Hhe was halfway up the fifth-floor staircase when it occurred to him it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. He was slightly out of breath, but in a strange way he felt exhilarated and refreshed at the same time. All those years of obsessive biking, running, and swimming had paid off. All the physical risks he’d taken with his sailboat and all the times he’d done what everyone told him he couldn’t do had been worthwhile after all. When he reached the last step on the fifth floor and looked up, he knew he’d made the right decision to move into this particular building.
There was a young man with dark brown hair standing in a partially open doorway. He had a purple sleeping mask pushed up on is forehead, his eyes were still heavy with sleep, and he’d just finished yawning. His lips were full and round and his delicate features were a rare combination of soft curves and sharp points. For a moment, Jase just stood there on the top step, staring at the young man’s face. Through all five flights, Jase’s heartbeat had remained steady.
But now, for some reason, it was ready to jump out of his chest.
He smiled. “I’m sorry I disturbed you. I guess they sent me the wrong key. I couldn’t use it in the front door. It’s probably for the apartment door.” He placed his suitcase on the landing and pulled the key out of his pocket to prove he was telling the truth. “I’m renting the apartment next door to you.”
The young guy rubbed his eyes and yawned again. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, in a soft, even voice. “I’ve had a few key problems myself.” Then he smiled and looked Jase up and down with a blank expression.
Jase lifted his suitcase and crossed to the guy’s door. “I’m sorry to bother you again,” he said. “But I need to use the phone.” He pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket and held it up.
The bottom half of his flip-top phone was dangling from the top half. He’d accidentally stepped on it earlier that morning trying to pump gas. Until this week, it had been years since he’d pumped his own gas. “I broke mine this morning and I haven’t had a chance to get a new one yet.
I’m Jase Nicholas.” He was sorry he’d mentioned his last name. He wasn’t sure whether or not this guy would recognize it.
The guy remained expressionless. When he heard Jase’s last name, he didn’t so much as lift an eyebrow. “I’m Luis Fortune,” he said, then slowly opened the door and stepped to the side so Jase could enter.
Jase couldn’t overlook what this guy was wearing: just a white formal dress shirt. The tails of the shirt stopped at the top of his silky smooth thighs, and the top of the shirt was wide open, exposing his round, compact chest muscles.
When Jase stepped inside, he looked around and rubbed his jaw. “I guess you’re new here, too,” he said. There were unopened boxes haphazardly strewn across the floor, a pile of shoes near the kitchen door, and another pile of clothes beside the bedroom door. There wasn’t much furniture. A small French loveseat with gilded trim and zebra print material and two flashy mirrored side tables were in the middle of the living room. On a small French desk near the window, there was a small flat-screen television and a laptop computer.
“I’ve been here about a year,” Luis said, closing the door.
“I see,” Jase said. He watched him close the door. When his arm went up to push the door shut, the back of his shirt rose and exposed the bottom part of his ass. Jase swallowed back hard and cleared his throat, trying to control the bulge in his low-rise jeans from getting bigger than it already was.
Luis yawned again and walked to the middle of the living room. He put his hands on his hips and looked back and forth a few times. “I know I left the phone somewhere in here. I was using it this morning in the park.”
Then he moved closer to the loveseat and said, “I remember now.” He lifted the zebra cushion and reached for the iPhone. When he bent down, the shirt rose up and exposed most of his ass. “I put it under the cushion so it wouldn’t wake me up.”
“Why didn’t you just turn it off?” Jase asked, standing there with his hands in his pockets and furrowed eyebrows, trying hard not to stare at Luis’s naked legs.
Luis handed Jase the phone and waved his arm. “I’m not sure how to turn it off. The last time I did, I couldn’t get it back on again. I’m not very good with insignificant things like phones and computers. I only know enough to use them to do what I need them to do for me.”
Jase took the phone and stepped forward. He moved his left leg first and heard a weak growl. When he looked down at the floor, the most unusual-looking animal he’d ever seen was staring up at him. He assumed it was a small dog; it couldn’t have been a cat. It was completely bald, except for long shocks of shaggy blond hair on its head and a few sprigs of shaggy blond hair above its paws. The trembling animal was looking up at Jase, but Jase wasn’t sure if it was growling or purring.
“I’m sorry,” Jase said, tilting his head to the side. “I didn’t mean to frighten her.”
Luis smiled and reached down so he could scoop the animal up in his arms. Then he kissed the top of its head. “He’s a Chinese Crested. I saw him in a back alley one night and he followed me home. Poor little dog doesn’t have a name. I didn’t want a pet, but he didn’t give me much of a choice. I couldn’t just leave him out in the cold.” He carried the dog into the kitchenette and poured some dry dog food into a small lavender bowl. When he put the bowl on the floor so the dog could eat, he looked up at Jase and smiled. He shrugged and said, “It didn’t feel right naming him. I don’t want to be attached to anything or anyone until I find out where I’m going and what I’m doing in life. I’m not sure what that is yet, but I know how it feels. It feels like Elena’s Romantic Treasures and Tidbits.”
“Is that a restaurant?”
Luis laughed. “No, it’s not a restaurant. It’s a place where I go when I’m feeling alone and impatient and homesick all at the same time.”
“Like when you’re depressed and anxious,” Jase said. He knew that feeling well. a month after his fortieth birthday he woke up in the middle of the night absolutely terrified for no reason at all. It was as if his entire life had hit him smack in the face. Suddenly, the fact that he wasn’t going to live forever became a reality he’d never faced before. And when it occurred to him that he was halfway through his life and he’d never been completely honest with himself, his heart started to race so fast he almost called the paramedics.