TWENTY-SEVEN MAC
TWENTY-SEVEN
MAC
My thoughts are way too loud. Not about anything specific, just loud. A buzzing in my veins that is making me constantly feel on edge. I can’t pinpoint what it is. But I feel off, jumpy, fucking heated over nothing.
I used to equate this feeling to Dave. To looking over my shoulder, always feeling like someone is watching me. But Dave is gone, and the feeling is back.
The happiness I felt at the docks feels distant in my loud-ass head.
Even Henry sensed a shift in my mood. He didn’t even bitch about me being late like usual today. Hasn’t once pointed out that I never put tools back where he says they should go.
Or maybe he’s just so focused on whatever his deal is with Aken that he hasn’t noticed. I don’t know, but I wish he’d say something. Just to give me a reason to feel the way I do.
I’m happy. I’m so goddamn happy, yet I can’t get my head to slow down.
This weekend was amazing—well Saturday sucked.
After the dock party, Sage and I spent Saturday sleeping, puking, or simply wishing for death.
But even during the gnarly hangover, I was still happy.
I was dying alongside Sage. So, it could have been worse.
Sunday was great, though. We spent the entire day binge watching Supernatural. Had a lovely argument over the angels being gay or not. And ate our body weight in cups of noodles.
But today, I woke up feeling like this. Like one wrong move and I’ll explode. Unleashing whatever this feeling is on whoever is around me.
I woke up next to Sage and his god-awful snoring, along with the thought of punching his beautiful face. I didn’t actually want to start a fight or hit him in the face—although maybe breaking his nose would solve the snoring issue. Something to think about. So, I left before he even got up.
Then I felt like shit for leaving. I was scared I’d send him into some sort of abandonment panic attack. So, I texted him about ten times. Telling him I was going to work, reassuring I was coming home tonight.
I had hoped whatever funk I woke up in would edge off over the day, but it hasn’t. If anything, it’s gotten worse. My thoughts are even louder now.
Aken walks carefully down the stairs, drawing my focus away from the storm in my head.
He’s wearing the same baggy hoodie and jeans he wore the first day he showed up.
His eyes dart to Henry’s office door, giving it the same weird look Henry keeps giving the stairs.
I close the hood of the Honda Accord I was mindlessly working on, and he jumps.
Eyes flash to mine as embarrassment blushes his cheeks.
“Uh hey,” he says, continuing down the stairs cautiously and walking towards the front office.
It’s a small room where we check out customers or tell them how fucked their car is.
A desk, computer, and filing cabinets. But off to the side is a coffee maker.
One of those fancy ones. Not the old piece of shit we have back at home.
I know from experience there is no room for a coffee maker in that apartment. I’m sure, like I used to do, he’s coming down here to grab some.
“Hey. I just started a pot. Should be done in a minute,” I tell him, starting to turn my back on the whole ordeal. I’m really not in the mood to interact with humans right now. Unless they want to bitch at me over something stupid, and I can unleash whatever this feeling is.
“Cool. Thanks,” he says, walking closer to the office. But he stops, turning around, pausing, his hand on the door frame. “You’re Mac, right?”
“Yup.” I start entering what I did to the Honda into the tablet on the work bench, trying to put off as much fuck off energy as I can.
Should have just left it at hey, the coffee’s almost ready comment, instead it’s opened me up for chit chat.
“You’ve been living here for a couple years, right?” I set the tablet down and turn to face Aken. Crossing my ankles, I rest my ass against the work bench. I lean back, holding onto the edge of the bench.
“Why?”
“Was just wondering…” He runs his hand through his thick head of curls, casting his glance around the garage without ever looking at me. The seconds drag on as he bites his lower lip. I lift my eyebrows, trying to get him to spit it out.
“Wondering what?” I ask, but it comes out more aggressively than I intended. That’s not entirely true, but I didn’t mean to sound so pissy. He finally looks at me. The blush on his cheeks returning.
“You’re gay,” he states. He was wondering if I was gay? Alarms blare in my head, gearing me up for the fight I’ve been dying for all day.
I step away from the bench and he steps back, knocking the heels of his Chucks against the door. There’s a fucking car between us, does he think I’m gonna slide across the hood like I’m gonna Dukes of Hazzard it to get to him? Today I might.
“You got a problem with that?” This time I mean every ounce of aggressiveness my voice carries.
“What? No. No. I’m gay. I…shit. I’m fucking this up.” He’s gonna go bald with the rate his hand is ripping through the curls on the top of his head. Sadly, though the fight his “you’re gay” comment promised is lost.
“Dude, what are you trying to ask me?” I’ll feel bad about being a dick later. Later when my blood isn’t burning, when my thoughts aren’t screaming.
He lets out a choppy exhale, then rushes out words I can’t hear in a whisper. The garage is loud. With the doors open and the sound of cars driving past, the shop’s fans blowing at full blast, I can’t catch a word he said.
“Speak up. I got shit to do.” But I take another step towards him. He doesn’t flinch this time; he withers. His shoulders droop inward, making the already small frame he’s working with smaller.
Aken is obviously scared, worried, and very intimidated. Any other day, I’d be happy to help. I’d be his shaman through the world of butt stuff. But not today. Today I don’t want to play “guess what’s wrong” with a random baby gay that moved into my apartment.
“You’re gay,” I inform him, repeating the words he spoke before, hoping to get him to speak faster and louder. For some odd reason, that has him straightening up. Standing taller with his back pressed against the front office door.
“I was wondering...” he starts and pauses again. I lift my eyebrows, waiting for him to go on. Trying to not intimidate him more so we can wrap this up. “Is Henry?” he finally finished.
“Is Henry what? Here? Yes.”
“No, uh. Is Henry…gay?” The last word is whispered out. Dude even covered a side of his mouth to hide the last naughty word.
“Is Henry gay?” I repeat in a normal conversational voice. His neck snaps as he whips it towards Henry’s office. Then back to me with a deep scowl.
Fuck, why did we have to have this conversation today? I mean, it kind of takes the edge off my mood, but I can’t enjoy this right now.
“No idea.” I shrug. “He had a wife.” I can honestly say I’ve never thought about Henry’s sex life. Not in any real way. He’s this sexless ameba in my head, and I think I’d like to keep it that way. Seeing him as a father figure makes the thoughts of his sex life unsettling.
“I know. My stepdad’s sister. But has he dated anyone since you’ve known him?” Well, that piques my interest and takes a little bit more of the edge off.
Aken is Henry’s step cousin? Is that right? Ex-step cousin? Step nephew? I’ve always been terrible with genealogy shit. Also why did he punctuate the word “step” so hard? He had said dad before, so he obviously doesn’t see the man as his father.
“Not that I know of. He bitched about your aunt a lot when I first moved in. But that’s about it. Why?” I feel my lips lifting into a smirk as my brain puts the puzzle pieces together. If I’m not wrong here, Aken has a crush on his step-uncle-cousin.
“Just wondering. Uh…” Whatever he was about to say, he cuts off when Henry’s office door opens. Aken’s almond-shaped eyes go wide as his face turns into a ripe tomato. He glances at me with a look of shock, and I think he’s trying to tell me to keep this to myself.
“Hey, Henry,” I call out, drawing his attention. Henry jolts his head up from looking down at his phone. Looking at me, then Aken, then me, then Aken, before he finally says anything.
“Hey. You finish with the Accord?”
“Yup. All done.” But I’m smiling now. Probably looking creepy as shit. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Aken fumble behind his back for the doorknob. When he finds it, the door opens at his back and he steps into the front office. Trying to slink away from me.
“I was just getting to know my replacement,” I joke. Both men glare at me. Yup, Aken likes Henry. He wouldn’t look like he’s about to punch me if he didn’t.
“Not replacement,” Henry says that to Aken. “Temporary boarder, just till he’s back on his feet,” he says that to me, but I watch Aken’s face fall.
Aken doesn’t say anything else, just walks fully into the office and starts messing with the coffee maker. He looks utterly defeated, deflated. Henry watches him closely, too closely. Henry never watched me like that.
This was fun. Definitely helped my mood. Still kind of wanna fuck something up, but I’m less inclined to do so now.
“Mind your damn business, boy. And get back to work,” Henry snarls when I just stare at him with a weird smile for too long.
“You fucking love me.” I wink. However, I do listen, going back over to finish filling in the forms on the tablet.
When I get back home, my weird mood is back in full force. Maybe I can find someone to fight with. Or set something on fire. I don’t know, but I need an outlet somehow.
Walking in the front door, I’m greeted by the smell of something burning. Sage is screaming at the oven, small clouds of smoke filling the kitchen and living room. He got to set something on fire? Fucking bullshit.
But Sage adorably trying to bitch out a kitchen appliance has me smiling. He’s waving his shirt at the smoke, trying to clear the air. But all he’s doing is just shuffling smoke around the kitchen.