Cinnamon & Nutmeg Volume 2: Where I Want To Be

9: Dom

When you can't recognize

Anything solid

Where do you turn

When you can't buy it?

Let your fears go

You might find

Your way back home.

~ Sunlounger feat. Zara, "Lost"

I close the door to his place and engage the lock behind me, slide my keys into a pocket. Then stand there, cross my arms, and take it in. The modest flat-screen TV flanked by pedestal speakers, the PS3 and the scattered collection of movies and games. Car magazines, empty pizza box, and a few half-crushed soda cans on the nondescript coffee table. Wide corduroy couch looks like it sees more action than the bed, wherever that is. Hardwood floors with not a rug to be seen. Bare walls. Standing lamp in the corner. Duffel bag gaping open along the wall, a dark t-shirt and worn runners screaming of a gym somewhere.

Brian walks out of the kitchen chugging bottled water and holds one out to me. "Fresh out of Corona."

Not entirely certain what I expected, but this minimalist décor isn't it. After four years, give or take, there still aren't any pictures on the walls. Can't accuse the man of being a packrat.

"You wanna shower?"

Brian trying to be hospitable, it's almost fucking funny. I step into the man's personal space and force myself not to smile. "You sayin' I stink?" Comes out an octave lower than normal. My voice never did figure out how to whisper.

Watching Brian's throat work reminds me of how it felt when the man swallowed like that with his mouth full of me. My dick twitches. I know the dangers of acting without thinking, learned them a long time ago. That's not what this was; it's not what this is. The heat pouring off Brian pulls at me across the space between us. The welcome is there in the blue eyes, difficult to explain but so simple to read. He may as well be holding the leash that hooks to the collar around my neck.

"Couldn't say," he answers, his voice hoarse, the sound of a long abandoned engine trying to turn over. "Kinda biased here."

If I try to tell myself this is a bad idea -- again -- and start listing reasons? ... No. That's over-thinking things, not gonna do it. Not everything is meant to last longer than the moment. Letty was a good example of that. The twinge of pain in my chest at that thought is a repulsive mixture of regret and guilt and fondness. It makes me want to grab the nearest sharp edge and dig it out. Or maybe even a dull one. A rusty spoon.

I mourn her. I do. But in a numb way. It makes me wonder just when I started mourning her, because I've felt this numbness for a while now. It's not recent.

Was it when Jesse died in my arms? Watching his eyes glaze over as the life drained from him along with his blood? Was it when the tips of Vince's fingers brushed mine, and I couldn't save him? Or was it when that look of pain passed over Brian's face, in that stretched moment before he held up the Supra's keys?

When I drove off, and watched in the rear view mirror as Brian turned his back and walked away? I recall the sensation that ripped through my chest. I told myself it was just the ache of bruised ribs and a dislocated shoulder. Emotion brought on from being knocked in the head too damned hard. Mild concussion does strange things.