Page 71

Sascha watches them fumble down the stairs, Beryl grumbling when Avery musses their hair before attempting another entry, successfully this time. A warm, satisfied weight settles in Sascha’s stomach, grounding him in a way that’s as unfamiliar as it is welcome.

Comforted by the tether connecting him to the people inside the motorhome, Sascha rocks back on his heels and finally allows himself to laugh.

The foreclosed old mansion is a falling-apart disaster zone. Even so, the mortgage down payment nearly wipes out Sascha’s inheritance in one fell swoop. It’s located in a terrifying corner of Detroit where most of the buildings around them are barred up and burned out, shattered windows and boards like broken teeth.

But it has ten rooms, three and a halfmostly-functional bathrooms, and is within walking distance of a bus stop, evenif the DDOT is competing for the most pathetic bus system in the state. Still an improvement considering Bliss Township didn’t haveanypublic transportation.

They’ll all need to get jobs. Figuring out repairs is going to be hellish. Transportation to work so they can afford food and utilities and the aforementioned repairs and mortgage is going to be a persistent problem until they can afford one or two cars. The decrepit motorhome in which they lived for several months—cramped, bitchy, sweaty, and restless as they learned how to coexist—broke down, planting them permanently in Metro Detroit like Dorothy’s house crash-landing in Oz.

It takes a week just to scrub all the surfaces, and Sascha doesn’t try to count how long after that they spend sleeping on gross floor futons in echoing empty rooms with huge centipedes on the walls and corner cobwebs full of woodlice corpses. They eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches, order hot-n-ready pizzas, and complain about how the price has gone up. After seeing the water that comes from their faucets, Marty splurges on Brita filters, because no.

Through the bedroom window, Sascha watches the wind bully an old tree, its branches speckled with new buds. Yesterday was the first day of spring, and while they don’t yet have a bedframe, Zuhr and Anise surprised Sascha and Avery with a matching bedroom set they trash-picked. A lightly-abused dresser, bureau, and nightstand now line the walls, staring judgmentally down at the bags and boxes of half-unpacked belongings, along with the mattress that slides on the wood floor when they fuck. Instead of accepting the offer to have Sascha’s bedroom furnishings shipped to them, they’d opted to sell everything. Why should he and Avery sleep in comfort while the rest of the pack was relegated to the ground?

Avery is finishing up a shower in the half bathroom attached to the master they share. Zuhr nearly cried withrelief when she found out Charlie would be getting his own bedroom for the first time in their lives. Completely the opposite, Sascha was overjoyed beyond words for a living body to cuddle up to, rather than an impassive stack of pillows.

A stray dog barks outside, chasing a possum that probably ate fermented grapes and got lost on its way home. Poor thing shouldn’t be waddling around this late in the morning.

When the dog quiets, Sascha stares at the ceiling and listens to the pipes shriek as the shower turns off. He has to focus to hear Avery puttering around because you don’t easily forget survival skills that tell you to be as quiet and as invisible as possible. Sascha hopes one day he’ll be comfortable enough to sing in the shower and curse out loud when he trips on the rumpled bath mat.

For some reason, waiting for Avery to exit the bathroom leaves Sascha in a state of contemplation. He looks at their barely-passable furniture and squirms on cheap memory foam, reflecting on having a cushy mattress atop the nice bed frame that matched the polished furniture set where he’d stored more clothes than he needed.

He remembers feeling loneliness so deep it left him cold in his marrow.

This leads to him turning on his phone, and as Avery saunters out of the bathroom in a cloud of fragrant steam, Sascha says, “I totally forgot to delete PROWLR.”

Avery stops halfway across the floor. His lips purse. “I haven’t thought about that fucking app in ages.”

“Yeah, me neither. Being mated will do that to you.” Sascha stretches out on the bed, tucking one hand behind his head as he searches for PROWLR in his app list.

Smirking, Avery crosses the rest of the way to the bed. “I dunno. You sure you don’t want to have a threesome with any chasers?”

“Not since Betty,” Sascha responds automatically, prompting Avery to burst into laughter.

“Don’t be mean. She was at least polite when she propositioned us.”

“Polite and very, very drunk.”

“Lots of drunk people aren’t polite at all.”

“Fair enough. Will you stop standing over me like that?”

Avery laughs, drops the towel he’d strung around his waist, and deposits himself over Sascha’s chest, knees spread on either side of his ribcage. Sascha thumbs his hip, other hand keeping his phone in the air as he flips through the hookup app.

“I can’t believe when we met, we were just going to pump ‘n’ dump and never see each other again.”

“I did my best to make sure we never saw each other again anyway,” Avery points out.

“Because you were embarrassed about the lack of pumping and dumping.” Sascha pinches his cheek. “You and your adorable intimacy issues.”

Avery smacks his hand away, but he’s grinning. “Fuck off. What do you think would’ve happened if we’d actually fucked?”

“No clue. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to stalk you. Hey, I feel like I should ritualistically delete my account. Do you think we could light a fire in the backyard?”

“And risk burning down the house?”

“Don’t insult Sheridan’s fire-building skills like that.”

“It’s not Sheridan I don’t trust. There’s no guarantee this old corpse building won’t maliciously reach out and catch the flames on purpose.”