Page 40 of Maid in America

Barrett groaned into the air and looked around his apartment. It looked like a bomb had gone off. “That pedi was fifty bucks!”

“You’rea pedi!” Will giggled. “ Pedi-file.”

“I don’t know how you canpossiblyjoke about these things. Y’know… after your uncle touched you in yourno-no spot—”

“I don’thavean uncle!” Will laughed hard. “Fuck off, Barrett. Go to bed.”

Barrett tried to fight his smile. “Alright. Love you, brother.”

“See you tomorrow, Dingleberry.”

“Yeah.” Barrett ended the call and threw his phone onto the couch. His smile disappeared. Something about knowing his partner in crime was settling down with a wife and a family made him feel slightly nauseous.

Will was yet another casualty of suburban war, doomed to a life of cookie-cutter houses, H.O.A.s, man-caves, ‘perfect lawn-height’ discussions, and imported beers.

Commitment wasn’t what scared him. It was the unromantic contractual agreement where people gambled away half their assets that freaked Barrett out. His urge to keep the same woman around for a while was nonexistent, and the permanence of putting a ring on someone’s finger had simply never appealed to him.

He wondered if he would ever find himself in a relationship, one where he could be all-in. No rings. No engagements. Just loyalty and a ravenous desire to be with one another. He wanted one day to lovehard, to lovefierce. And when that woman was his, he’d be protective as hell.

Meowwwwwww.

The sound was muffled by the window, snapping him out of his moody thoughts. A charcoal British Shorthair cat sat, perched on the roof near the abutment, minty green eyes wide and helpless.

“Heyyyyy. How’s it goin’, Smoky?” Barrett asked happily. “I missed you, girl!”

Jogging over, he flicked open the latch on the dormer window and pushed it open. The cat sauntered in like she owned the place, long tail flicking from side to side.

Barrett closed the window behind her. “You’re just in time for dinner. You and I will be dining on these,” he shuffled over to the paper bag on his kitchen counter, “exquisitecans of dolphin-safe tuna. You’ll love it.”

He briefly held the tips of his fingers to his lips and pulled them away in a chef’s kiss.

Piercing the first can, he heard Smoky let out a pitifulmeow.

“You know what to do.” He pointed to the tiny dining room table. “The place may be a shithole, but we are still civilized beings who eat at the table, you and I.”

Smoky wandered to the table and leaped up on it gracefully. Moments later, Barrett dropped an opened can in front of the cat, and the animal lapped at it greedily, scarfing down the meat like she hadn’t eaten in days. Barrett sat in the opposite chair and ate out of his own can with a fork.

Despite Smoky -- a name he’d given her because she looked like she’d just survived a house fire -- being feral, he’d still worried about her safety during the five-day absence.

Once she’d finished, Smoky leaped off the oak, whipping several unopened bills and month-old junk mail off the side. Something metallictinkedon the floor.

Barrett reached over to pick up the strewn mail and saw Chastity’s earring there on the wood. He picked it up and shook it, heart wiggling freely inside the rib cage and making him smile.

He remembered how she’d flashed him fresh out of the shower right around the corner from ten ultra-conservative strangers.

She was a wild one.

He wanted more than anything to be with her again. Tasting her. Feeling her.Holdingher.

He plunked down on the couch and shook the earring again, like some sad prince with only his soulmate’s glass slipper as a memento.

But unlike that prince, Barrett had already found his Cinderella. She was living at home with her preacher father and frustrated mother.

Not here…

In his bed. In hisarms.

He rolled his eyes, irritated with himself for the sudden hopelessly romantic thoughts. Still, the urge to see her again plucked at his gut.

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