Page 94 of The Guy in the Alley

“Not too shabby,” he said, adding the last receipt to the smallest pile. “Forty-six bucks in personal gas expenses.”

I bit into my waffle and bobbed my head, agreeing that was low. I mean, we used the car quite a bit. Especially him when he went out to Elsie and Alvin.

“That’s cheaper than the CTA,” I said.

He bit into his waffle, too, and hummed appreciatively.

I side-eyed him and smiled faintly.

This was gonna be our new normal. He and I together, doing our thing as a team. But it would be nice to have it confirmed verbally, as awesome as the kiss had been outside the bar earlier.

He got whipped cream on his upper lip, and my smile widened.

“It’s you and me now, right?” I asked. “We’re together and shit?”

He coughed around a mouthful of waffle, grinned, and reached for a paper towel on the table.

He wiped his mouth and chewed faster. “I was tryna pace myself till you got outta the shower, and then you pounce when I’ve stuffed my face?”

My bad?

He swallowed the last of it and gave my thigh a squeeze. “I want nothing more, Trace. Just be patient. I’m…I’m struggling to accept that this can happen to me. A few months ago, I was out on the streets, hoping the next snowstorm was gonna kill me, and now I have a steady job, a home, and…you. You’re…” He let out a breath and shook his head.

I set aside my plate and scooted closer, and I grabbed his hand in both mine.

“I’m your bright spot?” I tried to keep it light.

The corners of his mouth twisted up. “You’re a bit more than that. You’re my jackass too.”

Very funny.

Then he got serious. “You make me wanna live for myself, not just to be there for my boy.” He leaned in and rested his forehead to mine, and I let the blanket of peacefulness fall over us. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to describe what I feel because I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

Neither had I, and I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. It could be overwhelming. Several times a day, I found myself having a knee-jerk, violent reaction to a random thought, only because he made me feel so fucking much.

I knew what Dad meant back in the day now. How crushes made you wanna keep that person to yourself so you could overdose on them, all while…love… Love made you wanna shout from the rooftops.

“That makes two of us,” I murmured. And now I had to show him. “Come on. I wanna show you something.” I rose to my feet and held on to his hand. “I understand about the patience. You’ve been through a lot—you gotta let things settle. But you also once told me that you have to be quick on your feet and think about the consequences of every step Alvin takes. So this is me trying to do the same thing.”

He followed me out of the room, and I threaded our fingers together.

“My plans will probably scream impatience,” I admitted. “But I hope you’ll see it another way. I have all the patience for how these plans will be executed—I just want you to know I have the future on my mind, and that I’m not taking any of this lightly.”

We came to a stop outside the bedroom farthest down the hall.

I spotted Ziggy in the doorway to the front room. The lazy little shit wasn’t curious enough to tag along.

“This can be Alvin’s room.” I leaned against the doorframe and scanned the empty walls.

“Trace, you?—”

“No, please lemme do this.” I cleared my throat and swallowed a flurry of unease. He had to hear what I had to say. “We have a home, Ben. He wouldn’t have to go from one place to the next in a single day. He can come here, spend as much time as he wants—hell, we’ll put in a fish tank or whatever. Give him something that makes him wanna come back over and over until he’s ready for a sleepover, then two and three. I don’t care how slow the transition is. We have all this space—we should put it to use?—”

“Please stop.” Ben withdrew from me and scrubbed his hands over his face.

Fuck. My stomach became a knotted mess, and my eyes burned. Like, what the fuck? All of a sudden, I was terrified? And mortified. I coughed and folded my arms over my chest, and my ears started ringing. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’d missed something. This wasn’t what he wanted. I was a fucking idiot?—

“Christ.” The word left him in an exhale, and he let his hands fall to his sides as he peered up at the ceiling. Then he dropped his gaze to mine again, and for a moment, he looked so raw. Older, tired, vulnerable, scared, and frustrated. “Trace, I… You’re telling me everything I wanna hear, at the same time as those exact things scare the fuck outta me, ’cause…what happens if you change your mind? What if all this becomes too much for you? You call this our home—and I can’t describe what that does to me—but it’s still yours. In the event we break up, it goes without saying that I’m the one moving out, and then I gotta pack up my autistic son too. I already did that once.” He swallowed, and his eyes turned a little glassy. “When Lindsey died, we couldn’t afford a slow transition. I had to immediately drive him to my folks, and that was that. He had to go through an incredibly traumatic year because of that move alone. He didn’t even grieve his mother’s death until months after the funeral, because he was balls deep in chaos that pushed him in and out of panic and apathetic periods.”

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