Page 5

Jesse

Jesse could already imagine the huge scolding he was going to get from Nate later, as he led Jamie into his apartment.

He knew that he was doing something very stupid, and breaking a promise to do it—but Nate wasn’t Jesse’s boss.

The thought of leaving Jamie out on the streets was simply unacceptable, and if Nate didn’t understand that, oh well.

“So here’s my place,” Jesse said, waving a hand around the tiny apartment and feeling strangely self-conscious about it.

“It’s nothing special; just a little one-bedroom deal to get me out of my college dorms. Um, bathroom’s through that door there, and kitchen’s through that one,” he indicated the doors and took his jacket off.

“And you can help yourself to anything in the fridge and cupboards.”

Jamie gave the kitchen a curious look. “Fridge?”

“Yeah, the um, refrigerator,” Jesse clarified, walking into the kitchen and pulling it open to show Jamie the food inside. “Keeps things cold, so they don’t spoil.”

“Oh,” Jamie nodded and curiously approached said fridge before he suddenly reached out and put his hand into it as if he wanted to feel the coldness.

“…Hey, you aren’t faking this, right?” Jesse had to ask. “You’re not just… a teenager pulling a prank?”

“I am not a teenager,” Jamie scoffed as he pulled his hand back out, a sulky pout and a slight blush coming to his face before he blinked it away, now looking curious. “What’s a prank?”

That was… kind of cute.

“Um, a prank is like, a joke,” Jesse explained, running a hand over his mouth to try and disguise the heat he could feel rising in his own cheeks. “A joke you play on your friends—or, sometimes, a stranger—to make them think something is happening when it isn’t.”

“And you think I’m… making a prank on you,” Jamie scratched his temple. “By pretending to have amnesia?”

“Well, that’s what the cops thought, that’s for sure,” Jesse said.

“What with the blood and the soot and the, um…” He glanced down at Jamie’s dirty blue silk robe.

Jamie would probably not be able to answer this, but Jesse still wanted to give it one more try.

“The outfit. Were you on your way to a convention, like they thought?”

Jamie shook his head. “I… don’t know,” he said, as expected.

“But if I was going to one, I think I’d know what it is.

” And now that his voice wasn’t as raspy as it had been earlier, Jesse was beginning to notice the warm, bell-like tones it bore.

It was a clear and gentle voice, and everything he said was spoken so crisply and carefully, as if he were giving a speech.

Focus , Jesse told himself.

“You uh… don’t know where you came from, though,” Jesse reminded him. “And I don’t think anybody could live on this planet and not know what a car or a phone is.”

Jamie blushed again, ducking his head and giving Jesse another pout. As if he thought Jesse was making fun of him for not knowing.

“Er, but that’s fine, though,” Jesse amended quickly. “You must’ve been through something pretty awful, if it made you forget so much about everything. Here, how about I get you a change of clothes and you can grab a shower to get cleaned up, and then I’ll order us a pizza for dinner. Sounds good?”

Jamie stared at him.

“…Pizza is a food,” Jesse explained. “It’s baked bread with cheese and tomato sauce, and usually pepperoni.”

“…I will try some, then,” Jamie announced, though he still looked a little lost. “It sounds delicious, thank you.”

And then he smiled. His brown eyes twinkled and his pale narrow face lit up, a warmth in his expression that made Jesse’s heart skip a beat.

Uh-oh …

“Er, let me just go get you those clothes, then,” Jesse said, quickly turning away and heading into his bedroom. God, his face was hot… He was in real trouble, if he was reacting like this just because of a smile. ‘Getting involved in a patient’s personal life’ was one thing, but this?

…No, this was nothing.

It couldn’t be anything; he was simply caught up in the drama of the day, that was all. He would ignore these stray feelings; push them into the recesses of his mind like he always did, and pretend he didn’t feel anything at all. It was safer that way, for people like him.

He knew so little about Jamie, but he’d invited him into his apartment and was giving him food and a change of clothes. If Jamie knew he was gay, he might think Jesse was coming onto him—and there was no telling what might happen then.

Grabbing a clean pair of sweatpants, a tee-shirt and a warm pullover, as well as some underwear and a pair of socks, Jesse took a deep breath to regain his composure, and then stepped back out into the living room.

Jamie was standing by the door, flicking the light switch on and off and staring up at the overhead lamp in wide-eyed, jaw-dropped fascination.

There went that composure.

Jesse stifled back a laugh, trying to disguise it as a cough as he came further into the living room and held up the clothes. “You, uh, don’t have lightbulbs where you’re from?” he joked.

“…Perhaps I do not,” Jamie said seriously, turning the light back on one last time before reluctantly leaving the switch and going over to Jesse.

He took the clothes and tilted his head at them, his sweaty dark-brown hair falling over his tired eyes.

“These are different,” he noted, glancing down at his robes and then over to the jeans and shirt Jesse wore. “They are like yours.”

“I hope that’s alright. I don’t have any silk robes on hand at the moment. ”

“It’s more than alright,” Jamie said, offering another bright, sunny smile. “I like your clothes. They look very nice on you.”

“Y-yeah?” Jesse couldn’t help but smile back—though in his head he reminded himself once more that he had to be really careful about how he came across.

He cleared his throat. “Um, thanks. Anyway, you can go change in the bathroom. Like I said, feel free to grab a shower, too, if you want. Soap and shampoo are in the tub.”

Jamie followed his nod to the bathroom door, and curiously went through into the small space beyond it. “…That’s a very small bath.”

So he actually knew what a bathroom was. And he was criticizing this one.

“Yeah, it’s pretty small, sorry,” Jesse said. “Can’t get much on my budget.”

Jamie stepped back out. “It’s empty.”

“Yeah, you… have to fill it,” Jesse told him.

“…How?” Jamie asked.

He didn’t remember about plumbing? Somehow, that felt even stranger than the car thing. “I’ll show you how it works.” He moved past Jamie into the bathroom, and turned on the faucet.

“Woah!” Jamie rushed forward, pushing past Jesse and staring down at the running water. “How are you making it do that!?”

“Um, it’s just the pipes,” Jesse told him. “The water is filtered through the city. You turn it to the right to make the water hot, and then to the left to make it colder or turn it off.”

“Ooh.” Jamie reached out and put his hand under the faucet. “That’s amazing!”

“Yeah,” Jesse agreed. “It really is. And then you pull this nozzle here to turn it into a shower instead of a bath.”

This could get weird, though.

“Okay, so I’ll be out in the living room. Call me if you need anything.” Jesse hurried back out into the living room and placed an order for the pizza, his heart still beating a little too fast, and then turned on the TV. He wondered what Jamie would think of TV .

After twenty minutes or so, the water in the bathroom turned off.

Jamie came back out into the main part of the house, now wearing the tee-shirt and sweats, with his hair clean.

It was wavy, falling softly over his face—and Jesse let his gaze linger a little too long, before he made himself look away.

He couldn’t help but chuckle, though, at how much Jamie seemed to be swimming in Jesse’s clothes.

Jesse was pretty lean, but Jamie seemed even smaller.

The pizza got delivered just in time. Jesse rushed to get it, grateful for the distraction. And when he turned around again, Jamie was staring at the TV in awe, and began asking a few dozen questions about it as they settled to eat their pizza—which Jamie apparently really liked.

Everything was going really well, until right about when they finished eating, Jesse’s phone chimed with a text from Nate.

Immediately, Jesse felt his body tense as he opened the message, somehow already feeling scolded.

But the text just included an invitation to go out for a beer the following day, so Jesse sent back a ‘ maybe next time ’ and settled to keep watching TV.

Of course he knew that Nate would find out eventually, but for now he just didn’t want to deal with it.

But then Nate texted him back.

‘You got other plans?’

…Maybe he was suspicious after all.

‘No, just don’t feel like going out,’ he sent back.

‘Are you still worried about the kid?’

Yeah, he was totally onto him.

Jesse sighed, rubbing at his temple for a moment. Maybe he should just get this over with and admit the truth. ‘Actually, I ran into him at the bus stop,’ he wrote back. ‘I didn’t feel right about sending him off somewhere by himself so I invited him to come stay with me.’

He hit send, and then braced for the impact.

Nate called him. He declined the call. Nate called again. He declined it. And then Nate called once more, and Jesse hit the red button to decline it .

“Why is your… cell phone , playing music?”

Jesse couldn’t catch himself before laughing this time.

The way Jamie had said ‘cell phone,’ as if he wasn’t sure he was getting the words right, made the look of total seriousness on his face all the more priceless.

“Nate’s trying to call me,” he explained.

“But I don’t want to talk to him right now, so I’m ignoring it. ”

“Oh,” Jamie blinked down at the phone. “You mean, he can speak to you all the way from the hospital?”

“That’s right.”

“Why don’t you want to talk to him?” Jamie asked.