WICKED BOY (59) (Patreon)

Despite good intentions and a desperate desire for distraction, searching for a therapist in a moving vehicle on a dirt road during a rainstorm leads to nothing but car sickness.  I wince at the roll of discomfort in my chest and tuck my phone against my lap, opting to look towards warped Huxley porch lights, the distance between each home to the next, and how they're buried in swaying trees, behind swiveling swing sets, or next to garden sheds and treehouses.

I count my sixth rusting car — another stone garden angel.  Then, when the nausea doesn't pass, I close my eyes altogether, crossing my arms over my stomach.

"Hey. You hungry?" Ezra asks. His palm brushes over my back when I don't immediately respond. I count that too.  His touches are coming often and unprompted tonight. I wonder if my thoughts will ever not linger on something this simple, but the wonder hastily reroutes, and instead, I realize I've never watched him with others.

I've never seen how he treats — or touches, anyone else. Maybe this is normal for him. Perhaps this is familiarity.  I imagine it will all keep piling up. Things I don't know and things I want to know.

I set the things I want aside.

I set them aside for what I need.

"I get sick — reading and driving.  My fault." I shrug as the taxi turns and slows, pulling into the diner. A light is flickering in the motel's signage, a vibrant and unsure shifting of the letter 'e.' It reflects in the puddles and against the window, where rain is hitting in buckets, the droplets gathering so quickly together that they pass like a stream.

The weather is an intimidating and sudden shift. The cab driver is staring in the same direction.  He looks uneasy, wiping a large palm over his balding head before he rights the collar of his shirt.

I turn to Ezra to whisper,

"... He really shouldn't drive back to town in this.  It doesn't look like it's going to clear up."

"Yeah?"  Ezra's hand slips down my back as he tilts his head. It doesn't move. I can feel the edge of his rings on my spine — and clear my throat. For a typically empathetic man, his expression falls entirely mild towards a reasonable concern.  "Just rain."

"Ezra.  That's not rain."  I wave outside, short and strict,  "Look at it.  There are no buildings to block the wind.  It's turning into something from the Wizard of Oz."

Ezra's lip tugs in recognition. He ducks his head closer, though a box separates us.  I flinch in surprise, his dark eyelashes casting shadows,

"He's a grown man.  Are you comparin' hard Huxley rain to a Kansas tornado?"

My brows gather, miffed,

"You can be offended until you find our driver smashed under a house with some red heels on."

Ezra snorts, pulling his hand back to reach inside his jean pocket. He glances outside. The directional sign near the end of the diner sways with the force of the wind, and for the first time, there's no heavy potted plant holding one of the main doors open.

Ezra looks at me, unconvinced, and wraps an arm around the headrest of the passenger seat,

"It's really comin' down, ain't it?" He calls to the cab driver. He hands him money for the ride, and the man just frowns, nodding in a distant regard towards the windshield. The driver tucks the cash into a lockbox in the center console and sighs, slumping in the seat.  "Worried?"

"A bit. Guess I should place more weight on the forecast. My daughter says it's always wrong — told me just to bring an umbrella," the man grumbles, distracted and tired, and rubs the back of his neck, "but I guess the weather had something to prove to her tonight, didn't it?"

Ezra taps his fingers along his thigh, considering.  He glances back at me, brows perked with an unsaid and easy defeat.

"... So, why don't ya' get a room tonight."  Ezra stares at me, and I stare at him.  He shakes his head, bemused.  "Wait it out.  Don't think you'll be getting any more calls from this way."

"Nah." The driver glances back towards Ezra with a sincere half-smile, but shakes his head. "Truly, it'll probably cost less for me to drive back. There's no sense in spending a night's earnings on a room. You know?"

Ezra looks towards me, again, sly, pulling back from the passenger seat with a lazy — tauntingly resigned shrug. I glare at him, then back towards the rain, and grimace.

"I'll pay for it," I say. I don't really know why. Maybe because it's my fault — that the man is even out here, to begin with. Perhaps because I cared more about Ezra than I did about the worker in the taxi I hailed. We could've stayed in Pennbrook.  "What I mean is.... The rooms aren't expensive.  I can pay for you to wait out the rain."

Ezra's brow quirks. The taxi driver meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror, his wide with surprise. He glances towards Ezra.  Then he laughs, quick, short and depreciating,

"Oh — that's. Well, I couldn't.  I'll just —"

Ezra rolls his eyes, just out of the driver's sight, slumping forward, and cuts in,

"I own the diner and the motel," his friendly demeanor looks forced at best. "It's on me.  Just park closer to the building, so nothin' airborne takes out a window."

I blink, regard snapping towards Ezra.

"You own...?"

"Yeah.  I own them."

—

"Doesn't look like your type of customer."  Daphne pops her gum, lip curling in mock disgust.  Her regard slides back to the damp taxi driver that's happily seated towards the back booth, a plate of pancakes in his reach.  "Don't seem like you've known him more than a night, either.  Should I put two for the room?"

"You don't think he's pretty?"  Ezra smirks, condescending at best, and he looks so big standing there, Daphne draped in his shadow.  He looks mean.  Unforgiving — like he's dissecting her down to the bone.

I think — I may have made a mistake.

Sending Ezra in here.

I stand next to the half-wall right by the bathroom, awkward and unsure of how to approach the two, my arms crossed at my middle.  I glance towards the cab driver, who waves.  I wave shortly back, a smile that I hope doesn't look like a grimace following.

"I guess I haven't seen his tits.  Or the inside of his pocketbook."  Daphne's stance is rigid, fingers tight around the pen that she uses to log the driver's stay.  The resentment in her taunt, in her posture, doesn't feel playful or benign — and Ezra meets her hostility with an odd apathy that I'd almost forgotten.

"You two gonna share him?  Didn't think you were the sharin' type."  She wags the pen between the two of us without looking up.  Her question seems directed at me, and suddenly I've been pulled into another world, but when I step forward, Ezra snorts,

"... Thought you were off tonight."  His voice drops, quieter — may be meant to be out of earshot with the way his guarded weight shifts, the way he ducks forward, but I can hear him.  I'm not invited any closer; that's what his body says,  "who's watchin' the kids?"

"I'm covering Harper."  Daphne inhales when Ezra's eyes narrow,

"You weren't supposed to cover anyone."

"Well, I did," and with finality, she adds, louder — less angry, maybe just for show,  "Alright.  Driver John is all logged and paid for.  Didn't I tell you that ya' scare off the customers?  Door's behind ya'."

I reach for the door, hoping for escape — but Ezra's teeth grit before he repeats,

"Need me to speak up?  The kids?  Who's got 'em?"

"My neighbor's daughter,"  Daphne's eyes flick up to meet his and immediately away.  "Talulah Holt.  And.  She's stayin' the night 'cause of the weather."

Ezra sneers, abruptly aggravated,

"Talulah Holt's a fuckin' baby.  Why's a baby watchin' babies?  What if the power goes out?"

"She's sixteen.  Has been since November.  Has her CPR certification and a cellphone."  Daphne sniffs, turning a page loudly — clicking the end of her pen.  Her earlier arrogance sinks, and her chin trembles as she shakes her head,  "anyway.  She's got your number on speed-dial — so don't go givin' me a bunch of shit and keep your phone off silent."

"Send me her number."

The siblings don't look the way that they do in the photos that hang from the walls in Ezra's home.  The boyish, familial pride in Ezra has turned lukewarm.  Daphne looks more bitter and broken than a small-town Beauty Queen deserves to be, her haughtiness and confidence lost under her younger brother's disdain.

I don't feel like I should be watching this.  I don't feel like I should be seeing this, but I'm seeing this because Ezra stepped in, and he's going to be angry or annoyed with me — and that's all I can think.  Nerves swallow me whole.

"... Staff stayin' in the rooms?"  Ezra hums, his head tilting.  There's an unsaid question there—a blip past his nonchalance.

Daphne's lips twist with something ugly,

"Weather's shit, and Rufus didn't close shop 'cause he don't work today, I figure.  So yeah, staff is stayin' overnight."

"Fine.  Log it."

—

Ezra isn't mad.  Not at me.  He's quiet — but not mad.  Or at least, I can't tell what he is.

"This Talulah?"  Ezra shrugs off his jacket, distracted and facing away from me.  The room inside of the bar next door is dim and quiet, the muscles of his back moving under red light.  The thin, white fabric of his t-shirt appears stained with it, pale threads reflecting the hue.  "Right. Makin' sure I got the right number."

"A-huh.  The power goes out, or you have a problem, just call."

"Nah, if they're in bed.  Don't need to wake them up for me."

"Mm.  Make sure you lock the doors."  He huffs out a gentle sound, one that makes my stomach turn with a sudden affection, then, "night."

My boxes are near the door.  I press my toes into the side of one as Ezra exhales.

"... This side's closed tonight.  If ya' want a motel room to yourself,  Daph' will get you set up."  He tosses his jacket towards the bed and checks his phone, the light brightening his features as he turns towards me — and he's calm.  I think.

No.  He's nothing.

I can't pick him apart.

Daphne doesn't seem like a safe subject.  She never does.  Asking him how he feels right now — seems...

"Are you — well."  My fingers hesitate at my jacket's zipper.  Should I go?  "Back there, that was....  is everything alright?"

It's a dumb question.  Isn't it?

I glance towards the bed that looks nothing like the one in his bedroom at home.  It's modern.  New.  The room here is sterile.  Black.  Gray.  White.  The window is covered by a heavy curtain, the rain pattering loudly, a velvet lounge chair just under it.

"Everything's fine."

Ezra's gaze slips over my face.  There's nothing to read into.  His expression doesn't say that he isn't fine.

He answers his phone,

"Yeah, cancel 'em.  Send a group message to the Goules."  He rubs at his bicep, up under the t-shirt, where his nicotine patch lays.  He picks the edges absentmindedly, and I watch him.  For once, he doesn't watch me back.  "I won't have drivers for the escorts if they're doin' outcalls."

He rolls his eyes, shrugging.  The voice on the other line is muddled and distant.  I bite the inside of my cheek.

"My friend read the forecast.  He said it's only gonna get worse.  Power might go out.  Cameras won't work in the bar for an in-call.  Not safe for anyone.  Mornin' ain't busy anyway."

I inhale, and unzip my jacket.  It's loud.  Ezra glances up, sharp eyes on the motion of my fingers.  I look down at my socked feet.

What if the offer for me to get a motel room — is because he wants me to get one?

Does he need some space?

"Alright.  You good with sendin' back deposits?"

"Right."  He hangs up again, then motions towards me with a flick of his busy hand,  "you stayin' with me?"

"Well."  I hesitate — pulling my jacket back from where it lay on top of his.   Ezra's head tilts.  He seems busy.  What if I get in his way?

I clear my throat before shaking my head.

"Maybe — no.  I'll,"  I push a thumb back towards the door,  "I can go."

"Good for you."  Ezra crouches down, pulls at the drawer next to the bed.  He reaches into it, pushing clothing aside like he's searching for something.  "You can go, or ya' wanna go?"

I blink,

"You seem — angry.  So I just thought..."

"Nothin' to be angry about."

I inhale.  Honest.  I'll just be honest.  Ezra's safe.  Isn't he?  My teeth dig into the softness of my cheek.  I wring my hands together in front of me, adjusting my watch, adjusting the slip of my glasses.

"... Ezra.  You're making me anxious."

Ezra stops abruptly, stands with a creak of the wood underneath him, turning back to me.  Finally, his expression shifts into surprise.

"... I don't know if I shouldn't have offered to pay for that cab driver, and I — well, I won't ask you things that you don't want to tell me — like, what that was, with Daphne.  Or — make you discuss work."  I rub my palms down my thighs,  "But you said to get to know you, and you won't let me — and I'm going to sound sensitive.  But..."

I pause, a strange sound in my throat coming out in place of any words, but Ezra's eyes are on mine.  He steps forward, reaches, his hand on my arm when he nods.  My chin tilts upward to hold his attention, a hand on his hand,

"Angel.  I'm not mad at you,"  Ezra says that first.  Then, "I'm listenin'."

He tugs my arm when I mimic his nod, anxiety derailing into a self-centered shame,

"Just cancelin' appointments and checkin' that a babysitter exists.  So.  Tell me what I did.  How did I make ya' feel anxious?"

I purse my lips, feeling petulant, feeling childish,

"I remember telling you — that I couldn't come back here.  To this room.  Without alcohol and, I did.  I did it.  I let you in then.“

Ezra shifts closer, and I take another breath,

“I'm — letting you in now.  Every time, I let you in.  So."  I look down at to where our socked feet touch.  "Don't — do that.  Don’t shut me out.”

—

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