“What in the hell?”
Caesar barks from the back door. I’m in the living room, and I spin at the same time Grace does. Then we both hurry to Caesar in the kitchen.
“I’m just cleaning a little,” I explain. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Caesar starts pushing things around on the kitchen table. “Where’s that sketchpad?” he grunts.
“With the other ones in the living room. On the coffee table.”
I look at him hopefully, waiting for a thanks, but Caesar doesn’t meet my eye as he stalks into the living room. “I need that drawing,” he calls over his shoulder.
“The coffee table,” I repeat, although my voice falls flat, realization settling in that Caesar is kind of pissed.
I walk into the living room, and he stands up straight. “You moved the DVDs around.”
“None of them were in the right cases.”
He grunts, annoyed, then taps his head. “I knew what cases they were in before. Now how am I supposed to find them?”
I throw my hands up, exasperated. “You’ll find them because now they’re in the right cases!”
Caesar harrumphs, then turns back to rummaging through the sketchpads. “It’s just that I’ve got a system.”
“You know that literally all of those movies are on Netflix anyway.”
Caesar snatches up a sketchpad and turns to me. “So what?”
We glare at each other. He’s actually annoyed, and maybe that would have scared me a couple of weeks ago, but now I’m just mad that he’s annoyed. All I did was try to do something nice for him.
“Caesar—”
“Hey,” he cuts me off. “I’ve got a client in the chair. Okay?”
I hold his eye. I feel hurt, and I know he can see that because he turns his gaze away immediately.
“Sure,” I finally manage.
That makes sense. He’s in the middle of a tattoo, and he has to stay concentrated on work. But as I watch Caesar walk out back, then hear his footsteps outside, my frustration grows.
“Not even a thanks,” I mutter to Grace. “Can you believe that guy?”
I plop down on the couch. Seriously, he might like having his stupid old movies shoved in all the wrong cases, but it was a chaotic mess. And he’s always doing stuff for me and taking care of me. Why can’t I do the same for him?
I tighten my hands into fists. Right on the other side of my anger, there’s another emotion brewing, embarrassment that I got too familiar and misjudged the situation. The second a man lets me spend the night, I get all attached and start acting like his husband.
The door to the back slams open. I jump to my feet as Caesar lumbers into the room. His jaw is tight, and I can see he’s upset as he stops in the doorway to stare at me.
“Sorry,” he grunts. “I’m a dickhead sometimes.”
My mouth falls slightly open. “You’re not a dickhead,” I say, then purse my lips to stop from laughing at the word.
He cocks up half a smile. “Thanks for cleaning my place up. I get stuck in my ways, you know? Get to thinking I like things the way they are.”
“I like cleaning up after you,” I say. “It makes me happy. But I’ll make sure to ask before I touch your stuff.”
Caesar nods. His scraggly silver hair is combed but not neat, and it falls to the side. “You want to meet Lucius?” he asks.
“Oh, sure. Is now good?”
