Chapter Five
Calvin
The breeze outside the laundromat felt good on my skin, cutting through the humid film of sweat and detergent that clung after every shift.
Summer in Temptation wasn’t supposed to be anything but dry, but in the corner lot where the Wash-O-Matic sat, it always felt like you were standing in the exhaust of a thousand hairdryers.
The building was a box of brick and scorched glass built just after the war, repainted and retrofitted with upgraded machines that still managed to sound like tanks rolling over a field.
Lighting my cigarette, I leaned against the chipped cinder block wall and let the smoke drag heat and tension from my chest. Two more hours and my shift would be over. Normally I didn’t care about the time. But today was different.
Today, I was seeing Riot after work. Every time I thought about it, my chest felt like it was about to vibrate out of my body, like the inside was made of glass and the sound of his name alone could shatter it.
I tried not to fixate on that, but I was staring at the clock through the smeared front windows, willing it to move faster.
I took a deep drag, felt the burn snap behind my eyes, and tried to remind myself that I’d survived Riot before.
He was just a guy. A guy who’d pulled me into his orbit, who could make me laugh with one word, who looked at me like I was worth more than a handful of quarters for the spin cycle.
But also a guy who could be trouble, the kind that left you bleeding and grinning in equal measure.
I’d barely exhaled before the laundromat door swung open so hard it rattled the frame.
Mrs. Hensley stood there, clutching a laundry bag tight to her chest like she was afraid someone might snatch it.
Her hair was a swirl of gray in lacquered waves, and her glasses magnified her eyes until she looked perpetually startled.
“Sorry to bother you,” she said, eyes darting to the end of my cigarette as if she could will it out by staring. She wore the same cardigan no matter the temperature, and I sometimes wondered if she was hiding bruises or just preferred the feeling of being wrapped tight.
“What’s the problem, Mrs. Hensley?” I asked, forcing a polite smile and grinding the smoke down to a nub against the wall. My patience was thinner than the soles of her canvas shoes, but I kept it together. I always did.
“The dryer is making a funny sound.”
“It’s a dryer,” I said. “Funny sounds are sort of their thing.”
She pursed her lips, the lipstick feathered into the lines above her mouth like a time-lapse photo of aging. She always smelled faintly of powder and peppermint, a combination that somehow managed to be both comforting and unsettling.
Fated mates one night, enemies to lovers the next—reading moods change.
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“I’m sorry to bother you,” she repeated, but this time it sounded more like a warning. She’d stand there all afternoon if I didn’t follow her back inside and deal with whatever was wrong.
“Yep.” I made a show of dusting off my hands and rolled the tension out of my neck. I counted to three in my head then flicked the butt into the gutter where it landed among a hundred others. “Lead me to the tragedy.”
She turned, shuffling back through the door with the bag pressed so hard against her it looked like she might suffocate it. I followed, letting the door swing shut behind me with a soft clang.
I checked the clock on the wall. Only ten minutes had passed since the last time I’d looked.
Time should’ve been sprinting. I had plans, adult plans that mostly involved trying not to cover Riot in drool.
Inside, the heat slapped me in the face. The place smelled like detergent, hot cotton, and the ghost of bleach.
Three older women sat in plastic chairs near the folding tables, chatting like old friends.
The radio, locked to the oldies, was playing something horn-heavy and syrupy from a decade I’d never existed in.
It mixed with the drone of the machines and the thumping of wet towels spinning so hard they might launch through the glass at any second.
There should’ve been comfort in the monotony, but today every sound grated on me a little more than usual
Mrs. Hensley pointed at dryer fourteen. “That one. It squeaks.”
The funny-sounding machine was the big industrial dryer by the front window, the one everyone wanted because it was closest to the exit.
I leaned down, pressing my ear against the humming steel drum.
Sure enough, the sound was off. Not just the normal rattling of spare change and zippers, but something deeper, like a grinding from the inside out.
She leaned in like we were inspecting a crime scene. “Yes, that’s the noise,” she whispered.
Straightening, I popped the latch, letting the metal door swing open, and was hit with a blast of fabric-softener-scented steam.
Inside was a mess of sheets and towels, knotted together around a pair of gym shoes that looked like they’d been run through a woodchipper. I reached in, careful not to burn my hand, and fished out the culprit. Half a plastic spatula, melted and fused to the bottom of the dryer barrel.
“Fucking great,” I muttered, prying the spatula off with a screwdriver from my back pocket. Mrs. Hensley gasped.
“Oh dear. Is it… broken?”
The woman sounded like she’d just watched a surgeon pull an organ out of a patient.
“Nah, it’s fine. Just gotta scrape this off so it stops howling.”
I worked at the mess while she watched, nerves ratcheting up with every clang of the screwdriver.
It slipped, making me bust my knuckles. I cursed and worked at it with a vengeance.
A melted piece of plastic would not get the better of me.
“I really am sorry to—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, not unkindly. “Keeps the day interesting.”
Once the dryer was clear, I set it spinning again. The howl was gone, replaced by the ordinary thrum of moving parts. Satisfied, I wiped my hands on my pants and checked the time. Five minutes killed. That was it.
My shift was never going to end.
Mrs. Hensley appeared relieved. “Thank you, young man,” she said. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No problem.” I walked toward the door, ready to finish my break and think about Riot. “That’s what I’m here for. To mediate between customers and temperamental appliances.”
One of the other ladies, Mrs. Ortega, lifted a pair of enormous beige underwear from her basket and called across the room, “Young man, are these dryers running hot today?”
I paused then turned. “Are your clothes dry?”
“Almost.”
“Then yes, ma’am.”
She nodded like I’d said something profound. As long as my answer had made her happy, I would be the wisest laundry attendant on the planet. The thought crossed my mind that maybe doing these little things, like fixing what could be fixed, counted for more than I’d given it credit for.
At the door, a familiar voice called, “You work too hard, pumpkin.”
Niles strolled in, wearing sunglasses too large for his face and a pale pink mesh shirt.
His shorts were pink as well but not the soft color of his shirt.
Aggressive pink. A weaponized flamingo. In his right hand, a sweating cup of iced coffee, and on his wrists, a riot of elastic bracelets and friendship bands that rattled and clacked with every gesture like they were sending out Morse code.
The outfit would’ve been outright hostile if he didn’t wear it with so much deranged confidence.
He paused at the threshold, surveying the laundromat like he was judging the turnout at the opening of a new club.
“You dress like a corrupted fairy.”
He looked down at himself, appearing pleased. “Thank you.”
Niles kissed the air near my cheek then recoiled. “It’s one thousand degrees in here. Why are your pores still open? Leave this place. Run to the sea.”
“There is no sea.”
“Then a ditch.” He pulled me outside. “If you didn’t have me, you would shrivel into a prune. You’re welcome.”
I lit my cigarette and looked him over again. “You look like a cocktail.”
“I need one.” Niles fanned himself. “Why is it always a hundred degrees in there? You people are boiling those poor women alive.”
“Older people love the heat.” I leaned back against the sun-warmed retaining wall, letting the breeze tease at what little hair wasn’t sweat-plastered to my forehead.
Niles hoisted himself up next to me, legs crossed at the ankle, and set his coffee down with a flourish, as if it was a goblet at a Roman feast.
He had a way of making the mundane look fun. The mesh shirt, the shorts, the braided bracelets stacked up his arms, even the nicotine stains on his fingertips—all carefully curated, all a little armor for the world outside the Cohen household.
I admired him for it, even envied him sometimes, though I’d never admit it out loud. If I tried to wear what he wore, I’d end up looking like an underfunded street magician. On Niles, everything fit together, the way chaos sometimes did.
“My grandmother used to keep her house at eighty-four, year-round,” I told him, stretching my legs. “You’d open the door and your contacts would fuse to your eyeballs immediately. Maybe it’s an old-timers thing.”
“Or maybe old people just want to see us melt first,” Niles said. He stole my cigarette with a practiced dip, fingers brushing mine, and took a long, showy drag, turning his face skyward as he exhaled. “Revenge of the geriatric.”
Niles had been my friend for years, and I adored him. Too bad his family didn’t feel the same way.
Niles’ family was the kind of old money that still pretended not to have it.
His father, Mr. Cohen, ran a chain of private clinics and donated to the sort of political interests that always made the news.
Niles’ childhood had been a revolving door of nannies and tutors and chauffeurs, the rooms of their house so big and empty you felt like a lost tourist in a foreign museum.
He’d gone to the best schools, learned to hide his intelligence behind a layer of comedic timing, and spent years perfecting the art of not appearing to care.
He cared a lot, though. That was the problem.