A Friend in the Dark - Gregory Ashe Page 0,68
back turned and shoulders shaking as he hunched over the window. “I’m not hung up on Jake. Not… really. It sucks, even thinking about him. He made me feel smart and needed, and I miss him.” Rufus yanked his beanie off. “But I like you too. And I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m still trying to get a grasp on… what sets your tremors off. I’d like to help, if I can.”
Sam’s breathing was labored, but after a minute, he said in a low voice, “Page one of the Sam Auden freak-out manual: get him something soft, something cool, something that smells like mint or grass or lavender, something with a nice texture. Get him somewhere open, away from people.”
Rufus pulled the pack of gum from his pocket and then leaned against the wall beside Sam. “It’s spearmint, but that’s close, right?” He held out a stick in one hand, and his beanie in the other. “This isn’t really soft, but you do not want to touch that blanket over there. Pretty sure Marcus used it as a jerk-off sock.”
Forehead to the glass, Sam took a piece of gum, folded it in half, and put it between his teeth. Then he accepted the beanie, big fingers knotting in the wool, his thumb moving restlessly over the ribbing. He closed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was distant. “So, you have now officially had sex with a guy who needs toddler accessories to keep him from flipping out of his skull.” Then he shook his head slowly, forehead still in contact with the window. “I wasn’t trying to be shitty. I just—Jake had this whole life that I don’t know anything about, and I keep thinking of the Jake I knew. It’s messing me up.”
Instead of acknowledging that comment, because Rufus felt like he, too, was studying Jake through the looking glass, he asked, “Do you want me to touch you?”
“Shit. I don’t know. Yes.”
Rufus pressed one hand between Sam’s shoulder blades. He moved it up and down a little, but mostly kept it there as an anchor. “You’re freaking out about me having sex with a guy like you, and I don’t know why you’d be interested in a guy like me. Does that equal us out? Like a math problem?”
“Uh, no. One cute, redheaded smartass does not equal one fucking nutjob.”
Rufus smiled a little, squeezed the back of Sam’s neck, then said, “Stay there. I’ll search the rest of the apartment.” He moved off the wall and added, “You can’t keep my beanie, though.”
“No, I’ll help. I’m ok. I just—” Sam laughed, pushing back from the glass, and then he wiggled the beanie into place on Rufus’s head. “Believe it or not, I really was in the Army; I wasn’t always such a fucking headcase. Tell me where you want me to start.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Under any other set of circumstances, Sam wouldn’t have caved to a technicality. And the redhead had been so goddamn cocky about the bet, so goddamn sure that Sam would lose, so goddamn snide about the place he was going to make Sam take him when he lost. It felt like the whole thing was rigged. But if Sam were honest, Rufus being cocky was actually kind of cute. And technically, Sam had lost the bet—the terms were that Sam would find the pickup first. Which he hadn’t. The fact that Rufus hadn’t found anything either didn’t seem very important at the moment.
Rufus kept the crowing and strutting and, yes, even a little bit of preening to a minimum. For Rufus. They’d parked the junker on the side of the road a dozen blocks away, and then he took Sam west and downtown. As they walked, Sam started doing some mental scrambling. Rufus deserved something romantic; that much was pretty obvious to Sam. But when your entire amorous life fit in a shower stall, what the hell was romantic supposed to look like? Was Sam supposed to buy him flowers? Was there going to be live music, a piano or a violin, something classy, and Sam was supposed to—Jesus Christ, was he supposed to fold a twenty and slip it in the waiter’s pocket and ask for something like “Dream a Little Dream of Me?” What the hell did normal people do on dates? The closest Sam had ever gotten to romance was when he let the guy share the hot water before kicking him out.
Not true, a quiet part of his brain said.