Page 22 of New Year
“Ugh, don’t call it that.”
“Call it what?”
“Services. It sounds like I’m going to give him a massage and a happy ending.” Nat climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut a little too hard.
Zack hesitated before getting in, too. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I’m implying.”
“I know, but it sounds like…can we say acting as his assistant, or something? Or just being his driver?”
“Assistant is good, yes. And again, I apologize for implying anything beyond what you’ve agreed to do. I also understand if you don’t want to get the phone yet. It’s your choice. I was merely making a suggestion.”
“Thank you.” Nat studied Zack’s warm, sweet smile, and his resolve nearly buckled. He’d love to let this kind, handsome man buy his phone on credit, just so Nat had that lifeline again. That little bit of freedom. But he couldn’t put himself under another man’s thumb, not for any reason. Not even for a hundred bucks of call time and data charges. “An early lunch is fine.”
“All right.”
They took takeout back to Zack’s place and ate together at the counter. Nat’s stomach was over-filled by the time he finished his cheeseburger and fries, but he’d never waste a morsel. He’d rather be uncomfortably full for a few hours than suffer that angry, gnawing hunger for days at a time.
It didn’t take Nat long to organize his items in the vanity drawer Zack had emptied for him. He didn’t need all the space, and his items looked a bit lonely in there, but they might not stay long. And he needed them in one spot he could access quickly, if the need to flee arose.
When he returned to the living area, Zack had finished neatly stacking his new dishes and glasses in the dishwasher, and he was staring around the living room with a pair of small blue, battery-operated lanterns in his hands. They seemed a little low-end to Nat, but he was also judging Zack based on where he worked and his nice clothes. The same way he’d judged Zack on the car he drove—simple, affordable, and probably reliable.
So far, Zack had proved himself to be pretty damned reliable, too.
Zack ended up putting one lantern on the end of the counter, and the other on the slender table beneath the television. Nat wasn’t sure about the arrangement, but what did he know about interior design? Nothing. Watching a grown man fuss over the placement of such small items was…kind of adorable.
A quacking duck startled Nat. He spun in a circle, confused.
Zack picked his cell phone off the counter. “Alarm. I need to leave for the restaurant. You can go over to Chase’s, if you like. Do you know the tune toA Shave and a Haircut?”
“Um?”
Zack demonstrated the beat, and it clicked inside Nat’s head. He recalled a scene in a movie he’d loved as a child. An animated rabbit in the real world. Something to do with a saloon and a will. It was all Nat remembered, other than a scene where a creepy guy in a black hat tapped that song against a wall with his walking stick.
“Okay, yes, I know it,” Nat replied.
“Knock that on the door and then go inside. It’s our signal so I don’t scare him when I open the door. I’ll also shoot him a text. It’s only ten minutes sooner than you planned.”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t until Zack was inside his car, engine running, and Nat was standing outside Chase’s door that Nat understood that had been Zack’s gentle way of reminding Nat he wasn’t allowed to stay in the apartment by himself. He appreciated Zack not calling attention to their arrangement.
Nat knocked as hard as he could to the tune of the oldie. It took two more deep breaths before he could open the door. This was a relative stranger’s house, and he didn’t want Chase to think he was sneaking inside. But that’s why Zack gave him the “password,” wasn’t it?
“Mr. Sampson?” Nat called as he closed the door. He was inside a neat mud room with coat hooks, plus a washer and dryer, and some other storage. That led into a tidy kitchen with a feature he didn’t expect: a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with cookbooks.
“That you, Nathaniel?” Chase’s voice filtered from the left, down a long hallway.
“Yes, Zack told me to come over. He had to get to work.”
“Fine, fine. Have a seat wherever you like, I’ll be there in a moment. Had to change my shirt.”
Nat investigated the den attached to the kitchen. Wood paneling, an unlit fireplace, more bookcases, cozy furniture. Actual magazines in a basket on the floor. A leather recliner with a small table beside it that held remotes, tissues, and a variety of other small things that indicated this was Chase’s favorite spot.
The focal point of the room wasn’t the huge flat screen television on a wooden stand. It was the adjacent wall covered with framed photographs. Some were the large eight-by-tens, others were collage frames with lots of little ones. Nat spotted Chase in several. No modern pictures of Zack. Dozens of faces, men and women, young and old. Someone in the restaurant business had to have met hundreds, if not thousands, of people over the course of his career.
His gaze landed on the corner photo of a collage. Two familiar faces smiled back at him from the group of five. Peggy and Bud Maher, the owners of Tim’s. Years ago, their only son had been killed in a gay bashing, and they’d opened an LGBTQIA+ friendly bar in his honor. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Chase knew the Mahers, but it did.
A thump-shuffle sound carried into the den from the hallway, and Nat stepped away from the gallery wall. Chase appeared in a blue shirt, his mouth set in a grim line, leaning heavily on his cane. “So, Zack taught you the secret knock, did he?” Chase asked as he eased into the recliner.
