Page 1 of Center of Gravity

1

Rob

The moving truck lumbering down the street was the bright orange of a traffic cone, a neon assault against the backdrop of salt-hazy morning light. From the slat of the blind where my finger pressed into a layer of dust, I watched with increasing annoyance as the truck slowed to a crawl and stopped just beyond the picket fence that was apparently a requirement for all of the gentrified replicas of throwback-quaint on Nook Island.

I dug my phone from the pocket of my jeans, then thumbed to my sister’s contact and tapped the screen to call her. Outside, the driver’s side door cracked open, and a blue Conversed foot poked out to nudge it wider.

“College Buffs Hauling Stuff,” I read aloud off the side of the truck when Summer yawned pointedly into the receiver. The cartoon character painted onto the side had exaggerated biceps, flexed as if under the weight of that ridiculous name, bulging thighs, and a wide, white wedge of a smarmy grin. “You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?”

“You’re the hilarious one right now.” Summer’s voice was drowsy on the other end of the line. I could hear her pulling the blinds. “You realize what time it is here, right?”

I did. I’d done the math and, with another look at the truck and the stupid cartoon character emblazoned on it, came up with the sum ‘deserved’. Summer considered early to be any hour before noon and given that she was across the continent from Georgia, it was damn early. And still damn deserved. “That’s the price you pay for all of that Cali sunshine while the rest of us rot in the real world.”

“Are you about to complain over the effort I put into trying to liven up the mood of a depressing task? Because if so…you’re welcome,” Summer said.

Outside, the driver slid from the truck and dropped to the sidewalk, a box of Cracker Jack in hand. It had to have been a decade since I’d seen the candied popcorn treat—didn’t even know the things were still in production—but there was the kid out by the curb, his back to me as he tossed one into the air, leaning to catch it in his mouth as he kicked the door closed behind him. I wondered if the boxes still had prizes.

“The driver is eating Cracker Jack,” I informed my sister. I thought it was important for her to be aware of what she was subjecting me to.

“God, I haven’t thought of those things in forever. Remember how Mom would get so pissed when she found us eating pieces from under the bleachers? Which was really gross, when I think about it.”

“Completely gross,” I agreed. “She should have just bought us a damn box.”

Our mom, in her effort to create healthy eaters, had only succeeded in turning us into miniature scavengers of all things sweet and forbidden, and beneath the bleachers of the ball fields where we spent our summers back in Jersey, was the ultimate dragon’s hoard of Cracker Jack spilled over from fists, along with richly colored gems of Jujubes and the glossy brown spheres of Whoppers—my favorite for how easy they were to dust off and pop into my mouth. We’d managed to keep operations under our mother’s radar until, one day, my mouthful of Big League Chew, carefully composed from little strands I’d filched from behind the legs of the crowd cheering on Summer’s softball team, sunk our operation when Mom asked me what I was chewing.

“But that’s beside the point,” I continued. “It’s barely eight and also, College Buffs, really? It’s a little embarrassing and totally inappropriate.” I let go of the blind and walked to the door, pushing aside the gauzy curtain hanging there.

All of the windows and doors were that way, decked in drapery, as if the view outside needed softening. I’d always figured it was one of Mom’s carryovers from Jersey, where the view from our childhood home featured scabs of asphalt, potholes, and a forgotten strip mall that occasionally hosted some of East Rutherford’s homeless. We hadn’t been poor back then, but we’d toed the line until my dad had finished his teaching degree and gotten hired at the University. Here, the streets were simple, orderly and clean. Between the houses across the street, I glimpsed the sand dunes marshalling the stretch of pale Georgia sand and the ocean beyond.

“‘Til the day I die.” I could hear my sister’s smile, and even across the continent, it was still contagious. We laughed and then, sobering, she said. “Come on, it’s been months, Rob. Mom would think it’s hilarious. Dad…maybe would be on your side. But I was only thinking of giving you a little eye candy. It’s time to let it all go and move on.”

Easy for you to say, I wanted to snap, but I didn’t.

Summer had kept her distance. From Dad’s decline, his funeral, from the house, and even now she shied away from speaking about the past year directly. It was as if, after Mom, she’d had enough of death and refused to be involved in it further. I let her have her buffer because she’d always been the more sensitive one. The dreamy artist, the free-spirit. And me, somewhere along the way I had slipped into the role of the reliable stoic, forever accountable, and always with the bottom line in sight. But some days I felt as if I were swimming in the deep end of a pool filled with mercury.

Another door slammed and a guy with short, dark hair ambled around the front of the truck. Cracker Jack opened the door and leaned back inside, soon emerging with a silver clipboard in one hand that he checked before saying something to his coworker. In contrast to the stupid caricature on the side of the truck, Cracker Jack met all the qualifications ofcollege bufffrom what I could see of his profile. He was an endless summer kind of golden blond, and lean, a bit of leftover sunburn on his cheeks laying over the warm, cabana boy tan beneath. He looked as if he should be holding the handle of a pool net rather than the dolly he deposited at the front gate. “Two Men and a Truck would have worked just fine. Or 1-800-Junk,” I argued.

“The Buffs get five stars on Yelp. Don’t be a stick in the mud,” she replied, knowing it’d get me right in the accountant’s tender spot.

Cracker Jack glanced up at the front door of the house and for the first time I saw his face in full, the dangerously carved cheekbones, the sensually bowed mouth, a bit of silver—incongruous against the golden backdrop of his face—ringed through his lower lip. I froze, first trying to place him, then in frazzled denial. But it was too late: my gut already knew and had twisted up like a pretzel. The memory came in saturated fragments that exploded behind my eyelids.

I narrowly missed being speared by the coat hook as my shoulder slammed shut the faux wood door of the stall. I fumbled the lock with one hand, pulled him to me with the other, fingers spanning and raking the damp sheen of sweat gathered low on his back. A hot wash of breath across my throat, his lips dragging over the curve of my jaw, the tickle of his lip ring against my stubble. He smiled against my teeth and murmured, “A guy who knows what he wants. I like it.”

I felt the color fleeing my face in humiliating mutiny as Cracker Jack stared at the door. I took a backward step. Summer droned on about how she’d just been picking the best option and it was hard to do from far away, that she’d not wanted to interrupt me with something so insignificant during tax season and on and on and on, but it hardly registered.

A rush of cool air over my cock—how had he gotten my zipper undone so fast?—and then the warmth of his touch. The brush of his thumb over my crown. “Fuck, you’re already slick,” he groaned, biting his lip. His forehead bumped my cheek as he looked down at his hand, watching as he stroked me. He paused long enough to spit on his palm then stroked faster, the noise obscene cutting through the piped in music of the club, but the feel of him on me was pure velvet bliss. When I reached for his waistband, he brushed my hand away. “Not yet. I like to concentrate. I’ll get mine in a minute.” He licked at the side of my neck where my pulse was hammering, then tightened his fingers around my shaft, pulling a moan from me. I just wanted him to shut up. Just wanted him to shut up and get me off.

Except he never got his.

And I couldn’t remember his name.

“Go with it. Accept. It’s already done,” Summer was saying.

I muttered and got off the phone with her, trying to devise any logical way out of what was about to be an awkward situation. I was a numbers guy, I should be able to come up with something, right? But I couldn’t. I had no escape plan, barring the very lame route of just not answering the door. Which would also leave me with having to reschedule the move and losing the deposit. I guess that’s what I got for accepting Summer’s offer to set it up in the first place. Fuck.

The momentthe guys set foot onto the sidewalk leading up to the porch, Winslow came shooting across the wood floor at a rabid skitter, spraying the air with his high-pitched bark of indignation. The damn dog could be in a dead sleep inside a closet and loose change in the mailman’s pocket would send him hurtling toward the door. I didn’t know what my parents had done to deserve his loyalty, or if it was a built-in trait of the terrier breed, but Winslow was a passionate and vocal sentinel.

As I stood at the door listening to Winslow yap while my Awkward Moment approached on blue Converse, I regretted for the fiftieth time that my father had had enough presence of mind to consider Winslow in his will, inasmuch as insisting that he either live with me, Summer, or be rehomed through a local pet rescue. Which was, of course, full at the moment.