“We’ll get you home,” Dylan said, offering a comforting smile. There wasn’t much else Dylan could offer other than support.
“I don’t want to go home,” Kaiden said, his face tense with unbridled anxiety. “It’s late. My family will have questions and opinions, and I just don’t have the energy for any of that.”
“I understand.” Dylan nodded affirmingly.
“Hell, they probably already locked me out for the night anyway.”
Dylan fumed at that, recalling the additional deadbolt Kaiden’s stepfather installed if anyone came home too late. Sure,they had house keys, but the extra deadbolt ensured Kaiden’s parents controlled any evening outings.
“You can crash at my place,” Dylan offered.
Kaiden made a face, probably delicately explaining that a house full of runaway teens wasn’t ideal. The chaos normally didn’t bother Kaiden, considering his own home, but Dylan suspected his friend needed a quiet place to disappear for a few hours.
“Let’s just head back to my apartment.” Rus shrugged. “It’s tiny. Bedroom living room combo place, but cheap and no noise.”
“Okay.” Dylan nodded, and they left for Rus’ place.
Dylan pulled into the apartment complex, following Rus’ lead as he helped escort Kaiden up the stairs. The building had this outdoorsy vibe where all the residents’ doors were accessible to anyone. No inside passage or hallways. Just a spacious corridor leading from one apartment to the next.
Rus opened his door, leading the way inside, and the tour took all of five seconds. There was a bathroom to the immediate left when you entered, small but accessible. There was a closet to the right, tiny and crammed with boxes and luggage and cleaning supplies. After that single step inside came the bedroom living room combination, which consisted of Rus’ large mattress and box spring on the floor, a recliner chair propped up in a corner, a desk with a laptop and textbooks, and a wobbly stand that looked one Jenga piece away from collapsing with the television and game systems in all.
“Where’s your kitchen?” Kaiden asked.
Rus took five dramatically big steps—his way of conveying just how small the floorplan in his apartment was—then swung open a door on the opposite side of his apartment.
“Kitchen is a shared common space.”
Dylan blinked with a confused expression.
“Cheap off-campus housing comes with some quirks.” Rus laughed. “I pay for this space; someone next to me pays for the same.”
“Oh.” Dylan nodded, gathering the tiny space and shared kitchen made for quite the affordable accommodations.
Honestly, Dylan didn’t know much about the expenses of housing outside the mortgage and utilities for Dorothy’s Home, where he’d lived since he was fifteen, staying on to work alongside Jasmine. He did know it cost several thousand dollars to move into an apartment, most demanding deposits, first month’s rent, and last month’s too if their renters had bad credit—or worse, no credit. That never made sense to Dylan, how not borrowing money somehow hurt someone’s odds of being good with money.
But he ran several fundraisers over the years to help former teen residents get the necessary funds for housing after they aged out of Dorothy’s Home. Not all of them went to college, so that meant they needed some type of housing assistance when they jumped into the workforce world, and while Jasmine couldn’t take everyone on as an employee in the way she had with Dylan, she always made sure not to send a single kid out into the world without some kind of preparation.
“You going to settle in okay?” Dylan turned his attention to Kaiden, who seemed to silently absorb the events of the night.
“Yeah.”
“All righty then…I’m going to get going.”
“Are you crazy?” Rus asked. “I saw those woozy eyes on the drive here. It’s almost four. Just crash here.”
“Um…” Dylan tensed a bit. “Where exactly?”
“This is a king.” Rus pointed a thumb over his shoulder to his bed. “Plenty of room for all of us.”
“A king for the short king,” Kaiden said, the tiniest bit of sass in his weary tone.
That brought joy back to Dylan, seeing his friend blossom into himself again, even if fleeting.
“And to cater to all the queens I bring back to my bedroom.” Rus eyed Kaiden up and down.
“Bitch, you’re snarky,” Kaiden teased. “Okay, but I’m not sleeping in the middle.”
“Guess Dylan gets the middle,” Rus said. “Hope you’re cool with that.”
