Page 37 of Simply Perfection
“It’s about time. You cost me ten bucks!”
“What in the hell are you talking about now? I swear your brain bounces around faster than pinball.”
“The pool. Logan and I bet that the three of you would move in together by the New Year, The McGuires put their money on St. Patrick’s Day, and Ryan and Ethan took April Fool’s.”
“You jackwagons! I can’t believe you all bet on our moving in together. Of all the low down, dirty, rotten—”
“Um, Trev?”
“What!”
“Matt picked Valentine’s.”
That did it. Take him off the spit and call him done. Trevor couldn’t stop his laughter from erupting for another second. He was bent in half, clutching his stomach as his entire body shook with hilarity. All the day’s emotions came out as hyenic cackling. Joy, relief, fear, anger, and love. Trevor tried to catch his breath. He sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out until he stopped gasping. When Trevor opened his eyes, he saw Clay parked in the alley between his and Mr. Carlyle’s house.
Trevor raced up the steps to his apartment. His heart and mind a little lighter now that he’d spoken with Mr. Carlyle and found that the old man was fine. Trevor’s first thought after processing the images from the video was concern that whoever had murdered Mindy would now go after her owner. He’d grown quite fond of the old man over the course of hours together playing chess since Mindy’s passing. Trevor hadn’t been ableto stomach the thought of Mr. Carlyle sitting in that house all alone.
Trevor shoved the key into the lock and flung the door open. Clay was somewhere behind him, but Trevor didn’t pause in his mission. Without stopping, he ran back to his bedroom, grabbed the duffle from the floor of his closet, shoved several changes of clothes into the bag, dashed to the bathroom, haphazardly threw together a toiletry kit—grabbing the new box of condoms in the medicine cabinet—dashed over to his bedside table, snagged the bottle of lube—you could never have too much lube—tossed the strap of the duffle over his head and skidded to a halt in the living room where he found Clay examining his DVD collection.
“Oh good, I still have a job,” Clay grinned and pointed at the tower of cases.
“Yeah, yeah. You ready?”
“So this is chez Trevor?”
Trevor looked around. “Yep. It’s small but better than a lot of the places I looked at.”
“I like it. Functional and simple. Could do with a little personality, but—” Clay pointed at Trevor’s pride and joy. “—has all the essentials.”
“I know. It’s awesome, right? I saved for months to get that TV. I’m so spoiled at work. It tore me up to come home to nothing but my fourteen inch laptop screen.” Clay glanced down the narrow hallway. “What’s back there?”
“Bedroom.”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
Trevor backed up a couple of feet and pointed to the opening in the wall to his left. Clay came toward him and peeked in.
“Um, Trev? How in the hell do you accomplish anything in here?”
Trevor sighed and shook his head. “I thought Logan had you potty trained at this point?” Trevor received a play smack up the back of his head for that comment.
“I mean, does your ass even fit on that toilet seat? And if it does, how are your knees not punching holes through the drywall. I’ve seen phone booths bigger than that shower stall.”
“Well, for those of us who aren’t six foot three inches, two hundred plus pounds, everything fits perfectly.” Trevor unslung the strap of his duffle from over his head and dropped it to the floor, pushed past Clay, stepped into the shower stall and danced in a circle. “See?”
Clay laughed and waved his arm. “Come on, Thumbelina. Let’s take you to your princes.”
“I’m gonna tell Matt you said he was a fairy prince.”
“Well, I got the fairy part right,” Clay snorted with laughter.
“You didn’t,” Trevor said, dumfounded.
Clay turned into a bobble-head right before Trevor’s eyes. “Oh yes, I did.”
Trevor picked up his duffel, then walked away. He waited at the front door. There was no way he was going to open the portal to the Arctic without Clay being inches behind him. With a quick breath Trevor braced himself for the freezing cold. He danced on his toes as he waited for Clay to exit the apartment, then locked the door as quickly as he could. Clay was slowly making his way down the steps.
“Move it, you tortoise!”
