Page 62 of Dream a Little Dream

Getting their fifteen minutes of fucking fame.

Everyone on his floor had been told to evacuate, and they’d all buggered off somewhere else. But Aaron sat on the communal staircase, back to the railing, one foot on the wall, one down two steps, throwing a luminous pink bouncy ball at the wall, keeping his ear to the ground with the goings on. He wondered if this was what it was like in jail. Boredom and monotony.

Thud, thud, thud,catch.

Thud, thud, thud,catch.

For maybe a worse reason than the rubberneckers, he, too, wanted to be part of all this. Wanted to know what was happening. What the police were looking for. What they’d find. It was a fascination; he supposed. How could henotbe fascinated by it? Death. Murder. That was all in his past. But he remained as stoic as he could, throwing the bouncy ball with a thud, thud, thud,catch.

“Hey,” a voice called to him from the open communal door.

Aaron slapped the ball into his palm. Looked to his left. Said nothing. Despite his heart beating into overdrive.

Dr Kenneth Lyons leaned out of the way for another forensic in a suit to scurry past him. “You want somewhere to go while this all happens?”

Aaron cocked his head. “Like where?”

Kenny offered nothing other than a tilt of his head. That’s all it required, anyway. Because Aaron leapt up, grabbed the bag by his feet and trundled after him, squirming into his hoodie. This was better than going to the third year gang bang at Taylor’s. He might get some answers. Better answers. And, well, maybe something else he’d been thinking about non-fucking-stop.

“What they looking for?” Aaron asked as he trotted alongside Kenny, over the grass mound, toward a staff car park.

“Anything. Clues.” Kenny pressed his key fob for a gold Land Rover Discovery to light up. “Get in.”

Aaron gave him an eyebrow arch over the car roof, but he opened the passenger door and dropped onto a fabric seat where the distinctive scent of artificial lemon from the dangling air freshener hit him. He checked the logo on the wooden tree. It was a hand car wash Kenny was clearly a frequenter of. Because no one kept a carthisclean.

When Kenny got in, he started the engine, and Dusty Springfield blasted out of the speakers. Kenny switched it off with a quick tap.

“Had you down as more of a Swifty,” Aaron said, settling back in the seat.

“I like classics.” Kenny floated the car out of the university and into all the early evening traffic heading towards town.

“Yeah? Me too.” Aaron winked. “We got something else in common.”

Kenny peered at him across the car. “Somethingelse?”

“We both like getting in people’s heads.” Aaron chuckled, then settled back in the seat. “Where are we going?”

“My place.”

“Bit forward. Do I not get dinner first?”

Kenny tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Didn’t answer. So Aaron assumed this wasn’t him being taken on a date. After a few more twists and turns into the suburbs, Kenny parked up on a single driveway outside a standard semi-detached house with neat hedges, a white picket fence, and two hanging baskets.

Aaron peered out of the front windshield. “This looks very… normal. Like it should have a wife, two kids and a dog in there.” He turned back to Kenny. “Does it?”

“Get out.” Kenny shouldered open the car and rushed up to his front door, grabbing the Amazon box shoved under the porch. He angled his head for Aaron to get inside, checking across the street to see if anyone was peeking through their curtains watching him ushering a student into his house.

Aaron took his time.

He doubted there was a family in there. As much as Kenny wasn’t opposed to straying, if him picking up twinks in gay bars whilst in a relationship withHeatherwas anything to go by, Aaron didn’t have him down as someone to bring that home to his wife and kids.

He hoped there was a dog in there, though.

He liked dogs. Dogs were uncomplicated. They either ripped your head off or licked the wounds.

Stepping inside the gleaming hallway, he whistled. The staircase opposite him had had a fresh whiff of polish along the wooden banister, and the carpet wafted the scent of a recent deep clean, alongside perfectly wiped surfaces, with a potted plant in the corner beneath the mirror, a particular vibrant green suggesting it had lovingly been watered.

“This what pointing out rapists and murderers gets you, huh?” he said as Kenny checked through his post.

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