“Don’t worry about it, Jack. I’ll get a cab.”
“I could call—”
“It’s fine, Jack, really.”
His backbone turns to Jello while he hangs his head, moping like a child all the way back to the car.
Trick looks around, fiddling with his toothpick. “Good luck finding that cab.” He sidesteps past me to an alleyway cut between the buildings.
I assess my dark surroundings—closed businesses, broken street lights, and a few homeless people drifting in and out of the alleys. Digging through my purse, I grab my phone—it’s dead. Just perfect! I look over at Jack leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette. After taking two steps in his direction, I pivot, for some insane, unexplainable reason, and waddle in my tight dress down the alley, heels clacking against the concrete.
“No cabs?” Trick asks without looking up as he unlocks a large metal door.
“My phone is dead. Can I borrow yours or pay you for a ride?”
He grunts, opening the door. “I don’t want your money.”
I rub my hands over the tight, chilled skin on my arms. “You didn’t have an issue with it earlier.”
“That was business. In.” He gestures with his head.
I step inside like I’m testing it for quicksand. It’s completely dark. The heavy door slams shut leaving an eerie echo bouncing off walls that seem wider and higher than my eyes can see. Trick flips a switch to a single light bulb that looks like it’s dangling from nowhere. Dark shadows drape everything but a freight elevator with the old scissor gate a few feet in front of us. He opens the gate and steps into the elevator. I don’t.
We have a silent standoff. I’m not getting on that old thing and he … well I don’t think he cares what I do.
“Suit yourself.” He starts to shut the gate.
“Wait!” I scurry into the elevator and he shuts the gate behind me.
It starts its ascent with a jerk as the old wheel and pulleys moan in protest. I lean against the back wall with my hands flat against it to brace myself. The fright in my face is palpable; I can only imagine how ugly it must look from the outside. My fear is met with another toothless smirk.
Smug ass!
The elevator grinds to an equally jerky halt. Trick slides open the gate and steps off, turning on the lights. With less hesitation than before, I follow him like a horse he’s breaking with fear, not trust. He lives in an old warehouse. It has monstrous open ceilings with exposed duct work and conduit and a panoramic grid of windows at the far end. The walls are all naked red brick and there’s a spiral iron stairway in the distant corner, leading to an open loft area.
“I’ll get you a jacket.”
“I’m fine.” I force myself to stop the nervous friction of my hands rubbing against my arms. It has to be eighty degrees on this upper level, but I still have chills.
Trick continues to the stairway, of course not acknowledging a word I’ve said.
This place is void of interior walls with the exception of two translucent glass brick walls about ten feet high near a cluster of bedroom furniture. Watching the stairway for his return, I ease my way over and peek around the corner of glass—it’s a bathroom. Shuffling on my toes to silence my heels, I move toward the kitchen so he doesn’t see me snooping near his bedroom area. With my hands clasped behind my back in innocence, I wait for Trick. Beyond the sitting area in the middle of the room are multiple figures near the far windows. The dim lighting makes it impossible to tell if it’s more furniture or something else. It looks like different things draped with sheets.
“Here,” Trick says coming down the stairs, holding out a black leather jacket.
“I like your place.”
He raises a single disbelieving brow at me.
“I do. I like the industrial feel.”
He gives me a slow yeah-sure-you-do nod, clearly not convinced. In my own home I surround myself with modern decor trimmed in clean lines and very little clutter. Step-mommy Rachel thinks it has a hideous “sterile” feel to it: stainless steel appliances, white and shades of gray paint, and all hard surface flooring.
“You’re a man of very few words, Patrick Roth.” I smile, hoping to capture the ultimate prize—a return smile.
“It’s Trick, and maybe you’re a woman of too many words. Put the jacket on. Let’s go.”
“You could offer me a drink.” Internally, I grimace. Where did that come from? I have no idea what I’m doing or what’s my angle—my motivation. It might be fifty percent stupidity and fifty percent curiosity. Okay, more like seventy-thirty.
He sighs. “I don’t have anything to offer you.”
What does that mean? Are we still talking beverages or something else, as in he’s gay and I’m not?