Page 29 of Ask Me For Fire


Font Size:  

He smiled wanly. “You’re gonna latch onto that, aren’t you?”

“Onto what?”

He fluttered a hand in the air. “Me thinking most people are self-absorbed monsters. Ask me if I include myself in that statement.”

“Do you?”

“Sometimes.”

“The kicker is, we all are to some degree.” She leaned forward and Ambrose watched the sway of tiger’s eye earrings by her cheekbones. “I think almost all people are capable of great deeds of self-reflection and narcissism. But most people find a balance and they go forward in the world doing their best.”

“I don’t think I’m narcissistic. I do think I’m stuck in my own head too much.” Ambrose looked up at her, smile gone. “I think Barrett is a little like that, too. Or at least what I’ve seen of him.”

“You like him.”

“I do.”

“This might come later, but I want you to think about forming a bond with him. Maybe something deeper. If you’re both amenable, of course.”

Ambrose flashed back to the mornings when they’d wave at each other. Barrett giving him boxes of Perry’s drawings to dig through. HetrustedAmbrose with those precious pieces of paper on which little parts of his dead friend was inscribed. It had hurt his heart, that gesture, but not in the way he’d expected. The drawings and watercolors carried joy and life in them. So instead of mourning someone he’d never known - someone whose house he had bought and now lived in - Ambrose got to see the passion. The life. The spark.

“Yeah, I think he would be,” he replied just as the session timer went off.

“So, wait. You can paint, draw, write, sing, play guitar, cook, and make a mean fucking apple pie. But you don’t know how to roll a joint.”

Ambrose flipped Barrett off. “You say that like it’s a crime against weed.”

“A crime against your impressionable youth, maybe.” Ice clinked as he watched the dregs of the nice whisky Ambrose brought over cling to the glass. “Shit. Didn’t you ever sneak out, swipe the keys and the cigarettes, and go meet your friends in the woods or a cornfield? And just sit around and tell stupid teenager jokes and learn how to inhale and blow it away from your face so you don’t smell too bad. And it’s cold and the moon’s out and you just….shiver but you don’t want to let on cause you’re trying to catch someone’s eye” He chuckled. “Or, in my case, it wasn’t cigarettes and the car keys, it was weed from the stash we kept in my buddy Jay’s shed and a bottle of that shitty table wine you get upcharged for at restaurants.”

Ambrose’s mouth twitched into a smile. “A bottle and not one of those jugs?”

Barrett pulled a face. “Oh god, never remind me.”

Ambrose’s laugh hit him square in the chest. “Might have snuck one or two of those jugs backstage between shows.”

Cue the intrigue. Every bit of Ambrose’s life he learned about, no matter how small the crumb, made the puzzle pieces begin to click into place. “Yeah? Music or theater?”

“Theater. Two shows on Friday and Saturday, and a Sunday matinee during October. It was freshman year in college.” Ambrose leaned his head against his fist, the move making him slouch in the chair. The position showed off his long legs. It was like they went on forever and then the rest of Ambrose simplyappeared. A crown of wavy auburn, dark grey eyes that looked like their own galaxies, and a long, lean neck into sloping shoulders.

The sight made Barrett’s mouth water. Every time it happened, Barrett had to remember he was simply reacting to an attractive sight and it meant nothing. Just his very human need reacting to a very pretty sight. That was all.

If circumstances were different.

If he were a grouchy book hero, stoic and sullen and emotionally constipated, he’d shake off all the shiverings of somethingelseonly to, much later on, be shown what he’d been missing out on. There would be a spark he couldn’t ignore, a kiss, and then fumblings in the dark while desire thrummed under his skin and warm hands caressed him.

“What was the show?” he asked, voice gone a little hoarse while his cock tried to do some thinking for him.

Wonder of wonder, Ambrose flushed. “Little Shop of Horrors.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “No way.”

“Yep.” With a sigh, Ambrose poured a little more whisky into his glass. “Finish it off?”

“Ooof. But yeah, fuck it. I don’t have to work tomorrow.”

“You’ll sleep like a baby, then.”

“Heh, yeah maybe. That would be a nice change.” Barrett leaned even further back in his chair, letting his head settle on the thick, dark blue, velvety fabric. He loved these chairs; had bought them at an estate sale when he’d first moved to Lake Honor. They were massive, overstuffed wingbacks that looked like they belonged in the drawing room of an old castle in a moor. Somewhere foggy and slightly mysterious, where the stone was always cold and the wind damp but somehow it felt like home. Fires smelling like old, cracked wood and peat moss and halls that lay thick with memories.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like