4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

I t was stupid how excited I was for Saturday night.

If anyone had told me I would be putting gel in my hair for a tutoring session because the guy I was helping out had mentioned how soft and coconut-sweet my hair smelled, I would have slapped them silly. But here I was working gel into my black hair.

I felt the atmosphere in the apartment above the shabby shop change with the tinkle of the bells over the door. My eyes rounded at my reflection in the mirror. Shit. How was it seven already? I'd come into the bathroom at six-thirty. No way had I been in here for thirty minutes trying to dab up the nick on my chin from shaving before fiddling with my hair. I glanced at my phone. Shit. It was seven. I ran out of the bathroom, past my grandfather who was popping corn in the microwave, and then down the creaky stairs the very picture of a man who was not in any way, shape, or form complacent about seeing someone. Not. I was the diametrical of casual.

And for good reason. Phil stood by the register, an old handheld camcorder in his right hand, a bundle of flowers in his left, and a smile so vibrant I nearly tripped over my slippers.

"Hey," he called up to me, charging over to offer me the flowers. "My dad's aide, Polly, said I should make sure to bring small gifts to show how much I appreciate your help. Dad is pretty proud that I'm learning Mandarin. He said I might be able to visit China with him next summer if I can master the language."

"Oh, well, wow." I awkwardly took the fall bouquet, the rust-colored ribbons trailing down to the floor. "This looks like a wedding bouquet."

"Yeah, it kind of is. The florist over on Delaney Avenue by the campus had a bride cancel at the last minute and I sort of arrived when they were freaking out, so he sold me that for half price."

"Oh."

His blue eyes flared. "Not that I think you don't deserve full-priced flowers because you do. Totally. I just thought they were pretty. The darn brown maple leaves reminded me of your eyes."

Oh. Oh shit. Oh-kay. Commenting on the shade of a man's eyes was not something a straight dude did. Like ever. Hell, straight guys barely mentioned the color of a woman's eyes if what I read in online discussions about dating was true, and I had to assume it was. Did I dare to ask? No, no, no. Asking if he was queer would get me a fist in the face if he wasn't. Also, it was not cool at all to presume anything about a person's sexual identity.

"That's nice, thank you. Were you going to make a movie?" I enquired, trying to steer the conversation away from my eyes, his smile, and the fuzzy kind of floaty hearts in the air thing that was going on right here on the stairs at this very instant.

"Huh?" He blinked softly, long gold lashes sweeping down over sapphire pools.

Hit the brakes, Archimedes. This love train is about to jump the tracks.

"The camera." I jerked my chin at the camcorder. The bit of tissue I had stuck to the nick on my chin fell off and then drifted, mortifyingly, down to the bouquet where it sat on an orange mum. Hoping he hadn't noticed, although he surely had, I pretend-coughed to send the tissue bit flying.

"Oh yeah. I have a project due for film studies about the portrayal of local business in independent films and I was hoping you'd let me do some shots of the interior of the store and maybe talk to you and your grandfather." I felt the color leech from my face. "Nothing too personal or in-depth. Just like general topics like how long you've been here, what you sell, and where you can be contacted. I'll edit it all down and then, after it's graded, I can share it on my social media account." I stared dully at him. "I have over two hundred thousand followers. People like my short films," he tacked on as a blush tinted his cheeks. "I don't know why. Polly says I'm personable."

Oh yes, he sure was. And sexy as hell. "I'll have to ask Grandpa."

"Oh sure, yeah, totally." He gazed up at me. My mouth dried up.

"I'll just…go and ask and put these in water."

"Cool, yeah. I'll just do a walk around to look for good shots."

I nodded. He backed down the first step, almost fell on his ass, blushed, and then walked off to get lost in the shadows of the mystery section of the shop.

I barreled into our apartment. Grandpa was sitting on the sofa watching Are You Being Served? while shoving cheddar cheese popcorn in as fast as he could manage without choking.

"Nice flowers. Are you eloping off with Phil?" he asked around a mouthful. His lips were bright orange. The color did not suit him at all.

"No, no elopement. His father's aide told him to bring gifts." I darted past the sofa. I'd be picking popcorn out from between the cushions for weeks.

"Ah, that's a good thought. Bringing a small token to someone who is aiding you shows that you respect them and ha! Did you see what Mrs. Slocombe did with those knickers!?"

"Missed it." He did love Mrs. Slocombe. "Would you be okay with Phil shooting some video in the store and maybe interviewing us?" I rifled through the cupboards until I found an old pitcher that would work as a vase. We never had cut flowers, so why would we have a vase?

"That's okay with me," he replied as I placed the flowers on the counter.

"Thanks!" I shouted as I walked down the stairs trying to look cool despite how my pulse was racing in my ears.

"Hey," I called out. He lowered the camera from his eye, grinned, and bounded over

"This store is amazing. The atmosphere is really ookey-spookey." If he only knew. "You should be doing reels about this place, especially with Halloween coming up. You could shoot all kinds of atmospheric shots, talk about the scary books you have, and then do something super fun like have a pumpkin on your head as you pan from the store to yourself."

"You talk like you know a lot about film."

"It's my major. I love making movies. My dad isn't keen on it because my mom is an actress. He said they divorced because of her career eating up all of her time, but I suspect it was because he didn't like her pulling all the attention from him and his bid for the senate."

"I'm sorry about your parents," I offered, not sure what else one could say. "Do you see your mother a lot?"

"Not so much, but more now than I did when I was a kid. They fought over me in court. Dad won custody when I was four, so between him doling me out now and then and her career, we only saw each other over the summers."

"That sucks. I'm glad you can see her more now, though." I shifted from one slippered foot to the other. "I lost my parents when I was just a toddler."

Why that had come out, I had no fucking clue. I never discussed that with anyone other than Grandpa. It instantly brought a wave of pity from people that, while nice, served no purpose at all. Yes, it was sad, but it was twenty years ago. The pain of their loss was a slight dull ache for what could have been.

Phil moved to embrace me. He was much faster than a man his size should be. My muscles seized up instantly as his strong arms enveloped me. He said nothing, just held me. No uncomfortable expressions of grief, no laments over the poor little boy I had been, no fumbling apologies, no doting devotions from the followers of Christ. Just a warm, solid hug. After a moment, I began to soften. I placed my hands on his sides and then, just for a moment, closed my eyes to soak up the touch and smell of Phil Kestrel.

"We're like twins," he finally whispered, his breath ruffling my shaggy hair. That made me snicker, then chuckle to myself, and then laugh out loud. Phil joined me, his arms around me, his chest vibrating with mirth. When he pulled back to look down at me, I could barely see from the tears of merriment in my eyes. "Okay, well, not physically, obviously, but in the astral sense."

Then he did something that yanked all the ha-ha-ha out of the room. He reached up to thumb away one of those silly tears. My sniffly titter died off mid-tit.

"Uhm…" I said, my voice shaky.

He studied me closely, his nostrils flaring slightly, his hand cupping my cheek. "I like seeing you laugh so hard. You're always so distant on campus."

I sniffled and moved back a step, his arms falling to his sides. "I'm not a very cheery person."

He tipped his head like a dog, and a light of understanding brightened his confusion. "I thought you said you were a cherry person, and I was like, dude, that is awesome to save yourself for that special person. No shame, no blame. Then I realized you said cheery and had to totally suck back what I was going to say."

Shocked to the core, I battled not to blurt out the fact that I was, indeed, a cherry person. "I'm glad I could cheer you up."

"Me too," I sheepishly replied. Grandpa howling with laughter above us cleared the cloud of whatever this was fogging us in. "I think we should get to work now."

"Okay, yeah. I read the first two chapters. Oh! And I practiced my tones. Troy, my roommate, said I sounded fucking great even if I wasn't sure if my tongue was in the right place in my mouth."

I was too close to a full-blown boner to touch that tongue comment. I backpedaled immediately. "Why don't we start deconstructing Jane Eyre ?"

Nothing makes your dick soften faster than plucking sentences from a book written in the 1800s and analyzing the ratio of dialog, narration, and description. Charlotte Bronte was my hero that night because she saved me from having to hide an erection from a man who handed out hugs like they were Skittles.

***

A week passed in the blink of an eye.

Maybe time was racing because I was so busy with school, the store, and trying to keep my grandfather from being busted for racketeering and gambling charges over at the senior center. I was pretty sure they were not supposed to be placing bets on the outcomes of the mahjong games. Then again, one of the players was the ex-sheriff, so maybe the law turned a blind eye to octogenarian wagering.

Perhaps, and I felt this was more the reason than elderly bettors, was the fact that Phil was here nightly unless he had a late practice. He'd turned out to be an incredible help and not just a pretty face to drool over. His little film project was done and had been graded. A solid B. It was now on his Instagram and pulling in tons of views. And yes, we had seen an uptick in sales, mostly from the college kids who had ignored us for years.

He'd volunteered to load the heavy boxes full of books into his pickup and drive them to the library on Sunday morning. He'd fallen in love with opening deliveries and stocking them while I waited on customers. He fit in so well, it felt as if he had always been here. Grandpa adored him for all the obvious reasons. Reggie wanted to nibble him like a crumpet slathered in honey and warm butter. His words, not mine, but man, that image would not leave my mind.

Even now, on a Friday night when Phil could have been out with his buddies getting drunk and picking up chicks, he was here, sorting through the musty military section way at the back of the store. You could track where he was by listening for his off-key voice as he belted out 80s tunes. Right now, it was a-ha, one of a thousand 80s bands that he seemed to adore for some odd reason. He wasn't a particularly good singer, so when he hit those high notes in "Take on Me," it sent all the cats on the block, including Sir Thomas, running. The Peke-a-Poo dogs in the Connor house could be heard howling. Or perhaps that sound was the twins summoning another dark evil from the depths.

I rang out the last customer, a tall thin girl working on her Wednesday Addams look, who had purchased a copy of an old YA gothic romance. The surge from the video had been nice, but it was already waning. Still, the extra money was sorely needed. The new brass pumpkin bells over the door—a gift from Phil—rang out just as Phil broke into a Michael Jackson Ee-hee-hee . I rolled my eyes but couldn't stop the smile playing on my lips. He just made me happy.

Phil moonwalked to the register, slippers he had brought from home sliding effortlessly over the wood floor, earbuds dangling around his neck, camcorder in hand. He rarely went anywhere without it. He sang along to "Billie Jean" with precision. His hip action made me tingle from head to toe. The man had obviously watched the video for the song way too often.

"You're such an odd duck," I said teasingly when he glided behind the register, then went up to his toes before stumbling to the side with a snort of amusement. His bright eyes sparkled as he pushed up to sit on the counter, his gold hair picking up the orange highlights of the string of jack-o'-lantern lights taped to the scarred wooden counter.

"I know. I mean, people tell me that all the time."

"Me too," I confessed as I tallied up the day's sales.

"I learned to love the 80s from my mom. She dated a drummer from a hairband for a few years. Nice guy, British, loved to sail around the place in his fancy red robe and talk about bangers and mash."

"Sounds familiar," I whispered and caught sight of a ghostly middle finger floating past before disappearing from view. I'd asked Reg not to levitate about eavesdropping while Phil was here. He'd pouted for a few hours but had agreed. Seems he was still here, just not making himself visible, which was so not the point. We'd have to have another talk about consent. It was a concept he seemed to have trouble grasping at times.

"So, I was thinking…" I glanced up from counting the ones to observe Phil sitting so close to me I could feel the body heat leaching through his Depeche Mode T-shirt. "We've been studying hard and I'm doing well with my Mandarin." He was doing okay. The tones were getting slowly better after he paid more attention to Grandpa and me speaking it, but his grasp of Pinyan was slim. Still, he'd absorbed a good deal in a short time. "I have a game tomorrow night. Would you like to come watch me play, then we could go get a pizza or something?"

Reggie appeared out of thin air, his eyes as round as cannonballs, his mouth pulled into a grin so wide it might have been terrifying if I didn't know him so well. I tore my eyes from the nosy marquis to stare at Phil wearing what I was sure was my most stupid look.

"P-pizza?" I stammered, money counting, stalling completely.

"Yeah, it's kind of like a tradition after a game. We all go to The Red Pony across town, fill up on beer and wings, and celebrate. Well," he rubbed the back of his neck, "we don't celebrate when we lose, obviously, but we're pretty sure we can take out the Silver Spring Stallions with zero effort. They stink. So yeah, maybe you could come to the game?"

My eyes were glued to his expectant face. "When you say ‘we all go'…"

"The guys on the team and their girlfriends," he explained. Blondie was singing about having a heart made of glass, the song floating out of his buds on the suddenly far too-dry air. "But if you'd like to come watch me play…us play. I mean us play." His cheeks went cherry red and my heart did a Simone Biles double back layout with a half twist. "We could just do pizza somewhere. Papa Paul's by the campus makes some killer stromboli."

My mouth hung open. Was he…no. Surely not. Was he? I tried to find my answers in his pretty blue eyes but all I saw was trepidation as if he was worried I would say no. Did anyone ever say no to Phil Kestrel when he asked them out on a…

"Are you asking me out on…on a date?" I squeaked, blatantly ignoring the redcoat a mere foot away from us, clasping his hands in front of his chest as if he was watching one of the Bridgerton men wooing their lady fair. He was quite the fan of the books and show, the romantic dork.

"Sort of," Phil replied, his hand nervously plucking at a rip on the knee of his jeans.

"I…I didn't know you dated men," I stammered, my mind spinning madly.

"Oh yeah, I'm bi." He pulled a string free, rolled it into a tiny ball, and then flicked it at the overflowing trash can behind the counter.

"And the team knows?"

"Yeah, they've known since last year." His eyes met mine now. Simone was back doing a complete floor routine in my breast. "They're cool with it. I mean, you know, being bi is easier for them to accept since I still like to sleep with women." He shrugged.

"You're only half gay," I said, and he nodded.

"I guess. It's stupid. I don't know. I don't worry about what other people think of who I like to share stromboli with. I was hoping you were into guys."

That was incredibly sweet, and I was envious of how happy he was with his true self. "I am totally and only into guys." He bobbed his head. "And you want to share a stromboli with me?" He smiled tenderly at my incredulous tone.

"Yeah, you're super cute. And smart. I might have taken Asian studies to be able to spend time with you." Gob. Smacked. Dollar bills floated to the counter. Reggie gasped, squealed, and then did some sort of midair dance that might have been a waltz. I have no clue. Ballroom dances are not my thing. Phil rubbed the back of his thick neck. "I know. That's goofy, right? My advisor was like totally perplexed by that choice, but it was the only way to get close to you. And then I learned I had to speak an Asian language before I could get in, which made me sad, but then Professor Hayashi mentioned you as a tutor and I was like, hell yeah!"

"That is…incredible."

"Nah, you're incredible." This was all so beyond my grasp of reality for Archimedes Kee that I could only stare. "So, are you okay with dating a dumb jock?"

"You are not dumb," I instantly replied, snapping back to clarify that point. "You're quite quick to learn, an avid reader, and amazingly sweet."

Not that sweet had anything to do with intelligence, but…

"Thanks." He reached out to touch the back of my hand with two big fingers. A zing sped up my arm. "So, tomorrow night? Football and pizza?"

"I'd rather have stromboli," I whispered, my voice crapping out as his fingertips came to rest on my forearm, featherlight but incredibly potent. His face split into a smile.

"Me too. Thanks, Arch. I'll sack a quarterback just for you."

"Yay," I said, my face hot, my heart still doing backflips, and my world suddenly a lot brighter than it had ever been before.