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“I don’t like what he’s going to say,” Jesse admitted. His phone chimed with another few texts, so he looked at it—and sure enough, he didn’t like what Nate had to say.

‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’

‘ANSWER YOUR PHONE!’

‘Why the hell would you think that was a good idea!?!?’

Jesse rolled his eyes as he typed back his answer. ‘Because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go?’

‘That doesn’t mean it’s YOUR job to take care of him! The guy could be an axe murderer for all you know, are you crazy inviting him into your home?! You can’t even afford it anyway! I know he doesn’t have any money. Jazmine told me she had to explain it to him when she gave him bus fare.’

Jesse glanced up at Jamie, who was watching him intently. “Um, how about you put the pizza in the fridge for me?” Jesse asked, closing the lid on the pizza box and handing it over. “We can eat the rest of it later.”

Jamie nodded solemnly as he stood, accepting the box as if it was an item in a sacred quest and carrying it carefully into the kitchen.

Jesse turned back to his phone. ‘You’re right that he doesn’t have any money, but that’s just even more reason to help him. We’ll find a way to manage.’

Nate texted back right away. ‘‘WE’??? Come on kid, you’re not seriously letting a complete stranger stay in your house! Your helper syndrome is nothing new, but aren’t you afraid he might, idk, set your apartment on fire or sth like that? ’

Yeah right…

How long did it take to put a box of pizza in the fridge?

Jesse stood, making his way into the kitchen—just in time to see Jamie turn the gas stove on high, the blue flames spurting into life in front of him.

“Ah, no no no, don’t do that!” Jesse exclaimed, hurrying over and turning the stove back off. “That’s dangerous, it could set the building on fire!”

Jamie’s eyes widened. “That’s bad.”

“Yes, yes it is,” Jesse agreed, taking a look around the kitchen and suddenly growing aware of just how dangerous the room was.

Full of fire, glass and knives, it was. Somebody could get hurt bad in a place like this, if they didn’t know what they were doing.

“How about from now on, you don’t touch anything you don’t recognize, alright?

At least not until I’ve shown you how to use it. ”

“Alright,” Jamie agreed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good, good, you do that,” Jesse said, patting Jamie’s shoulder as he gave the stove one last glance and steered Jamie back into the living room. That had actually been rather close. Stupid Nate, being right about things as usual. The last thing Jesse needed was an ‘I told you so.’

And he’d got another text while he was dealing with the kitchen situation.

‘He just set your apartment on fire didn’t he’

Jesse let out a frustrated sigh as he sat back down and typed out a new message. ‘No he didn’t. I stopped him in time.’

There was a few moments before the next text.

‘Does your new kitchen have a door?’

That was a strange question. What did it have to do with anything? ‘Yes? Why?’

‘Lock it,’ Nate texted back. ‘Swallow the key.’

Jesse rolled his eyes. ‘I won’t fucking swallow my own kitchen key.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ Nate replied. ‘It’s your funeral.’

‘He’s not going to kill me, ’ Jesse sent back. But… ‘I know I shouldn’t leave him alone though. Right?’

The reply came quick this time. ‘Delete the last word and the question mark, then you’ve got your answer.’

Yeah…

Another text appeared. ‘If you insist on doing this, then you really need to be careful. Skip school for a couple of days and keep an eye on him. And lock your bedroom door at night. You don’t know who he is or what he’s capable of. Better be safe than sorry.’

That was actually some pretty good advice.

Jesse let out a breath of relief; now that the ‘scolding’ part was over and Nate was actually being helpful, it made Jesse feel much better about the whole thing.

‘Thanks,’ he sent. ‘I’ll do that. But seriously, I really don’t think Jamie’s dangerous.

He was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. ’

Once again, Nate didn’t text back right away.

In fact, Jesse rather thought the matter was settled.

He texted one of his classmates to ask her to take some notes, and called his boss at work and played at being sick to get a few days off his night shifts, and then he settled onto the couch to keep watching TV with Jamie.

But then his phone chimed again, with one last message from Nate. And it was a long one this time.

‘I know he doesn’t seem dangerous right now, but I’m being serious.

You need to be careful. There are lots of people out there in the world that would take advantage of your helpfulness and rob you or hurt you, and that’s the last thing I want.

Don’t forget that when we found him he was acting like he didn’t even know which way was up and was covered in blood that wasn’t his.

There’s something wrong with that kid and you shouldn’t get mixed up in it.

It’s nice that you want to make sure he’s okay but don’t let him stay more than a day or two.

And seriously don’t come crying to me if he SOMEHOW manages to actually kill you! ’

Jesse pursed his lips as he flipped his phone closed without responding to the message, and slipped it back into his pocket.

He knew that Nate was just trying to look out for him, and it was true that he didn’t know anything about Jamie; who he was, where he’d come from, or how he’d ended up in the state they’d found him in.

But as Jesse sneaked a sidelong glance towards the young man sitting next to him on the couch, staring intently at the cartoon commercials flashing across the screen as if he’d never seen anything more strange or spectacular, it was hard to think of him as dangerous.

And with his hair clean and his face soot-free with some fine eyebrows, soft lips and a gracefully curved nose, he was really pretty…

* * *

Jamie

Jamie didn’t remember anything about his life before waking up in the middle of a strangely smooth street, surrounded by weirdly shaped houses and flashing lights and a big red sign that said ‘STOP’ but didn’t tell him what exactly he was supposed to stop doing, and a giant metal thing that growled like a beast and blared like a trumpet and carried people around like a carriage with no horses.

Some things did feel strangely familiar, but most things felt completely foreign to him, which had made the first few hours disorienting and confusing and frustrating and alarming.

He’d had a bad headache on and off ever since.

He’d been told that this place was called Carson City, and after he’d pressed for more information, Jesse had added that it was in a state called Nevada—and when Jamie had kept pushing and asked which nation they were in, he’d learned they were in the United-States-of-America Nation .

It was the strangest name for a nation that he’d ever heard… but then again, it was the only name for a nation that he’d ever heard.

It was loud here, and very bright. A loud, bright city full of strange sights and noises he didn’t understand. But after two days here, he didn’t think he minded all that much. Not when Carson City also had Jesse in it.

Jesse was nice. Jesse explained things. Jesse smiled at him. And Jesse’s smile was bright and happy, and made his black eyes crinkle up and sparkle.

Jamie figured he’d be willing to put up with a lot of noise and flashing lights, if it meant he got to see that smile.

For now, though, he was actually feeling kind of overwhelmed.

The fridge in the apartment had been getting pretty close to empty, so Jesse had declared they had to go shopping for groceries.

They’d ridden the bus here, which Jamie liked even less than cars; a giant beast of a metal box that was even louder, filled with strangers who all scowled at him when he looked their way.

And then they had come into the store itself; a giant room that looked big enough to be in a palace, but was also strangely dingy and drab, with floors that looked like cheap, fake marble, lights that hummed and made his eyes ache if he looked at them for too long, and an indoor marketplace full of people that scowled just as much as the bus people and got pushy when he lingered for too long in one place.

The wares sold here were fascinating, though.

The fruits and vegetables seemed normal enough in their bins, albeit there was more variety here than Jamie would have expected, and there were small showers in some shelves that sprayed the produce with water every now and again.

But the rest of the store was even more interesting.

Everything else was sold in a bag, a box, or a jar—and they were all so colorful, with beautiful pictures on the front to show you what was inside each container.

And some containers were inside large fridges and freezers with glass doors.

That was probably Jamie’s favorite part of the store; because whenever he put his head into one of those freezers, he got blasted with cold air.

He would have stayed there forever, if it weren’t for the other shoppers complaining about it, and making Jesse tell him to stop. He’d seemed embarrassed about it.

That wasn’t a good feeling.

Jamie liked it better when Jesse was smiling or laughing, not when he was hurriedly pushing Jamie out of the aisle with a red face and a few muttered apologies to the angry people who glared at them on the way out.