Nineteen #3
“Yes, better,” I murmured. “I was scared for a second that you betrayed my trust, but you wouldn’t, would you. I know better.”
“I just want you back,” he told me. “Calhoun’s the one who wants you in restraints.”
“Because he thinks I’m crazy.”
“He’s just mad, and his clout works everywhere because he’s a fed, and even more so because he works out of Dallas.”
All my life people had been saying I was crazy.
And I could take the teasing just as well as anyone else, but this wasn’t funny, because Calhoun had gone further and told people who didn’t know me that when they caught up with me, I needed to be restrained.
I had issues with even the idea. Sitting in shackles or sitting in a rubber room with a straitjacket on was not my idea of fun.
I think it was especially scary since I’d always wondered if maybe it wasn’t going to happen at some point.
After my grandmother died, it seemed like there was an endless number of people saying how weird I was, how strange, how crazy.
That I was delusional and disturbed, manic and incompetent.
“Love?”
“I’m on the right track, Sam, I promise you.”
“I have no doubt you are, but we can do it together. Just go get a room and lie low and I’ll get there and pick you up.”
“I just have one more thing to do,” I told him. “Please trust me.”
“Honey, it won’t be about me trusting you if law enforcement shows up. You know Calhoun is a federal agent. They will do what he says.”
Caleb’s face suddenly came to mind.
“Sam, please let me call you back.”
He sighed heavily. “What choice do I have?”
Once I hung up, I headed toward campus to find Gwen. I walked down through the quad and saw her waiting for me right where she had said she would be. I was maybe ten minutes late.
“Hey.” She smiled and waved. “I thought you’d ditched me.”
“No.” I smiled back. “Just got hung up at the office.”
She stood up and put her arm through mine. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“No.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, leaning her head on my shoulder. “Maybe we should call Jeremy and see if he knows where anything is.”
Her brother Jeremy, the oldest until Dane appeared out of thin air three years ago.
“No, I don’t think so. But I found a key—I think it’s for a security door.”
“Huh.” She shrugged. “I dunno, babe. Maybe we should just call and ask her.”
“Let’s eat first. I’m starving.”
“Sure,” she said, patting my arm.
She had invited not just her boyfriend, Casey, but also three other friends. They all seemed nice, they all thought I looked like I could still be in college, and they all had suggestions about what I should have for lunch. I decided to go with Gwen’s idea since it was spicy.
“So, Jory,” Casey said as the others started talking. “That’s a cool name. I don’t hear it a lot.”
I shrugged. “Probably for good reason.”
He chuckled. “Self-deprecation—nice.”
“I try.”
“When are you going back to Chicago?”
“Tomorrow probably,” I told him.
“Huh. What are you gonna do after lunch?”
“Look for a building.”
“I’m sorry?”
I pulled the key out of my pocket and showed it to him. “I gotta find out what this goes to.”
He squinted down then took the key out of my hand. “I can tell you what that goes to—it’s for an apartment building on Drake.” He flipped it over and showed me a stamp on the back. “See the three letters, DGA, engraved there?”
“Yeah.”
“Drake Garden Apartments. I have some friends that live over there.”
My eyes flicked to his. “Dude, you’re seriously the best. You just saved me, like, a day of work.”
He smiled at me. “Oh yeah? I helped you out?”
“Totally.”
“You said dude.”
“That’s because I’m the least cool person you’re ever gonna meet in your life.”
“I somehow doubt that.”
“Wait,” I assured him. “You’ll see.”
“Here comes Ty,” someone announced.
“Who?” I asked.
“Tyler Lydell,” Gwen answered me.
And the way Casey turned, the breath he took, the way he sat up, I understood why it had been five years of no sex for Gwen.
All six feet two inches of Tyler Lydell came around the table and put his hand on Casey’s shoulder. The smile he gave Gwen’s boyfriend was huge, and then he looked at everyone else.
“What’s goin’ on, people?”
Everyone spoke at once. It was obvious that the gorgeous blond-haired, blue-eyed man was the center of the group. He was the one everyone liked, wanted to be with, or simply wanted to be. There wasn’t room at the table for him, though.
“Here.” Casey laughed. “Sit on my lap.”
Tyler arched an eyebrow, and everyone dissolved into peals of laughter except me.
They should have just saved a lot of time and heartbreak and come flying out of the closet.
Tell all their friends that “roommate” was a gentle euphemism for lover, and that they had, I was guessing, been sleeping together since freshman year.
“You can have my spot,” I said, getting up. “I’ve gotta go anyway. No time to eat.”
“No, Jory.” Gwen stood up. “Stay. We can grab another chair from—”
“No, it’s okay,” I told her, leaning forward across the table to kiss her cheek. “I’ll call ya before I go, okay? Maybe we can have dinner.”
“Okay.” She sighed, looking at me. “I’m holding you to that.”
I patted her cheek, but before I could turn to leave, Tyler suddenly stepped in front of me.
“I just got here and you’re leaving. Why is that?”
I smiled at him.
“Can I give you a ride somewhere?”
“No, it’s okay. I have to go look for an apartment.”
“You’re house hunting?”
“Not exactly.”
He wasn’t sure about me, and it was there in his face.
I reached out to pat his shoulder. “Thanks for the offer, but—”
Before I could pull my hand back, he covered it with his, pressing it into his arm. The muscles were hard and corded, and I wondered vaguely if I was supposed to notice.
“Let me drive you wherever you need to go.”
“Ty,” Casey called over to him. “Maybe Jory—”
“That’d be great,” I said quickly, because it would be faster, and I had a feeling I had very little time left.
“Good,” he said, walking beside me.
“Ty.”
“I’ll see ya later, Case,” he called back over his shoulder. “You and Gwennie be good.”
There was laughter from behind us.
As we walked toward the student parking area, Tyler asked me where we were going, I answered, and then I asked him how long he and Casey had been sleeping together.
He froze mid-step and stared at me.
“Aww, c’mon, man…gimme a break.”
“How’d ya know?” he asked breathlessly.
“Hard to miss.” I smiled at him.
He nodded slowly. “Three years, but it’s not exclusive. I mean, how can it be? He has a girlfriend.”
We reached his Honda Civic, and I moved to the passenger side. “So why don’t you guys tell everybody, and then you can just be together?”
He got in and unlocked the door for me. “It’s not as easy as it sounds.”
And I was sure it wasn’t, but I had no interest in hearing a story I’d heard a thousand times. I was sure they were both expected to marry and have kids and probably had parents who would no longer pay for school if their sons came out and told them they were gay.
“Jory?”
“So what does Casey think you and I are doing right now?”
“Screwing, I’m sure.”
I nodded. That was healthy.
“How long are you in town for?”
“I have no idea. I guess it depends on what I find in the apartment you’re taking me to.”
“Whose key is it?”
“Someone I know.”
“What if you find, like, a decomposing corpse or something?”
It was actually not far from what I had been thinking myself. “I have no idea.”
“This is kind of exciting, huh?”
It was something, I just wasn’t sure what. I pointed down the street because I saw the sign. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
The sign for the Drake Garden Apartments boasted air conditioning, a twenty-four-hour on-premises laundry room, and a heated pool.
After Tyler parked and we walked inside, I used the large square key to open the security door and we walked into the courtyard.
The building was shaped like a U, with all the balconies overlooking where we were standing.
“So where to?”
I shrugged. I certainly had no idea.
“We could go door to door and try the key.” He smiled at me.
Even running back over every cool scenario from all the TV I had watched over the years yielded no easy way to figure out which lock the key fit. I had no alternative but to seek out the people in the office.
“You should go,” I told Tyler. “I could be at this for hours.”
“Oh, no way.” He smiled at me. “I’m intrigued. I gotta know what you’re gonna do next.”
“Then you’ll help?”
“Whatever you need.”
“Okay, c’mon,” I said, walking back the way we had come to go to the office we’d passed earlier. “I have a plan.”
Two minutes later Tyler went alone into the office, key in hand, armed with what I felt was a pretty plausible story.
It wouldn’t hurt, at all, that he was gorgeous.
I told him to flirt, and he asked if I was high.
I was actually feeling much more positive than I had in days.
He was back in no time to where I was, waiting next to a tree, with a stunned look on his face and a pink star-shaped Post-it note.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him. “You look weird.”
“I just can’t believe that worked.”
I scoffed. “Of course it worked. You’re cute, and you look harmless.”
“Remind me never to lose the keys to my apartment.”
I took the sticky from him. “This is it? Apartment three-ten?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks, man.” I patted his shoulder, turning to head back toward the courtyard.
“You were great. How did she know what apartment the key belonged to?”
“Apparently the three random letters engraved on the other side correspond to an apartment number.”
“I didn’t see any letters on the other side,” I said, stopping to turn the key over, inspecting it.
He showed me where I should have been looking, and I saw the small letters that looked like they had been stamped on. I might have noticed eventually, but it wouldn’t have helped even if I had discovered them on my own.
“There’s no way you would have come up with three-ten from those letters.”
“Nope, I’m lucky you were here to help me.” I started walking again.