Hawk (Sex and Bullets 2)

Crap, I don’t remember any of this, although I’m pretty sure I must have walked this way yesterday to get to the bedroom.

No recollection. Nada.

Scary stuff.

And just how big is this house? I’ve been walking down this passage for at least five minutes now. Doors dot its length, but what if I butt into someone bathing or sleeping or having sex?

I bet I’ll know the kitchen when I see it, right? Can’t be that much different from that of normal people.

I hope.

My stomach rumbles as I go down a short flight of stairs and find myself in a spacious… hall? What do you call an empty space with more bay windows and paintings hanging on the walls?

No, not paintings, I realize when I pass in front of one and stop. Photographs.

Huge, black and white photographs of people. Parts of people. Parts of faces, and bodies, and things. Grainy, their texture like oil, like liquid metal.

Breathtaking.

I look for a signature at the bottom, and I find it in the right hand corner.

JHFleming.

I blink. Jamie Hawk Fleming. Jesus. I didn’t know he took pictures. Such amazing, striking pictures. He’s an artist.

One more new facet to the guy I thought I knew. He’s courageous, and selfless, and kind of crazy but also crazy-brave, and artistic, and sexy.

Stop it, Layla. It doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter if he’s fascinating in every way that counts, if he’s so much more than you imagined him to be.

He’s not yours.

Shaking my head to clear it, I wander among his photos, and could have stayed there forever if not for the hunger gnawing at my insides.

But hunger wins out.

***

It looks like a kitchen. It has counters and a fridge and an oven.

It has to be a kitchen.

Right? Despite its overwhelming cleanness, the shine of the counters, the spotlessness of the table in the middle.

Uneasy, way out of my element, I wander over to the shiny silver fridge and pull the door open.

Ah. Food. I’m in the right place. Yay!

Bread. Jam. Butter. Cheese. My mouth waters as I plunk everything on the counter and hunt for a plate and a butter knife.

I hope Storm won’t mind me eating his food. If he were around, I’d ask him, but I don’t know where he is, and he won’t miss a slice of bread and cheese, right?

Not like he’s poor or anything.

I’ve just barely managed to butter one slice of bread, and I’ve dipped my knife into the jam, when someone clears their throat behind me.

I swear I jump two feet off the floor, my heart in my throat. You’d think I was stealing diamonds, not a slice of bread.