he wants. Has no respect toward boundaries, authority, or laws. Can be charming as hell, but doesn’t think twice when he stomps over whoever gets in the way of something he wants. Sound about right?”
Alex squinted at the man. “Seems you’ve got me all figured out,” he said slowly.
“Nah, I have no fucking clue about you yet. But that’s how my brother described you, and he’s usually a good judge of character. However, I’m willing to give you a chance to prove me wrong.”
“How very generous of you.”
“There are a couple of rules, though,” Carl went on, ignoring Alex’s snide remarks. “We’re here to take care of the animals. I don’t care if you’re just a bored rich kid, have daddy issues, or if you’re a run-of-the-mill sociopath, if I even suspect you’re causing those poor souls any more suffering, you’re out of here, and I’ll make sure you’ll rot in jail for whatever next act of petty shit you’ll do because you were bored. Got it?”
Alex stared at the man, unwilling to cower. “Crystal,” he finally said.
“You’ll be staying at the bunkhouse. From time to time we’ll house some volunteers there, but mainly you’ll be there alone, which means it’ll be your job to keep the place clean. No parties, no guests, no loud noise,” Carl continued. “There’s a kitchen, so you can cook your own meals, and you can use one of the trucks to buy groceries from town. Ask before you take the car. Sometimes we need all of them, and then your thing is just gonna have to wait.”
“Sounds delightfully close to actual prison.”
“You’ve obviously never been, otherwise you wouldn’t be spouting that nonsense,” Carl remarked coldly, but there was something in his expression that made Alex wonder if he’d hit a sore spot. “Your curfew is at eleven. If you’re not back by then, the front gates will be locked, and you’ll have to spend the night outside.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “I’ve already agreed to stay for the summer, so you can stop trying to butter me up with all your descriptions of the nice and relaxed atmosphere you have here.” He inserted as much sarcasm into his voice as he could. Carl looked unimpressed, but that just seemed to be his default setting.
“One more thing,” he said.
“Oh good. More rules.”
“Noah is off-limits.”
Alex raised his brows at that. “Is that a nice dash of homophobia I detect?”
“Kid, I don’t care what you do in your free time as long as you stay away from Noah.”
“What makes you think I’m even interested?”
“Please,” Carl scoffed. Actually scoffed. Alex was reluctantly impressed the man could pull off a sound so human. For a moment there, Alex had started to wonder if Carl was Jeeves’s long-lost robot brother. Separated in the factory. A tragic story without any tears or emotions.
Carl wasn’t finished yet. “I saw the way you were looking at him earlier. That boy has enough on his plate, and the last thing he needs is somebody like you messing life up for him.”
“I resent that. A lot of people have said I’m the best thing that has ever happened to them.”
“Sure, kid. You keeping telling that to yourself.”
Carl turned and started walking back toward the buildings in the front. “I’ll show you the bunkhouse, then you can get changed and we’ll start with the evening chores.”
“Can’t wait,” Alex muttered as he followed Carl.
This was going to be a long summer.
3
Alex strolled into the office.
Yup, I’m back already.
This time, though, he’d made sure to come at a time when Carl was nowhere in the vicinity of the center. Alex had never been one to obsess about another person. Sure, there were reasons why somebody caught his eye while he was at a party or something. After all, he needed to choose his hookups based on something. So what it came down to was basic biology. Some features or body types were more attractive than others for Alex. Still, if he set his sights on somebody and it didn’t lead to a hookup, he just shrugged and moved on. There were plenty of willing candidates to choose from, after all.
Alex didn’t get it. For some explicable reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about Noah. Couldn’t get him out of his head. It was highly unusual for Alex’s mind to get stuck on somebody like that. It had never happened before.
For two days, he’d walked around, thinking about the hot guy from the office. He’d made a valiant effort to let