Chapter 6 Dax
DAX
The Nova Ranger suit lays soiled and torn on the floor at the foot of my bed when I get out of the steam-crowded bathroom, smelling fresh and feeling good.
Guess Reed left me a souvenir to remember our epic sex marathon with.
Role play was exactly what I needed tonight, and Reed committed fully, making me come buckets from his pliable obedience.
Three rounds, and by the end, I was shooting blanks. My muscles are spent, my mind is empty, music is playing, and my apartment smells like…bacon?
Confused, I step into the small living area in only my towel. Reed stands in the galley kitchen with his sculpted back to me, wearing the pair of plaid boxer briefs I’d laid out on the bed to slip into once he’d left. A skillet sizzles on the stovetop and the fan rattles above.
“What are you doing?” I ask. Across the room, my ancient turntable is spinning. An old Johnny Cash record is playing over the cooking sounds. It skips every couple of seconds. Unbothered, Reed hums along to it, clearly knowing the melody by heart.
He turns, wearing a joke apron I won at an Arrow Mart company barbecue two years ago. On it is an anthropomorphic spatula with the words Who wants my meat? printed in a speech bubble beside it.
“I thought you might be hungry,” Reed says.
I look at him without speaking. My stomach did rumble passing him on my way into the shower, and I did tell him he could help himself to anything in my fridge.
He took it further than I anticipated. Most submissives clean themselves up and leave without making any more eye contact.
Ashamed or guilty? I can never quite tell, and it’s not my place to pry when I have no intentions of seeing them again.
Reed is anything but ashamed or guilty as he pushes the sizzling bacon strips onto a paper towel-lined plate on the small slice of counter between the stove and the microwave.
The clock on the microwave shows thirteen minutes past midnight.
It’s a little late for a meal, but he’s already gone through the trouble.
I can’t very well kick him out. Besides, it’s not like I’ve got work to get up for tomorrow. Or maybe ever again.
The toaster oven dings, and Reed pulls out two slices of half-burned bread. He places them at the table, which is already set with my dinged-up dishes and chipped glasses. How long was I in the shower? I throw on a pair of shorts and get my bearings.
Cash sings about a port of lonely hearts when I return.
Two such lonely hearts seem to sit across from each other now.
We make wordless eye contact over the smattering of hot food and cold water.
Neither of us seems to want to serve ourselves first. He made the food, but it’s my apartment.
I can’t tell what to make of this gesture and how it feels like he’s delaying his departure for unknown reasons.
I turn to the bar cart beside my record player.
I grab the cheap whiskey and two lowball glasses.
Something to take the prickly edge off the expectation for conversation.
Any awkwardness about the role play burned off the longer we explored, but now it’s back in a new, uglier form, even if there’s a layer of underlying comfort as well.
“None for me, thanks,” Reed says. He eyes the whiskey with apparent wariness.
“Don’t have a taste for it?” I ask.
“Something like that,” he says, grabbing for the crispiest piece of bacon from the plate and crunching into it.
I swallow a tut. Maybe his tastes are too refined for my budget spirits. “Suit yourself.”
I sip. He eats. A half-used brick of butter sweats on a dish between us. In the years I’ve lived in this crappy first-floor apartment, I don’t think I’ve ever had a guest over for a meal. Sex, sure, but no nightcaps or midnight breakfasts. Our bare knees brush beneath the narrow tabletop.
Reed bops his head along to the music, humming around his bites.
“You a Cash fan?” I ask, seeing no other way to start this conversation.
He nods. “I love country music. The radio we had in our house growing up had maybe two stations that came in clear enough to really listen to. One of them was the classic country station. His voice is so manly but emotive. How about you?” he asks.
“I mean, obviously, you’re a fan. Your record collection is almost exclusively Cash. But why do you like him?”
“Never really gave it much thought. Probably inherited my taste in music. My mom loved him, so I loved him.”
Reed almost chokes on a bite of dry, crumbly toast. “Are you close with your mom?” He wipes his mouth with a paper towel since I don’t keep napkins around.
I rub the pads of my greasy fingers against one another, contemplating how much to tell this man. Less than I want to, that’s for sure. Those beseeching blue eyes could make me spill my guts if I’m not careful. I forgot how arresting they are. As if they’re a hypnotizing watch on a long gold chain.
I set my half-finished drink aside and take some toast. “I used to be. We haven’t seen each other or talked in a long time.”
“How long is a long time?” Reed asks.
“Whatever you’re thinking, triple that.” I devour the toast piece in two huge bites. It’s only while I’m struggling to swallow that I remember the butter sat between us.
“Is she back in Colorado?” he asks. When I leave too long a gap in the conversation, he fills in, “Am I misremembering? Didn’t you say you were from Colorado originally?”
Hank Richards is from Colorado. I have the opportunity to come clean here and tell Reed about my hookup cover story. Instead, I give a noncommittal shrug. “We just drifted apart. We lead very different lives.”
During my first prison stay, my parents split up. After I was released, neither seemed to want to take me in. Who would want a twenty-three-year-old freeloader in their guest room while trying to build a new life?
On my own, I did what I had to do to survive, which wedged us three further apart until we became a distant memory of a family. Of course I don’t divulge any of that. “How about you? What’s your mom like?” I ask.
“Oh, um,” Reed says, once again choking around the slightly burned edge of his piece of toast. “My mom passed away a couple of months ago.”
Jesus. I slug the rest of my whiskey back to drown my clumsiness. He did mention she was sick over drinks six months ago. I can’t believe I forgot that. “Sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he says, shaking his head.
“Shit. That must be tough.” When I learned my dad passed during my second stay in Rawlins, it was like hearing about a celebrity death. He was so removed from me that all I felt was a faint aw, that’s too bad feeling.
“It is, but really, it’s okay.” Reed’s eyes glaze over with emotion I’m incapable of unpacking with him.
Still, my hands seek to reach out and touch him.
A meager bid for reassurance that he’ll be okay.
But I can’t cross the divide of the center of the table.
I slip my legs farther under my chair, away from his. I’m no good when it comes to emotions.
“How about your dad? How’s he taking it?” I ask. I regret it almost instantly.
“I, uh, never knew my dad,” he says. This time, his voice goes up a bit at the end. Reed pats his lap and looks around the kitchen. “I need to find my phone. Excuse me.” His words are as wobbly as the chair he gets up from. He ventures back into the bedroom, clearly to compose himself.
I add another finger of whiskey to my glass and slug it back. Is Reed as alone in the world as I am?
“Guess I should trash this,” Reed says, holding the tattered remains of the Nova Ranger suit in one hand and his phone in the other. Before he can reach the garbage can, I snatch the costume from him.
“Don’t,” I snap. I must be tipsier than I realize.
It’s one thing to fish it from the trash once he’s gone as a memento.
It’s another to show him how badly I want to keep it.
After tonight, I know I’ll never see him again.
I’ve already broken my cardinal rule, and I can’t risk this want growing inside me getting bigger and stronger.
I put up a good fight, but not that good. “Just—I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Oh, thank you,” Reed says, sitting back down. His face is wiped clean of any teary-eyed emotions. His attention gets consumed by something interesting on his phone.
I munch on the last little bits of burned bacon sprinkled on my plate. They hit the spot. I imagine more late nights like this one. Sexed and snacking with Reed. There’s something quaint and domestic about it. A feeling of ease despite the embarrassment I haven’t felt since early childhood.
“Everything okay?” I ask as Reed’s eyes continue to graze across his screen.
“Yeah.” He looks up, wet curls bouncing against his forehead. A smile crests across his face as if he just remembered I was here with him. A fuse lights in my stomach, spark sliding toward a pile of emotional TNT.
“Good news?” I ask, wanting to share in his uplifted mood.
He nods. “Great news, actually.”
“Aren’t you going to share?” I ask after a couple of beats.
“It’s nothing major. I got an offer for a job I’ve been gunning for.”
I nod and slump back in my chair. His optimism and youth are a double-smack to the face.
They knock any fantastical illusions from my brain.
Reed’s got prospects, a whole life ahead of him.
There won’t—can’t—be more nights like this.
Not only am I a liar with a criminal record, but as of this morning, I’m an unemployed liar with a criminal record.
I lift my glass to him. “Congrats.”
“Thanks.” Reed sets his used napkin beside his plate, which still has food on it. “Do you work for Arrow Mart?” The question comes entirely out of left field.
“No,” I say quickly, harshly. My throat feels lined with sandpaper. It’s the truth, but just barely. Memories of my firing this morning rocket back to mind.