Chapter 01 JERICHO
I shook soap suds off my hand when my phone’s ringtone interrupted my music. A photo of my friend Vex with his arm around my shoulders lit up the screen, and the image blurred when my fingers left droplets of water behind as I tapped the phone icon to answer and turned it on speaker.
“So, you heard?“
I asked before he could even get out a greeting.
Silence met my question for a split second before Vex chuckled and said, “Well, hello to you too, Jericho.”
I retrieved my sponge and returned to the pan I’d been scrubbing without much luck. One of these days, I’d be better about not waiting a week to clean the dishes after making curry. Unfortunately for now, past me neglected to think of present me when he simply dumped them into the sink and forgot about them for a week.
“Yes, hello, Vex. Please forgive my rudeness.”
A heavy sigh sounded from the other end of the line, and I swore I could hear his smirk in his voice. “I did indeed hear,“
he said. “And I know I’m not the only one looking forward to you coming home.”
Home. I’d been away from Spruce Hollow for almost seven years, and even with the life I built here in Kansas City, that would always be home.
“It’ll be good to see everyone again,“
I said. “It’s been too long.”
Vex grunted his agreement, then fell quiet for a moment. His voice was soft when he asked, “How are you feeling about coming back?”
When I first left, I thought I would dread the call to go back to Minnesota. There may have been nothing but happy memories for me there, and I may have loved being so close to family and so many friends, but there was hardly room to spread my wings in such a tiny town. I got restless. There was a whole world to explore and so many people to meet who would never find me there.
In hindsight, that last one was probably a good thing. It would have saved me a lot of anguish. Too bad that I only saw the positives on the other side of heartbreak.
Now, I looked forward to my return. If I didn’t need to finish out the last three months of my lease, I’d have packed up and made the ten-hour drive as soon as my dad called to let me know that he and my mom finally decided to retire.
“A little relieved, honestly. Most days, anyway.“
I scraped the last of the dried curry off my pan, gave it a rinse, and set it into the drying rack beside the sink. “I’ve been pretty homesick lately.”
“Felix has been worried about you.”
I chuckled and rinsed the soap off my hands, then turned off the water. “Felix worries more than my own mother,” I said.
Felix owned most of the land Spruce Hollow was built on, and despite being well-loved by all the residents, the man still refused to let us make him mayor. He preferred to keep to his little shop of oddities and curios, but that didn’t stop him from fussing over the lot of us like we were his gaggle of sometimes wayward children.
“He doesn’t know how to handle people being outside of his shadow,“
I concluded.
“Can you blame him? He feels responsible for all of us.”
“He just doesn’t like when people leave,“
I said. “Because then he has to update the population on the welcome sign.”
Vex snickered, and I missed what he said in response when I opened the cabinet under the sink and a nearly empty soap bottle toppled out and clattered against the tile.
I righted the bottle and pulled out the bleach wipes. “Say that again?”
“I said, he never changed it when you left. He knew you’d come back.”
There wasn’t enough time left in the day to unpack whether I found that sentiment comforting or suffocating.
Vex paused, then sighed. “…You’re stress cleaning, aren’t you?”
I froze, bleach wipe halfway out of the canister, and peeked over at my phone to make sure I hadn’t accidentally turned on the video call.
I hadn’t.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,“
I said, and silently tucked the wipes back where I found them. Maybe with my momentum interrupted, I could do something other than spend hours drowning my minor emotional turmoil in making my apartment spotless.
“Have you even sat down yet today, Jay?”
That was the downside to having the same best friend for twenty-five years: he knew me so well, I couldn’t get away with a brush off or an excuse.
“…For breakfast,“
I mumbled.
Vex sighed, and I knew the exact expression he wore because I’d seen it so many times before: bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers, his brow crinkled, and his lips pressed thin.
“You are far too young to be spending a Saturday night deep-cleaning your apartment,” he said.
“Oh, so you want me to do an age-appropriate activity?“
A smirk pulled at my lips, and I bit the inside of my cheek to hold in the laugh trying to bubble up in my chest. “Fine, I’ll go scroll social media. That’s what all the kids are doing these days, isn’t it?”
“And you poke fun at Felix for sounding like an old man,“
Vex said, his tone as mocking as my own.
“I guess I’ll just doom scroll instead of doom clean,“
I muttered. I snatched my phone off the counter and crossed to the living room to drop onto the couch with a grunt. “At least doom cleaning is productive.”
The tone of our conversation softened from there. I pulled out my laptop and scrolled, and Vex poked and prodded at all the little worries burrowed under my skin like an itch I couldn’t scratch hard enough. Where I would live when I went home, how I could avoid moving back in with my parents even though they’d already offered, how people would react to seeing me again after seven years of absence. If I would feel out of place there, or like I’d never left, and which was preferable.
About the time the conversation got heavier than I wanted it to be, a bright splash of color ground my scrolling to a halt. Queer individuals wanted for stranger sessions, the ad said. I swiped through a few of the ad’s photos, each showcasing a different couple, all crackling with chemistry.
It was hard to believe they were strangers.
“Wait,“
I chimed in, interrupting whatever Vex had been saying. “I found what the kids are actually doing these days! Taking pictures with random people.“
I shot him a message with the ad attached.
There were a few moments of silence on the other end of the line while he presumably read over the ad as well. The caption gave more details: the photographer, Sadie, would select two people to throw together in a single photoshoot, sight unseen. An exploration of intimacy among strangers.
“You should apply,“
Vex said finally. “Maybe it’s time for you to dip your toe back into the social scene. Meet someone.”
I groaned. “What’s the point? I’ll be gone in a few months.”
“Exactly. It’s the perfect, low-pressure way to get back on the horse without feeling the need to put down roots and look for something long-term. Besides, just because it’s a couple’s session doesn’t mean you ever need to see the other person again after the shoot. And”—I could hear the smile in his voice—“it sounds like fun. You’re overdue for some fun.”
He was right. But even as I acknowledged that, I was trying to talk myself out of it. To think up excuses to stay in my safe little burrow and hide from the possibilities out in the world.
“Maybe,“
I conceded at length. “I’ll think about it.”
“Promise?“
Vex pressed.
“Pinkie promise.”
Satisfied at last, Vex finally got to the point of his call. He gave me a quick run-down of updates from our friends, and lamented about his most recent conversation with his mother, which had ended about as badly as the one before it. I offered, as I always did in these situations, to talk to my parents about adopting him. It was enough to get a chuckle out of him, at least.
And then we were saying goodnight, and the quiet of my apartment rushed in to fill the space where his voice had been.
I went back to the ad and clicked the application link. A quick scan found the expected about me questions, along with places to specify romantic preferences to make sure the matches were made appropriately.
I closed my computer with a snap and set it on the coffee table. I couldn’t break a pinkie promise to Vex, so I would think about it. That didn’t mean the thinking needed to take place staring at a screen. Baking always helped to clear my head, so strawberry cupcakes were in order while I muddled through my feelings about applying.
I went back and forth with myself as I scooped and measured and mixed and dropped liners into each well of my cupcake pan. My last relationship left me wary of opening myself up again, but Vex was right: the stakes couldn’t be lower. I’d have to spend a few hours with the guy, and it could end there. It didn’t need to go past that. Add in that it had been a long time since I’d held anyone’s hand, or been pulled close and tucked up against someone’s chest, and I was desperate enough for physical affection that the idea was looking better by the moment.
Once the pan was in the oven, I returned to my laptop and opened the application again. Several minutes lapsed while I stared at it some more, then shot Vex a text for help describing myself before I could change my mind. When all the fields were complete, I spent several more minutes sitting with my cursor hovering over the submit button before I finally clicked it and let out a rush of breath.
I might not even get selected. The KC Metro was huge, and I must be one of many who threw their hats into the ring. But maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe I’d get picked and have fun and get some beautiful photos out of it.
And if I was really lucky, maybe I’d even make a new friend.
Or maybe something more.