Page 3 of The War Revision
Chapter 2
Ayearlater
The relocation aggravation
I gasp when I’m jolted awake, engulfed by the feeling of falling. My body almost hits the hard ground, but by some miracle, my hands land first on something soft—the yellow throw rug Jordie bought me. The fluffy strands peek out between my fingers. My body is halfway out of bed with gravity dangerously pulling me toward the floor. All the blood is rushing down to my aching head, and my morning hair is falling over my half-open eyes. Very slowly and very awkwardly, I shift and twist until I’m back up on the mattress.
Fuck! I’m sweaty. My forearm drops over my eyes to stop the daylight coming from the open window before it permanently blinds me. Now that I’m waking up properly, my head feels muddled.
Not caring about the time, I stretch my arm out, letting my hand fumble on the nightstand until it grasps the bottle of aspirin. The click of the lid when I open it with my thumb sounds like claws against a blackboard. It makes my balls retract all the way back home. I gulp two pills down, and with no water, it’s not easy to swallow them. They scratch all the way down my dry throat.
After a while, I try to remember last night’s events. I recall dancing with a blonde girl. Did I fuck her? I wiggle my hips on the sheets, and yeah, Falkor is sedated as fuck. An image of the same woman riding me pops into my head, but it doesn’t arouse me as much as it should. She had a rocking body and an amazing tattoo between her tits, but my dick hasn’t been that interested. Still, I can tell he did his job.
An image of fucking the blonde from behind while holding her bed frame as she blacked out orgasming reminds me just how good I am. Still, the encounter was…meh! Kind of boring. It took me much longer than usual to come. And I didn’t feel satisfied—hence the heavy drinking afterward.
I’ve been feeling a bit out of mojo these last few months. Going out and fucking around doesn’t excite me anymore. I thought it was because I needed to try new things, to shake it up a little. But I was wrong.
Am I having a midlife crisis?
Fucking hell. As usual, when I’m left alone with my thoughts they take me down Depression Road.
Before hitting Depression City: population one, I drag myself into the bathroom and turn on the radio. Joan Jett’s scratchy voice is screaming about her bad reputation. So very fitting. After washing my pasty mouth, I hop into the shower to scrub away the smell of alcohol and sex and shake the mental cobwebs.
Wearing only a pair of black boxers, I head to the kitchen. The aroma of fresh coffee permeates the room. Gotta love the timer on my coffee maker.
After pouring some pick-me-up brew in a cup, I turn to the calendar on the wall and tear yesterday’s page to read today’s word of the day.
Exacerbate: to make something worse. Sounds ominous.
I round the counter, leaving behind the empty bottle of tequila from last night, and turn on the record player on the sideboard, letting Aretha sing how her man makes her feel like a natural woman.
I let my ass drop heavily onto one of the two chairs near the round table. The large coffee mug I’m cradling to my chest is warm against my skin, but there’s no space on the table’s wooden surface. It’s covered in old mail and sketches of tattoo designs. Some are crumpled. Others have fallen on the floor. I don’t move to pick them up. I am too busy enjoying the warm rays of sunshine hitting my face.
The French windows to my small balcony are open, and I’m hit by the sweet smell of lavender coming from the huge plant on Sally’s windowsill. She not only owns the bar I always go to, she also lives downstairs in apartment 4B. My place is on the top floor of the four-story building. I also own the tattoo shop on the ground floor.
The rest of the building is Tessa’s. She’s the sweet, old lady living on the first floor. I need to go see her today. Mrs. Cordell, the woman who used to rent 5A, the place across the hallway from me, moved last week to go live with her daughter. Which means that I can finally knock down the wall between 5A and 5B and have a much larger apartment—after Tessa agrees to sell me the place.
I love my apartment. It’s home, and it reminds me of Frank.
He owned a record shop and caught me stealing in it one day. Instead of calling the cops, he fed me and gave me a job. My mother was an alcoholic and an addict. She probably still is, if she’s not dead. She rarely took care of Jordie and me, and preferred to buy booze instead of food. It got only worse as time went by. Being a teenager with a younger brother, I sometimes had to improvise. Social services didn’t really care about trailer trash kids. Stealing is wrong, but we needed to eat. My mother sometimes brought unscrupulous people back to the trailer, and I couldn’t leave my younger brother alone there while working odd jobs. Innocent kids were a big temptation for scum like that, and my mother was starting to see that as a thing to take advantage of.
Thank God Frank happened. When he took his first look at me, he looked beyond my rude, angry act and saw the malnourished, scared shitless kid who just wanted to take care of his brother. He not only gave me a job and a place to stay with Jordie, he made me fall in love with music. My eyes turn to the shelves on the wall covered in old records. So many good memories.
I miss him.
Frank had a heart attack in his shop while I was training as a tattoo artist in Miami and Jordie was in college. He died alone among his beloved records. He left everything to me—the store and the apartment, in addition to a nice nest egg which paid for Jordie’s education and helped me open the tattoo shop with Pete.
I take a sip of coffee and look around, trying to shake the somber thoughts off. My apartment is indeed amazing. The north-facing orientation lets natural light bathe the room, illuminating the hardwood floors, stainless steel kitchen, and high ceilings. This high up in the building there’s no noise pollution even though I live on a busy street. It’s pretty close to perfect; I just need more space. I have an extra bedroom, and the living room/kitchen is not that small, but I love to throw parties. Not to mention the monthly tenants’ meeting I host. And believe me, they can turn into a rowdy circus—which I enjoy deeply. Connecting the two apartments would give me so much extra space. I could adopt a pet and maybe sublet a room or two.
I miss having someone living with me. I don’t like being alone. My last roommate, Mel, moved a few months ago, and before him, my brother. Jordie now shares an apartment with Ash, his utterly smitten boyfriend. No—correction—fiancé.
My gaze falls on the open invitation on the table. I still can’t believe Jordzilla is getting married in two months. And to a guy he blackmailed to go as his plus-one to his ex’s wedding. But it all worked out for them, and I’m very happy for him.
Even though Ash works for the Devil. Lucifer reincarnated.
Cole Devenport.
Imagine my surprise when a week after my encounter with the blond, pompous eavesdropper who rejected an awesome threesome with me, I found him moving boxes into my building. He opened an accounting firm on the first floor, forcing me to endure his cursing presence and intolerable smirk almost every day. Still, I kept my carefree attitude intact and went on with my life.
