Moved (#Wattys2014)

Chapter Five

I put the phone back on his dresser after turning it to silent.  I couldn’t have the vibrations giving me away.  Then I went back to the living room and sat in the chair to watch the game.  The taste of beer mingled with the taste of victory.

*    *    *    *

When the game had ended, I tiptoed to my own apartment.  He didn’t even notice.  Too many days of interrupted sleep topped off by a beer and a ball game.  It did my dad in every time.

My paper was almost finished when I heard him swear downstairs.  I jumped up and dashed to the bathroom, which I had ready.  Clothes flew as I speed-stripped and turned the faucet on.  A shiver ran through me at the touch of the icy water.  But I was safe.  Standing there, I listened.  The sudden pounding at the bathroom door almost made me yip.

“Racer?”  It wasn’t hard to sound uncertain when my heart was trying to beat its way through my lung.

“You—”

He hit the door.  Wood crackled.  Ooh, I’d made him so mad.

“Why?” he finally shouted.

I quickly dunked my head under the warming water, wetting it completely before turning the faucet off.  In the silence, his harsh breathing filled the room.

“Are you standing in my bathroom?”  I dared a peek around the curtain.  Yep, he was.  His eyes had gone black and a vein protruded from his forehead.  I reached around the curtain for my towel, unable to look away from the evidence that he wasn’t like me.  I wrapped it around myself and stepped out.

“Why what?  And why are you in the bathroom with me when I’m naked?”

His eyes focused past his rage and drifted over my towel.  He growled, his frustration evident, but didn’t back out of the room as I’d hoped.  Not good.  I’d over estimated his need to adhere to polite rules.  I blamed that misjudgment on the hamper.  He needed to cool down.

“No more games.”

“Yeah, the Mariners lost.”

He bellowed and with lightning speed, he swiveled and hit the door.  His fist tore through the wood, sending splinters flying.  Part of me, the crazy excited part, wanted to clap and laugh at the display.  The rational part of me, the part that realized I knew nothing about his kind, helped muzzle the crazy part.

“Here’s the thing.  Your little tantrum doesn’t scare me.  Your tricks, like turning off the power, don’t bother me.  Here’s why.  My dad trusts you completely with my welfare.  If he didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”  And that was the only thing that gave me the guts to play with him the way I was.  “We both know he can’t come take me away.  So, you’re stuck with me for nine months just like I’m stuck with you.  We can keep going like we have been the last few days or we can try something else.  Something that won’t keep you up nights.”

He stayed facing away from me.  His shoulders shook with each heaving breath.  “What do you have in mind?”

“Friendship.  Trust.”

He gave a dry laugh and tipped his head back as if to look at the ceiling.  His eyes were closed though.  A prayer for patience, then.

“I’m not saying right away.  Let’s just try to be nice to each other.  I have no friends here and, from the looks of things, neither do you.  If you want me to stay put, give me a reason to.”  I shifted my hold on my towel to one hand and laid the other lightly on his back.

“If you want this, then call your dad.  Tell him what you did.”

I dropped my hand.  “Friends don’t give orders or ultimatums.”