Page 21 of A Series of Rooms
“What about the daytime?” Liam didn’t care that he sounded desperate. “I can be flexible on time.”
Jonah still wouldn’t look at him. He had his lip pulled between his teeth, grinding it back and forth with enough force to look painful. “It’s not really that simple,” he said. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to.”
“I can pay for another night,” Liam blurted, and Jonah looked up, eyes wide. “Not tonight, I mean. I’ll have to wait until I get paid again, but... I could swing it again nextweek. Same day?”
Jonah opened his mouth and closed it a few times, looking genuinely lost. “That’s a lot of money,” he said eventually. “You’re not even getting anything out of it.”
“That’s not true. Just because I’m not...” He cleared his throat, pretending like he couldn’t feel himself turning red. “I like spending time with you.” He paused, deliberating how much he wanted to say out loud about the feelings he still couldn’t pin down himself. “I don’t know how permanent of an arrangement we can make this, but for now, I’d like to see you again. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t think it was feasible.” Which wasn’t precisely true, but the sentiment remained.
Jonah shook his head. “You’re too nice to me,” he finally said.
“I think you’re overstating my generosity,” Liam said. “Or underestimating my selfishness.”
Jonah looked away, and Liam’s grin faded.
“Do you want to?” Liam asked after a moment. “If you really don’t, I won’t press. I promise.”
A nervous energy buzzed in the air while he waited for his reply.
“I want to,” Jonah said. “I just don’t think it’s fair to you.”
“Let me decide that.”
“I need to get going,” Jonah said again, gesturing toward the door.
Liam stood as well. “Can I at least drive you somewhere?”
He brought a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, getting shifty in the way he did when Liam asked too many questions.
“I havea ride,” he said. “He’ll be outside soon. I shouldn’t make him wait.”
Liam walked him to the door in a desperate attempt to hold onto him for just a few more moments. The two of them hesitated as he reached for the handle. Maybe Liam wasn’t the only one trying to hold off the inevitable.
“See you Friday?” Liam said.
Jonah nodded. “Message me to set it up,” he repeated.
“It isn’t you, is it?” Liam asked before he could stop himself. Jonah froze, his back turned to him. “The person on the other end of those messages? Making the arrangements? It isn’t you.”
Jonah was preternaturally still, like a machine whose kill switch had just been activated. Liam waited, half expecting for him to call the whole thing off, to walk out of there and demand that Liam never contact him again. Instead, he turned over his shoulder before he opened the door and said, “See you Friday.”
In the lingering silence of his departure, Liam was pretty sure he had his answer.
CHAPTER 7
Jonah
The water in the showers never got warmer than room temperature, to say nothing of what happened during the colder months. Jonah braced himself for the sting but still flinched at the first spray against his chest.
The house didn’t have private bathrooms. Instead, there were six shower stalls and three toilets in a single room on the second floor. Privacy, in general, was a forbidden luxury for most of the residents. Too risky, given their histories.
On the day Jonah moved in, Ross Shepard had explained the rules in black and white: No locked doors, no broken curfews, you fulfill your community shifts, you do as you’re told, and your papers get signed. You break the rules, you get a one-way ticket to a cell. It was a privilege to be trusted with a second chance, and the residents of Shepard’s Fold were expected to act accordingly.
This wasn’t freedom, he had drilled into their heads from day one. It was the chance to prove you’ve earned it.
Most of the residents were recent parolees, juvenile age-outs, and guys with minor drug charges. No violent offenders permitted. A select few, like Jonah, were here as a court-mandated alternative to serving time. They took a community-service-based approach to rehabilitation, requiring all residents to complete daily shifts at the local soup kitchen, hand out coats in the winter, clean up litter from highway roadsides. Their goal wasn't to punish, but to reform.
Ross Shepard was the house supervisor. He had the posture of a military commander and wore the silver tags around his neck to match, he smelled perpetually of cigarette smoke and stale coffee, and he had taken an interest in Jonah right away.
