AMIRAmir Jr. jumped out of my arms and onto the couch. For some reason he really didn’t like his daddy. I sighed and sat down by Ryan’s backpack. Bobby was staring at it with an intense look. I leaned over to take a peek inside. There was something silver in there. If Ryan was homeless, why did he have nice stuff? Poked my hand in and found a handle.
“Amir!” Bobby hissed. I smiled innocently at him and pulled out...a knife! Ever since the time I’d cut myself trying to fix a snack I’d hated the things. I always made either Bobby or Paige cut my food for me. Anyway, this was a big ass butcher knife thing, so much larger than anything I’d ever conceived of before.
“AH!” I screamed, waving it about. Ryan came running back into the room and grabbed my hand.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” he yelled, pulling it away from me.
“K...knife!” I squealed.
“Why were you in my backpack anyway?!” The rumpled bundle of fabric was pulled away from me, I noticed the hastily repaired rips and scars crossing its surface.
“I saw something shiny.”
“And you can’t control yourself?! How old are you Amir?! You should have more sense than to go poking around in other people’s things!” he snarled, zipping it closed and putting it on his back.
Bobby said nothing, he just sat there and watched us. I knew he had seen the knife before I got it out of the bag and had been trying to stop me. It was Amir Jr.’s fault. I glowered at him as he cowered under the couch. “Why do you have that anyway?”
Ryan rolled his eyes and sighed. “Do you think it’s safe to just be out on the streets with nothing to protect yourself with?!” He slumped down onto the couch.
“Did you kill anyone with that?” I asked. Bobby smacked his forehead. Ryan just unzipped his backpack and pulled it out, running his fingertip along the edge.
“Not yet.” he whispered.
Paige came in, took a quick glance at Ryan, and then gently nudged Bobby towards the bedroom. I was left alone with Ryan. So I sidled up to him and leaned my head on his shoulder. “Why are they still obsessing about last night? We didn’t get in.” I sighed.
Ryan shook his head and closed his eyes. I thought I caught a smile, but he could have just been smiling because I was around. I have that effect on people.
PAIGEBobby sat down on the bed and looked at me expectantly. “What?!”
“Jay said that someone got in last night. Someone who did a little bit more than just watch him.” I said slowly, watching as Bobby’s eyes widened and he slid forward on the bed.
“What?! But the chain was on...”
“From what he told me, it sounded like it was before the chain got put on.”
“Why didn’t he do anything?” I clenched my eyes closed and sighed. Sometimes it took a while before Bobby caught on to things. Perhaps it was a side effect of the car fumes that he had to inhale everyday.
“He’s sick and he’s horny. Think about it.”
“And he doesn’t know who it was?!”
“He kept on rambling about how we were all there watching, that there were these angels and things.” Remembered how vividly he had described the forms, but it didn’t provide any clues. “Frankly, I don’t know if it was just something he imagined.”
“Was the chain still on this morning?” Bobby asked, his hand reaching out for mine. I walked away a little bit.
Dug in my pocket, fingers clenched around the faded brass of the chain. “Someone cut it so they could just pinch it closed and make it look like it was locked.” I said, tossing it to him. He examined the loops carefully, clucking over the one that could easily be bent open.
“Fuck...”
“So...I was wondering. Why do you have a key to Jay’s apartment?” Shit. I asked him before I thought about it. I was just gonna end up pissing him off and muddling things up even more.
But he didn’t get mad. He just clammed up and handed me back the chain. “I don’t see what that has to do with this.”
“You could have gone in there last night!”
“You could have too.” I closed my eyes and tried to calm down. This was just going to turn into a game of finger-pointing.
“I know I could have. I didn’t though. Jay is MY FRIEND and I don’t fuck around with my friends.”
He crossed his arms and laid back on the bed. “Paige...I wouldn’t do that. If you should be asking anyone, it’s Ryan.”
I opened my mouth to say something more, but I saw a shadow in the hallway. When I went to the doorway to look, all I saw was empty space and some fleeing feet. Fuck. Could have been Amir or Ryan.
BOBBYHe doesn’t trust me. Why do I find that not all that hard to believe? Mother-fucker. The only one who truly ever tried to understand me, at least a little, was Ryan. Before he left. Before we fucked. Before his whole personality changed.
Paige was still in the room staring at me. But his face had softened a bit. I was glad that Ryan or Amir or whichever cat it was had stalked in and broken his concentration. Because I did like Paige...though it was a bit uncomfortable when I’d wake up in the morning with his arm around me. Not that I didn’t like it. I remembered the days when Amir got to sleep in the middle and he’d drool all over the pillow. That was neither here nor there.
I just laid on the bed and sighed. I had to be at work in a little bit, doing gods know what to cars that I had no personal connection with and sure as hell didn’t want to be rooting around in. Paige sighed and sat down next to me on the bed. “Maybe I’ll just call in sick today.” he mumbled.
“No...Let me stay home this time.” I said. “You’ve missed too much work already.” He looked at me as if he couldn’t leave his precious Jay in my care. I knew he liked Jay, I knew that they even did stuff together when they got too horny to be bothered to go somewhere and find someone new. “I’m not going to hurt Jay.” I grabbed his hand and forced him to look at me.
He stared at me incredulously. “Hey, I can trust that you didn’t do anything last night. I went to bed the same time you did. It was Ryan and Amir who were over there. It was probably one of them.”
Paige sighed and nodded. “I know...I’m sorry. It’s just a little suspicious that you have another key...” He got up and started to get dressed for his job. I stared at the indentation along his back as he put on his work shirt and started to button it. Skin so pale and dotted with moles. There was a long silence fraught with tension. Then he turned and cocked his head, his eyes full of something that wasn’t quite distrust but wasn’t exactly absolute faith. “But why would Ryan do anything? Jay never did anything to him. Didn’t he leave because he wanted to get away from you?” he asked.
Pain through my body, I had been trying to forget this for years. Because I had never loved Ryan and he had never even admitted to any greater feeling for me. Our relationship was a sham. “Paige...Jay was the last person who talked to Ryan before he decided to go.”