I don’t want to talk toanyone. I especially don’t want to plunge back into the feelings I’ve been doing my best to avoid.
What’s the point in leaving civilization and moving to the mountains if you have to constantly remind yourself of the reason you left?
“Here,” I say, moving quickly from the living room and into the kitchen. I open the pantry and pull out two parcels wrapped up in parchment paper, turning and handing them to him as he comes through the doorway.
“Oh,” he says, barely covering his disappointment. “More bread.”
“You don’t have to keep them,” I say, rubbing at the back of my neck. “Give them to people. Tell them you made them.”
“Right,” he says, nodding down at the loaves like they might have something to say about that. “Okay, yeah. I will. My mom will love this.”
Pete takes the bread and says a quick goodbye, heading out to his car. I step out onto the porch, Cheese dancing around my ankles as I call out to him, “Hey, Pete!”
Pete stops by the car, looking up, his hand lingering over the driver’s side handle. He holds one of the loaves under his arm like a football. “Yeah?”
