Chapter 4
Tommy
I didn’t think about how I would sleep while I was here.
Obviously, there are plenty of things I didn’t think through. But that’s me: the guy who doesn’t think things through before jumping for it.
It’s not like I’m scared of Kira, like she’ll attack me in my sleep or anything. And it’s not like I’m uncomfortable or sleeping on the floor, because this room has a couch that’s actually softer and comfier than my mattress back at my apartment. I’m just…
I just don’t always sleep well. Especially in unfamiliar places.
After I spend a good twenty minutes berating a blushing Kira for not warning me how hot her uncle is–all while Lexie cackles like a witch while listening to me complain–the girls take about three business days to “prepare” for bed.
What do they mean by that, you might ask?
More than just a rinse off in the shower, that’s for fucking sure.
These girls each take almost a full hour in their respective showers, and if this is what’s happening in all the occupied rich people rooms tonight, I can’t even imagine the water bill.
Then they spend a while slathering themselves with creams and goo and doing things to their hair and their nails, and it honestly looks really relaxing and I internally pout while outwardly casually chatting with them while they lounge in spa clothes and pamper themselves.
I’ve never had creams and goos for my skin.
I wish they’d offer me some.
But they don’t. It’s fine, I don’t need it, it just would’ve been nice. But, again, not needed.
I don’t need anything.
When it’s my turn in the bathroom I’m sharing with Kira–I know, poor Kira is forced to share her bathroom with me due to our “couple” status–I gleefully pull out the razor they packed me and shave my whole face and dick and balls.
Not even because I need to, I just want to.
And I was right: it is much easier and more comfortable in a big-ass fancy bathroom.
I try to take my time, to really take advantage of my drastic change in living situation, but before the twenty-minute mark, I’m already in Tommy Claremont’s version of pajamas–ultra-soft sweats with a name-brand label on the side, and a T-shirt so smooth that it slides against my skin in a way I’m really not used to.
I exit the bathroom to find Kira passed out on the bed, the room darkened but not totally blacked out, lit with a light coming from the closet and now the bathroom.
I tiptoe to the couch and bury myself in the pile of fuzzy blankets and pillows stacked there.
I immediately sink into the softness, almost getting stuck in it.
It’s smothering me, wrapping around me, and now I’m sweating and having trouble breathing and–
I toss the extra stuff onto the floor, throwing off the bedding like it’s trying to murder me, and try to get comfortable with just the couch.
Better. But still a little weird. It’s as if, since my spine is used to my stiff, lumpy mattress at home, these nice cushions actually make it hurt.
Like my bones are mad at me for daring to try and rest with them well-aligned and supported.
I force myself to lie still and breathe.
The house is quiet. Really quiet.
My apartment is shitty and dangerous and loud, so I don’t fully relax there, but it’s what I’m used to.
This? This silence? The softness? The expanse of empty room-space all around me, so far away.
I reach my hand above my head and the ceiling is so high above me it’s almost tripping me out.
Why do rich people need such tall ceilings?
Despite my best efforts, I toss and turn and tune in to the increasing beat of my heart and the zoom of my thoughts pinging around in my skull. One thought in particular is bugging me, shaking me up. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here.
It’s true. This kind of safety, with Kira gently snoring like she’s never had to worry about anything sneaking up on her at night, it’s just not for me. I wasn’t made for this kind of shit.
And I have proof, too! The proof is my pounding heartbeat right now, because being in sketchy, low-class and high-risk living situations makes me feel right at home, and being in this mansion in a magic forest is making my adrenaline spike like I’m in a horror film.
It’s as if, when I try to relax for real, like really relax, my brain freaks out and asks me what the hell I think I’m doing, and don’t I know that’s dangerous? and shit like that. Some part of me will always believe I’m still sleeping in that room… The room he put me in when I lived with–
I jump off the couch, sweating and breathing hard.
Without a moment to spare before I just start losing my shit, I sneak out of the room, padding down the hall in bare feet.
I’m tense at first, the lingering sense of wrongness making me edgy, but soon I start feeling a little more focused.
I creep through the halls like a wraith, wondering if there’s anything I can steal and if so, would anyone notice before I was gone with the wind at the end of the week?
It gives my mind something to do. If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t steal half as much as I used to.
It used to be that I had to do it, just to survive.
These days, I don’t really need it. Sometimes I’ll nick something to keep my skills sharp, but mostly?
I kind of just enjoy planning it out, without actually doing it.
Like a heist movie, but solo. I come up with all the ways I’ll get my greedy hands on whatever it is that catches my attention, picture my victorious smirk when I get away with it, walking free and clear from the scene of the crime with something extra in my pocket, but I don’t usually follow through.
It feels good to imagine it. Like I’m winning something.
Positive affirmations, or manifesting good things for myself, or some shit like that, right?
I’d gotten a tour of the whole house only that morning, but there was so much information and so many hallways and rooms that I already forgot almost all of it.
Without a staff member to guide me, I slink through the darkened corridors at random, drifting from shadow to shadow, looking out of windows to the moonlit lawn and peering into open doorways.
Somewhere on the first floor, not far from the big-ass staircase, I stumble across a set of open double doors, and stop dead in the hallway.
I’ve been in a public library before, so I know what they look like, but I had no idea a person could own a whole private one.
I stare open-mouthed as I walk inside. It looks like all the walls are covered in books, and shelves run the length of the room.
I can’t imagine why Young-gi would want this many books.
He couldn’t possibly have read them all.
Creeping deeper into the room, I realize most of the shelves are behind a cover of glass, and the books are strange and old-timey. Looking around, I think that at least half of this collection must be for display only: valuable first editions, and things like that.
Somehow, that’s both more and less boring.
More boring because I don’t want to read any fancy books like that, and I can’t even if I wanted to because they’re locked behind glass.
But also less because I’ve never seen books like this before, and the cracked spines with their shiny lettering are kind of… pretty?
A hissing, angry whisper shatters the silence and I instinctively duck. My heart, which was pounding with adrenaline in the safe, quiet bedroom, actually settles at the indication of possible violence, which just goes to show how fucked up I am. The safer I am, the faster my heart pounds, I guess?
Crouching low, I half-crawl toward the voices, and the closer I get, the more I can pick out the sound of an argument.
A masculine voice, petulant and angry. A feminine response, curt and high-strung. I turn a corner and see that there is a light on behind the next shelf–luckily not one covered with glass. I get low to the ground and slowly pull a book out so I can see what’s going on through the gap.
Brian and Janessa are facing off in the back corner of this massive library, a bottle of wine and two half-empty glasses on a round table nearby. The warm, orange tone of the lamp should paint the scene in intimate hues, but instead it feels fiery and uncomfortable, and it’s easy to see why.
Janessa’s body language is defensive. Her narrow shoulders are tense, and her hands hover anxiously at her stomach, caught between her hips and her chest, as if she’s subconsciously ready to throw her arms up to block an attack. She steps back, trying to keep a chair between them.
Brian, meanwhile, is all aggression. His chest puffs out, he glares down at her, and he closes the distance in an attempt to loom over her.
His voice is shaking with the force of his rage.
“You think this is funny? Screwing with me like this? God, you’re such a damn tease, Janessa.
All those texts, all those nights talking like something was gonna happen, all the hot and cold these past three months–what was all that for?
Your entertainment? I’m nobody’s fool, and I sure as hell won’t be fooled by some slut like you. ”
Janessa sets her chin stubbornly, but her breathing is shallow and fearful. “I never promised you anything. I said from the beginning that I wasn’t sure about sex, and I’m still not sure. That’s not a crime. I never once promised anything, despite how you made it sound to Kira when you broke up–”
Brian interrupts by grabbing at her shoulder and shaking her to shut her up.
“You never promised me anything?! Then what the hell was all that buildup for? Attention? If you want my attention so bad, you’ve got it!
This is my attention. You sat in my lap all day today, whispered in my ear, you were all over me at the poker table, and now you’re backing off again? I’m sick of this shit.”