Page 68 of Distant Shores
Glancing at the fridge again, I realized I’d have to make do with egg sandwiches.
I paused with my hand halfway out of the fridge, gripping a cardboard container of eggs.
How did Adair like his eggs? Did he like eggs? I strained my ears to listen to the house. Was Adeline still here? Should I make her something too?
It hadn’t hit me until right then how little I knew the Jacks siblings.
My body heated as I glanced toward the kitchen table. At the place where a near stranger had given me the hug that I hadn’t even been brave or lucid enough to ask for but had needed like oxygen.
And now I’d seen his bare ass.
His firm, bare ass.
Was I some kind of nudity magnet?
I pulled the eggs out and sighed. This was all so messed up.
I resolved to not overthink it and set to making three egg sandwiches with the homemade sourdough bread I’d found in one of the baskets. I preheated the oven as I worked, then turned it off so it would keep some heat without being a hazard. When I was done, I wrapped two sandwiches in foil and put them in the oven.
Remembering the sticky notes, I grabbed them and a pen before sitting at the table with my own sandwich wrapped in a napkin and composed my apology.
In elementary school, Dad’s apologies sometimes came in the form of doodles on napkins left in my lunchbox, usually of the two of us doing something fun, but I thought what I’d done warranted actual words.
I ripped the sticky note off and brought it closer as I realized there were already words printed at the top.
Because my memory is shit
I stared at it, not knowing if I should laugh or cry.
“Jesus, Lenny,” I muttered as I picked up the pen.
I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.
To the point. Honest.
I quickly finished my sandwich and balled up the napkin, then swiped up the pen again.
I hope you like eggs. Check the oven.
I printed my name below that, as if this could be from anyone else, pausing when I remembered how he’d called me Indigo yesterday. Or rather,Indigo Girl.
Was that a real memory or just more delusion?
I struck my pen across the dumb printed words at the top of the sticky note until they were no longer legible.
There. Much better.
I stuck the note on the fridge where it couldn’t be missed. I couldn’t hear anything coming from Adair’s room, but he had to still be there. Unless he’d climbed out his window. Which, roles reversed, was just what I would’ve been tempted to do, even with an injury.
I retreated to my room and grabbed clothes and my toiletries bag. Safer for me to shower at the Locc.
With a few curses, I locked the front door and triple-checked them before hitting the pavement with my longboard.
What an epic fuck-up this morning had been—on every level.
But… I’d slept in a bed that was mine, albeit on borrowed linens I’d found in the closet, but still.
It was mine for now, and that would have to be enough.
