by Lex Chase
“Excuse me…?” A young woman spoke up from the entryway.
Patrick jolted and dropped the lights, startled by a late-night appearance of an Impression.
“Yeah?” he asked instead of slapping on the happy CASA employee act.
“Um…. What are you doing?” she asked.
Patrick furrowed his brows. “Organizing my comics.”
He scooped up the lights as she slipped into the scratch and dent area, brushing past his shoulder. He recoiled from her touch and bristled. This was his safe space, and now here she was drifting through the piles of CASA rejects.
She inspected a dinged DRAVA table and tapped a finger to her chin. “I don’t see any comics.”
Patrick blinked, losing his concentration on mending the lights. She responded to him? The little girl he had rescued in the parking garage could interact with her own independent ideas and could even affect the living world. But that was rare. Impressions were just echoes of a person’s humanity. They only thought on the most basic needs, they didn’t form new concepts. Not like this.
Putting the TURIN lights aside for now, he took a seat on a nearby stack of torn boxes.
“Who’s your favorite superhero?” he asked. It was worth a shot.
“Hawkeye,” she said with a dreamy smile. “Jeremy Renner is so hot!”
Patrick sat back, and his gut clenched with the sharp slap of a reminder of the catastrophic movie failure.
“No, really,” she began as she poked at a dresser drawer. “What are you doing? Isn’t it too late to be all alone?”
Whatever armchair philosophy was falling out of her mouth, she was becoming less and less entertaining.
“You know what they say,” Patrick said, lying back on the boxes. “Married to the job.”
“I was married. I think. Once, maybe?” she said, and he caught her troubled expression.
“Been in CASA long?” he asked. If she could interact with him, she had definitely aged a bit as far as Impressions went.
She nodded. “I’ve been in the warehouse, just wandering around. I’m looking for something. I wish I could remember.”
Patrick sat up and put his fingers together. He had a decision. Should he run her through the song and dance routine of “good morning, you’re dead” and ship her off to her final destination? Or should he actually—
“I wish I could remember a lot of things,” he said, patting a spot next to him on the box.
—have a conversation with someone who wasn’t Benji, Karin, or Agnes.
She took a seat next to him, and Patrick sized her up. Strappy sandals, skinny jeans, a blousy tank top, all grounding data of summer. Patrick committed it to memory. At least summer had come around.
She smiled and brushed her fingers through her long dark hair. “Do you remember being in love?”
Patrick slapped the box next to his thigh. “What kind of fucking question is that?”
She giggled. “I think dear sir doth protest too much.”
He grumbled, planting his chin in his palm.
“You do, don’t you?” she said, getting too damned close to his personal space for comfort.
He had nothing to lose and chomped on the verbal bait.
“I thought I was.”
She nodded, seeming to ponder his answer. “You thought?”
Patrick shrugged. “You know what they say. You think you know someone until they show you their taxidermied babies collection.”
She shook her head, horrified. “What? That’s not how that goes.”
After he slipped off the boxes, Patrick then drifted through Scratch and Dent. He rubbed his hands and puffed a breath onto his fingers, once again calling forth the mending energies. He ran his fingers over the cracked fragment of a mirror. The glass melted like ice on warm pavement, in a slow pooling puddle, and then solidified into a perfect product.
“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but that’s exactly how it goes,” Patrick said, scowling at a CAGLIARI bedframe. He clapped his hands together, and the sparkling energies showered from his fingers like firecrackers.
He watched over the bed frame as it lay like a lazy, worn-out lover, dappled in scratches from a long night.
“Seems he was cute enough to tick off your boxes,” he said to her, all the while watching the CAGLIARI frame mend. “You know boxes?”
Patrick slid his fingers over the frame like grazing an inner thigh in a slow, seductive touch. He flinched as the memory of Benji’s skin on his own invaded his thoughts and took no prisoners. His mouth ran dry.
“Yeah,” she said, slowly kicking her feet. “I know boxes. Mine are dark hair, intense eyes….” She hissed in delight. “Arms. I love arms.”
Patrick nodded as the long scratch on the CAGLIARI pulled together like a healing scab.
“I notice eyes,” he said with a smirk. “Always notice eyes first.” He leaned back, squinting against the dim lighting the CASA management always left on after closing. “Windows to the soul and all that.”
Souls. He snorted. That never stopped being ironic. That’s all they were—souls wandering the same happy showrooms that reminded them of lives they never would have. He’d tried that once, just for the sense of normalcy. He had tried to comfort himself that if he could maintain a normal life, it wouldn’t be so weird to think about how he could never leave. It had helped establish his precious hard data. Affirm his humanity.
“How Shakespearian,” she said with a kind smile.
Her lucidity perplexed him. Patrick furrowed his brows and watched her. She smiled all the while, unflappable. She had to at least be college age. Her dark hair had been cut into a recent fashionable style with wavy layers. Her clothes read socialite fashionista. Not exactly the comfortable shoes and clothes one wears to CASA in prep for wandering the store for hours.
He’d have to consult with Agnes on the finer points of what Impressions could and couldn’t do. Did they gain logical cognizance the longer they remained in CASA? Was that what had happened to him? He’d lingered too long?
He had so many questions for Agnes. But that would mean talking to her without her making a jibe about Benji. And that was a nope.
Fuck. What are you doing? he scolded himself.
The thought of Benji made him more of an idiot by the second.
He set his jaw and moved on to a torn box.
Boxes were easy to mend. Never had to fix what was inside.
“You a writer?” he asked, trying to make conversation.
“Psychology major,” she said proudly.
“Going to save the world one day, huh?” he asked and drifted further back into Scratch and Dent. Away from her and her kindness.
“The human mind is a fantastic thing. If we could better understand it, we could better understand ourselves and each other.” She tilted her head, watching him work. “Something tells me you didn’t get a degree just to work the night shift in CASA.”
He glanced away, not able to face her. “PhD. Particle physics. Fast track to CERN.”
Patrick kept the details short. It was always easier that way. Less painful when someone’s eyes glazed over at his nonsense dreams.
“Really boring, you know?” He smiled but only felt the emptiness inside. The reminder hit him in an odd, uncomfortable place when his “boring nonsense dreams” were his everything. “Now, what you see is what you get. Trapped in retail purgatory for all eternity and doing crossword puzzles to keep from going insane.”
He wished he was kidding. It had to at least get a laugh.
“Wanted to discover the God particle, huh?” She got to her feet and then linked her hands behind her back.
Patrick didn’t answer immediately as he searched for something else to mend. A frayed PERUGIA duvet seemed to be ideal.
“I think it was the only way I’d find God,” he muttered. He never wanted to get too deep into it. Not in front of the others. It was a discussion he never wanted to have. He had a theory about Agnes and Karin
, as well as what the ball pit really symbolized, but as long as he ignored it, life would seem… sort of normal.
“Man of science, huh?” she asked. “Man after my own heart.”
He nodded, wiping his fingers over the loose duvet threads. “I only understand what’s right in front of me. If I can touch it, I believe it.”
After restoring the duvet, he began folding it into a proper square.
“And that’s why you don’t believe in love.”
Her words were like a hot spike to his nonexistent heart. Patrick fixed her with a frigid glare. If only he had the power to banish Impressions with a thought.
“Where the fuck did you come from, Dear Abby?” he growled in warning.
She tilted her chin toward the rows of checkout lanes in the distance.
“I saw when they brought you in from the parking garage.” She shook her head in pity. “The way he looked at you. And the way you panicked.”
Patrick stalked past her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I read people,” she said calmly. “How else can I know if they’re lying?”
Fuck. She was psychoanalyzing him.
“Look, Abs. I have a lot of work to do, as you can see,” Patrick said. He had to find something else to fix or he was going to start breaking shit by accident.
“Organizing your comics? Right. Of course.” She smirked and thankfully kept her distance.
“I work here,” he bit out, scowling.
“You live here.” She never missed a beat.
He barked a laugh. He thought he’d get tired of living jokes.
He fucking despised them.
“So. Let’s talk about you,” he said in an attempt to turn the tables. “You said you were married?”
“I think,” she said, and her face slowly went blank. “Not that I recall.” She mentally drifted elsewhere.
Patrick thanked the silence as the Impression lost a small measure of her cognizance. She’d vanish soon enough. The thought smacked him in the back of his head. Thankful she’d vanish? That was kind of douchey.
“Interesting question,” she said as she regained her clarity. “Why would you bring up marriage? Were you?”
“No,” he said flatly. “Never.”
She blinked. “A good-looking guy like you? I’m sure you’d have long settled down.”
He glared at her. “The guy never asked, okay?”
She flashed a thumbs-up. “Got it.”
Turning in a slow circle, she seemed to take in the massiveness of the warehouse floor. She gestured to the distant checkout lanes. “He wasn’t asking you.”
Patrick clenched his fists. “He’s just a guy,” he said. “It’s proximity.”
She nodded with a smirk. “Proximity. Right.”
He rolled his shoulders, working out the ball of stress building in the back of his neck. “I can touch it. Therefore, I believe,” he said.
It made sense to him, anyway.
“He’s not an it.”
“He has an it. And it is magnificent.” He gave her a shit-eating grin.
“Has anyone ever told you how good you are at deflecting?”
“Might have come up a time or two.” Patrick shrugged. “Putting those book smarts to use, huh, Abs?”
She crossed her arms, and he read the frustration in her stance. Good. Maybe she’d wander off soon.
“Why don’t you see what’s right in front of you?” she asked.
He straightened with a long exasperated sigh and then popped his neck. The pleasant pop and crunch sent a warming tingle down his spine.
“It’s like milk,” he said and then puffed a breath into his hands. The blue mending energies laced through his fingers.
She arched a brow and frowned dubiously. “It’s like milk?”
He nodded. “It’s like milk that’s gone three days past its expiration date.” He placed his palm over a sad, dinged-up TARANTO. “So, you’re standing there having this deep philosophical crisis about whether you should chance having chunks in your cereal, or throw it out.”
She shifted her weight, seeming to consider him.
“Why not try the milk?” she asked.
Patrick leaned back from his work on the TARANTO. He swallowed when he recognized it as the same one he had shoved Benji against when he stupidly let him know he was interested. More than interested. He would have fucked him right there if common sense hadn’t prevailed. Well, if by common sense he meant complete terror.
He grunted in frustration, sexual and otherwise. “Because I’d have to throw it out anyway.”
Her smile returned, bright and brilliant. He knew she was working her psychology prowess to gain his trust. Damned Impression. She was a smart one.
Calmness crept over him and sank into his pores, warming his skin. The mending side effects were kicking in, and he relaxed against a stack of boxes.
“Why don’t you try it?” she asked as she joined him next to the stack of boxes. She felt along the edge of the one for a ROME wardrobe frame. The wayward box had been separated from its family of sixteen other boxes. Why the damned thing came in so many packages seemed obscene to Patrick. Packing a car with a ROME system was a special kind of hell. Turning to him, she nodded. “If it’s still good, at least you’ll have cereal for one more day.”
He blinked at her, and then tilted his head like a confused corgi.
“Drink the milk,” she said.
He smirked and then glanced from the box, to her, then black again. She hovered near it and maintained the contact.
“It’s that one, isn’t it?” Patrick asked with a nod. “The ROME?”
She sighed softly. “I couldn’t get it out of the car. And….” Her face went momentarily blank before she resumed her thought. “I never thought this would be purgatory. Amanda fucking hated this place.”
“Daughter?” he asked. It was a stab in the dark, but he noticed the mothers getting younger and younger.
“Wife.” She hesitated, as if considering her answer. She nodded. “She was my wife.”
“Is,” Patrick corrected her.
She shook her head. “Is?”
“Is,” he stated again. “She’ll always be your wife.”
She brightened. “See? You do believe in love.”
Patrick waved her off with a dismissive flick of the wrist. “I believe in what I see. Your wife should be waiting for you beyond the doors. I’ll page Karin to help you out.”
She started off but only got a few steps away before she stopped. “I never caught your name?” she asked.
“Patrick,” he said, standing a little taller.
“Drink the milk, Patrick. You have more than enough for one more bowl of cereal.”
He watched her smile finally fade as her body dematerialized into trails of vapor, vanishing through the ethereal breeze.
Patrick remained in the silence and savored the solace.
His body tingled with the cooling tranquil salve of the mending energies on his soul. Spitting an infantile chuckle like a fourteen-year-old boy, he got the joke.
The Impression had been his lucky charm, reminding him Benji was magically delicious.
Chapter Thirteen: TRIGNO
Kissing Patrick left Benji breathless, which was interesting in more ways than one. Most intriguingly, he didn’t need to breathe, not really. So how could he be breathless? The same principle held for the way Patrick made Benji’s heart race. A curiosity, to be sure, because his heart didn’t actually beat in the first place. It could be a psychological thing, some remnant of his humanity so ingrained that he felt the sensations even though it wasn’t actually happening, simply because he was used to his heart racing and his breath going funny when he was kissing someone.
Except he’d never felt anything quite like this. His lungs burned and his heart raced as he focused on the soft slide of Patrick’s lips over his own. Patrick’s tongue sweeping into his mouth felt far more intimate than any kiss had befo
re. Even Charles hadn’t been able to make Benji’s knees weak and his breath catch with just a kiss, and he’d loved Charles more than he’d thought possible.
Patrick dipped his hand below Benji’s waistband, and Benji’s breath hitched again. As their make-out sessions grew more frequent, it was getting harder and harder—pun intended—to keep things strictly above the belt. Benji was starting to think he’d severely underestimated Patrick’s stubbornness and his own willpower.
Patrick had told him a little bit about Alec since their movie date. Enough that Benji could see that Patrick was trying, but not enough to make Benji comfortable with playing out any of Patrick’s increasingly filthy suggestions. It turned out that Patrick not only had a talent for dirty talk, he also had a lot of interesting and sometimes concerning ideas about the role different CASA furniture pieces could play in their lovemaking. Benji was only sure he was joking half the time.
Patrick teased his fingers lower, dipping under the edge of the Under Armour boxers Benji had chosen for today. He’d never actually worn any in life, but they’d looked comfortable and sexy in the ads he’d seen. He had no idea if that was actually true or not, but his mental approximation of them was plenty comfy.
He let his hand slip away from where it had been caressing the skin between Patrick’s shoulder blades, trailing his fingertips down the warm, firm skin of Patrick’s back and leaving goose bumps in their wake.
He closed his fingers around Patrick’s wrist and tugged gently, dislodging his hand. Patrick groaned in frustration and let his head thunk against Benji’s chest. His temple caught Benji’s collarbone, sending a sharp-sore ripple of energy up Benji’s shoulder and down his arm. He shivered. It was almost as good as an orgasm, and Patrick was wickedly good at inciting it.
“You have to stop doing that,” Benji said when he’d gotten his breath back.
“Stop cockblocking me and I will,” Patrick said, his signature smirk firmly in place.
It was quickly becoming an old argument, and Benji fell into the rhythm of it easily.
“Tell me all about Alec, then.”
Patrick stuck his tongue out. “He was a guy. His name started with an A and ended with a C,” he said flatly.
Benji watched as Patrick rolled off the GORZENTE they’d been lying on and starfished on the short-fibered SFOCATO rug underneath it. The store would be opening any minute, so even if Benji hadn’t called their make-out session quits because of Patrick’s wandering hands, they’d have had to stop soon anyway.
