by Cooper, R.
He had an established series he should be working on, but he wasn’t in the mood for murder right now. His series straddled the fence between unrealistic, overly elaborate, rich person murder mysteries like those of the masters, and the equally stylized mysteries of traditional noir, although he liked to think he got a little more realistic. Not that he personally knew anything about homicide, although his search history was probably going to get him arrested one day.
Anyway, the real reason anybody read his stories was because they had a lead character who had lots of sex with many different people. Vincent was starting to think that was why he was stuck with the current novel idea not going anywhere. It wasn’t the mystery that was the problem; Vincent was fully aware that his mysteries were not as complex as they could have been, although they worked for cheesy genre fiction. No, the problem was that that Landowski, his detective, generally known as Lando, wasn’t changing, at least, not for the better. The things Lando had seen were leaving him bitter and despairing, burning him out, and he knew it. His personal life was in a rut as well, bodies and faces a blur. What he needed was a connection with someone who didn’t die or wasn’t a complete villain.
Actually, he had one. He’d had one for most of the series, but Vincent wasn’t sure what people would think if he started including more scenes with the owner of the gay bar beneath Lando’s office.
Indecision had Vincent researching obscure, forgotten laws many cities had kept on the books after Prohibition, and then how to infuse flavors into alcohol, and then how exactly one died from wood alcohol poisoning, until he was deep in a sea of useless information and it took a knock at his door to snap him out of his research daze.
He wasn’t expecting anyone and tensed at the thought of dealing with some kid selling something door to door, or some religious group. If it was missionaries, he was going to ignore them as they deserved to be ignored. If it was kid he might have a dollar somewhere, maybe, though he didn’t keep much cash around.
He crept up to the door and leaned on his hands in order to peer through the peephole. He saw a halo of black curls before his neighbor raised his head and squinted as though he was trying to look through Vincent’s door.
“Hey, 220, are you home?” The man gave the door another tentative knock. “You usually are, this time of day. I need your help. It’s not an emergency, I promise. Actually, it sort of is, but not a life-threatening one.” He exhaled at the end of that sentence and leaned in. Vincent imagined his palm flat against the door exactly where Vincent had placed his hand. The guy from 223 lowered his voice. “Hey, come on. Please? I won’t bite.”
Vincent jerked his head up. His neighbor wasn’t flirting, he was teasing, because Vincent was clearly afraid of other people. Vincent tightened his mouth and opened the door. He wasn’t expecting his neighbor to take a tiny step backward, as if he was surprised Vincent had answered him. Then he smiled and Vincent’s stomach swooped in a truly alarming way.
His neighbor wore a red hoodie and tight jeans, though the hoodie was unzipped to show part of his collarbone and the top of the torn t-shirt he had on underneath. His ears were pierced. Vincent had never been close to him for long enough to stop getting distracted by his eyes and notice the studs in each earlobe. He focused on the red and black swirled globes, then realized he was staring and blinked.
“Cool. You’re here.” The guy from 223 managed to make that sound like a good, rare thing, as though Vincent wasn’t almost always home. But then his gaze dipped down and Vincent dropped his head to also take a look at himself, his loose, comfortable jeans and baggy sweatshirt, his purple fuzzy socks. His neighbor’s smile grew impossibly wide when Vincent raised his head and probably flushed beet red. But he kept talking before Vincent could offer an excuse for his wardrobe choices.
“Listen.” His sweet voice was even better when he seemed to be speaking for Vincent alone. “This is a lot to ask, I know, and you’re probably busy.” Somehow, he sounded like he meant that. Vincent made a strangled sound anyway. His neighbor raised an eyebrow, but otherwise ignored it as he made a short, helpless gesture. “But, well, this year I am doing something for Thanksgiving. I mean, this year I am doing something, and for the first time. It was going to be a little thing, but it turns out it’s more than you and me avoiding our families this Thursday. So now I’ve got more people coming over and it’s no longer such a little thing.” He took a deep breath as though he needed to calm himself and stared at Vincent with the most apologetic, imploring expression Vincent had ever seen. “That means I have to go to the store.”
“It’s the week of Thanksgiving,” Vincent heard himself informing his neighbor, possibly the most obvious thing he’d ever said, except for how it also implied what he wasn’t saying; only the desperate would visit a grocery store this close to the most food-centric of American holidays.
“Yeah,” his neighbor agreed with his every unspoken word and sighed. “Yeah, but it’s today or tomorrow, and tomorrow will be worse. I also have limited time available if I have to clean and get the place all Martha Stewart. Then work—I still work tomorrow. And then there is the food preparation I will probably end up doing after that… I really wasn’t expecting this.”
He wasn’t pouting. His expression was more disgruntled, like his plans had been disrupted and he was put out with humanity in general. Vincent thought, fancifully, that he looked like a disgruntled supervillain whose plot had been thwarted.
He still didn’t get why the guy was telling him this, but he had never spoken this much with Vincent in the entire time he’d lived here and Vincent didn’t want to say anything to make him leave.
Vincent considered the amount of work that went into hosting a Thanksgiving dinner party and how much his sister complained about it, then gave a cautious nod. “Okay?”
His neighbor dropped his shoulders. The motion sent a wave of detergent and flower scent in Vincent’s direction. “But it’s just me and my bike.” He seemed to deflate at the admission.
Vincent had forgotten the bicycle. The bicycle had a basket attached to it, and sometimes the guy from 223 wore a backpack if he had more to carry home, but there was no way he was going to be able to carry the groceries for an entire meal that size home with him, not in one trip. Maybe not even in two. Taking the bus by himself and carrying it all wasn’t really a possibility either.
Vincent understood the knock on his door now, and jumped. “You want to borrow my car? I don’t even know your name.” It was the only objection that came to mind. No one would want to steal his old sedan.
If anything, his neighbor appeared even more disgruntled. An unhappy frown came and went on his face before something measuring made him stare for another few moments. Then he extended his hand.
“You don’t?” He made the question into a mild complaint, but then offered a rueful grin. “Cory. Cory Hamilton.” His voice was even until Vincent took his hand. Vincent hated shaking hands, hated wondering if his handshake was firm and manly enough, if he was too limp-wristed for what they expected, but Cory took his hand without any pressure, and released it just as Vincent was imagining Cory’s slender fingers at his wrist, or trailing up his arm to draw him closer, or curled around his cock. “And you’re Vincent Thomas.” His teeth were so mesmerizing it took Vincent a moment to realize his neighbor, Cory, knew his name. He jumped again, and Cory lifted his hand away and explained. “Everyone on this side of the building knows you.”
Vincent hunched his shoulders as he realized what the other man probably meant. Everyone knew Vincent as that the strange, quiet one who kept to himself. Yeah, Vincent knew what they thought of him. That’s what people always thought of him. It took him a while to warm up, that was all. His coworkers liked him now, even if they hadn’t understood him at first. They probably still didn’t fully get how his anxiety worked, but they invited him out with them anyway. He even went, sometimes.
The memory of a night out in a bar with his coworkers didn’t make him feel any
better about this, although he could admit that having a name for his handsome neighbor was something that would have warmed him at any other time.
He met Cory’s confused stare and realized he had let the silence go on too long.
“I have my license,” Cory went on slowly, and again Vincent got the feeling that Cory was thinking about something other than what he was saying, like his plans had gone awry and he needed to formulate new ones. That was probably Vincent’s overactive imagination making him see things that weren’t there. “And it’s in good standing,” Cory continued, as if he was trying to figure out he’d said that had made Vincent so unhappy. “No tickets. The only reason I don’t have a car is that cars cost money, and I live like a mile from where I work, so what’s the point? But I wasn’t going to borrow your car.” He tossed his head, dismissing that idea, and Vincent straightened. “I was going to ask if you needed to go to the store too, and if you’d mind me tagging along?” Cory’s smile returned, friendly and polite. “I could pay for gas.”
That was worse than a stranger borrowing his car. Vincent thought of the two of them trapped in his car for the duration of the drive, the strained silence, the forced small talk, and put a hand to his stomach. He might be spared the need to make idle conversation once they went their separate ways in the store, but then there would be more small talk afterward. Then later, when they saw each other, he’d have to deal with looking into Cory’s face and seeing his disbelief that a grown man couldn’t talk about the weather for ten minutes.
Or, Vincent’s imagination kindly added, or he might manage it, just this once, and then maybe Cory would talk to him more from now on. Maybe they could even become friends. After all, Vincent knew his name now. They knew each other’s names, which was more than Vincent had managed in the last year.
“Your name is Cory,” Vincent blurted, belatedly remembering he’d never acknowledged it. Then he froze, wishing he could hide his head in his hands. He might as well have admitted to Cory he was going to imagine himself saying that name later, in embarrassingly intimate situations.
Cory took a moment, possibly to reassess Vincent’s sanity, but then he nodded. “And you’re Vincent. Nice to meet you,” he said, pointedly, and his tone went cool. “I didn’t think it would ever happen. I was going to take it personally,” he paused as if he could read the horror on Vincent’s face as Vincent wondered if his aversion to talking had come off as racist or in any way offensive. Then Cory rolled his shoulders and appeared chagrined. “But then I noticed you don’t really talk to anyone.”
He met Vincent’s gaze and held it until Vincent’s heart was racing. There was no easy way to explain being a grown man who was terrified of meaningless conversations and meeting new people. Saying small social embarrassments haunted him for years made him sound obsessive and weird. He was, but he didn’t want to his attractive neighbor to know it.
“I’m not good with new people.” He settled on that answer before finally glancing away.
That seemed to throw Cory. Maybe he suspected there was more to it than that. Or maybe he was thinking that he’d lived there for over a year, so he didn’t exactly qualify as new. Whatever he thought he didn’t say it. He only inhaled, and moved so that Vincent’s attention was again drawn to his face. He smiled, gently and cautiously. “So, did you want to take me to the store? Please? I know it’s a big imposition, but I really don’t want to spend the rest of the day going back and forth on my bike.”
Vincent’s throat was so dry. His stomach kept flipping with nerves and excitement. But Cory smiled at him, and he truly was pathetic because he didn’t want Cory to have a worse impression of him than he already did. And he did still need the stuff to make a pie. He could drive Cory to the store and then look up recipes and ingredients on his phone while he was there. That would give him an excuse and give him a safe topic of conversation. That should be okay. It could even be good for him… or the worst thing that would ever happen.
“It’s only a trip to the store,” he said aloud, more to calm himself than for any other reason, but surprise flickered across Cory’s expression. A simple trip to the store, Vincent mentally lied to himself, and then dragged in air before he gave his answer. “Okay.”
Across from him, Cory went still while that same surprise lit his face. Then he gave Vincent a new smile, warmly satisfied, that kept Vincent staring at him and wishing he knew ways to always have Cory looking like that.
He realized, after what could have been entire minutes, that he hadn’t moved, and slid backwards on the wood floor in his socks to find his shoes and his keys.
“Let me go get my reusable bags while you get ready,” Cory told him, and was gone when Vincent looked up. Which was good. It gave Vincent time to quietly panic to himself, but not enough time to change his mind.
If he were being paranoid, he’d say it was almost like Cory had done that on purpose.
The scent of flowers was even greater in his car with the windows rolled up, or perhaps that was due to his awareness of Cory. Cory was only about Vincent’s height, and thinner, but Vincent was so unused to people in his passenger seat that he seemed to fill up all the space. Vincent was acutely conscious of whenever Cory moved his arm or shifted his feet or glanced over at him.
He’d turned on the heat when he’d started the car, and was now so hot beneath his jacket from all his blushes that he felt like he was boiling. Cory, in contrast, seemed fine in his hoodie, although he’d zipped it up the rest of the way. But maybe he was still cold and that’s why he kept looking over.
Vincent tugged at his collar, and exhaled at the brief hint of cooler air. Cory turned to him again. Vincent glanced back, then swallowed and kept his eyes on the road. “Is the heat okay?”
That was great. They were almost at the store and he finally spoke.
Cory lifted his head without taking his gaze from Vincent. “It’s fine. But I’ve always liked fall, and the crisp air.”
“Me too.” Vincent hesitated, then turned off the heater. “You want to open a window?” The cold would feel heavenly, even if it would make his nose run.
But Cory gave a little laugh. “We’ll feel it enough when we’re in it. I like it in small amounts.”
“Like the smell,” Vincent agreed, then thought he should probably explain. “People say I’m making it up, but fall has a scent.”
“It does!” Of all things to get Cory excited, it was the weather, but this didn’t feel like small talk. “I’ve lived a few different places, but fall has always had a distinct presence in the air. The leaves must do it, although it doesn’t get nearly as orange and red out here as it does back east.”
“Yeah. The leaves here barely turn. Summer becomes winter without much in between.” The fairly mild weather was one of the reasons Vincent liked living where he did, but sometimes he thought dramatic seasonal changes might be nice to witness.
“Oh,” Cory broke into his thoughts. “Oh, wait, were you politely hinting the flower smell was bothering you? If it is, you can open a window. Sorry.”
“Huh?” Vincent pulled into the store lot, which was so crowded he couldn’t focus on Cory for a few minutes. When he finally parked, way in the back of the lot, he made himself study Cory. Cory was measuring him again. Vincent didn’t think he was imagining it this time.
“I bring my work home with me.” Cory smiled ruefully. “Some people don’t like the smell. It can be overpowering.”
“The flowers?” Vincent couldn’t hide his surprise. “No, I like it. You smell good.” Oh god. He was an idiot. “Like a lot of roses, and lilies, sometimes.” His voice was hoarse. “Don’t be self-conscious about it,” he added, as if he hadn’t just said all the things he had just said. “What I mean is, of things to be embarrassed about, that’s nothing.” He knew what he was talking about on that one, not that he was going to list his every humiliating trait right now. They were readily apparent as it was, but this was about Cory. Vincent didn’t want him to feel self-c
onscious about anything. “My first job I worked in a pizza place, in the back. I smelled like tomato sauce and pepperoni every night. I couldn’t eat pizza for the longest time after that.”
“I bet.” Cory lowered his head to stare at his hands, then cleared his throat. “And now? What do you do?”
Vincent stopped fiddling with his seat belt. “I work for a non-profit. I do boring office work. I’m not… not good with people.” That was lamentably clear. He tried to shrug it off. “But it has benefits, and I like the cause—we advocate for developmentally disabled adults. If I was there all day, on the forefront, I’d probably burn out. The things you hear, the way they are mistreated or neglected… I needed something to take my mind off it.” He paused there, because this was a subject he had mentioned to new people before and gotten some truly horrifying reactions, but Cory appeared to be listened intently, even sympathetically. He didn’t seem to be one of those people who condemned the disabled as better off where they were, underfunded, ignored, abused, and he seemed to understand that someone could burn out in a field like that as many did. Vincent had seen many social workers come and go in his time there.
“I’m very good at dealing with mindless forms and tangled bureaucracy,” he tacked on after a few moments, hoping he hadn’t made things too serious. He considered talking about how he’d turned to writing to unwind, but telling strangers he wrote meant comments about the bestseller list, which they all expected him to be on, and how he must have so much money, which he obviously he didn’t, and then he would have to explain that by real writing standards he was probably a failure. He was a genre fiction writer in a small, niche market, that was all. “Do you like working with flowers?” He changed the subject desperately and then got out of the car.
