Is this kid even real?
Eight
It was barely dawn when Jamie rocked back up to Marc’s house to find his ridiculous yellow car absent from the driveway. Relief and disappointment warred in Jamie’s conflicted heart, but he settled on relief. Kissing Marc, and feelingso fucking safein his arms, had kept Jamie up most of the night, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face that again so soon.
He couldn’t deny that he missed Marc, though. The big old house seemed imposing now Marc wasn’t inside, warming it with his kind eyes and dry smile. And where the hell was the key? Suddenly, Jamie’s swift exit the night before didn’t seem like such a good idea, though it had been necessary on his part. Talking about his fucked-up life was usually enough to keep him celibate, but Marc had changed all that. Jamiewantedhim, and that was fast becoming the toughest urge to ignore.
Common sense drew Jamie to the gas cupboard a few feet from the heavy front door. Sure enough, the key was hidden behind the metre. Jamie retrieved it, his mind still on the hotter side of his newfound friendship, and drifted back to the front door, absently jamming the key into the tarnished lock. Kissing Marc had to be up there among the craziest things he’d ever done, and not just because he’d sworn himself off men since he’d been clean. No. Kissing Marc was crazy because he’d done it over and over now, and had become more than a little addicted to theinsanepleasure it brought to every fucking facet of his body.I swear I could come from just kissing him.
And that kind of thrill was dangerous. Always had been. Because anything that crazy-good got people he cared about hurt. And he cared about Marc. He didn’t know why—’Cause, let’s face it, I hardly know the bloke—butfuck, he cared.
Jamie pushed open the door to the big house. Though he knew Marc was likely at work, he still half expected to find him in the kitchen, drinking coffee at the table. But only the cat was there to greet him, protesting loudly by an empty bowl. Jamie eyed her suspiciously. Marc hadn’t seemed over attached to the tiny, beautiful feline, but he couldn’t believe that he’d have left for the day without feeding her. Jamie fed her anyway, though. Natalie had the air of a creature who wouldn’t tolerate being ignored, and he had stuff to do that wouldn’t go well with an angry cat trying to kill him.
After washing the coffee cup Marc had left in the sink, he made his way upstairs to the library. At some point, he’d have to look in the other rooms to see what awaited him there, but it felt weird to be alone in Marc’s house as it was without poking around in places he hadn’t been shown.
Besides, he liked the library. It smelled like a secondhand bookshop he’d slept outside once—all fusty and warm. He went straight to the radiator and found it kicking out almost as much delicious heat as the AGA downstairs and knew that it was going to be a good day.I like it here.Shame there was one thing missing—the strong, beating heart that made the draughty old house a home, even if Marc didn’t quite believe it himself.He likes it here too.
Perhaps.
Maybe.
Whatever. Marc wasn’t here, and his absence gave Jamie the chance to concentrate on the task at hand, and he spent a blissful day organising a single wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves, all piled high with dusty books. He had a feeling that Marc wouldn’t care if he boxed every book up and chucked them in a skip, but Jamie couldn’t bear that. The books had meant enough to Marc’s mother to keep them, and they deserved a better end than a landfill.
Not like you.
Jamie killed the negative thought before it manifested into the creeping anxiety that often turned into a fit of agitation that only junk or an episode of crazed numerical cleaning could shift. He closed his eyes and pictured, like he always did when he felt like this, Zac on his hands and knees scrubbing Jamie’s mess out of the carpet. Dirt and filth had been Jamie’s constant companions back then, and Zac’s preoccupation with housekeeping had amused Jamie no end.Oh, the irony.
Fuck it.Jamie gave in to an urge he’d been fighting all day and left the library in search of a vacuum cleaner. The trail took him along the landing. He opened every door he came across, discovering two more rooms packed with stuff, until he came to a room at the end, which opened out into a narrow corridor that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka film. Stooped and jagged, even the door at the end was smaller than the door Jamie had opened.
Curiosity merged with the reborn disquiet in his empty stomach. Jamie wasn’t a fan of cramped spaces, especially dark ones, and he couldn’t see a light switch anywhere, but the hobbit door fascinated and terrified him in equal measure, and despite his misgivings, he found himself edging into the cartoon corridor.
The midget door opened to more darkness. Jamie felt along the wall for a light switch, but no cigar, and an odd pride kept him from turning back. He retrieved the lighter from his box of fags and sparked it to cast a puny orange glow on his surroundings.Jesus, it’s like Narnia in here.He gazed around the spooky hallway—low ceilinged and narrow, the walls and floors were made of stone—and the cold air prickled the back of his neck.
He shivered and rubbed his arm. His parents’ church had felt morbid and suffocating like this, and Jamie’s heart skipped a scraping, painful beat. He hadn’t been inside a house of worship in years, but the chill that came from even thinking about the last time was sickeningly familiar.Fuck this.
Jamie turned on his heel and hurried back the way he’d come. The miniature door he’d passed through was farther away than he’d anticipated, and it was stuck when he reached it. Panic seized Jamie’s throat. He kicked out at the door, stumbling forward as it burst open and smacked loudly against the wall of the strangely stooped corridor.
He dashed to the door that led to the landing. Thankfully, he’d left it open, and he charged through it and slammed it shut behind him, leaning back on it, breathing heavily, conversely overheated and cold to the bone.
“Jesus. You look like you’ve been chased by an axe man.”
Jamie jumped a mile. He’d craved Marc’s presence all day, but for some reason Marc was the last person he’d expected to see standing at the top of the stairs. “You’re not supposed to come up here.”
“Aren’t I?”
“No. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To save you the trouble?”
“To save me the trouble of hoofing boxes up and down, not to leave you stranded to the mercy of whatever’s got you looking like you’ve shat a rocket.”
“What?” Marc was far from posh, but the crude turn of phrase was so unlike anything he’d ever said before that a strangled chuckle escaped Jamie’s tense lungs. “What does that even mean?”
Marc chuckled too and ventured farther onto the landing. “Sorry. It’s something my mate Wedge used to say. Pleasant fucker, he was.”
“Was?”
“Is. Whatever. Far as I know, the bastard’s still alive.”
“He can’t be that much of a bastard if he makes you smile like that.”