Page 46 of Under Locke & Key
Between looming job insecurity if giving in proves a mistake, and the fact that I haven’t been with anyone since Riley in any meaningful way despite all the Fridays at Public Service, it’s scary to let myself picture the possibility of Bryce.
So, despite the fact that I know what he’ll tell me—Or maybe because of it—I call Ángel.
“What’s wrong?” His voice is thick with sleep and I should’ve thought about it before I called him at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning after his Friday night shift.
“Nothing.” My voice breaks on the second syllable and he gives a big sigh as I hear him shift in bed.
“Rachel, I’m barely awake and in a bed that isn’t my own. What’s up?”
“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
I hear more rustling and then another low voice, mumbling.
“My friend is having a crisis. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go.” Ángel sounds further away, as if he’s turned his head away from the phone.
“It’s not a crisis, per se. I just—I might have held his hand last week, and there might have been a moment where he had me crowded against my front door. I need you to talk me out of it. I need you to be the voice of reason right now because all my normal excuses for not giving in just aren’t cutting it anymore.” I’m rambling, tripping over the words and as they leave my mouth I can tell how ridiculous I sound.
“Calm down. It’s going to be okay. No need to panic.” Confusion spreads through me at his reaction.
“I’m freaking out a little but I don’t think it counts as a panic?”
“Just let me grab my things. Hold on.” The sound does that thing where he gets quieter and I hear him whisper to his companion, “I’m sorry. It’s bad. I have to go but I’ll call you, okay?”
The stranger must agree because I hear Ángel’s belt buckle jingle as he dresses himself, the phone likely pressed between his shoulder and ear.
“You arenotusing me as an excuse right now,” I grit it out but without much anger behind it. It’s not the first time we’ve rescued each other.
A door slams behind him and Ángel gives a sigh of what I can only assume is relief.
“Impeccable timing, as always. Thanks for that. I fell asleep by accident. The shift was a total bear last night. Your fuckwit of an ex-boss was there. I served him out of a dirty glass.”
“While that’s very sweet of you, I don’t want you to get fired because you’re retaliating on my behalf.”
On my back, staring at the ceiling and the crown molding, and the stained glass Tiffany-esque light fixture above my bed, unlit in the early morning, I can’t fight the push and pull within me.
I want this. I want Bryce. Dulaney and escape rooms, and large hands covering my own. A solid body at my back that makes me feel like I’m safe, infallible and worthwhile just for who I am and not what I can achieve.
“Now, what’s going on with you and Brycey Boy?” The vocal quality changes.
“Are you in your car?”
“Yes?”
“Come over? I haven’t left the apartment in over a week, since I went to meet Bryce’s parents and I’m going a little stir crazy thinking about him all the time.”
He whistles, the sound sucked in between his lips. “You met hisparents.”
“It’s not like that. He’s just mentioned me, I guess, and they were curious.” Don’t read too much into it. It might have been exactly that. I need to take it at face value because the alternative is too scary to contemplate.
“Rachel, when’s the last time you met your bosses’ parents? Hell, even a colleague’s parents?”
“Shut up.”
“I’ll grab some gear and meet you outside your place, just shoot me the address. Looks like there’s a Pride Parade downtown today.”
My breath shudders out of me, taking some of the tension with it.
“Thank you, thank you! How come you know about the parade?”
