Page 5 of Mann Hunt
She left Declan, who was staring out of the window with a hurt expression on his face.
He’ll get over it,she thought.After all, it’s only three weeks.
Chapter Three
Charlie Watts woke up from a crappy, late afternoon nap. It was another crappy sleep in a long line of crappy sleeps he’d had since moving out of his small, under-furnished bachelor apartment and back into his old room in his parent’s basement in Brentwood. It might have been fine when he had been taking classes at the nearby University of Calgary, but as a grown man, it just wasn’t cutting it.
Since graduating from university with a major in IT-Systems Development and a minor in psychology, Charlie had been working a string of low-paying internships which had led to high praise but no job offers. The IT industry seemed to be a revolving door of interns. Why would they hire someone full-time when they could just cycle through high-tech student drones? At twenty-four, Charlie was beginning to wonder if a full-time, permanent job was the twenty-first-century version of the unicorn.
It had been four weeks since he had returned home—four weeks since his birthday—and his worldwas shrinking. Aside from his friend Carrie, he had no social life, and he couldn’t fully realise his social potential because he hadn’t gotten around to telling his parents he was gay.
He’d gotten so desperate to live out his non-existent gay life that, when the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom had started to act up the previous week and his parents had called in a plumber, Charlie had followed up their call with one of his own. He had informed them that his parents were terrified of older men coming into their house—he claimed they had been bound, gagged and robbed by a fifty-year-old cable repairman. The company had assured him that they would send out Mitch, a young, very competent plumber to deal with the issue, and they had also assured him that Mitch was very sensitive and good at dealing with seniors. Charlie’s fulsome fantasies of a well-muscled tradesman playing with his pipes were dashed when he was introduced to the plumber, a thirty-year-old woman named Michelle—Mitch, for short.
“Charlie-boy, dinner’s ready,” his mother yelled from upstairs.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself.
“Now!” his dad yelled even louder. He was obviously no happier about the return of the prodigal son than Charlie was. “And don’t forget to wash up.”
What am I, five?
He swung by the bathroom with its newly repaired plumbing and washed his hands. As he did, he glanced in the mirror. A kid with a triangular face, wispy blond hair and jade-green eyes stared back at him. The guy in the mirror was cute, if maybe a bit gangly. Wiry, his grandmother had called him. It wasn’t that he was without muscle… It was just that little of it had made it north of his waist. The way he saw himself was all thighs and ass with a series of twigs sticking out from his narrow upper trunk. Charlie and the wispy kid in the mirror locked eyes on each other. What didhethink of the ‘real-world Charlie’? Did the mirror-kid find him attractive, or did he just see a geek?
I’ve got to get out of here and find a job. Now!
* * * *
As soon as Charlie had finished his mother’s traditional Friday-night dinner of meatloaf with gravy and canned peas, he pushed himself back from the table. “I’m going to go out for a bit.”
“Going to meet up with some of your friends?” his mother asked.
“Yeah—some friends,” he replied without enthusiasm, as he began to leave the room.
“Maybe a nice girl?” she added hopefully.
“I’m sure there’ll be one there.”
As he walked down the hall he heard his father call out, “Don’t forget to say goodbye to your gran.”
He pivoted on his heel and headed towards the rear of the house. His father always reminded Charlie to visit her before he went out, sounding like he strongly expected one of them not to be around by the end of the day.
Elsie Watts, Charlie’s grandmother, looked nowhere near her seventy-eight years. She had brightly dyed red hair, green-flecked hazel eyes and perfectly applied makeup that highlighted her strong cheekbones. She occupied the large back bedroom of the house which had been set up as a bed-sitting room, complete with a comfortable easy chair and a large-screen television. She had moved in a few years earlier after falling andbreaking a hip. She was fine now, but Maggie and Ted always fussed over her like she was a combination of a china doll and a needy child. She was one of Charlie’s best friends.
“Hi, Gran. How’s your day been?” he said, bending down to give her a kiss on the cheek. He moved her TV tray and the remnants of her dinner off to the side and plunked himself on the floor beside her.
“Oh, you know this place—it’s been a bucket of laughs.”
“Solve the mystery yet?” he asked, indicating the television which was playing a British detective show.
“Third character in did it…as usual. The writers must think we’re all a bit dense not to pick up on that.”
“And Constable Winslow will always wander off in mid-interrogation to take a phone call,” Charlie added, laughing.
“And they always manage to get his shirt off at least once an episode.”
“Thank God,” Charlie added, without any reservation. He smiled. This was the only place where he felt safe. He had never told Gran that he was gay. She had always sort of known it and, when she had brought it up in conversation, she hadn’t seemed to be enquiring, only stating a fact, like that he had blond hair.
“So, I heard you were going out.”
