by L. A. Witt
“Good to know.” He poured his tea through a strainer, then set the kettle aside and looked at me. “Like I said, you won’t wake me up.”
“Must be nice.”
“Shoulder?”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry.” He winked. “Let me keep working on it, and we’ll get to the point where it doesn’t keep you awake at night.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
“I would expect no less.” He paused to put his empty beer bottle into the recycling bin. “That is, after all, what I get paid to do.”
“Good thing you moved in, then,” I said. “Means I might be able to keep paying you to do it.”
He smiled. “Well, maybe now, with this arrangement, things will get easier for both of us.”
I returned the smile. “Yeah. Maybe they will.”
Chapter 8
MICHAEL HADN’T lived with me quite long enough to make a dent in my cash flow problems yet, so almost two weeks into our arrangement, the club’s books were as depressing as ever. Rising prices. Floundering income. And of course everyone from the bouncers to the bartenders wanted raises, since the area’s swelling cost of living affected them too.
Closing my eyes, I leaned back and rubbed my neck with both hands. The earliest twinges were creeping up the left side of my spine, slithering over my shoulder like kudzu and leaving knotted muscles in their wake.
I had to get out of here or I’d stress myself into excruciating pain. Fortunately it was a Tuesday night, so I was the only person in the building anyway. The club was closed Monday through Wednesday, but I usually came in at least two of those days to take care of administrative bullshit.
Fuck it. I’d deal with this tomorrow.
I left the binder open on my desk and pushed my chair back. Closing up the bar on nights like this was a breeze: no food to put away, no cleaning to be done. Nothing but a few lights to turn off, a quick check to make sure doors were locked and cash was in the safe, and I was out of there.
As soon as I was outside, I stopped and took a deep breath. The air was vaguely musty from the nearby river, but clean and fresh. The sun had just sunk behind the mountains, staining the sky a deep red and purple against the jagged silhouette. Beautiful night. Definitely not one to waste on paperwork.
Better to waste it parked in front of the TV.
By the time I was halfway home, I was relaxed enough that I probably could have gone back and taken care of all the shit still festering on my desk. But not tonight. For once, I wasn’t going to wind myself into knots over paperwork.
Let me have this one night, I begged the universe, without being in pain.
About two blocks away from my cul-de-sac, it occurred to me that going home might not be much more relaxing than being at work. Not as depressing, maybe, but now there was stress on both ends of my commute. When I’d suggested that Michael move in with me, I’d known it would be torture to look but not touch. However, three things about this arrangement had failed to cross my mind:
One, the bizarre varieties of healthy food, most of which were some unidentifiable form of plant life, materializing in my refrigerator between my beer and cold cuts.
Two, how incredibly fucking difficult it was to curtail my swearing—especially while playing a video game—because there was a seven-year-old in the room.
And third, that while Michael dressed business casual outside of the house, he reverted back to more casual and less business at home. For Michael, that meant jeans. Nothing else. Just jeans.
Oh God.
We were only two weeks into this arrangement, and I was already losing my mind. I kept telling myself that sooner or later I’d get used to him. Hopefully before he came to the conclusion that I was naturally clumsy. Prone to tripping over my own feet, dropping things, fucking up a video game that I was completely owning right up until the moment Michael waltzed in through the sliding glass door with his sunglasses in his mouth and a sheen of sweat from cutting the grass.
Oh well. Losing my mind or not, I finally had some hope of getting my finances back in order. So what if that meant torturing myself with eye candy that sent my heart racing every time he leaned down to get something out of a cabinet? I might go completely insane before all was said and done, but at least I might not go bankrupt.
When I got home, I found Michael in the living room, and he was the polar opposite of me: shirt off, bare feet propped on an ottoman, totally relaxed except for his thumbs on the video game controller.
He looked up. “You’re home early.”
“Decided to take it easy for an evening.”
Nodding, he turned his attention back to the screen. “You could probably use a night to relax. Good for the shoulder.”
“If my boss gets pissed, do I get a doctor’s note?”
Michael laughed. “Absolutely.”
“Awesome. Be right there.” I stepped into the kitchen, dropped my keys on the counter, and grabbed a beer from the fridge. After I’d opened the bottle, I went back into the living room.
I glanced at the screen and did a double take. “You know, you are the last person in the world I’d expect to see playing Grand Theft Auto.”
Michael laughed again but didn’t look up from the animated sports car eluding police through the streets of Los Angeles. “Don’t tell my kid, all right?”
“Secret’s safe with me.” I eased myself onto the couch beside him. “Didn’t think you’d be into something so violent.”
“Well, I could do without the part about shooting cops and hookers, but there is something fun about driving around and stealing shit.” He glanced at me. “Therapeutic after a long week.”
“It’s good for that, isn’t it?”
“Yep. As long as Dylan isn’t here. I can only get this or Assassin’s Creed out when he’s at his mom’s.”
“You don’t let him play this?”
“Fuck, no.” The stolen car on the screen crashed into the back of a police car and then plowed over a pedestrian. “He can play this game and watch violent movies when he’s old enough to be horrified by them.”
“Says the man who just ran someone over with a stolen car.”
He steered around a tight corner as he eluded police, and then shrugged. “Hey, I’ll have you know I am duly horrified.” Michael clicked his tongue. “I should have gotten a fuckload more points for that.”
I laughed. “You were robbed.”
“I was! Seriously.” As he kept playing, oblivious to the way his forearms rippled with the rapid movements of his thumbs, or how oblivious I wasn’t to that effect, he said, “My kid would have a fit if he knew I played this when I don’t let him.”
“Not until he’s old enough to beat you?”
“Oh, fuck that. Never mind. He’s never playing it.”
“Good call,” I said. “You know, my cousin let her kid play this until she found out about some of the sexual content.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake.” Michael gave an exasperated sigh. “If you’re going to shelter your kid, at least be consistent about it.”
“No kidding. I couldn’t believe she didn’t mind the violence and crime, but the minute there’s anything suggestive….”
“Sounds like something my ex-mother-in-law would do,” he muttered.
“Is that right?”
Rolling his eyes, he nodded. “My folks are conservative, but Daina’s?” Michael whistled, shaking his head. “Fuckin’ A. I mean, they still freak out that I’m going to raise my son as a Buddhist who shuns modern medicine.”
“Are you?”
“I wasn’t planning to, but if it’ll piss off Daina’s mom, I’m tempted.”
I snickered. “Sometimes it’s worth going to those lengths to piss off an in-law.”
“Been there?” He glanced at me again.
“Well, not technically an in-law, but I dated a guy whose mother hated my guts. So I kind of milked it and antagonized her a bit.”
His lips quirked
. “I’m sure your ex loved that.”
“He stopped trying to convince us to get along,” I said with a shrug.
Michael laughed. “Shit, my ex-wife still pushes her mom and me to get along. Not gonna happen, I’m afraid.”
“Can’t blame her for trying, right?”
“I suppose not.” He paused the game and reached for a mug on the end table.
“Wait, wait, wait.” I put up a hand. “You don’t drink tea while playing Grand Theft Auto. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Michael choked on the tea in question but managed to recover before he spit any of it out. “Very funny.” He set the mug aside. “I didn’t realize there were drink requirements with this game.”
“Well, the two don’t exactly go together, you know?” I gestured with my beer bottle. “GTA’s a beer game, not a”—I wrinkled my nose—“tea game.”
“Would it make a difference if I said there was weed in the tea?”
I blinked. “You… what?”
He chuckled. “Kidding.” He shifted in his seat, and I realized he had four needles sticking out of his ankle and foot.
“Bringing your work home with you?”
“More like bringing home a damned sore ankle.” He furrowed his brow as he messed with the needles.
“It’s not… weird? Working on yourself?” I asked. “I mean, I guess it’s no worse than someone giving themselves injections, but….”
“It’s actually a little easier sometimes because I know exactly where it hurts. And it isn’t as if I haven’t practiced on myself before. Hell, when I was in school, I practiced on anyone I could get my hands on.”
Lucky bastards. I wasn’t sure if I envied them the free acupuncture or the “hands on” part more. On second thought, if he was still learning at that point, maybe I’d have passed on the needles. “You know, it took a lot of arm-twisting to let you put these in me in the first place. I don’t think I could handle being a practice pincushion.”
“My ex-wife felt the same way, believe me.” He tweaked one of the needles in his foot. “She changed her tune when she found out acupuncture helps morning sickness.”
“Does it?”
Nodding, he leaned back against the couch. He gingerly flexed his ankle a few times, then let it rest on the ottoman. “It helps a lot, and she was pretty sick for months. I think she spent almost her entire pregnancy with at least a couple of needles in her skin.” He picked up his game controller. “When she was pregnant with her daughter, she kept joking about having me move in so I could treat her on demand.” He grimaced. “Lee didn’t find that too funny.”
“Big shock.” I brought my beer up to my lips. “So what possessed you to become an acupuncturist, anyway? I’m pretty sure I never saw that career listed in my guidance counselor’s office.”
Michael glanced at me, the corner of his mouth raised in a faint smirk. “And you saw listings for gay nightclub owner?”
I laughed. “Touché.”
He shifted his attention back to his game and chuckled. “Okay, to answer your question, I’d fucked up my ankle, and a friend pretty much dragged me by the scruff—or the crutch, at least—into her acupuncturist’s office. And damn if the woman didn’t help with my ankle and my migraines and allergies.” He slid a pillow under his foot. “So while I was lying there in her office after my fifth or sixth appointment, I decided it was my calling. And here I am.”
“Playing video games with needles sticking out of your foot.”
“Pretty much.”
“So what happened? To your foot, I mean?”
“I was in college, playing basketball with some buddies. Sprained the unholy fuck out of my ankle. Still gives me grief sometimes, so—” He gestured with his controller at the foot in question. Continuing his game, he said, “And hey, it’s the whole reason I went into acupuncture, so I can’t complain too much.”
“Guess there are worse ways fate could have gotten your attention.”
“No kidding. My mom is convinced it was divine intervention. I think anything capable of divine intervention could have found a less painful means of conveying a message, but what do I know?”
“Better than a head injury, right?”
He laughed. “Okay, good point.”
“You said you were already in college when it happened?”
Michael nodded.
“What were you studying?”
“Besides basketball and beer drinking?”
“Dude, we all studied beer drinking.”
“True. I was flailing around in college to—oh, motherfucker.” He groaned as Game Over flashed on the screen. Then he held up the controller. “Want to give it a go?”
“Hell yeah,” I said as I took it. “I’m always good for stealing and destroying a few things to relax.”
“Be my guest.” He took his tea and sat back while I started a new game. “Anyway, as I was saying, I’d been kind of flailing around in college, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Thought about premed, thought about nursing. Even looked into an osteopathic college. Then… the ankle incident. What about you?” His mug made a dull, heavy thunk as he set it on the end table. “What made you decide to open a club?”
“Delusions of grandeur and the insane idea I could get rich by thirty.”
“Ah, the American dream. Open a business, sit on an ever-growing pile of cash.”
“More like an ever-growing pile of stress and bullshit and an ever-deepening pit of debt,” I grumbled.
Michael raised his mug. “Well, here’s to finding a way to get ourselves out of that pit.”
I paused my game and clinked my beer bottle against the mug. As I took a drink, I decided there were definitely worse things than having an attractive straight man around the house, and being up to my ass in debt was one of them.
Yes, this was going to work out quite nicely.
Chapter 9
THREE WEEKS after Michael had moved in, I woke up in agony.
It hadn’t been this bad in a while, but tonight? Holy shit. One stressful shift at the club and now my shoulder was a glowing ember of pure, unrelenting pain. By the time I couldn’t take any more and got out of bed, it had spread into my neck and down the center of my back.
Fuck the shower, I was going straight for the drugs. Moving as slowly as I could, as much for stealth as to keep from jarring my back and shoulder, I went downstairs.
I threw the hot pack in the microwave, and while that warmed up, I pulled a couple slices of bread from the half-gone loaf on top of the refrigerator.
After I’d thrown back a pain pill, I rested one hand on the counter and just breathed while my other hand held the hot pack in place. The pill would kick in sooner or later.
Tensing up will only make it worse, I reminded myself. Slowly, gingerly, balancing the hot pack on my shoulder, I clasped my hands together and stretched my arms in front of me. I breathed deeply, trying to relax.
No luck, though. Minute after minute, the spasms spread out like a growing spiderweb. I couldn’t lift my left arm at all, and even raising my right ignited eye-watering twinges.
My gaze slid toward the pill bottle. The only thing that made me hesitate to take two was the threat of more nausea. They wouldn’t do me any good if I couldn’t keep them down. One pill hadn’t helped. Two might finish me off in the sick-to-my-stomach department.
My eyes flicked from the pill bottle to the corner of the wall and back.
I picked the wall.
Holding my breath, I leaned against the corner, pressing back hard to dig the sharp edge of the wall into the muscle. Tears stung my eyes, plaster bit into my bare skin, and the darkness behind my eyelids turned red.
When I couldn’t take another second, I pushed myself off the corner. Eyes closed, I grabbed the counter for balance as the pain receded, relief weakening my knees and lightening my head. The dizziness didn’t help with the nausea, and I held my breath, clenching my jaw and ordering myself not to be sick; I would not be
sick, I would not be sick.
The spinning gradually slowed, and the queasiness retreated. I let my head fall back against the wall and took slow, deep breaths, savoring the diminished pain. The relief wouldn’t last long, but it was all I had.
Too soon, the pain started closing back in, so I pressed up against the wall again. After the third time, the relief was tremendous, but the resulting wave of nausea almost sent me sprinting for the sink. I leaned against the wall, this time for support, and breathed.
Footsteps turned my head, and when Michael came around the corner, he jumped, as if he hadn’t expected me to be there. “Oh.” He blinked. “I… thought Dylan was up.”
I laughed self-consciously. “No, just me. Sorry if I woke you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
That was when I realized he’d shifted his attention to my shoulder, which I’d been rubbing gingerly. His eyes flicked toward the corner. To the open pill bottle on the counter. Back to me.
Dropping both my gaze and my hand, I cleared my throat. “I, um….” I muffled another cough.
“How bad is it?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.” He inclined his head. “I can help you, you know.”
“Much as I’d love to take you up on that, I’m still fucking broke. There’s no way I can pay you until—”
“Jason, you’re obviously in pain. I’m not going to let you spend the whole night in this state because of money.” He threw me a pointed look. “I’m not asking. Lie on your stomach on the couch. I’ll be right back.”
He turned to go. As the stairs creaked under his feet, I was tempted to call after him and tell him I was fine, but to hell with it. I felt like shit, Michael was already awake, and he could actually do something more effective than jamming wall corners into knotted muscles.
So I went into the living room as ordered. Fortunately I didn’t have a shirt on, because I didn’t see myself going through the motions required to take one off. I lay on the couch on my stomach and rested my forehead on my right forearm. I couldn’t raise my left arm so kept it against my side.
