Page 44 of Blue Collar Hotties

“I won’t be here for long.”

My feet catch on the threadbare rug and I stumble, catching my balance at the last second. Is it really that bad? I peer around us with panicked eyes. Will I need to put out another freaking listing?

The sofa is lumpy, yeah, and the cushions are sagging. There’s an old coffee stain on one arm from before I moved in. The coffee table is scuffed, and there’s barely room to walk around the furniture before you’re bumping into walls, and the sounds of the street are always loud, even in the middle of the night.

The other rooms are no better, either. But what happened to this only being a place to crash?

I hug my waist, turning to Lincoln. He’s unhooking the bags from his shoulders, lowering them to the rug with a grimace and a sigh. Guess they were heavy, after all. “Um. I cleaned earlier, but I could go over the apartment again…”

“That’s not it.” My new roommate taps the camera bag still slung around his neck. “I never stay in one place, Jenny. Not for long.”

“Oh.”

Why is my stomach sinking like that? It’s a pain to find another roommate, sure, but it’s notthatbig of a deal. But from the way my insides are squirming, you’d think I desperately want this man to stay.

Two seconds, he’s been here, and it’s like I’m gonna sit on the floor, hug his strong thigh, and beg him not to go. I really need to get more sleep.

“I’ll give you plenty of notice, though.” Lincoln’s frowning at me, visibly concerned as he tugs off the camera bag and sets it on the coffee table. “And I’ll help you find another roommate. Relax, sweetheart.”

Relax?

Sweetheart?

I sway toward him, hugging my waist tighter, like I’ve been yanked by an invisible string, but I don’t get this. I don’t getanyof this.

I don’t like people. Period. And I definitely don’t like being around strange men. They’re harsh and unpredictable. Untrustworthy and crude.

“Iamrelaxed,” I rasp.

Lincoln’s mouth quirks up on one side. His gray eyes say:liar.

“Please give me a full month’s notice,” I say then, snippy as hell, because it’s that or melt into a muddle of confused, sad goo on the floor. It takes effort, but I turn on my heel and march out of the living room, because hey, it’s a tiny apartment. He doesn’t really need a tour.

No, Lincoln doesn’t needanythingfrom me, and he’ll be gone soon anyway, stranger or not.

Damn it.

Lincoln

Two weeks later

A cold breeze skates over the back of my neck, and I adjust my grip on my camera. Gravel crunches as I shift my weight, and I stare through the viewfinder at the abandoned rail yard. Old train carriages lie scattered across the landscape, some on rails, some listing to the side on the pockmarked ground; some barely scratched and others burned-out husks.

Bright graffiti covers every inch of metal, and tangled weeds burst through the stony ground, climbing the carriages and strangling the rails. I wouldn’t be shocked to feel a vine twining around my ankle.

It’s evocative. Brutal. The perfect addition to this city series. And this is the ideal light for this shoot—bright but overcast—and yet I can’t focus. Again.

I twist the camera lens a fraction, jaw clenched and chest tight.

Why can’t I fucking focus?

It’s thatfeeling. That prickle of nerves; that endless whisper in my brain that there’s something important in this city, something I need to find. And it’s been worse for these last two weeks than ever before, the urgent feeling so relentless that I’ve only slept a few hours each night.

Jenny must think I’m out of my damn mind. She keeps finding me crashed out at the kitchen table at the break ofdawn, my face buried in my arms, my camera abandoned on the scratched wood.

Jenny.

Swallowing hard, I push all thoughts of my shy, awkward roommate away. Quiet girls like that aren’t for guys like me, and that’s without the fact that we live together; that I’m leaving soon; that it’s all a bad, bad idea.

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