His Touch of Ice Page 3

“The burger and fries for me,” I added. I didn’t think I could eat too much.

  I was able to maintain control of myself until the waitress left. After that, however, a few more tears slipped down my face.

  “You are crying,” Guy finally said, reaching out to brush a tear from a cheek.

  “Sorry. Not the best way to start a date.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just… everything, it seems.”

  The man’s eyes faltered to the margarita at his side. He lifted, sipped, then replaced it before snaring his fingers within mine.

  “Not you,” I said shortly thereafter, reaching up to wipe more tears away. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  “No, no. You didn’t do anything to me, Guy. It’s…” I sighed, then paused to take another breath.

  “It’s… what?”

  In any other situation, Guy’s unfaltering gaze probably would’ve reduced me to nothing. The strength in its matter was something that no one could’ve faced in the midst of a moment like mine, because looking at him was like looking at a creature whose depths were far greater than anything imaginable. But here, though… now… they brought comfort—a sole warmth in the gust of wind that threatened to whisk me away.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. “My college,” I said.

  His unsure gaze was what prompted my story.

  I told him everything—of my ambitions to be an English Literature teacher someday, of my quirks and fascinations for the oddest or more obscure of the well-known writers and poets’ work. I even laughed when I mentioned that I’d stolen my username from one of Poe’s stories, which instantly prompted a smile and easy bearings come time the waitress arrived with the food.

  “But what happened?” Guy asked. “Why are you so upset?”

  The question was the perfect segue for the only person I felt was my one true enemy: Michael Kriemer.

  I explained the ambitions that the two of us had—that, until sometime last year, I’d known nothing about him or what he wanted: just that he was a snobby little rich kid whose daddy had bought his way into school. Then I detailed what I felt was the cutting moment.

  “I corrected him on one of Shakesphere’s sonnets,” I explained, chicken-pecking at my fries as Guy cut into his steak. “Something about how cultural and social standpoint would’ve prevented him from writing about his historically-scandalous love interests.”

  “The male lover,” Guy agreed.

  I nodded. “Right,” I said. “But Michael said that I had to be wrong, because works such as the Dark Lady sonnets were obvious proof of his sexuality due to their amount. I then countered by asking that if he’d been a gay writer in that time, would he’d be so willing to broadcast those feelings in such a climate? Not to mention how many of his poems or works might have been lost.”

  “Understandable.”

  “But… that’s where it went downhill. I made an enemy then, though I wouldn’t know until later, and… well… he got a hold of my dissertation.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was because he had ins with the English department. Maybe it was because his dad was rich. I don’t think he could’ve hacked into my storage cloud, because that would’ve been traceable, but a printed piece of paper… which was requested… bound, no less… that could’ve easily been ‘misplaced.’”

  “It was lost then.”

  “Stolen, more likely. Either way, come time I turned my dissertation in after I was told it’d gone missing, I was called down to the dean’s office and told that I was being put on academic suspension due to allegations of plagiarism. I started putting two and two together—my dissertation being misplaced or uncatalogued and Michael’s ins with the department—and… well…”

  I couldn’t finish. I’d no need to. The outcome was clear. There was no happy or righteous ending in this story.

  “You were expelled,” Guy said.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “And now I have sixty-thousand dollars worth of debt that I can’t pay off.”

  “Won’t they let you in another school?”

  “Who knows? Maybe. Maybe they’ll take pity on me. Or maybe they’ll just think I’m a plagiarist once they look at my records and see why I was expelled. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’m about to lose my apartment anyway.”

  Guy’s face paled instantly. “What?”

  “Yeah. I missed rent last month. No tolerance. They’ll kick me out within the next two weeks if I don’t pay up.”

  “Fuck, Jason.”

  I picked up the hamburger and began to eat in slow and careful bites, knowing that any further rush would make me sick and send me puking into the bathroom. Meanwhile, Guy’s expression had changed little. His unease had quickly eclipsed from shock to outright horror in the moments that passed, most likely because of how resigned I was to my fate.

  “Do you have any family?” Guy asked.

  “Up north,” I replied. “Nowhere I want to be. Or where they’d care for me to be.”

  “Friends?”

  I shook my head. “A few, but… not the kind I could go to for help.”

  “But you…”

  Guy’s loss of thought was so initially disconcerting that I stopped eating to wait for him to continue, my attention rapt and set directly on him. When he didn’t continue, I fell to the belief that he was merely thinking and continued eating, unsure what to say.

  Minutes passed without Guy speaking—the waitress stopping, refilling drinks.

  Just when I was about finished with my meal, Guy cleared his throat, took a mighty gulp of his margarita, then set it down, using the point of one knuckle to wipe salt from his lips.

  “I’ll help you,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’ll pay whatever you need to get out of the lease. You can stay with me.”

  “I don’t think that’s—”

  Guy pressed a finger to my lips.

  His eyes said it all. Don’t speak. Listen. Wait.

  He pulled his finger away set his hand atop the table, watching intently and waiting for an answer.

  Truthfully, I don’t think he blamed me for my unsurety. I mean, who could? I barely even knew this man and yet he was willing to invest everything in me—his money, his confidence, his life. To some, his offer could’ve been seen as a gift of compassion, but to others? The double-edged sword was sharp. Did he really want to help, like he said he did, or was he just trying to make me into his own little sex bunny—to use and abuse whenever he liked? What, exactly, did he want with me?

  “You don’t have to decide tonight,” Guy said after a moment, accepting the check from the waitress and signing it off. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”

  What he didn’t realize was that, while he’d opened one door, all the others had remained closed.

  He was my only opportunity.

  How else could I escape a life of homelessness?

  I meandered about my apartment at nearly three o’clock in the morning trying to figure out what would be the smartest and less stupid thing to do. I weighed up the Past Due notice on my kitchen counter on one side against my meager amount of pride and self-worth on the other. I collapsed on the living room floor and stared at the ceiling with the jagged crack that occasionally dripped water come time for rainier months.

  There in my head rang the great question: To do or not to do?

  Realistically, there wasn’t much I could lose if I caved to Guy’s offer. My dignity had already taken a turn for the worst, and I wasn’t exactly opposed to living with one of the hottest men on the face of the planet. Of course, the whole thing could backfire—he could demand sex constantly or force me to do things I didn’t want to, but if so, it wasn’t as if I couldn’t leave. A sex slave was by choice. Anything else and it became a hostage situation.

  I closed my eyes
and allowed my turmoil to engulf me.

  The college, the tuition, the backstabbing bastard who’d taken nearly half a year’s work and passed entire passages off as his own without so much as batting an eye—all reigned supreme over my life, a black hole engulfing entire galaxies in space.

  Only one person seemed to make all that despair go away.

  Guy.

  The next time I opened my eyes, it was nearly six in the morning.

  I blinked, clearing the haze from my eyes.

  I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep.

  Lying forward, I stretched my arms down toward my toes and stopped when I noticed the envelope lying on the carpet.

  Past Due.

  I blinked.

  Was this supposed to be some sort of sign?

  I didn’t believe much in miracles, and I definitely didn’t have any sway toward the supernatural, but after placing it on the counter in such a way that I was sure it wouldn’t fall off, this couldn’t be anything else but fate.

  Standing, I picked both the envelope and myself up before heading toward my bedroom.

  I’d made a decision.

  Later today, I’d call Guy’s cell and ask if he was still willing to take me in.

  The flex of his strong arms captivated my attention as he carried one of the heavier boxes from my second-floor apartment and loaded it into the trunk of his car. Brow beaded with sweat, tank top stretched to the limit and riding up his lower back, he lifted his eyes as I struggled to carry another box downstairs and took it before I could trip.

  “Sorry,” I said, noting his particular care of the box of breakables I’d just handed off.

  “Don’t be. You’ll end up hurting yourself if you’re not careful.”

  “Guess I’m still a bit humble over this whole situation.”

  “Hey,” Guy said, patting my cheek with the cut-off gloves he wore. “Don’t be. I wanna help. Ok?”

  “Ok.”

  He smiled and bumped his forehead against mine before starting back up the stairs. “How many more boxes we got?” he asked, casting a glance over his shoulder as he stepped off the final stair.

  “Uh… three, I think.”

  “Three boxes?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I asked because we’ve only brought two down.”

  I apparently wasn’t quick to disguise my embarrassment, as Guy’s lips pulled down into a frown. “Ah,” was all he could say.

  I chose not to offer a comment and instead followed him into the apartment. As usual, I had to warn him about the slight rise from the platform into the doorway, otherwise he’d end up tripping and landing face-first on the woodwork flooring.

  “You really got to put up with a lot of shit from these people to live in a place like this,” Guy commented, crossing the short distance to the living room, where he crouched and tested each of the boxs’ weights. “This place reeks of courthouses and easy settlements.”

  “I didn’t want to bother filing a complaint after all the shit I’d been through.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “This’ll be my third month.”

  Guy frowned. “You told the landlord about all the damage though. Right? Pictures and everything?”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry—I covered my ass on this one.”

  “I don’t doubt you did.”

  Guy’s pale expression brightened into a smile when I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. “Thanks for everything,” I whispered, no longer caring what kind of impression I put off.

  “Don’t thank me,” Guy replied, patting my back. “Let’s get the rest of these boxes in the car and get you home.”

  “This’ll be your room,” Guy said.

  He deposited the largest and heaviest box labeled ‘clothes’ at the threshold into a white-carpeted room with an expansive queen bed and a dresser set beneath a flat-screen TV mounted upon the wall.

  “It used to be the guest room,” Guy explained as he followed me in, clicking on a series of switches that activated the lights and the overhead fan. “You’ve got your own adjoining bathroom to the side and extra storage under the sides of the bed if the dressers aren’t enough for you. Shelves by the windows have a few books in ‘em, but those can be moved. And there’s a desk here around the corner for your computer, though you can’t tell because it folds off the wall.”

  I spun around the room, taking in my surroundings while at the same time awing over the events that had taken place in such a short amount of time. In less than a week, I’d met a man over the internet, then in person at a bar, slept with him soon after, and was now moving in with him after his generous and near-incredulous offer to help me get a fresh start. I’d yet to determine whether there was a catch, especially with the revelation that we would be sleeping in separate rooms, but it didn’t matter. I was happy. That’s all I cared about.

  “So,” Guy said, breaking me from my train of thought. “You like it?”

  I turned to face him. “I love it,” I replied. “Thank you, Guy. So much.”

  “You’re welcome, Jason. Why don’t you get settled in? I’ll unpack the rest of your stuff and we can order in.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Guy’s only response was a smile before he disappeared out the door.

  With that said and done, I spread my arms and fell back on the bed.

  I hadn’t been on something so soft since that first night with Guy.

  We ate pizza over six ‘o clock news on the coffee table in the living room. Outside, the beginnings of a Texas thunderstorm broiled in the sky, scattering miniscule droplets of rain shadowed only by the prediction that more would come.

  “You usually eat on the floor like this?” I asked after taking a bite.

  “Honestly? Yeah. Closer to the TV.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” I laughed.

  Guy lifted a fist and bumped my hand when I raised mine in turn.

  A clap of thunder made me jump and bang my knee against the coffee table.

  “You all right?” Guy asked.

  “Sorry,” I managed, glad I hadn’t choked over my mouthful. “Don’t like thunderstorms much.”

  “How come?”

  “Notice my arm?” I asked. Not that it wouldn’t be hard to—the mark spread all the way from my shoulder down to the middle of my arm, ornate in composition but absolutely horrifying in backstory. “I got struck by lightning.”

  “No shit?” Guy asked. “Fuck. I thought you said it was a tattoo, but I didn’t want to make it awkward by asking.”.”

  “It’s called a Lichtenburg figure. Most people only get them for a few days or weeks after getting struck, but others—like me—get scarred. They’re supposedly caused when the capillaries are ruptured from the lightning strike.”

  “Damn.”

  “I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about it,” I shrugged. “That’s why I brushed it off when you asked that first night.”

  “Well, we only had one thing on our minds.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When’d it happen?”

  “When I was eight. Stupid me. Playing in a field, boasting all proudly that I wouldn’t get hit by lightning because I wasn’t the tallest thing around.” I snorted. “Look how far that got me.”

  “Least you’re not dead,” Guy offered.

  “Still don’t like thunderstorms,” I countered.

  Another clap sounded, this one thankfully more distant. I was able to keep from jumping and pulled my legs out from under the table. Yawning, I stretched my arms over my head and cast a glance toward the kitchen. “What time is it?” I asked.

  Guy, far closer to the kitchen and at a better vantage point, leaned over and said, “Eight.”

  “I think I’m gonna go to bed,” I said. “Thank you for dinner. And helping me bring all my shit over.”

  “It’s no problem.”

  “You want me to help clean up?”

  “Na
h.” Guy shook his head. “Go to bed.”

  I pushed myself up and started for my bedroom. Guy, too, stood, but rather than reach down to put the pizza away, he brushed his hand along my arm. “Jason?” he asked.

  “Yeah?”

  He pulled me into a one-armed hug. “Glad you’re here,” he said.

  I smiled before departing to my room.

  I kept expecting Guy to come in sometime during the night, after I’d fallen asleep or when he suspected I had. However—not once did I wake up to the sound of the door creaking open or the mattress shifting beneath a second person’s weight. By the time I woke up the next morning, I realized he hadn’t come in at all.

  The door hadn’t opened an inch.

  Maybe he really was genuine.

  I sat upright and ran the balls of my fists across my eyes in an attempt to help adjust to the light streaming into the room. The lone window open, the white curtain billowing in the breeze of a cool new day, I turned my head to the bedside clock and gawked at the fact that it was nearly ten in the morning.

  Shit.

  I sprung from bed, pulled the window shut and the curtains in place, and dragged a plain white tee over my head before darting out into the hall to locate Guy.

  No TV. No appliances. No footsteps.

  Just as I’d expected, he was gone.

  Had he already left for work?

  I looked down at my scant attire of lounging pants and tee before venturing out into the hall, peering up and down the hallway to see if maybe I’d missed something. The guest bathroom door was open, as was his bedroom door directly down the hall, which meant that he was either gone or left it open in case I needed something.

  As I expected the former, I stepped into the living room to see if his coat or keys were missing.

  Both were gone.

  “Guess I’m roughing it on my own,” I mumbled, starting toward the kitchen.

  I slid into the miniscule space and was just about to open the fridge before I saw another sticky note affixed to its surface.

  Frozen stuff in the freezer, it said. Sandwich in the fridge, bread and condiments in the pantry.

  At least he was thorough.