Snafu

Predicament - Part 1

The next morning, Gideon left a note that informed him with its looping elegant handwriting that locksmiths would be coming to change the locks today and that Gideon would be home all evening. So, James's visit yesterday had not upset him too much, and neither had Cole's refusal to talk much about it. He was in a good mood because he would be able to spend a rare weeknight evening with Cole.

Andre made Cole an omelet and fussed when Cole only poked at it with his fork. "You're insulting me," he said.

Cole had complained that he was not hungry and just wanted coffee. But Andre insisted he had already begun to make Cole's omelet and that Cole needed to eat something, that he spent too many mornings with only coffee and skipped lunch. Even so, Cole finally began putting on a much-needed few pounds to drag him up to a healthy weight instead of the constantly semi-irritable, skinny state he had been in when he first arrived.

Gideon liked that. He liked to massage and prod, to dig his fingers into the meat of Cole's hips and lick the little bulge of his thigh above his stockings. Cole liked it, too. But he pushed the omelet away.

"I'm sorry, Andre," he said. "Can you box it up for me? Maybe I'll be hungry later."

Andre said nothing but took the plate away. He said nothing when Cole stood and went back to the bedroom and nothing when he returned with the pack of cigarettes to push through the door into the hallway to the greenhouse. Usually, Cole preferred to think of Gideon's staff as friends, but they were, in fact, here to do their job. And he was grateful for that now, when Andre simply packed his things up and left because it was none of his business if Cole was being difficult, unlike Alexis who would have nagged him until he told her what was up.

He'd learned yesterday that the greenhouse served the same purpose as the servant's entrance and quarters in a big English manor house might. Andre, Chris, and Jessica used it to come in and out of the house, and it was something of a hangout when they had any downtime. Cole had wondered where they went for lunch, and it turned out to be below the glass panels or sitting on the side patio at the end of the hallway. He was grateful that they graciously allowed him to take over the greenhouse when he realized this, but they had assured him the addition of the plants and his presence would only make the space more enjoyable.

He wondered what exactly it was about his presence that would make it more enjoyable.

He stood in the center of the room, one foot on either side of the drain, a coffee in one hand and a smoking cigarette in the other, while he stared at the pots in contemplation. But his mind was on loop, and he could think of nothing productive.

It felt as though James had backed him into the dead end of an alley, standing between him and the only way out, but he was certain that if he looked around hard enough, he might find that just inches above his head was the ladder to a fire escape onto which he could leap and make his escape. But he could not find the ladder. And he did not want to run away.

The plants would be coming to live in those pots in a few days. And he had promised to take care of them. He smoked. He wished he could melt and disappear down the drain between his feet. Then Jessica came around the corner of the house into view, and he wished it even more.

"Good morning," she said as she walked through the door, the steps of her heels clipped on the concrete floor.

Cole smoked and gave her a weak smile, ashamed and wanting to look away. Her eyes lingered on him, taking in the curve of his shoulders and the blood draining from his face. It was like the first day he had come here when she offered the tour to keep him from poking around the house, like those walkways through Casinos that children stay on so that they don't get lost among the bells and sounds and drinks and adults. She went inside, and Cole realized he had been holding his breath.