They drove back to Rye’s in silence. He searched his brain for a single, solitary thing to say, but it was a vast, razed field, and every attempt stuck in his throat.
Rye was out of the car the second Charlie shifted into Park.
“Thanks,” he said uselessly. “I’m sorry.”
His stomach was a hollow pit.
“Come to the store tomorrow or the next day,” Charlie instructed. He was all business. “I’ll change the bandage. And I’ll bring your clothes.”
Rye nodded, then fled inside. The house smelled dank and moldy. The chill was biting. It would be dark soon. Rye scooped some food into Marmot’s bowl and climbed into the sleeping bag. He was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. Even with the padding of the bag, it wasn’t nearly as soft as Charlie’s rug had been.
Charlie’s house had smelled good too. Clean and fresh and airy.
He stared at the ceiling until the sun set and he couldn’t see anything anymore. Then Marmot came, pawing to be let into the sleeping bag and breathing cat food breath in his face. She settled in, her tiny body his only comfort.
“You made a friend, huh?”
Marmot purred.
“Sorry you’ll probably never see her again,” Rye said. “I fucked up. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said over and over.
He’d fucked things up before they’d even talked about the house. What the hell had he been thinking? He’d seen something in Charlie’s eyes that he’d...badly misread, obviously.
He pulled his hood up, letting the jasmine smell of his clean hair surround him, and tried to escape into sleep.
Chapter Eight
Charlie
It had been three days and Rye hadn’t come.
The day after he’d taken Rye home with him, Charlie carefully folded his laundered clothes into a bag and added first aid supplies. He took the bag to work and waited all day for Rye to come.
The next day, he got up early and went for a run, and then he did it again. For reasons he didn’t care to examine, he washed Rye’s clothes again, folded them again, placed them in the bag again. Rye still didn’t come.
Rye, dead from blood poisoning, or lying on the ground unable to come in because of infection and pain.
He told Marie what had happened. The kiss. But when he told her Rye was probably just trying to say thank you, she frowned.
“Did it ever occur to you that someone might want to kiss you just because they like you?” she asked.
He dismissed it.
That night, Charlie made chicken in mushroom soup. He made it every Thursday. Monday, it was meatloaf; Tuesday, spaghetti and meatballs; Wednesday, pizza; Friday, beef burritos. On the weekends he ate the leftovers.
As he was eating, Jane on the chair next to him eating her chicken pâté—he matched her meals to his; it was companionable—he thought about Rye.
What was Rye eating for dinner? Did he eat real meals at restaurants, or was he subsisting, as Charlie suspected, on gas station offerings? He put some leftovers for Rye into a container. Then he took them out again.
He wondered a lot of other things about Rye too. Like, did he feel the need to kiss anyone who did something marginally nice for him? And if Charlie hadn’t pulled away, what else might he have done? Pressed his lithe body against Charlie’s and let Charlie feel the lines of muscle and bone, the whisper of soft skin? Put his hot mouth on Charlie’s neck and his hands all over Charlie? Charlie shivered with desire at what could have happened next, if Charlie had let him.
Rye was exasperating, defensive, stubborn, and snarly. But he was also determined and brave. He’d moved a thousand miles from home and taken on a huge project by himself. Charlie admired that, even if watching Rye take on that project completely wrong made Charlie want to scream.
On the third day that Rye didn’t come into the shop, Charlie went to him.
* * *
Rye’s car was there, but all was quiet when Charlie pulled up. He knocked, then called, “Rye?” when he didn’t hear anything.
He heard swearing, then creaking wood, then Rye yelled, “What?”
“It’s Charlie.”
“Yeah, I know. What?”
Charlie rolled his eyes.
“You were supposed to come to the store so I could take care of your leg. Lemme in and I’ll look at it.”
“Um. That’s okay.”
“Rye.”
Charlie heard his voice do that thing that Jack always called his dad voice and forced himself to change his tone.
“Do you want your leg to fill with pus and go septic and—”
The door cracked open before he could finish painting his grisly picture.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than chase after people and tend to their wounds?” Rye grumbled.
Nope.
“Yeah, I do,” Charlie said.
Rye eased the door open just enough to slide his slim form through. His hair was a mess and there was a crease in his cheek. He pushed his hair out of his face, crossed his arms over his chest, and stuck out his leg.