“Here and there. Done a lot of wandering.”
“Midwest, huh?” I guessed, based on some flat vowels and an old friend from Wisconsin.
“Sometimes.” His teeth flashed in a grin. “I spent one winter in fucking International Falls, Minnesota. Coldest damned place on the planet. I worked fast food, because the kitchen was warm. I volunteered for the closing shift, used to sneak back in and sleep in the bathroom. No rent, hot water— was a good deal, for a while.”
“What happened?” I was sucked in by his storytelling tone.
“Power went out one night and the manager got the alarm call for the freezer temperature going high. He came over to check it out and caught me buck-ass naked, washing my nuts in the men’s room sink. Don’t know who screamed louder, him or me.”
I had to laugh. “And you got fired?”
“I got so fucking fired. Lost my last paycheck. Probably would’ve been arrested for trespassing except the manager was fucking one of the college girls and he had a wife at home. I mentioned the girl’s name, and he turned purple and told me to get out of his sight. So I got.”
“I hope you had somewhere else to go.”
“Eh, I managed. I’d saved a few bucks, what with not paying rent.” Shane eyed me, there in the dark. I wondered what he could make out. “You work?”
“Sure. Not right now.” I was on vacation, so that was sort of true. “I’ve done hospitality, washed dishes, crewed a boat for a while, worked construction.”
“Crewed a boat? That sounds like a blast.”
“It’s not bad. A bit of a mix between being a laborer and being a personal attendant, though. It was this rich man’s yacht. Sometimes I worked the boat, and sometimes I served drinks and cleaned up after the guests.”
“How’d you get a job like that?”
Showed up at the marina where our neighbor’s friend docked his yacht, and begged.“It’s all about who you know.”
“Ain’t that the truth. How come you’re not doing it anymore?”
“Outgrew it.”
“Found something better?”
I could tell him I traded it in on being a rich man’s fuck toy. I wondered how he would react. But I was trapped here on what felt more like his ground than mine. If he was a bigot, coming out might go badly. Anyhow,fuck toycheapened what Rob had offered me, and the long version wasn’t for sharing with strangers. “I found something different.”
“I like to wander myself,” he said. “Change things up. Don’t usually stay more than a few months in any one place.”
A flash of disappointment surprised me.
He added, “I’ve seen a lot of this country. First time at the ocean, though.”
“What do you think of it?” His answer mattered more than it should’ve.
He took a minute to reply, long enough I wondered if he would, before saying, “I think it gives a guy hope, to know there’s all that water out there that doesn’t give a fuck what humans want. So much of it. It can drown us, swamp us. If I was Jesus, I could walk for days, for weeks, and not come to the end of it.”
“And you find thathopeful?”
Shane chuckled. “I guess I like knowing there’s stuff bigger than the idiots who think they’re in charge.”
“Okay. I can see that.”
“You can see in the dark?” When I spluttered, he laughed. “Come on. If you don’t need to smash any more stuff, there’s better light in the hallway. We can sit on the stairs and shoot the shit.”
I followed him back through the kitchen to the side hall. In the daylight filtering down from upstairs, he looked just as I remembered him. I’d wondered if my imagination had emphasized his cheekbones and lips and jawline, but no, he looked like an actor I’d crushed on when I was in my teens.
He looked me up and down in return. “You really are that blond.”
“Yeah, I guess.” My blond curls were probably what had caught Rob’s attention first, and I didn’t hate them, but I wouldn’t have been sad if my hair had darkened like my father’s. Although I didn’t want to be like dear old Papa in any other way.
