Caesar tightens his brow. “You’re always talking shit on yourself, kid. You gotta cut that out.”
“I don’t always talk shit on myself,” I object, annoyed. “It’s just that pinball machines are a silly hobby.”
“Fuck off,” Caesar says, rolling his eyes.
I scoff. “Hey!”
Caesar keeps frowning. “Hey what? It makes you happy, and I watched you work. You’re a damn good technician, and you’ve got one hell of an eye for detail.”
The compliment throws me off. One second, we’re dancing on the edge of an argument, and the next, he’s giving me some kind of a pep talk.
“Well, fine,” I say, then cross my arms over my chest, like he always does. “Thank you.”
“You get in the zone when you’re working?” Caesar asks. “All the other bullshit drift away?”
“Yeah,” I agree, thinking to all the hours I spent in the garage back home, my hands busy with work and my brain safe and happy. “Something like that.”
Caesar nods. “I’ll be done in a couple hours.” He pauses and rubs the back of his head, then meets my gaze. “And hey, come by the studio if you want. I’m working on Lucius. He knew your old man.”
“Cool.”
Caesar hesitates. His jaw grinds, and I can see him working over something internally. “I don’t know how much you care about that, but hey. If you want to, uh, meet my friend.”
I grin. “Thanks, Caesar. I’d love to.”
He steps forward and grabs the back of my head, then takes me in a deep kiss before stalking off downstairs.
Grace appears at the door and stares at me.
“Hi!”
She pants happily and wanders away.
There’s a bathroom attached to the bedroom, and I find a couple of clean towels inside. It takes a second to figure out how to get the water right in the shower, and once I’m inside, I see that the only product there is a giant bottle of pine-scented body wash.
I hold the bottle under my nose and inhale a deep whiff, part of Caesar’s scent, then scrub myself all over with the frothy blue bubbles.
This is what it’s like to have a boyfriend. You sleep over, use each other’s stuff, work alongside each other. Every little bit of it is nice, kind of exciting and kind of just normal at the same time.
I’d fantasized about hooking up with men like Caesar plenty of times. I never really imagined having something like this, though. I always figured I’d experience this kind of thing with a guy my own age, but I guess that was my own ignorance.
Because this thing with Caesar is about so much more than sex.
When I get out of the shower, I towel off and make a mental note that I will actually need to head to Piper’s eventually, or at least to the drugstore. Back in the bedroom, though, I see that Caesar came back up. There’s a clean pair of underwear and socks on the bed, along with a note telling me that there are leftovers in the fridge for lunch.
He doesn’t want me to leave.
“Okay, cool,” I whisper to myself, then pull on the fresh clothes. His black boxers are baggy on me, which makes me laugh. It’s actually incredibly intimate to wear someone else’s underwear, and warm tingles crawl across my skin as I stand there.
Downstairs, I intend to grab a snack and sneak out to the garage, but I notice that Caesar’s place is becoming messy again. The books on the little shelf in the living room are disordered, there are some dirty dishes in the sink, and Caesar has left a tattoo machine on the dining room table, half assembled.
I don’t know anything about the tattoo machine, but I can pull a quick tidy together like no one else. It’s a skill I developed taking care of my mom, and keeping a house in order is practically second nature.
Without another thought, I fall into cleaning mode. I wash up the dishes and wipe the counter, tidy all the drawing supplies that are scattered about, and put the books back in neat rows on the shelves. Grace plays around at my feet, and I listen to the sounds of Caesar’s neighborhood as the summer afternoon rolls by and I lose myself in the cleaning project.
Everything seems so normal. My life is waiting for me back in Indiana, but the world I’ve settled into in Chicago feels just as real.
My emotions flutter. I would be happy here.
