Where Nerves End

by L. A. Witt

  “Ouch is right.” I sighed. “The thing that sucks? A year ago, I almost had everything under control. I was still struggling, but just about had it to the point where I could make ends meet. Then the housing market got worse, and on top of that, like I said before, I lost my business partner and my boyfriend within a few months of each other, which left me with the business and the whole mortgage, and….” I made a frustrated gesture. “Now I’m basically screwed.” I paused. “And for some reason I’m telling you my life story. I swear I’m not trying to get sympathy, I’m—”

  “Explaining where you’re coming from,” he said with a nod. “I understand. And I know the feeling, believe me. The cost of living around here is obscene.”

  “To say the least.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if everyone’s natural state in this area is ‘barely getting by.’”

  “Even for a doctor?”

  “Yep. Honestly, I’d move out of Tucker Springs if I could. Love it here, but it’s so damned expensive.”

  “So why stay?”

  “My kid.” He thumbed the edge of the file folder in his hands. “His mother and I have joint custody, and it would… complicate things.” He paused, his eyes losing focus. Then he shook himself back to life. “Anyway. I’m trying to stick it out. See if the economy gets better, do what I can to bring in more patients. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Of course, I have this place too.” He gestured around the room. “Overhead and all of that.”

  I groaned. “God, I know how it goes. As much as I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, sometimes it’s good to know I’m not the only one.”

  “Right?” He laughed humorlessly. “And get this. As a bonus, I had to switch my apartment to month-to-month, which is more expensive of course, because I don’t know if I’ll still be able to afford it in three, six, twelve months.”

  “Ouch. Well, just be glad you’re not stuck with a damned mortgage.”

  “I am. Every day, believe me, I am.” His eyes took on a distant expression. “But I guess we all have our crosses to bear.”

  “Yeah.” I wondered what else he had weighing on his shoulders. “I guess we do.”

  Our eyes met.

  Then Michael cleared his throat and set the file folder on the seat beside the table. “Anyway. Shirt and shoes off, and go ahead and lie back.”

  “No car battery this time?”

  He laughed. “Not yet. You’re just going to relax with a few needles for a while, and then I’ll have you turn facedown so I can do some electrostimulation along the scapula.”

  “Shock therapy,” I mused. “Can’t wait.”

  Michael just chuckled.

  He must have put in more than a dozen needles, and they weren’t concentrated on my shoulder. Hands. Feet. Two in my scalp. Something to do with soothing the liver and fucking with the gallbladder, apparently. I was only half listening as he explained it; his fingers were on me, and no amount of talking or sticking sharp things into my skin could distract me from them. I barely felt the needles. When he’d carefully parted my hair, he’d sent electricity crackling along my nerve endings, and I didn’t even care if he saw the goose bumps. As long as I could keep myself from getting visibly turned on, I was good, and somehow I stayed calm in that department.

  In fact, I was calmer than I’d been in a long time. Aware of him and of his touch, yes, but… calm. Relaxed. Never thought I’d feel like this while I probably looked like a human pincushion, but after last night, I’d take it.

  I was vaguely aware of Michael moving beside me. He stood—apparently he’d been sitting? Hell, I’d lost track—and stepped away from the table.

  “Comfortable?” he asked.

  “Very.” One word, and it took unimaginable effort to enunciate. “Might fall asleep.”

  “Good. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

  He dimmed the lights until he became a featureless silhouette against the wall. When he opened the door, bright, cool light spilled in from the hallway, illuminating him for a moment before he stepped out. The door clicked shut behind him, and the room turned mostly dark again.

  My eyelids were heavy, so I let them slide closed.

  I drifted in and out for a while. Half dreaming, half letting my mind wander. At first I tried to stay as still as possible because I couldn’t remember where all the needles were, but soon I had no desire to move anyway. I was too comfortable. Too relaxed.

  And as I savored this peaceful sleepiness, my mind wandered to everything Michael and I had discussed earlier. Though the very thought of money could easily negate all this relaxation, that didn’t happen this time.

  I felt a bit less like a goddamned failure when I knew I wasn’t the only one struggling. That, or there was just plenty of room in the failboat for all of us.

  My eyes flew open. Michael was in the same situation I was. Barely making ends meet, struggling with the cost of living.

  What if….

  What would a straight guy think of living with a gay man? What did I think about living with a jaw-dropping hot guy I couldn’t touch? Still, desperate times did have a tendency to warrant desperate measures, and bringing strangers in as roommates qualified as a desperate fucking measure. Moving a guy like Michael into my house might not do much for sexual frustration, but it sure could make the sight of my bank balance sting a little less.

  I had the space. The guest room hadn’t been used at all since Wes had left. The only overnight visitors we’d ever had were his parents every couple of months, and I barely went into my home office now that I had a laptop. I could easily clear out that room for Michael or his son.

  Michael didn’t know me from Adam, but he knew Seth. Seth could vouch for both of us, at least enough to convince each other we weren’t ax murderers. Though knowing Seth, he’d find some way to lord the power of his endorsement over us.

  A tap on the door brought me back to the present, and Michael stepped into the room. He closed the door behind him and slowly brightened the lights until I could make out his features.

  “Feel all right?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Good. I still want to do some electrostim, though.”

  “You and your car battery.”

  Michael laughed. “You know me.”

  I wish….

  He turned the light a little brighter and carefully removed all the needles. “Go ahead and lie facedown. Sit up slowly, though, and let me know if you get dizzy.”

  I obeyed, careful not to jar my shoulder, though I realized as I eased myself upright that it didn’t hurt much. It ached and was uncomfortably tight, but the worst was definitely gone. I tilted my head to one side, then the other, before I cautiously rolled my shoulder. Yep, tight and aching, but not excruciating.

  Then I lay facedown on the table with my head in the doughnut-shaped cushion.

  “Is that comfortable?” he asked. “Doesn’t aggravate your neck or shoulder?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Just let me know if you need to move around.”

  A drawer opened and closed, and some plastic crinkled. Needle packets, probably. Then one tore, sounding a lot like a condom wrap—

  Don’t go there, Jason. Do not go there.

  As he positioned the first needle, I suppressed a shiver; men this attractive should not work in hands-on professions. No, scratch that. They should. They should be required to. In fact—

  A needle stung more than I’d expected, and I jumped, cursing through gritted teeth.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah. They don’t usually hurt like that.”

  “If the muscle’s especially tender, they can,” he said. “How does it feel now?”

  “Still aches, but it’s not too bad.”

  “If it gets unbearable, let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  As he continued working, I gnawed my lower lip and tried to find the nerve to bring up
what I’d thought about while he’d been out of the room. It was easy to say I could deal with someone this attractive living in my house. It was a little more difficult when that someone’s hands were on my skin and I had to concentrate this hard on playing it cool.

  It dawned on me that the mere suggestion might make things awkward. Oh, to hell with it. If it did, there were other acupuncturists in Tucker Springs. And I probably couldn’t afford them either.

  “Listen, um, I know this is way out of the blue, but… hear me out.”

  He said nothing.

  I went on. “It sounds like we’re both struggling to scrape by, and maybe we could both use some relief in that department.”

  “Mm-hmm….” He tapped another needle into place.

  “Would you be willing to consider a roommate arrangement?”

  Michael’s hands froze. “You…. Are you serious?”

  I nodded as much as I could in this position. “I know it sounds completely crazy, especially since we’re practically strangers, but Seth can vouch for both of us.”

  “True.” For a moment he was silent. I wasn’t sure if he was mulling over the idea, concentrating on arranging needles, or both. Then, “You do realize I have joint custody of my son, right? So he’d be living with me part of the time?”

  I nodded again. The fact that he hadn’t shot down the idea gave me a rare inkling of hope.

  “And that doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

  “Why should it?”

  His hands halted for a moment, then continued what they were doing.

  After a lengthy silence, he said, “It’s an interesting thought. I’m not committing either way, but tell you what: Print out a lease agreement. Let’s get together outside of the clinic and talk specifics, and….” He tugged gently on a cable, then picked up the machine. “Maybe we can work something out.”

  Chapter 6

  THE FOLLOWING afternoon, I strolled through the Light District with a manila folder tucked under my arm. Nothing was set in stone yet, but the idea of a roommate alleviating some of my financial woes made me feel a hell of a lot better.

  In a decent mood for once, I relaxed and enjoyed my scenic surroundings. The Light District was one of those cool mismatched areas with weird shops and eclectic artwork at every turn. It was originally supposed to be a gathering place for authors, poets, musicians, and artists. But apparently it attracted those who thought they were God’s gift to the arts but didn’t have the chops to crack it, so sometime in the early 1970s, someone in the literature department at Tucker U, the private university at the north end of the city, dubbed the neighborhood Hacktown. The nickname had stuck for a while, though it wasn’t used so much anymore, but the artsy patchwork of people and places remained.

  Most of the wannabe artists had moved out, and this had become the heart of Tucker Springs’s gay community. Hopefully it didn’t bother Michael to meet me here. Then again, if he was the least bit homophobic, he and Seth wouldn’t be so close, and I doubt he would’ve considered moving in with me. If wandering through this neighborhood made him break out in hives, this arrangement probably wouldn’t work out.

  I waited for him at a table in front of one of the brewhouses lining the town square at the southwest corner of the Light District.

  I was early, so I lounged with my coffee cup on my knee and the sun warming my back. My wallet and keys sat on top of the manila folder, acting as makeshift paperweights so the gentle breeze didn’t scatter the lease agreement all over the pavilion. The weather was unseasonably warm considering spring was still settling in, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky to block my view of the snow-dusted mountains carving a jagged line to the west. It was a spectacular day to go tearing down a one-track trail in the lower elevations. Maybe someday I’d be able to do that again.

  Here in town, dozens of people were taking advantage of the weather. A trio of skateboarders with their pants hanging off their asses wove between couples and families, the plastic wheels of their boards clattering across the square’s reddish bricks. The bike rental stand must have been making a killing—their expansive rack only had two bikes left. The brewhouses and coffee shops had all opened their patio seating, and even at four thirty in the afternoon, most of the tables were occupied.

  Days like this, I could see how Tucker Springs drew people in. I supposed it was an all right place to live. Expensive as fuck, and definitely not for the faint of heart in the wintertime, but it wasn’t all that bad. Maybe I was just jaded because of how my life had gone in the past year or so and I was ready to blame whatever was handy. What easier target was there than a quiet little town with a lot of shit that sounded better on paper than it actually was in person? Especially this place.

  Take the name of the town itself. If the founders had believed in truth in advertising, they’d have called it Tucker Mud Puddle. The only time the springs were noteworthy was after a major storm or some serious runoff from the mountain snow, at which point the road conditions were so bad they were barely accessible anyway.

  And then there was Villa Condominiums, the place my ex and I had lived before we’d bought the house. Condos, my ass. Call them what you want, they were still cramped boxes stacked in among other cramped boxes with a narrow, echoing metal grate stairwell that seemed fine until you tried to move a couch up to the third floor.

  Condo or not, the real estate market was god-awful, and we should have known better than to buy a house after we’d barely sold our place without losing our shirts and a few limbs for good measure. But then, the plan hadn’t been to buy it and then leave anytime soon. Phrases like “settling down” and “staying here awhile” had been tossed around enough that buying in a shit market had been a hell of an opportunity, not a chance to get fucked up the ass. And not in the way I liked getting fucked up the ass.

  But we’d bought the place, and then I’d had to go and get hurt. And that had brought out the worst in Wes. His usual impatience—good God, the man couldn’t stand any inconvenience—had been a lot harder to take when it was directed at me. Listening to him swear at a red light or grumble about a delayed flight had been amusing. Catching that “are you ready to go yet?” look when something as simple as putting on a shirt nearly brought me to tears? Not so much.

  My mood soured, I swallowed the last of my coffee and tossed the cup into a nearby trash can. Then I sat back and thumbed the folder containing the lease agreement while I watched the crowed with unfocused eyes. Maybe things would look up now.

  If Michael agreed to move in.

  Hell, if he didn’t, I could always find a different roommate, but I liked the idea of someone with a mutual friend. And I wasn’t opposed to eye candy.

  Except I was asking to drive myself insane with him around my house. He was off-limits—straight, my acupuncturist, my roommate—so eye candy was as far as it would go. That didn’t mean other people couldn’t touch him, though. God help me if he brought home any “company” for an evening.

  And speak of the devil, there he was. One second the crowd was a blur of faces; the next it was a blur of faces behind Michael as he strolled toward me, sunglasses on and hands in the pockets of his jeans. The sun glinted off his watch, drawing my attention to his arms. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows again, revealing his lightly tanned forearms under a sprinkling of dark hair.

  I stood, and we shook hands before we both sat, metal chair legs scraping across cobbles as we inched closer to the small round table between us.

  Michael rested his foot on his opposite knee and absently—nervously?—tapped the side of his ankle with his fingers. “So, sharing a place, you really think it’s a good idea?”

  “You don’t?”

  He’s here, though. That’s a good sign.

  He shrugged. “Just mulling it over, I guess. It’s tempting, I’ll give you that. I’m not sure if….”

  “Maybe it’s a good idea, maybe it isn’t.” I folded my hands in my lap. “If it doesn’t work out, there’s nothing
saying we have to stick with it forever.”

  “Except the bit about paying first and last month on a new apartment, deposits, all that shit.” He blew out a breath. “This isn’t an entirely risk-free proposition.”

  “Is any proposition?”

  “No, I suppose it’s not.” He was quiet for a moment, then gestured at the file folder beneath my wallet and keys. “That’s the lease agreement, I assume?”

  I slid it toward him. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Just a boilerplate agreement I found online. It’s all negotiable if there’s anything you don’t like.”

  Michael picked it up, and as he perused the pages, I did not take advantage of his preoccupation to check him out. Not me. No way. Because when he tilted his head forward to read, he totally wasn’t at the perfect angle to make me wonder what the skin of his neck tasted like. Didn’t cross my mind at all. Not once.

  Jason. Dude. Snap the fuck out of it.

  I muffled a cough. “By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, the mortgage payments are twenty-three hundred. For rent, I’m asking for a thousand a month. That’ll include everything except food and what not.”

  “Really?” He cocked his head, inadvertently exposing another fraction of an inch of his neck. “Not fifty-fifty?”

  “Not when I’m getting equity on the place and you’re not.”

  “Hmm, good point. But I’m bringing two people in, not just one.”

  “And he’s only there half the time. But I’m not too worried since I have to pay the mortgage either way, and quite honestly, at this point, I need anything I can get to supplement it. Besides, if I ask for any more, it isn’t really worth your while, since rent on a two-bedroom is about twelve hundred or so.”

  “Plus utilities and all.” He smiled. “You’re offering a pretty appealing arrangement. I don’t want to screw you over.”

  You can screw me over anything you—

  “Don’t worry about it. You’d be doing me a huge favor paying half that much.”

  Michael closed the folder. “Well, I do want to see the place before I commit to it.”