Chapter 10
“You seem distracted.”
Jacob looked up from the spotless carpet, alarmed. “What? Oh. Sorry.”
David Stanton cocked his head at him. In terms of reactions, it was maybe the biggest he’d gotten from David so far. He was a very low-key guy, emoting so little that Jacob could already picture Felix calling him a robot.
Jacob squirmed, looking around the living room.
He didn’t want to think about Felix right now.
Looking at David Stanton’s house felt like a betrayal, even though he had no reason to feel like he was letting Felix down.
Felix had to understand that Jacob couldn’t live with a guy who forgot to do his own washing half the time. Let alone date him.
What was Shane thinking the other day, asking him something like that?
Jacob would never date Felix. More importantly, Felix would never date Jacob.
Felix didn’t date. Even if he did, Felix went for fun, interesting guys.
Not guys like Jacob, who wore pocket protectors and carried wet wipes for cleanliness emergencies.
“Is something the matter?” David asked.
Jacob startled. He’d zoned out again, rubbing the packet of wet wipes in his pocket. They were right next to Felix’s hand cream.
“I’m fine,” Jacob said, ignoring the unidentifiable tide of emotion welling in him as his fingers brushed the hand cream. “You were saying something about the insulation?”
“State of the art,” David said. “It’s a new house, so it doesn’t have any upcoming maintenance. The heating is economical and eco-friendly.”
He walked out of the living room. Jacob followed him, trying to get his head back in the game.
David had invited him over for a house tour.
He had to pay attention. His parents had talked to him for an hour this morning, giving him a list of things to ask.
They had also told him to bring pepper spray in case David secretly wanted to kidnap him, which Jacob ignored.
“So you own the house,” Jacob said as David led them into the kitchen. “That must be nice.”
“I am very lucky,” David agreed. “It was passed down to me from my grandparents.”
“But you still need a roommate?”
“Financially, no. But I have a tendency to… how did they put it? Isolate myself.”
“Oh,” Jacob said, unsure how to take that. “Okay.”
“I won’t need you to be overly social,” David continued as they walked past a stainless-steel fridge and a kitchen island stacked with a glut of cleaning supplies. There were so many Jacob wondered what could possibly need cleaning—every room was immaculate.
“I would only need small talk whenever we encounter each other in the kitchen,” David continued.
“Sure,” Jacob said, still eyeing the massive pile of cleaning products. “Sounds great.”
David traced Jacob’s gaze and nodded. “Ah. That isn’t for me. That’s for a… client, I suppose I could call them. Have you ever followed a chore chart?”
“What?” Jacob tore his gaze away from the stack of cleaning products to the fridge where David was pointing to a laminated chore chart, everything sorted into columns.
“Oh, man. No, I haven’t, but I did a lot of chores back home.
That was actually something I wanted to talk to you about—I would love to follow a chore chart. ”
“Good,” David said. He pushed his ever-present sleeves up to check his watch, and Jacob caught a shocking flash of black curling around his forearms. Did David have tattoos?
“I’m afraid I will have to say goodbye,” David told him. “I have someone else coming over soon.”
“To look at the house?” Jacob asked, confused.
“No, no. You’re the only one I’ve seriously considered, as I said.
” David smiled, a little stilted, like he was trying to be warm and not quite getting there.
Jacob could relate: he felt like he was always smiling like that.
Polite and perfunctory, unless he was talking to Felix.
With Felix, he could be himself. For better or worse.
“I’ll walk you out,” David said. They headed into the hall together, and David continued: “So what do you think?”
“It’s perfect,” Jacob replied. “The house, the situation, the rent—everything is perfect.”
It was mostly true. He wasn’t fully on board with the idea of living with someone he made small talk with and nothing more.
Half of him was relieved he didn’t have to make a friend, something he hadn’t done since grade school.
But the other half of him couldn’t help but be sad.
He’d always pictured his first place full of laughter and warmth.
Of course he did. Until very recently, he’d assumed he would live with Felix.
David waved Jacob goodbye at the front porch, promising he would email him the lease to look at. As well as notes for their most recent stats class, since Jacob had uncharacteristically slept in that day after lying awake in bed with a formless worry churning in his gut.
You’re making the right choice, Jacob reminded himself as he walked down the pristine path toward the front gate. You can’t live with Felix. He doesn’t believe in fabric softener. He sings in the shower. He would probably put a cast iron pan in a dishwasher.
All of this was true. But if Jacob looked deeper—which he had been unwillingly doing much more often since he went to college—he knew that the real reason had nothing to do with Felix’s lack of house-training.
It was because he had always been worried about getting too close to Felix.
He didn’t believe his parents when they said Felix was bad for him.
But he did believe—even if only in the furthest, murkiest depths of his mind—that if he moved in with Felix, he would get too close. And then something bad would happen.
He pushed the gate open, so deep in thought that he almost missed the flash of movement from down the street. Jacob looked up and stopped in surprise.
It was Felix. He was turned away from Jacob, heading toward the street corner. He was panting, walking oddly, like he had just been sprinting.
“Felix,” Jacob called.
Felix spun around. His eyes went wide, his smile just a little too big as he registered Jacob.
“Bosom buddy,” Felix cried, jogging up to him. “Old pal! What are you doing in this little patch of heaven?”
“Little patch of…?” Jacob stopped, shaking his head. He’d never heard Felix say that before in his life, which meant Felix was panicking and throwing out random words to distract him.
“Did you follow me?” Jacob asked, incredulous.
Felix paused. “Yeah, actually. Your parents called. They wanted me to tail you in case you got kidnapped.”
Jacob’s stomach fell. “Oh, shit. Please tell me you’re joking.”
Felix’s semi-serious expression fell into a delighted grin. “Hook, line and sinker, man. You seriously still fall for this shit?”
“Thank god,” Jacob sighed, sagging with relief. “Wait, then why are you here?”
“I’m going for a walk,” Felix said. “I exercise now.”
“No you don’t.”
“Maybe I want to be different, too, okay?” Felix scuffed his sneaker against the sidewalk, then admitted, “I need stamina to fuck.”
Jacob believed that. Though he still wasn’t convinced that Felix didn’t follow him here to see what David’s house was like.
Felix cleared his throat. “So, wanna hang? I just need to shoot off a text and then I’m free as a bird.”
“Sure,” Jacob said, still suspicious. “To who?”
“Group project,” Felix said.
“I thought that ended last week.”
“New one,” Felix said dismissively, digging his phone out of his pocket. He typed something quick, then shoved it away and turned toward the house Jacob had just walked out of. “So this is the great David’s house! Is he cool?”
“He is,” Jacob said defensively. “I mean, he seems like he’d be the ideal roommate.”
“Cool,” Felix said, rocking back and forth on his battered sneakers. “Cool, cool, cool. Awesome. Look at you, making new friends!”
Jacob laughed uncomfortably. David wasn’t going to be his friend, judging on that comment on small talk and their identical tendency to avoid people. But he didn’t want to admit that.
“Just remember not to make any rash decisions,” Felix continued. “You have two months until the semester ends! Anything can happen in two months.”
Jacob dropped his fake smile. Felix was really still trying to talk him into moving in with him? He hadn’t brought it up in weeks. Jacob had hoped he’d gotten over it. “Dude,” he said. “I’ve made my choice. I told you.”
Felix laughed, too loudly. “Sure! But future Jacob of two months from now—”
“Mess. You’re not changing my mind.”
“Right,” Felix said. He tugged at his blond hair, looking around the street like he was searching for something.
Jacob felt like shit. His go-to coping mechanism when he felt like shit was to get away from everyone.
Or failing that, go rage to Felix. But if he was becoming a new version of himself, he could get cooler coping mechanisms, right?
Social ones. Fun ones. Maybe if Jacob tried it enough, he would start finding it fun as well.
Like sex—he was nervous at first, but he just needed to get into it.
“What if…” Felix continued haltingly. “I mean, what if I—”
Jacob talked over him. “Even if you suddenly got house-trained, it wouldn’t work.
We’d drive each other crazy. We drove each other crazy during sleepovers, how do you think we’d do if we lived together?
” Jacob laughed, skittish for reasons he couldn’t figure out. "Hey, can we go somewhere? Like a bar?”
Felix said nothing. Jacob had cut him off, he realized. Again.
“Sorry,” he said. “You were saying something.”
Felix swallowed. A strange expression passed over his face—disappointment? Regret?—but only for a second before he pulled up a tight smile.
“Nothing,” Felix said. “You want to go to a bar? Did David actually kidnap you? Are you a clone who actually knows how to have a good time?”
He swayed close, tugging at Jacob’s cheek like he was inspecting the skin.
Jacob slapped him away. “Cut it out, man. Do you want to go or not?”
Felix rocked back. He didn’t even try to grab for him again. He just stood there, watching Jacob with a strange smile.
“Brand-new Jacob,” Felix said quietly. For once, he didn’t sound happy about it. Then he grinned. “Let’s do it!”