Raze

by Roan Parrish

  Because I just wanted to say the name of the man I loved.

  Chapter 18

  Felix

  I banged through Dane’s door around four, my hideous green work shirt smeared liberally with orange goo, streaks of coffee in my hair.

  It had been a busy, messy, infuriating day at work, and through all of it, I’d calmed myself by concentrating on the moment two days before, when Dane had let himself cry in my arms, then let me hold him all night.

  I’d felt glimpses of what it would be like for him to need me. When he’d shown up at my doorstep after a hard day; when he’d needed me to direct him during sex.

  But this had felt like partnership.

  He’d needed me to tell him that I loved him, that I was proud of him, that I was on his side.

  It had finally felt like we were in this thing together.

  Dane had woken with a voice like the bottom of a cave and seemed able to look everywhere but at me. Finally, I pounced on him, flattening his broad shoulders to the bed and forcing him to look at me. I dropped soft kisses to his face until he let out a shuddering breath and his arms came around me.

  I’ve got you, I told him. It’s gonna be okay.

  And I was determined that it would be. I’d make sure of it.

  “Halloween is dead to me,” I announced dramatically to the apartment. “If I never see orange cream cheese again it will be too soon. Why on earth does anyone want that on their bagels?”

  When I didn’t get an answer, I went into the bedroom where I found Dane, still wet from the shower.

  I stripped off my clothes and threw them into the hamper, wishing it were an incinerator, then threw myself on the bed to watch him. Dane mostly naked wasn’t something I ever wanted to miss. His thick muscles gleamed with water and the planes of his stomach tensed as he twisted to dry himself off.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Wait, you just showered,” I said. “But isn’t it time to go to the gym? Then the grocery store?”

  It was Dane’s usual routine.

  He shook his head, drying off more thoroughly than strictly necessary.

  “How come? You not feeling well or something?”

  He shook his head again.

  “I’m sorry, baby. What’s wrong?”

  “No—I meant, uh, I’m not sick.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Uh. Thought I’d acknowledge the essential lack of control I have over the universe by breaking my routine,” he said.

  I cocked my head. He didn’t look upset or overloaded. He looked…okay.

  “Ooookay?” I said. “Did you have something in mind, or should we just let the universe take us wherever it will?”

  He carefully hung the towel on the hook outside the bathroom door and pulled on underwear and jeans. It was terribly sexy, the way he’d perform movements without talking, like he was inviting me to watch him without the distraction of words.

  “Well, I had an idea, but if Halloween really is dead to you, you probably won’t like it.”

  “If it’s with you, I’ll like it,” I said. “Besides, I can’t stay mad at Halloween for very long. It’s just…orange cream cheese, you know? It could sour anyone.”

  “Is it just orange food coloring in regular cream cheese?”

  “Oh yeah. Which people were not pleased about because they thought it was gonna be pumpkin flavored, I guess? I wanted to be like ‘What part of businesses capitalizing on holiday consumerism in the absolute cheapest way possible do you not understand?’ Besides, we already have pumpkin-flavored bagels. Which are exactly as disgusting as you’d imagine. Anyway, what did you want to do?”

  He ran his fingers through my hair and I hoped there wasn’t cream cheese actually in it.

  “Hear you talk forever.”

  He said it without thinking, so I knew it was true. For just a moment, he froze, but at the smile I couldn’t help, he smiled back. We stood there grinning at each other, his hand in my coffee-streaked hair, until I forgot what we had been talking about.

  * * *

  —

  Dane refused to tell me what his plan was, but he allowed me to shower off the orange cream cheese, so I wasn’t complaining.

  We left through the side entrance and he led me to the street the bar opened onto. It was closed off to cars and swarming with children in costume. Some were in group costumes with their parents or siblings; some even had dogs dressed up. Everywhere, people were pointing at costumes, taking pictures, and waving to neighbors.

  “Oh my God,” I said, gripping Dane’s hand. “This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”

  “Children’s costume parade and trick-or-treating,” Dane said. “They close the streets off. See it from the bar every year, but I never came outside. Thought you might like it.”

  Typical Dane Hughes understatement. I shoved him and then kissed him.

  The feeling in the air was gleeful, the kids high on sugar and the parents excited for an activity they didn’t have to plan themselves. We walked hand-in-hand, pointing out costumes that caught our eyes. There was a group dressed as the kids from Stranger Things, a shockingly detailed alien from Alien, the twins from The Shining, which I imagined was parent-inspired, a father dressed as a lumberjack holding a baby dressed as an axe, and dozens of what must have been characters from children’s movies and TV shows that I didn’t recognize.

  Some residents sat on the stoops of their buildings with bowls of candy, and many of the local businesses were handing out candy as the kids passed by too.

  “So you’ve never given out candy at the bar,” I said. “Are you allowed to, or is a bar a no-kids zone?”

  “I’m allowed. Get a flyer every year.”

  I squeezed his hand.

  After half a block, Dane said, “Maybe next year.”

  I looped my arm through his and pulled him close to my side. I loved hearing him talk about the future.

  “So, speaking of next year,” I said slowly. I wanted to say this out loud so I felt like it was real. “I want to quit Buggy’s. I mean, duh. But actually quit. Find something else. I was thinking maybe I’d set myself a time limit that I have to quit by and then stick to it.”

  Dane nodded.

  “I’ll help any way I can. What kind of timeline are you thinking?”

  “It has to be long enough to actually find something but not so long that I don’t do it. Maybe…three months? No, four months?”

  “Sounds reasonable. Know what you wanna look for?”

  I shook my head slowly. I knew what I wanted to do. But it felt so far in the realm of dreams that I couldn’t quite say it. And I had some poking around to do first.

  “If you wanted,” Dane said slowly, “you could be a business partner in the bar. You have great ideas, and I know you work hard.”

  I stopped walking and looked up at him. A kid dressed as a fire hydrant bumped into me and ricocheted off.

  The idea of being a part of something Dane was building appealed to me. But a bar wasn’t what I wanted to build with him.

  “I appreciate you offering, baby. But…I need to figure out what I really want to do.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me close.

  “You will.”

  Somehow, things did seem more possible with children dressed as every conceivable thing rioting around us. Maybe that was how it began: you acted out your dreams and if you did it at the right moment, a whole parade was there to make them a reality.

  At the culmination of the parade, tables were laden with doughnuts, cider, and cupcakes from a local bakery. Piñatas, bobbing for apples, and pin-the-bandage-on-the-mummy stations were set up behind the tables. At one table adults were handing out glow-in-the-dark stickers of ghosts a
nd skeletons, pencils with vampires on them, and bouncy balls painted with eyeballs. The sun was setting, and eyeballs glowed cheerily in the growing dark.

  I eyed the cupcakes, but when Dane gave me a stern look, I grudgingly acknowledged that they were for kids. Okay, I might have sulked just a tiny bit, because Dane went into the bakery and bought me one of my own.

  “They had the option of orange frosting,” he said. “But I thought it was too soon after the cream cheese incident.”

  I grinned and offered him a bite of the cupcake, even though I knew he didn’t like sweet things much. I licked the frosting off as we walked, then ate the cake part slowly. Dane kept looking at my mouth, so I licked my lips. When I kissed him, I knew I would taste vanilla sweet.

  We headed back inside through the bar so Dane could check to see how Johi’s Halloween karaoke night was going. It was early, so things were just getting underway, but there were already a lot of people in costume milling around the bar.

  “Wow, go, Johi!” I said.

  Karaoke reminded me of Sof, so I snapped a picture of the gathering crowd and texted it to her.

  What are you being for Halloween? I asked. And what karaoke song would you sing?

  She wrote back right away.

  We’re all dressing up for the show tonight! I’m being Cher from Clueless and Coco’s being Dionne ;) What are you?

  No costume this year :( But Dane and I just saw a kids’ costume parade that was the cuuuuutest.

  L-oser! she wrote back. Then, Also adorb. Tell Dane he should be Mr. Clean next year.

  I started cracking up and Dane raised an eyebrow.

  “What’s up?”

  “Ahem, nothing,” I said, and shoved my phone in my pocket.

  “Hey, Huey, do you mind?” Johi asked. “I gotta take the trash out to the dumpster before it starts to stink, and Roy and Amanda are bringing stuff from the basement. Can you serve for a sec?”

  “I’ll take it out,” he said, eyeing the two huge garbage bags.

  “That works too,” she said.

  She saluted him in thanks and Dane hefted the bags.

  “Do you want me to grab—okay, never mind,” I said, ducking past him to hold open the back door.

  I followed him into the alley and moved to open the top of the dumpster. There was a flash of movement in the dark and I jumped backward.

  “What’s wrong?” Dane asked, instantly on guard.

  But the sound of a hiss answered before I could. I bent down and peered around the corner of the dumpster.

  “Oh my God, kitten! Did I scare you, baby? I’m sorry.”

  I made my voice as soothing as possible, hoping it would come out.

  “Don’t touch it—it could be rabid,” Dane said.

  I scoffed.

  “Nooo, you’re not rabid, are you?”

  I held my knuckles out to the kitten, which was still in the shadow of the dumpster.

  With a sigh, Dane set the garbage bags on the ground. He crouched next to me, and I could tell he really wanted to pull me away. I kept murmuring to the kitten softly, hand outstretched, and after a few minutes I caught the gleam of lantern eyes emerging from the shadow behind the dumpster.

  “Oh my God, baby,” I cooed.

  It was a tiny little thing, more fluff than substance. A black kitten with some white markings and a tail longer than its body. It made a mewling sound and I melted.

  I turned to Dane.

  “Can we take it upstairs? Give it some food? I think it’s really hungry.”

  Dane sighed.

  “Hang on.”

  He ducked inside and I managed to lure the kitten a few more inches out of the shadows.

  When Dane came back outside, he knelt behind me and handed me some bar mops.

  “Pick it up with those in case it tries to bite you, or has…I don’t know. Diseases.”

  I snorted at him. Still, I did as he said because…yeah, it was filthy. When I reached for the kitten, though, it streaked past me. I sighed in defeat, assuming it would run away down the alley.

  Then I heard a choked Eep and turned to Dane to see that the kitten had jumped onto his shoulder.

  We both froze, him staring at me, me staring at the cat on his shoulder. Dane’s eyes were huge, and the kitten was nuzzling his neck, purring. It looked even tinier in the context of Dane’s broad shoulders, and my stomach was molten with cuteness.

  “Oh. My. God. It’s purring. Holy shit, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “What do I…do?”

  He said it with the confused horror of someone being asked to defuse a bomb.

  “Um, stand up really slowly so it doesn’t fall off and walk inside?”

  “I’m not walking through my bar with a cat perched on my shoulder like Edgar Allan Poe!”

  I snorted with laughter.

  “Side entrance, then.”

  Dane stood up slowly, and I expected the kitten to jump down any second, but it didn’t. It just crept a few inches closer to his neck, tail flicking.

  “Oh, the trash,” Dane said.

  I motioned him to stay still. There was no way I was letting him scare the kitten away. At least, not until I’d gotten him into the light so I could take a picture.

  I opened the dumpster and dropped the bags in nearly in slow motion, since any movement or sound could scare the kitten. Then I slid a hand into Dane’s pocket for his keys and we walked to the end of the alley.

  “Felix.” Dane’s voice was strained and desperate. “It’s at my neck. It’s filthy. It’s been living in an alley with bugs and—and…bugs.”

  The kitten was curled up right at his neck, and it was absolutely the cutest thing that I’d ever witnessed. But Dane sounded legitimately distressed. He really didn’t like to be dirty.

  “It’s okay,” I assured him. “You can disinfect your neck when we get inside.”

  I was half joking, but the second we were inside, Dane made a beeline for the bathroom. He paused at his reflection in the mirror, though. In the light, the kitten was even cuter. A tiny, curled ball of black fluff against his neck, only its green eyes peeking out above its tail. I was instantly in love.

  “We have to…clean it?” Dane said.

  It was clear he had no idea what he was doing, so I pried the reluctant kitten from his shoulder, wrapped it in one bar mop and cleaned it with another.

  Dane immediately stripped off his shirt and washed his shoulder and neck, letting out a relieved breath when he’d put on a clean shirt.

  Wet, the kitten was even smaller. Her pointy ears and huge eyes looked too big for the delicate bones of her tiny face, and her tail wriggled weakly against the towel.

  “Do you have any tuna?” I asked.

  “Hang on.”

  I dried the kitten as best I could, smoothing down her fur.

  “There you go, that’s much better, huh?” I said.

  The kitten purred and wriggled against me. Then her little nose moved, and she froze for a moment before rocketing out of my hands and out of the bathroom door.

  “Whoa, incoming!” I yelled, running after the kitten.

  The ball of damp, spiky black fluff landed on the counter and tried to shove her face against the can of tuna.

  “Jesus, you’re a menace,” Dane said.

  He put the can on the floor and the kitten tried to eat it, but her tiny mouth was no match for the tightly packed can.

  “No, no,” I said.

  I plucked the can off the floor and got a bowl, mushing up the mound of tuna and putting the bowl on the floor. I tugged Dane’s hand and we sat on the floor. The kitten immediately buried her little face in the food.

  I groaned and leaned against
Dane’s shoulder.

  “She’s so cute, I can’t stand it. I want her.” I turned to the kitten. “You wanna come home with me, baby? Wanna live with me?”

  I felt Dane tense beside me and glanced at him. His expression was blank and unreadable.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He nodded, and I immediately got sucked into watching the kitten eat. When she finished, the air had dried her clean fur, revealing a soft cloud of black fluff and a pattern of white markings on its chest and belly that looked like…

  “A skeleton. We found a kitten on Halloween and she’s dressed like a skeleton—I can’t stand it.” I collapsed against Dane in joy. “I’m gonna call her Skeleton. Skellie for short, obviously.”

  “It’s…a girl? Uh, a female, I mean.”

  “Yup. You like the name Skeleton, baby?” I cooed.

  “I don’t—” Dane began, then snapped his mouth shut.

  “You don’t like the name?”

  He shook his head. I knew that look. He wanted to tell me something, but he didn’t think he should.

  I slid into his lap, looking right at him. He sighed and leaned back against the cabinets. “Dane,” I said sternly. “What’s wrong? I’m gonna take the kitten to the vet, I swear, so if she has rabies they’ll tell me. I mean, she obviously doesn’t have rabies…”

  He shook his head again, but his hands were tight around my hips.

  “What is it?” I asked again gently.

  “It’s…it’s stupid. Sorry.”

  I put my hands on his shoulders and looked at him until he started talking.

  “I…I got…You called— Jesus, this is so stupid.” Dane cringed. I had no idea what he was going to say. “You called the cat ‘baby’ and I…that’s what you call me. God, never mind.”

  He closed his eyes, clearly mortified, but I melted inside. I cupped his face.

  “Baby.” I infused it with as much intimacy as I could, and Dane’s eyes slowly opened. “When I say it to a kitten it just means ‘little cute thing with no name.’ When I say it to you it’s because I love you so fucking much I can’t breathe sometimes when I look at you. It means I want to remind you that you’re mine and I’m yours.”