6. Rowan
ROWAN
When I’m not spending my days at the dance studio and when I’m not at home trying to wrangle my shoes from my dog’s mouth, I find myself in my kitchen, baking. And when I’ve baked myself out of existence and ingredients, I find myself at a nearby apartment, making myself useful.
An atonement, if you will.
It takes my neighbor forever to answer the door, but that’s normal. He doesn’t like visitors. Even put up a sign that reads, No Solicitation Allowed, and then added my name in his sloppy handwriting underneath.
I ignore it like I always do. He might hate me, but he keeps opening the door.
I’m pretty sure it’s just my baking he likes.
Even so, he likes to pretend it’s not his thing. Doesn’t stop him from devouring whole plates of pie without even the need for a fork.
“What do you want?” Larry asks with his East Coast accent, his mouth turned down into a frown.
His usual thin cardigan hangs loose around him.
There’s a new hole in the right sleeve. I’ll have to swipe it when he’s not looking to mend it.
God knows how often I’ve patched the fucking thing at this point, but Larry’s never going to give it up. “And where’s Nugget?”
“I left him at home. He’s been a menace. Ate another TV remote and one of my socks. And when I didn’t give him a cookie, he peed on my rug. Hasn’t stopped jumping up and down off the sofas either, so I put him in his crate to think about his bad decisions.”
“Thought you got him some of those fancy ramps?”
“I did, but he doesn’t use them.” I roll my eyes. “He just ignores them and leaps onto the furniture instead. It’s almost like he doesn’t give a shit about future back problems.”
“He’s a puppy; doesn’t know any better.”
“He’s two,” I say in exasperation. Which, okay, could still be considered as a puppy, but I think this is just Nugget. He’s a demon. “Besides, he’s sleeping now. He will be totally fine while I check up on you for an hour.”
Larry’s frown lines deepen. “Don’t want you here without him.”
“Stop being a grouch,” I say as I breeze past him into the apartment that is the mirror to mine. “I know you like my company even without Nugget.”
“Not true.”
He grunts, his cane stomping on the floor like a child throwing a tantrum.
“I can’t hear you when you act that way. Plus, you like my brownies, so put a smile on that grouchy, handsome face,” I say with a grin.
Larry rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath. His gray hair is askew like normal. I eye the orange stain smeared on his once-white shirt under his cardigan. I’ll make sure I get a load of laundry going for him before I leave.
“I don’t like your fucking brownies,” he grumbles as I saunter into the kitchen and set the plate down on the counter. He always says he hates them, but the plate is empty when I return, and there are crumbs on his shirt from when he inhaled them in private.
“You love them,” I sing-song back and then pull open the fridge and see that it’s mostly bare. Which means I need to make sure to order in some food he can easily heat up.
Larry is nothing if not lazy.
We met two years ago when he fell on the stairs outside the apartment complex. I helped him up, and he cursed at me and threatened to sue me as I helped him through his front door. I was not deterred, and I showed up the very next day.
He tried to whack me with his cane.
I ignored him and continued to show up.
When I brought Nugget over the first time, he picked him up and tried to close the door on me.
I made sure to barge in before he could lock me out and steal my dog.
Now we have this unspoken friendship, one he tries to deny and ignore, but I know he misses me when I don’t show up for a day or two.
I decide to give him and the brownies some privacy. “I’m going to do some laundry for you.”
“Don’t touch my shit!” he calls as I walk away, but I can hear the grin in his voice. Or at least what I think could be a grin. I pretend it is for my own sanity.
I move into his cluttered bedroom and grab the hamper, then stuff a load into the washer before turning it on. A quick check of the tumble dryer shows the one I ran yesterday needs folding, so I do that.
While I’m here, I may as well change his bedsheets too. Anything to keep me busy and not thinking about Samson.
How he left me needy and wanting in the dance studio yesterday.
I thought about it far too much overnight. My cock is practically chafed at this point from how often I’ve got off to the memory of him.
When I finally return to the living room, I find Larry on the couch, a brownie crumb on his mustache, with the TV playing in the background.
“So, what’s the plan for the evening?” I ask, taking my usual chair and pulling my phone out. I get busy adding various groceries to my cart to be delivered to him.
“Being alone and relaxing in peace without you talking me to death.”
“Aw, babe. You know you’re going to live for a hundred more years, right? I’m keeping you alive and young.”
“You take years off my life every time you show up.”
I snort and turn toward him, meeting his gaze. “You love it. You know what you need?”
He glowers at me. “Nugget?”
“Ha! No. That demon dog is the one who will take years off your life, trust me. No, you need a date, a little love in your life.” Besides, Nugget might be a little shit, but he’s my little shit.
Larry huffs, tapping his cane on the floor. “I’m too old for love.”
I mean, I get that feeling. I too feel like love has passed me by, but more because I don’t think I deserve it.
I don’t deserve anything good after what I’ve done. Happiness isn’t in the cards for me. I know that now.
I study Larry thoughtfully. “You’re only sixty-five, but I mean…you do look older. That hair, my love. It needs a good brush.”
He pats his head and then lets his hand fall to his lap. “My hair is fine. Have a full head of it.”
“Exactly. Now imagine if you tried a little. You’d be a stunner.”
“Don’t want to stun. Want to be alone.”
I snort as I look down at my phone and place the order for the groceries.
“And don’t buy me any healthy shit. I don’t want it.”
“You might not, but you need it. You’re an unhealthy boob. You need to eat the vegetables I put in your fridge so you can live long and prosper.”
“Fuck that. I give them to the rabbits.”
I set my phone down between us and meet his stare. “Well, just so you know, I put vegetables in the brownies. And no, not weed. Broccoli.”
His lips part and that crumb falls from his mustache onto his shirt.
I bite back a laugh but I don’t say anything, just turn to look at the old Western show playing on the TV.
We’re quiet for a long moment, and my mind drifts to Samson, the mystery man, before I force it back to Larry. To my current distraction.
My grump of a neighbor is a mystery too. I don’t know much about him, just know he’s a widower, seems not to care about making friends, and walks with a limp.
I’ve tried to ask about his life, but he never answers truthfully.
He once said he was a spy, and a dangerous one at that.
That made me snort my soda out through my nose. Do not recommend.
I haven’t pried any more than that. Maybe that’s a coping mechanism. Maybe not knowing, not caring as much, means they won’t be taken from me too.
“Do we have to watch this show?” I blurt. “It’s boring. How about a nice romance? There’s a nice gay one on right now. It’s all the rage.”
“Don’t like the queers.”
“That’s a lie.”
He snorts, but I see the twinkle in his eyes.
“Because you love me, deep down, and I’m gay as fuck, Larry.”
I reach for the remote, and he swats my hand away with his cane, but he lets me turn the show on anyway. And if I see a little tear in his eye at a particularly emotional moment, I say nothing.
Larry is more than he seems.
My pesky brain decides to return to Samson. To the mystery he presents.
He’s more than he seems too. That dagger… I pull my phone out and open the internet browser, surprised I haven’t done this sooner, and type St. Dismas and his first name into the search bar. I don’t know his last, I realize.
When his picture pops up almost immediately, I gasp, my hands tingling.
What the fuck? Samson is Samson Buckingham? Like, the richest family in St. Dismas?
I had no idea. I mean, I don’t have time to follow high society, and honestly, don’t really care about most of them, but I know the family name. Everyone does. Fuck!
“Why do you look like you’re taking a shit? Don’t do that on my couch.”
I see he’s paused the show, not wanting to miss any part of it. I knew he’d like it. I mean, who wouldn’t?
“I just found out a guy I like is rich…like, way out of my league.” I scratch the side of my head, embarrassed.
Is that why he always keeps running off? He realizes that the dancer he’s touching is a poor fuck who takes him to cheap motels? God, how humiliating. If I’d known…
I shake my head. I would have done the same thing. That motel was accessible and cheap. It served its purpose, and he didn’t seem bothered by any of it.
“Who?” Larry asks, his hand tightening on his cane, like he’s about to whack me in the head with it.
“He’s a Buckingham…”
Larry’s knuckles turn white as he grips his cane tighter. “What?”
“One of them has been meeting up with me and…you know…we’ve been having fun.”
Larry grunts. “Don’t like that family. Don’t trust them. People with that much money are never good inside. Trust me.”
I cock my head at that. “Why does it seem like you know them?”
His eyes shutter, and he turns his gaze back to the TV. “Don’t fucking know them. Just heard bad things.”
“I dunno. I mean, I think they’re pretty philanthropic, from what this article says. The eldest runs a scholarship fund.”
“They only do that to make up for the bad shit they do.”
I don’t know what that means, but my mind goes to the dagger at Samson’s hip, and I chew on my bottom lip. Maybe Larry is onto something. Or maybe Larry is an older man with nothing to do but be conspiratorial.
Maybe I need to get him out of the house to do some yoga or something.
Maybe he could take Nugget for a walk.