Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

T his time, when Chris woke up warm and mostly comfortable, he remembered where he was. And he was embarrassed. Not only had Luke discovered his dirty little secret, but had found him getting peed on. So embarrassing. Seriously. If he’d realized those asshole kids were going to pee on him, he would have fought to get away instead of just making himself small and hoping they’d tire of harassing him soon enough.

He’d been worried, though, that fighting them off might have led to him becoming violent. It was part of his PTSD. If he got involved with violence, his instincts kicked in and he overreacted. He found it best just not to get into any altercations; that helped him stay on an even keel.

The job as Santa helped, too. And part of that was Luke with his damned perpetually cheerful attitude.

“Hey, is cereal okay?” Luke asked from the kitchen. “I need to go grocery shopping so there’s not much to eat this morning. Sorry ’bout that.”

Chris shook his head and gathered the blanket he was wearing as pajamas around him so he could get up and go help out. “I’m not complaining.”

“You’ll have to tell me what you like to eat. We can make a list and go shopping tomorrow before work. I do love payday.” Luke took two bowls down from the cupboard and filled them with Honey Nut Cheerios. That seemed apt.

Then Luke’s words sank in. “What do you mean?” Why would what he liked have anything to do with Luke’s grocery list?

“Why was my loving payday relevant? Because it means I can afford groceries.”

“Not that. The bit about what I like and making a list and we going shopping.”

“Well, I would have thought it was self-explanatory. I know what I like to eat, so I can make a list of stuff to buy that I’ll enjoy. But I don’t know what you like—well, I know you like popcorn, pancakes, bacon, and cookies, but you can’t live on that. So you tell me what you like, and then we’ll make a shopping list and go to the grocery story tomorrow.”

He blinked at Luke a few times without saying anything.

“You’re not a morning person, are you?” Luke chuckled and moved the bowls to the little two-person table and then grabbed the milk from the fridge.

He didn’t bother responding to that. “I’m not staying here.”

“You are.”

“No, I’m not.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Do we have to do the whole song and dance? I’m going to insist you stay here because I am not letting you sleep out in the cold, especially at Christmas time. You’re going to say you can’t, but I’m going to counter any reasons you give me so in the end, you’ll wind up staying. So let’s just cut to that part, okay?”

Chris wasn’t sure when he’d lost control of the situation, but he had. Maybe it was because being dressed in a blanket put him at a disadvantage. “Where are my clothes?”

“In the dryer.” Luke nodded toward the machine.

Chris went over to the dryer and pulled out a pair of underwear and some jeans. Back to the rest of the room, he slipped them on. Okay, that was better. He went back to the table where Luke was happily munching on his cereal.

Chris’s stomach snarled at him, and he had to work very hard not to growl back at it. He supposed as the food was already in the bowl, it would be a shame to waste it. But he was not making a habit of this.

“I can’t stay,” he told Luke after he’d eaten most of it.

“Why not?” Luke asked.

“Because I can’t.”

“Nope. That’s not an answer.” Luke crossed his arms. “I want a reason.”

“I’m not mooching off you.”

“That’s fine. You can pay for groceries. What else have you got?”

He blinked. He hadn’t been expecting Luke to shoot back with a solution so easily and quickly.

“I’m invading your space.”

Luke shrugged. “There’s a few rooms in the apartment, so there’s lots of space. And you might have noticed, I’m a friendly guy.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s okay, it’s not a requirement.”

He glared, but Luke just smiled back at him.

“I’m not likeable,” he insisted.

“Now that I know isn’t true—I like you plenty.”

“That’s because you don’t know me.”

“And that won’t change unless we spend more time together, which you living here would provide. I can do this all day.”

Chris had a feeling that Luke wasn’t exaggerating about that.

“Look.” Luke leaned forward over the table. “Tell me what your real objections to living here are.”

“The couch isn’t big enough for me.”

Luke actually rolled his eyes. “Because the literal street is so comfortable.”

Chris had the good grace to blush, his cheeks heating.

“You’re being incredibly generous,” he offered after a moment of really thinking about it instead of knee-jerk reacting.

“So?”

“I can’t just accept your generosity!”

“Why not?” Luke demanded again.

“Because I can’t give you anything back.”

“Okay. First of all, this isn’t transactional. I’m not doing this to get paid. Second, I like having you around. I like your company—and don’t tell me you’re unlikeable again because that is patently untrue—so you are giving me something back—your company.”

“There’s got to be strings attached.” Because Luke was being super generous, and in Chris’s experience, that didn’t happen unless the generous person got something out of the deal. And he didn’t want to get comfortable here and then have the hammer drop.

“No strings. You stay the winter, and when the weather changes and it gets warm out, you can leave if you want to. Meanwhile, we watch movies together, have breakfasts and midnight snacks together, and generally hang out and keep each other company. Besides, if you don’t stay, I’ll be all alone Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”

Chris stared at Luke for a long moment. The guy really was talented at bulldozing through things with happiness and kindness. How did one say no to something like that? He wasn’t sure one could. He certainly couldn’t.

“I…”

“Come on, dude, don’t argue. Just stay. It has got to be tempting to know you’ve got a warm place to lay your head every night and an actual kitchen to cook food in. And I promise not to take it personally or get upset if you need a few hours on a regular basis to be on your own.”

“What if it’s every day?” It was one thing if they were strictly roommates, but clearly they were more than that. They worked together and Luke wanted them to be friends. He had to admit, he could use some friends, and he actually liked Luke, despite the uber cheerfulness.

He finally offered, “I’ll stay on one condition. No, two.”

“What are they?”

He was impressed Luke actually wanted to hear what the conditions were before agreeing to them.

“I pay rent.”

Luke opened his mouth—no doubt to protest—but Chris held up his hand.

“I get paid so I have the money. Unfortunately, most places aren’t interested in renting a place to me because I’m coming from the streets. Besides, this job is only until Christmas. But I have mostly saved everything I’ve made so far, so I can pay you some rent every month.” Not a whole lot, but if Luke was willing to settle on a couple hundred a month, that would keep him off the street until at least April.

“What’s the second condition?”

“If you ever regret the arrangement, you can kick me out, no harm no foul. You just say the word and our arrangement is null and void and I go.”

“That one is easy to agree to,” Luke noted. “’Cause I’m not going to want to kick you out.”

Chris shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

Luke shrugged. “I do. But you don’t have to believe me. Time will show.”

It would indeed.

“But if you’re going to pay rent, I have a condition or two of my own.”

Oh, this was going to be interesting, Chris was sure.

“Which are?”

“I won’t take more than a hundred a month and you can pay half the groceries, and if you’re paying rent, then we’re getting a new couch that’s a pull-out bed so you don’t wreck your back for life trying to fit on my couch.”

He’d been thinking at least two hundred a month, but at least Luke had agreed to him paying half the groceries. And Luke was trying to assuage his need to be contributing. Now the new couch, he wasn’t sure about. That was a big expense and he certainly didn’t have the funds to help out, not really. Especially if he wanted to keep paying rent after the Santa job dried up.

“I need a new couch anyway,” Luke told him, managing to somehow zero in on the item that had Chris hesitating the most. “So all we’re doing is bumping up my timeline for it. Just say yes already.”

Chris sighed. He hated that he was in this position, but Luke had been nothing but kind, sympathy in his eyes but not pity.

“All right. It’s a deal.” He held out his hand and Luke took it, shaking solemnly.

“Thank you,” Luke said.

Chris frowned, “For what?”

“Agreeing to the arrangement without too much fuss. I mean, you fussed some, but not nearly as much as you could have. I really wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I knew you were out in the cold like that.”

“Well, you’re welcome.”

How had Luke done that? He was doing Chris a huge solid and somehow was the one thanking Chris for it, not the other way around.

“Yay, that’s settled! You want to start making a grocery list, or you want another bowl of cereal first?”

“I can’t do both?”