Page 6 of The Key Holder

Because you were thinking about his ass.

Another look at his face and I knew I wasn’t going to kick him out. He certainly didn’t need to leave right this minute. “You don’t need to go tonight,” I said. “We can talk it out. Maybe we can come up with a solution?”

We can talk it out?

Who the fuck did I think I was? Sigmund fucking Freud. We hadn’t spoken in years—what could I have to say to him other than if you weren’t with a person then what the hell were you just fucking up there? My curiosity was piqued and damned if other parts of me weren’t also interested in what I saw.

“Really?” he said. “You’d do that. You’d let me stay?”

I shrugged. “You were here first. I can take my old room.” Apparently, I was Mother Teresa. “You’re already settled upstairs. I’ve got to get the rest of my stuff though.” The chair scraped the floor when it pushed back as I stood up. A fitting sound for the continued awkwardness that was my life.

“I can help you if you like.”

There was no point in making this worse than it already was, so I said, “Sure.”

As we unloaded my truck—the rest of the groceries to the kitchen, everything else in the downstairs bedroom—Ford chatted me up. It was as if the earlier butt-naked-fucking incident had never happened and we were just two bros at a cabin by the lake.

“You eat yet?”

I shook my head. “I was gonna make grilled cheese or something quick.”

“I can make us burgers if you like.”

“As long as they’re cheeseburgers.”

Ford laughed. “You and your cheese. I always joked with your mom that you were part mouse.”

“I never knew that.”

“We can watch a movie too, unless you want to hit the sack early? Maybe you’re tired from the long drive.”

I couldn’t understand how he was so relaxed, and I really wanted to know why he was out here alone for apparently the whole summer.

“A movie sounds great.”

I yawned and stretched.

Fuck, where am I?

My brain answered almost immediately. The cabin.

And the moonlight coming through the windows illuminated the room enough for me to figure out I was in the living room. Glancing down, I could see a blanket was covering my body.

It seemed I had fallen asleep on the couch, though I certainly didn’t remember using a blanket. I looked around for my phone.

It was four thirty, which meant I had been asleep for quite a bit. I wondered what time Ford had gone to bed. The last thing I remembered was the T. Rex escaping its paddock and the lawyer guy getting eaten on the toilet.

I stood up, tossing the blanket back on the couch, and did my best to creep quietly to my bedroom. I’d brush my teeth in the morning.

As I drifted off to sleep, my brain had time to process.

Ford had most likely put the blanket on me and I wasn’t sure what to think about that.

2

Ford

I still couldn’t believe it. Dylan was here, and based on what he was wearing when he arrived last night, a fan of crop tops.