Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

“I don’t know if I can get a loan,” Rye said. “I’ve probably got pretty bad credit.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“And you trust me enough to do that? You don’t even know me.”

“It’s a house. What are you gonna do—steal it?”

Rye was staring at the ground and when he glanced up his eyes shone. Charlie tactfully pretended not to notice.

“Okay,” Rye said. “I think you’re bananas, but okay.”

Charlie winked. “Potassium’s good for you.”

Rye snorted.

“There’s just one thing,” Charlie went on, ignoring Rye’s look of suspicion. He aimed for casual, but his muscles were tight with worry that Rye would say no.

“You can’t stay here.” Rye opened his mouth but Charlie waved him off. “No. We’ll be ripping up the whole floor, Rye. The walls will come down. You might as well sleep on the ground outside.”

“Maybe—”

“Please don’t tell me you’re such a city boy that you don’t know why it’s a bad idea to sleep in the middle of the woods with a cat.”

“Don’t worry, they have murderers in Seattle.”

“Do they have bears in Seattle?”

“Sure, if you go to the right bar on the right night.” Rye waggled his eyebrows. “I can’t afford a hotel, man. I’ll get a tent or something. I’ll be fine.”

“God, you’re infuriating!” Charlie roared. Rye was like a cat with its claws caught in fabric that tried to bite you if you attempted to free it. “I have a guest room.”

Rye snorted and clutched at his head, dragging fingers through his hair.

“You don’t even know me!” he said again. “I could murder you in your sleep. Or, or steal your stereo, or...”

Charlie was beginning to think Rye was reminding himself of the fact that they didn’t know each other.

“I know you don’t know me, but there are locks on the bedrooms and I’m gone at the store all day. I promise, you’re safe with me.”

“Yeah, I bet Bluebeard gave the same speech.”

Charlie laughed. “Well my locks are on the inside of the doors. But feel free to check the basement for murdered wives before you commit to anything.”

Rye looked at his blighted house, then back at Charlie.

“Marmot can come?”

“Marmot can come.”

Charlie could see the struggle inside Rye.

“I can just crash on the couch—”

“Why would I want you taking up my couch when I have a spare room?”

Charlie couldn’t read the expression on Rye’s face so he decided to interpret it as cautiously optimistic.

“You’re, like, not a real person,” Rye said. “You don’t just invite strangers to live with you. You don’t just offer to help strangers rebuild creepy houses they inherited from grandfathers they’ve never met.”

“Is that a yes, then?” Charlie asked.

When Rye gave a slow, puzzled nod, Charlie felt like he had won a prize.

Chapter Nine

Rye

Rye dropped his duffel on the chair, and perched on the edge of the bed as Marmot sniffed the corners of Charlie’s guest room.

For a few weeks, he’d been on his own, and now here he was again, crashing in someone else’s house, preparing to accustom himself to yet another person’s habits so they didn’t kick him out.

“At least this time there’s a bed,” he muttered to Marmot.

Charlie had told him to make himself at home, but Rye had only felt at home once in his life. They’d called the house Skeletor for serpentine reasons of the moment that Rye no longer remembered. It was a five-bedroom house in Beacon Hill and there were six of them, so thrilled to have found it that they’d signed the lease even though the move-in was immediate and some of their leases weren’t up.

They shared food, cooked together, rotated chores, calculated each person’s rent based on their income and other expenses. They took care of each other.

It had lasted two and a half years.

Rye would move nearly every year for the next six years, until the eviction that found him couch hopping before he came to Garnet Run.

Through all those apartments, with all those roommates, Rye had gotten a great deal of experience in living with a huge variety of people with different backgrounds, levels of cleanliness, attitudes, worldviews, and personalities.

Before, when he lived with his parents, even though he’d had his own room, it hadn’t felt like home either. He’d still contorted himself—only those had been psychic contortions. The kind that made you smaller and smaller until you threatened to disappear if you didn’t get out. So he had.

Now he had another room of his own in another person’s home. But this one was nothing like any of the cramped apartments or sublets he’d stayed in. This was a grown-up’s house, with a laundry room and hand towels and no detritus of previous housemates or furniture accumulated from the cast-offs of passers-through.

There was something ruthlessly practical about most of the choices Charlie had made about the space, as if they’d had to pass a test of neutrality so as not to offend anyone. Even so, Rye could extract patterns of color, shape, and angle. He could tell Charlie liked cool colors and natural materials, and that he enjoyed soft things to touch.