The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,8
his skin when someone showed basic physical affection.
“What happened?” Jem said.
“You got fired, and—”
“That’s not what you’re upset about.”
“It is, actually.” They turned into the parking lot for the Royal Mounties Lodge, an apartment complex, and Tean parked the truck and killed the engine. He sat still for a moment, and then he shoved his hair back with both hands. “You’re making really good progress, Jem, but you need a job—”
“I’ve never needed one before.”
“—and you need an apartment—”
“I have an apartment.”
“—an apartment where you’re not squatting—”
“Ouch.”
“—and a retirement account and health insurance and—”
“Ok, ok, ok.” Jem shushed him, running his thumb up and down Tean’s neck. “So what’s going on with you?”
“It’s Hannah.” Then, before he could stop himself: “And Ammon.”
A horn blatted down the street. When Jem spoke, his voice was even. “I thought you weren’t talking to Ammon. I thought you cut things off.”
“It’s complicated.”
Jem released a controlled breath.
“It is. We’ve just been talking on the phone. He called me late one night, and I was worried it was an emergency. Then he started calling more often—”
“Which explains why you’ve been exhausted lately.”
“—and he can’t say it, but he’s going through a really bad time right now.”
“Oh, you mean the big fucking shitstorm he made of his own life? The one that he completely deserves?”
“This is why I didn’t tell you.”
“I want you to tell me! If you’re upset and you’re worried, I want you to tell me. But I also want to shout about it because I hate that fucker, and he deserves to have his balls run through a gristmill.”
“This, right now, this is why I didn’t tell you.”
Jem shook his head a few times and finally managed to say, “What about Hannah?”
Tean told him in a few short sentences about his conversation from earlier that day.
“But she hasn’t actually seen anyone following her?” Jem asked. “I mean, not the same person, no one she could identify.”
“No. But she’s freaked out, and she’s not the kind of person to freak out.”
Jem had met Hannah Prince, and he agreed with that assessment. “Well, it’s pretty easy to figure out if someone’s following her.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Have somebody follow her, and see if they spot anybody else doing the same thing.”
Tean grunted. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“We could do it this weekend if you’re really worried about her.” Jem grinned. “My shifts just got canceled.”
“It’s too early for jokes about that. Come on or we’ll be late for our appointment.”
As Jem opened the door, he paused and said, “Hey, Tean, thanks for doing this.”
In the apartment complex manager’s office, Tean helped Jem fill out the rental application. Reading the application itself was a challenge, but the content of the questions was almost as difficult. Jem didn’t really have references, although he did put down Tean and Chaquille, a weed-dealing grad student at the U. Even basic stuff like his Social Security number was tricky—Jem hadn’t even known what his was until a few months before, when Tean had helped him get the information from the Division of Child and Family Services foster records. For that matter, Jem still didn’t know what the number was—he had to check the card—but Tean, of course, had it memorized.
The real issue, though, was that Jem didn’t even understand why this mattered so much. The apartment, yes, but really, any of it—the health insurance, the bank account, something that Tean called a Roth IRA, and he talked about it like he was referring to the Holy Grail. As Jem filled out the forms—well, as he wrote down what Tean told him to write—he glanced around. If the apartments looked anything like the office, with inches of paint over its old paneling and a mustard-colored ceiling, Jem wasn’t sure that living in an apartment that he legally rented was going to be any better than squatting in the empty unit where he currently lived. If anything, it looked a fair bit worse. But this was another of Tean’s manias, and Jem, for reasons he couldn’t fully explain, found himself willing to do a lot of crazy things to make Tean happy.
“I know it’s not much to look at,” Tean said quietly; he must have noticed Jem looking around the room. “But it’s in your price range.”
When they got to employment, Jem started working on the S in Snow’s—it still took a lot of concentration to keep his handwriting from looking like a grade-schooler’s—when Tean whispered, “Put down self-employed.”
The apartment complex manager was a sallow-faced man in middle