Chapter 8 Octavian
Octavian
Present Day
“Hold on, Floyd.”
I glance over my shoulder as the incessant tapping at the door continues despite my clipped response to it.
Reason number 7,384 why I’m an asshole.
It’s not his fault that it’s the only way for him to get my attention. Just like it’s not his fault that he probably can’t hear shit over Lou Reed blasting through my speakers, let alone me snapping at him from inside the bathroom.
He doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment, especially from me, and as soon as I get myself cleaned up, I’ll make it up to him. Granted, that’s only if I don’t bleed out over the sink first.
I went too deep this time.
That was one of the worst nightmares I’ve had in a long time and I was so upset when I woke up that I didn’t wait until I was fully functional before I grabbed my scalpel.
Just snatched it from the medicine cabinet and went straight for the inside of my right thigh.
I didn’t even put my fucking glasses on and that was my second mistake of the morning.
Everything was still blurry from sleep, my eyes were way out of focus without my specs, and my hands were still shaking from that goddamn dream. My depth perception was off and before I knew what was happening, I nearly stabbed myself in my femoral artery. A few inches higher and I might have.
Instead, I took a two inch long and one inch deep chunk out of my thigh like I was carving a fucking pumpkin and now I have to stitch myself up over my bathroom counter while my racket and balls sit inside the sink.
Not exactly the start to my day I was hoping for.
Then again, I’m never hopeful per se, just skeptically optimistic at best.
Also known as an extremely pessimistic realist with social anxiety and self sabotaging tendencies driven by obsessive compulsive disorder.
That’s what my last shrink said, anyway.
He nailed it if you ask me.
With a grimace, I hook the surgical needle through my skin, pulling the last stitch closed tightly before tying it off to call it good.
I reach for the gauze and medical tape, neatly covering the adorable little wound so it doesn’t rub on the inside of my jeans once I’m dressed.
Which I manage to do relatively easily after cleaning up all my blood on the floor and counter.
Only three stitches this time, and not too shabby for an amateur.
I’m thinking this isn’t something to be proud of but it’s about all I’ve got, so I’ll take it.
The tapping at the door stops for a few moments as I brush my teeth and pause, waiting for the scratching to start.
Then it does.
It never fails. Floyd taps against the door until I come out and if that doesn’t work, he waits a few seconds to give me a chance to stop him before he starts scratching. But only on mornings like this.
If I have a good night, one nightmare free and full of as much sleep as my body allows, we get up together at a much calmer pace. We have breakfast while listening to music, go for a walk around the block a few times, then Floyd comes back to the loft before I open the store.
When I have a bad night? Polar opposite.
I thrash around so much I end up waking both of us up, and I also scare the fuck out of Floyd when I jump or fall out of bed. Usually the latter before racing to the bathroom. Then he waits and worries outside the door while I handle the feelings I’ve never been able to deal with appropriately.
It cuts into our normal routine time and means we rush through parts of it and on days like today where I almost die accidentally, it’s even more so.
For as much as he doesn’t understand, Floyd does know what’s going on, and it’s why he does what he’s been doing the last twenty minutes. He knows, he cares, and ultimately, he wants to make sure I walk out of this bathroom relatively unscathed.
“I’m sorry,” I say with a sigh as I finally open the door. “I know you’re worried about me and I appreciate it, but I’m fine.”
Floyd gets to his feet as I walk out, tilting his head to listen with his good ear before we head to the kitchen.
“It was a rough one.” I pour myself a cup of coffee, grateful for the daily timer, then get him some water and lean against the counter as I watch him drink. “The worst in a while.”
I rub the back of my neck and shake my head.
It was, it was awful, and so fucking vivid it felt like I went back in time twenty five years right to that crackhouse in Illinois.
I shudder as it replays through my mind, the nightmare I lived until I was old enough to leave coming back to haunt me in my sleep. I feel like I’ll never fully be rid of that place no matter how many years or miles I put between us.
Quickly moving through what’s left of the morning, I opt to take our walk before breakfast, keeping it short as we circle the block twice and when we get back upstairs and settled, I can tell Floyd is still leery about me leaving.
“It’s just for a bit,” I say softly as I scratch behind his ears. “I’ll be back up for lunch and we can go for another walk then, too.”
My King Charles Cocker Spaniel thumps his tail against the floor, but those cloudy eyes never leave my face.
How can this animal pull so goddamn hard on the heartstrings I didn’t think I even had?
“Okay, maybe, and I do mean maybe if you’re a good boy, I’ll bring you down to the shop with me after lunch.” His tail starts thumping harder and I smile. “Sound like a deal?”
He lets out his raspy, crackly, barely audible bark as he hops to his feet, giving me his lopsided happy dance in agreement.
I have no idea how I wound up at the animal shelter, granted it was five years after moving here and I’ve never had a pet in my entire life, but I did, and when I saw this tiny little puppy with bald spots, a limp, and only two teeth wearing the cone of shame, I was both horrified and madly in love.
There was something about the misfit pooch that spoke to me, and he clearly felt it too because he’d been lethargic to the point of catatonic before I walked through the dog kennels and when I did, he perked right up.
Even tried to bark, but it sounded more like a busted squeaky toy and that’s when I knew he was going to be mine.
What I did not know when I decided to adopt him was that the bald spots, limp, and cone were the least of his problems. He'd been bitten in the head and face enough times to make him mostly blind and partially deaf, and he had a mild form of narcolepsy that is now much more pronounced. But he chose me, and I chose him, and I can honestly say Floyd is only the second thing in my entire life I’ve been one hundred and fifty percent sure of.
Which is how the nameless puppy who was born in a mill and had been used as a bait dog before he was even six months old became Pretty Boy Floyd Jones, and we’ve been together ever since.
“Be a good boy for me. Protect our apartment while I’m downstairs, okay?”
Floyd licks my hand and gives me another of his warped barks then runs at an angle to his favorite window above the front doors of 88 Keys to watch for any threats while I’m working. He’ll watch closely, too, while he lays there sunbathing, just like the dutiful guard dog he thinks he is.
Smiling to myself, I lock up and head down the narrow staircase, taking the first set with ease but by the time I hit the bottom of the second, I realize my thigh hurts a lot more than I thought it would. I probably should have taken some ibuprofen with my blockers.
Oh well.
I’ll endure the pain like usual. I’m just grateful I didn’t forget those meds, otherwise I’d have to close the store today in preparation for doomsday.
Which is a gross exaggeration but still.
I’d rather not get a whiff of some alpha and have my body react when there’s no way in hell the rest of me would.
Just because I’m generally a prick doesn’t mean every single person through my doors hates it.
Most do, but there’s always one or two who think they can charm their way right into my pants and without the blockers, I’m more inclined to throw caution to the wind.
Because being an omega kind of sucks sometimes.
With an annoyed huff, I lock up the door for the stairs then make my way through my music store, turning off the alarm and opening windows.
I give the small selection of instruments a good dusting, tidy up the thousands of vinyls, straighten the CDs and cassette tapes, then fire up my dual screen POS system.
I’ve done pretty well for myself since moving to Minnesota.
I was eighteen when I came out here with next to nothing, but in a matter of about five years I found a job, a shitty apartment in a semi-shady part of town, adopted Floyd, and started taking business classes.
Eventually I was able to buy this building; an ancient, mostly free standing hole in the wall that was once a general store and saloon, and has been here—attached to the opera house I’m hoping to own one day—since the dawn of time.
I remodeled the inside, stripped the walls, and tore up the floors so the original wood and brick could complement the original molding and filigree along the ceiling.
The basement is for inventory. I kept the weird saloon style counter and mirror for the checkout, used the shelves that still had candy jars on them for my personal collection of albums and music memorabilia.
Then, after fixing up and sort of modernizing the loft so I could live in it, this became 88 Keys, my home and music store, and has been for the last ten years.
I’m pretty goddamn proud of the place.
Which is why, when I open the shades on the front door and the big picture window, I immediately scowl at the enormous man standing out front on the sidewalk, playing a guitar and singing his heart out like it’s the fucking Fillmore or some shit.
I don’t fucking think so, buddy.
Today is not the day, and I am not the one.