Dreamspinner Press Year Seven Greatest Hits Page 53

  “Cheater,” he said when he realized what I’d done.

  I just laughed and turned to face the spray, letting the hot needles pound some of the stress of the day’s work away. We saw to our own basic needs, shampooing and soaping and swapping our place in front of the water, and that was mostly from my history of two years’ worth of fast, efficient showers. Jeremy seemed content to follow my lead, even though his cock was as hard as mine. He was careful to not touch me when my eyes were closed or my back was to him, and over the course of the shower, that coil of trepidation loosened until it disappeared entirely.

  With the basics over, I paused with my hand halfway to the spigot. I’d almost turned off the water before we were really finished. We still had two things to deal with before the shower was done.

  I faced Jeremy again and found him close, not touching, his expression intense. His eyes flicked down several times, and I grinned. “Something bothering you?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t say its bothering me, exactly.” He closed the brief distance between us, pressing his hot, slick body against mine. “But it could do with a little attention, if you’re up to it.”

  “I’m up to it.”

  With a hand on his hip, I turned Jeremy and pressed his back to the shower wall. I ran my free hand over the bar of soap, then wrapped my hand around both our cocks. Jeremy stooped a little to line us up and added his hand to the slick pressure trapping our dicks together. Need tightened my stomach and urged me to rock against him. It took some starts and stops to find the right rhythm, and then nothing existed except our slippery cocks, our hands, and our mouths together. Moving, touching, kissing, seeking that sweet release.

  Jeremy came first with a soft noise that I captured in our kiss, and after that noise became slightly pained, I released his softening dick. He held tight to mine, and I thrust into the vise of his hand, desperate for a release that hovered just out of reach. I needed it, needed him to take me there. Jeremy surprised me by squatting in the tub and then taking my cock into his mouth. All of it, right down to the root. The heat of his mouth brought me to the crest, and when he swallowed around me, I fell over the other side in a blast of pleasure. I jabbered something as I came in his mouth, and he took everything I gave him. Then he pulled off, gave the head of my dick one final lick, and stood.

  His eyes shone with something I didn’t quite understand, even though I was pretty sure something similar peeked through in my own eyes. We didn’t address it, and it didn’t go away. The “something” stayed there as we dried off and went back downstairs to watch a movie. Stayed when we went to his bedroom a few hours later and made love.

  I swear it was still there when we fell asleep tangled up together in his bed.

  Whatever that something was, I liked it. I liked it a lot.

  And liking it scared the hell out of me.

  Chapter Ten

  ON SUNDAY night, after another long day of cleaning and a satisfying evening relaxing (among other things), Jeremy and I were lazing around in his bed, neither one of us ambitious enough to reach over and turn off the bedside lamp. Sweat was cooling on my skin, and I was debating the energy required to reach down and pull up the sheet when Jeremy spoke up.

  “I have a new proposal for you,” he said.

  He propped himself up on one elbow, head cradled in his hand. Curious, I mimicked the position, facing him.

  “A business proposal?” I asked.

  “Kind of.”

  “Okay.”

  “This is the third night in a row you’ve stayed over.”

  A flash of wariness made my whole body go tense, and he noticed. “Is that a problem?”

  “No, not for me. Absolutely not. It just occurs to me that you’re wasting thirty dollars a night on a motel room that’s basically storing your clothes.”

  “And my mother’s ashes.”

  He blanched. I supposed I hadn’t told him about that yet.

  “She’s in a box,” I continued. “You probably never noticed she was there.”

  “Uh, no.” He shook his head as he sat up, like he was trying to rid himself of a horrifying mental image. For some reason, ashes seemed to freak people out. Frankly, the idea of a body decomposing in the ground seemed worse than carting around a few grams of ash.

  Jeremy ran a hand through his hair. “My point is that I have a perfectly good guest room that can store your clothes and your mother, if you care to use it and save some cash.”

  I stared up at him, unsure how to take his offer. My stomach twisted into a cold fist as confusion took hold. On one hand, it was a perfectly valid offer from one friend to another, especially to one in financial straits. On the other hand, we were also having pretty regular (and fantastic) sex, and this felt an awful lot like being asked to move in with him.

  “I know the circumstances are a little odd,” he said when my vocal cords froze. “And I know how this might look, but I don’t expect anything in return. And I would understand if you said no, or if you wanted to end the physical side of our relationship while—”

  “No!”

  He jerked back, startled by my sudden shout. I was a little startled too, and as I sat up to face him head-on, words came tumbling out on their own. “I don’t want to end our physical relationship,” I said, clarifying my no. “Despite my family and financial circumstances, this is the best I’ve felt in a decade, and I don’t want to lose that.”

  He seemed relieved, but still confused. “So is that a no on the guest room?”

  “No, it isn’t. I’m just not sure if it’s a yes.”

  “Okay. You don’t have to decide right this minute, but the offer is on the table. I’m not asking you to marry me, Cole, just to pitch your tent here for a while, until things settle down and you know your next step.”

  This was probably a very, very bad idea. We’d known each other less than two weeks. I’d probably be gone in another week or so. Moving in changed the dynamics of our working relationship, as well as our physical relationship. Not to mention his reputation. “What will people in town think?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “A lot of people know I’m working to clean off your property, and they know I live alone. I doubt most folks will raise an eyebrow at you staying in my guest room. Hell, I might even get a few verbal slaps from some of the older folks for not asking sooner.”

  I grinned at the mental image of an old lady whacking Jeremy in the shin with her cane.

  “And like I said before,” he continued, “I don’t expect anything in return, except maybe help with cooking.” His face went intent and serious. “I will never demand sex in exchange for you staying here. Ever.”

  I saw the truth of those words in his eyes. He had such expressive eyes and was probably a horrible poker player. “I believe you.”

  “I’m glad. So think about it and—”

  “I’ll do it.” The words sneaked out before I could stop them. I felt no pang of remorse, no insistent need to take it back. My head told me I could very well be heading directly into danger with my eyes wide open. My heart demanded I take the leap and trust him. “I’ll check out of the motel in the morning.”

  “Excellent.” He stuck his hand out. “Friends with benefits?”

  I laughed and shook his offered hand. “Friends with benefits.”

  THE week sped by at a breakneck pace, far faster than I’d hoped. Monday morning I moved my meager collection of belongings out of the Traveler’s Inn and into Jeremy’s guest room. I also contributed two bags of groceries to his fridge and cupboard, including two boxes of tea bags. We continued our work on the farm, me cleaning out the house while he organized outside. On Tuesday, Jeremy enlisted a local teenage boy to help him haul scrap metal to the recycling center, along with the bags of glass bottles, soda cans, and plastics I’d culled from indoors. Jeremy came back that evening with more cash than I expected.

  He also met with several more clients interested in making purchases. I stayed away from those negotiations
, but occasionally spied on them through dirty windows. Jeremy really shined around other people. His affable manner and ease with banal conversation gave him an edge when it came to dealing with customers. He practically charmed the collectors into believing his prices were excellent deals, and he sweet-talked other dealers into paying a little more than wholesale.

  Once he caught me watching from the back door of the kitchen, and he winked. I blushed and hurried back to my work.

  By midmorning Wednesday, three days before the auction, every room in my childhood home was empty—every room except for one. I hadn’t managed to open the door yet, too scared of what I’d see piled inside from floor to ceiling. Cleaning out a decomposing kitchen, two unusable bathrooms, and my parents’ bedroom hadn’t been as difficult as the simple act of opening the door to my old room.

  In my mind’s eye, I still saw the plain tan walls and cheap navy blue carpet. The antique bedroom furniture that had come out of my maternal grandparents’ house when they passed away—carved walnut headboard, dresser, matching nightstands. All of it was probably sagging, warped, or cracked. When I left for college, I’d taken my clothes, a photo album, and a signed Willie Mays card that had been given to me by my dad on my tenth birthday. Everything else I’d left behind: high school pennants, music posters, books, a shoe box of old birthday and Christmas cards. I hadn’t been inside in ten years.

  My initial impulse was to blindly shove everything in that room into trash bags and haul them straight to the dumpster. I didn’t want anything I’d left behind, and I didn’t want to know with what manner of detritus my parents had filled my absence.

  Jeremy came upstairs at some point. I didn’t hear him approach, but I knew he was there before he asked, “Is it locked?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Which room?”

  “Mine.”

  “Ah ha.” He glanced up and down the empty, if slightly dusty, hallway. “Last room to tackle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want me to open the door?”

  I shook my head, then wrapped my right hand around the cool brass doorknob. “No, I need to do this.”

  The knob turned without resistance. Rusty hinges squealed when I pushed. I expected the door to hit a roadblock within inches, maybe a foot. The door swung open without obstruction. A gust of stale air wafted out, and I stared into a slightly dustier version of the same room I’d walked out of ten years ago. My Creed poster still hung next to Pink. Two perfect attendance awards sat on my dresser, right next to a candy cane tie I’d balled up and tossed there while packing. My bed was still made with the same patchwork quilt and flat feather pillows, the creases imperfect and the corners bunched.

  Emotion clutched my throat, cutting off my breath, and my eyes stung. They hadn’t changed a thing. Not one single thing. No extra clutter covered the carpet or bed; not one item had been added to the room. I rubbed my eyes, positive I was imagining the scene. But when I blinked away the black spots clouding my vision, the past remained immortalized in the present.

  “I don’t understand,” I said on a choked gasp.

  Jeremy angled around me to peer inside without actually crossing the threshold. “It’s the same?”

  “Exactly the same. She didn’t change a single thing. There’s no junk, no trash. Nothing.”

  He shifted his attention to me, studying my face as though he could read the answers to his unasked questions there. “When was the last time you saw the room?”

  “Christmas, my sophomore year. I remember leaving that awful tie right there on the dresser.” My emotions rolled and churned, a blend of anxiety, shock, and confusion. I didn’t understand. “I thought the room would be packed full of junk by now.”

  “Why?”

  “She loved her stuff more than me. She always did.”

  The question mark in Jeremy’s eyes prompted me to continue when an actual, spoken question would have shut me up in a fit of anger. Somehow his silence just egged me on. “I never had school pictures because she spent the money on skirts she didn’t wear. I couldn’t go on class trips because my attendance fee went toward birthday presents for distant family members whose addresses she didn’t have, and who never got the gifts. I had to beg for new shoes when I hit a growth spurt in ninth grade.”

  Bitter rage rose up from deep inside where it had lived for years, fueled by rejection and indifference. I couldn’t recall the last time she’d told me she loved me. The last time she’d said she was proud of me. A compliment meant solely for me and no one else. How could a woman who never seemed to notice me, who’d blamed me for not doing more to help her out, have kept my childhood bedroom intact like some bizarre shrine?

  “Can I ask you a question, Cole?”

  I shrugged, too upset to bother bantering that he’d just asked one.

  “Did you ever try to understand your mother’s illness?”

  Shame and regret surged up to battle with my anger. “Back then, no one had ever really heard of hoarding. There were no TV shows. People didn’t talk about it. I didn’t know other people did it or that therapy could help.”

  “What about when your father died?”

  I turned and sagged against the door frame. “I had a better idea, yeah, but I didn’t care. I was too busy hating the situation I was in with Martin, and then I was just trying to survive.” I swallowed hard against a surge of bile that seared the back of my throat. “I guess part of me was terrified that if I confronted my mom, we’d somehow end up on national television and the whole world would know our worst secrets. How irrational is that?”

  “It’s a little irrational, but it’s understandable, Cole. You were dealing with a lot, and you were trying to protect yourself.” He swept his left hand out toward my old bedroom. “Maybe your mother loved you more than you gave her credit for. Her house was crushing down on her, but she was never able to fill your absence.”

  All the bitter emotions roiling inside me erupted in a strangled noise that wasn’t a sob, but it also wasn’t quiet. Jeremy pulled me into his arms, and we stood there, me shaking and him whispering soft words that made no sense but soothed me anyway. I didn’t cry. I’d cried too many tears already over this house and my past. But the anger and shame worked themselves up and out with Jeremy’s help.

  And even after my episode passed and we started moving my old furniture downstairs to the auction tent, one clear thought stayed in the forefront of my mind: I couldn’t have done any of this without Jeremy. I needed to find a way to tell him that.

  For both our sake’s.

  EVERYTHING was falling into place for the auction. On Friday at noon, a few cars began trickling onto the property. Jeremy had suggested a “preview” day on Friday from twelve until four, so prospective buyers could take a peek at the merchandise being offered. It gave buyers a chance to research older items and if multiple people were interested in the same piece, it could drive up prices. I deferred to his experience and agreed to the preview.

  The yard between the house and sheds was covered with white tents. Furniture was separated from tools, which were separated from other antiques. Boxes of mixed lots were set off by themselves. Bethann had come out early to help us ram stakes into the frozen ground and rope off a parking area in the field to the east of the house. Jeremy had even arranged for two port-a-pots to be left near the house for a decent rental fee.

  The temperature had dipped down into the upper twenties, which would make for an uncomfortable outdoor auction, but it was supposed to be sunny and in the thirties tomorrow. I was still too embarrassed to engage with the first couple of previewers, so I stayed inside the house with a space heater. No one would be allowed inside during the auction tomorrow, since the house itself wasn’t sellable—the electricity and plumbing were shot, the drywall was falling down, and we’d discovered mold in both bathrooms. I’d put the land up for sale on Monday. The new owner could level the house if they wanted. For now, I ignored the stale, moldy odor and watched from
the front windows.

  More people showed than I expected, and by one o’clock a constant stream of cars was going up and down the narrow driveway. Excited chatter made its way into the house in a steady hum as people of all ages pointed, poked, and took pictures on their phones. Through it all, Jeremy never stopped moving. I watched him whenever he was in my line of sight, calmed by his presence and his ever-present grin.

  Around two, he texted and asked me to come out and meet him by the furniture tent. I slipped out the back door, flipped up the collar on my jacket, and eased my way around the dozen or so people currently browsing the tents. Jeremy waited near my old bedroom set with an older gentleman wearing a Post Auctions baseball cap.

  “Cole, this is August Post,” Jeremy said. His cheeks were rosy and his breath puffed out in a cloud of vapor as he spoke. “He’ll be running the auction tomorrow.”

  “Cole Alston,” I said. I offered a gloved hand, which Mr. Post shook with a firm grip.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Alston,” Mr. Post said. “Jeremy gave me an idea of the scope of the job, but this is impressive to actually see considering the size of the buildings.”

  “My parents were hoarders.” I shocked myself by saying it, and even Jeremy’s eyebrows rose.

  Mr. Post didn’t look surprised. “I see. Well, we’ll do what we can to get you the most money for your goods.”

  I half listened as he went on to explain what his company did and the order in which things would be sold starting at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. My attention lingered first on Jeremy, whose attentiveness amused me in a way I couldn’t explain, and then my gaze flickered to the previewers picking their way through the piles of my parents’ things. Two more cars parked in the roped-off section. A young couple, man and woman, spilled out of the first car. They met at the fender, then walked toward the tents arm in arm.