Plucking Green - 1. Chapter 1

Roman had been doing odd jobs all summer, to pay for rent. This time, though, he was painting a house. The living room, to be precise. The living room of his dad’s friend, Jeff, to be even more precise. Roman was nineteen and quiet, insecure, so it kept him from ever getting a real job. He had tried in the past, but the depression of never getting called back was crippling. Jeff knew that, and that was why he would help Roman with some side jobs. Painting, mowing, cleaning. With his young face that made him look sixteen, Jeff said that he would make a good waiter at a restaurant, but Roman knew he wouldn’t make it a day. So, here he is, sitting in front of a wall and painting around the brown trim along the floor.

With his earbuds in, he listened contently to Post Malone’s music that always gave him a hard on, and stroked his wide paintbrush up and down the wall. He had been painting for two hours and could feel the sweat dripping down his face in the poorly air-conditioned room. It was even hotter outside, so he didn’t complain. Not that there was anyone to complain to, though. Jeff was out smoking pot in his car, because he knew that Roman hated the smell and respected it.

When Roman still lived with his parents, Jeff would go over every other day and smoke with the adults in their bedroom with the door shut. It kept the smell away, but when the door opened up, all of the rancid smoke drifted out and gave Roman headaches. That was eighty percent of the reason why he moved out. The other twenty? Because he kept getting into fights with his dad. He was gay, and his parents knew it. His mom was alright with it, but every time Roman brought over a man, it was dirty looks and low growling into his ears to “Get him the fuck out”. It didn’t even matter if it was just a friend. If it was a guy, he was kicked out.

Since Roman had moved out, his sex drive had gone off. He’d gotten the Tinder app and was fucking someone in his apartment a few times every week. At first, he was awkward, because he already had a boyfriend. His boyfriend, though, Andy, lived in another town. He and Roman were still dating, but they didn’t talk often, and it led Roman to fuck around on Tinder. Which, Andy was completely oblivious of. To Andy, he had a hot boyfriend that he was in love with. To Roman, he had an eighteen year old boyfriend too busy with his senior year of high school to talk to him.

Regardless, Roman’s sex life was why he was wearing a thong while painting. Normally, he didn’t wear any underwear at all. But today, he didn’t want to get chaffed by the summer heat rubbing him against his jeans, and he didn’t want to wear boxers to help him sweat to death. The only other thing clean was his thong, which he had set aside for a fuck night that was yet to come.

Through his music, Roman could hear the screen door open and close; Jeff had left the front door open before and Roman was too preoccupied to notice. Jeff came into the house with a 44 oz of presumably Dr. Pepper in his hand, and he looked at Roman with his light brown eyes. Roman waved with a paint stained hand before pulling out his earbuds when he saw the other man’s mouth move to speak.

“What?” Roman asked, not hearing Jeff. Jeff rolled his eyes and started walking through the room with his drink, his keys jangling noisily in his fingers.

“I said, “No, you can’t paint my toenails”,” he said. Roman scoffed and turned back to the wall, dipping his brush into the paint bucket to continue his job.

Jeff had a raunchy sense of humor. Sometimes it was funny, others, it was horrendously annoying. Like now. He was Roman’s dad’s friend, but the young adult’s mom hated him. She claimed that she hated his voice, which sounded alright to Roman, but his mom just hated it because she had heard it too much. Roman wouldn’t blame her. The man came over almost every day, even though he saw Roman’s dad at work all of the time.

Roman could hear his music from his earbuds that he held in his free hand, which was also stained in paint from wiping up globs that had fell from his brush to the wooden floor. He didn’t hear Jeff leave the room.

“Hey, my mom wants to know how much you’re paying me,” he said and glanced back at Jeff. The man’s eyes looked up into Roman’s. Was he looking at his ass or something?

“Shit, I ain’t paying you, what are you talkin’ about?”

Roman could tell from his voice that he was teasing him, like ninety percent of the time, but he was hot and uncomfortable, and most definitely not in the mood. Jeff gave a playful smile and pointed at Roman with his drink, the ice inside sloshing roughly.

“I’m just playing with you. When are you wanting to mow the front yard?”

Roman had mowed the backyard two days ago, which Jeff stepped in a quarter in to help with a second lawn mower he had got working. It made the time cut back to almost two hours, which felt great to Roman, because it was still hot even when that late. They waited until seven to mow, so that it would cool off some, but by the time they finished at eight, Roman was drenched in sweat and red faced. That was when the regret set in of wearing black clothes, which was his wardrobe. Today, he wore one of his favorite shirts inside out so that no paint would ruin it.

“Um, I guess whenever you want me to.”

“Oh, don’t give me none’a that bullshit- today, or tomorrow, or the day after?” For being forty four, he still looked like a thirty seven year old, talked like a twenty year old, and acted like a teenager. That was probably what annoyed Roman’s mom. From what Jeff told him, though, he had been a hell of a bad kid and was trying to make up for it. “People can change, ya know?” he said when driving Roman home the other day. “Well, at least some people. Most people.”

Roman laughed so that he wouldn’t hurt Jeff’s feelings by being annoyed. Something he had grown accustomed to since he got annoyed quite easily lately. “I guess tomorrow. Unless you want me to today.”

“Nah, you don’t gotta jump onto that shit, you can do it tomorrow.”

Roman rolled his eyes, looking back at the wall. “Okay, well, I’ve just gotta finish up this trim and then I think I’m done,” he said. Jeff watched him for a moment before looking at the white painted wall and speaking up.

“Well when you’re done, you might pull up your pants. Then you can go on and wash up.”

Roman set his brush down and reached back to pull his pants up some, but when he felt the flesh of his ass, he suddenly remembered that he was wearing a thong. He quickly looked back at Jeff while pulling his pants up and saw the man looking at him while drinking from his blue straw. The young man’s face grew red. He turned his attention back to the wall once his ass was covered and went put his earbuds in, but he paused when he heard Jeff’s voice again. It itself wasn’t annoying. The annoying part was that he never left Roman alone to do his work. Either he would hang outside, or he would come and pester Roman with teasing things like “Do you kiss your momma with that mouth? You’d better fuckin’ not!” or “Did’ya miss me? Wha-t? The hell, you didn’t!” This time, it was,

“Are you gonna need a ride home?”

Roman shook his head. “No. I’m just gonna hike it.”

Jeff chortled. “Bullshit. Once you finish up, I’ll drive you..”

Roman nodded meekly. There was no arguing with Jeff. His teasing, playful attitude was never ending. He’d annoy you into saying yes.

Once the young adult finished painting, he and Jeff left the house to the older man’s car, which had been Roman’s cousin’s, but she sold it to Jeff after she smacked another car on black ice around Thanksgiving. It ran perfectly, the only thing that was wrong was the cracked windshield and a hanging headlight that Jeff had taped back in. The reason she sold it was because her side of the family is rich and there was no way they would let her drive in a crunched car. Roman shook his head at the thought and climbed into the passenger’s seat. Jeff got in the other side and turned on the AC, because the car was very hot and stuffy.

And parents bother to leave their kids in there? Shit.

He looked at Roman while the teen put his seat belt on, and the dark haired brunette looked over.

“I’ll pay you fifty for the living room, alright?” he said. Roman nodded slowly. “Then I’ll give you thirty for mowing the back and twenty for the front. Tomorrow, when you’re done mowing.” Roman nodded again. He didn’t really mind the low payment from Jeff, because he knew how much he made. Nine hundred, the same as his dad. Most of it went to child support and court for old felonies, and other parts went to his house bills. He really only let Roman do things around his house because he was, like he said before, trying to better himself. So he was trying to help the teenager out, who wanted to go to college but couldn’t waste time on it.

Jeff started driving. He was lean and tan and had what he liked to call a “white man’s afro”, which was really just a large head of sandy brown curly hair. He was more hot than handsome, in the “daddy” kind of way. Roman always felt weird checking him out, because then he would think of his dad, and he didn’t want to admit that he had daddy issues. But, he always had wanted to fuck around with Jeff. He just didn’t do anything about it. The reason the man kept coming over to his parents’ house was because his girlfriend Jean had dumped him, after a history of cheating and verbally abusing him. One time, when Jeff came over with Jean, Roman noticed that she had a black eye. The next day, his mom told him that she and Jeff had broken up because he smacked her in the face. From her account, from Jeff’s account, Jean wouldn’t shut up while he was driving, screaming at him like she usually did. Then she started smacking him, and he accidentally elbowed her in the eyeball while trying to push her arms away.

Roman had never actually thought that Jeff was real until he heard him crying on the phone once about how he had lost everything. Then he started vising Roman’s parents non-stop.

“You want a soda?” Jeff asked while driving. Roman shook his head.

“I don’t really drink it that much,” he said slowly, awkwardly. He wasn’t the best conversationalist. Especially in a quiet car with Jeff. He could talk and joke with him when he was occupied, but now he was left alone to actually think things through. Like how his dad’s friend had seen his thong.

The ride after that was silent. It was either a long enough drive for Jeff to smoke three cigarettes, or he was just a heavy chain smoker. When Roman cleaned his car a while back, he found six empty packs laying around.

He got out of the car once Jeff parked at his apartment complex, and the teen turned to wave goodbye.

“Thanks for letting me paint,” he said. Jeff started lighting another cigarette.

“No, thank you for coming over to work. I’m proud of you.”

Roman blushed. Jeff knew that he wasn’t in college right now because his old high school had shut down, and he hadn’t had the chance to talk to a school counselor who actually knew what she was doing. He also knew that Roman didn’t have a driver’s license because his parents were meth heads in the past who were gone from home too much to take him for his tests. And he also knew that Roman couldn’t get a job because no one wanted an employee without a car, and they didn’t want an employee with no previous work history; because Roman’s home town only had one store, and they wouldn’t let him work there.

“I’ll.. see you tomorrow,” Roman said meekly. He watched a cloud of smoke smother Jeff’s face as he took a few good puffs of his fresh cigarette. Then the man pointed his cigarette at Roman.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow when I’m home from work,” he said. Roman nodded and waved again before heading to the block. He walked up the rickety steps and went to his room, 24, and unlocked the door to let himself in. He locked the door after himself and dropped his keys on the table beside the door. Then he slipped his shirt off and carried it with him to his bedroom, where he dropped it in his pile of dirty clothes. He dropped onto his bed and pulled his phone out of his back pocket to lay beside him on the sheets, his earbuds tangled together and his music still playing. His phone was probably dying by now.

Stripping his pants off, he kicked them off of the bed and did the same with his blue thong. He rolled his eyes at himself in disappointment before rolling onto his stomach. He reached across the bed to pull open the drawer of his nightstand, where he kept his condoms and lube and toys, and cigarettes. He grabbed the last, pulling the Mall Hall out and opening the top to slip out a cigarette. Popping it between his lips, he pulled his lighter from being stuffed into the carton and lit the cancer stick, taking a long drag.

His family and Jeff didn’t know that he smoked. Sure, his parents had walked in on him getting high as a youngster with his brother’s now ex-wife, but that topic never came up again. He had done drugs in the past, drank alcohol, fucked around- but his family didn’t know that, because he didn’t feel they needed to know. That’s where he imagined his smile lines came from, since he didn’t smile much at all. They were faint but always there, so it was the start of smoke lines.

If he stared at himself in the mirror, he could see his maturity. His smoke lines, the permanent shadows under his eyes, his prominent cheekbones, and jawline. He thought that he looked his age. Strangers didn’t look at him long enough to tell that he wasn’t a kid trying to snag his first pack if cigarettes. He was pretty, though, as his mom told him. He had a small beauty mark under his left eye and dark eyelashes, and his skin was pale and smooth. What people didn’t see were the faded scars on his face from a cooking accident that involved tongs slipping and splashing hot oil at his face, including a scar in his left eyeball that he didn’t know he had until an eye appointment a while back.

He took another long drag from his cigarette and grabbed his phone to rip the earbuds free, dropping them onto the floor beside his bed. He stopped his music and noticed a Facebook message from Andy, saying “Hey”. It was nine o’clock p.m. Roman hated it when Andy messaged him this late. Didn’t he have school tomorrow? He also hated that he used Facebook. They had each other’s phone numbers, why not text?

“Hey,” Roman sent in return, taking his cigarette from his lips to rest in his ashtray. He wanted to just pass out. He usually fell asleep on Andy and felt bad about it in the morning, because they really only talked once every fifteen days.

“What are you up to” Andy sent. Roman rubbed his eyes with his painted hands before replying.

“Not much, you?”

“Just talking to you ;)”

“Haha how was your day” Roman grabbed his cigarette to take a few long, deep drags of nicotine before snubbing it out and leaving it in the tray for later. He crawled under his covers and lay on his side, pulling up his texts when he saw that his mom had texted him.

Mom: I love you, my handsome baby. Goodnight xoxo

She and his dad had probably gotten into an argument. She only sent late night texts like that if she was spurned.

Roman: I love you too, goodnight. He sent a kissing emoji and read Andy’s new message.

“It was good, but now I’m talking to you so its great <3”

Roman sent him two hearts as a response in return. He would get on Andy’s Facebook occasionally to check up on him, but his boyfriend was Mexican and his native language filled his timeline. Roman was Mexican on his mom’s side, but neither he nor she spoke Spanish. The line stopped with her mother.

He felt bad about sleeping with other people, but he couldn’t bring himself to break up with Andy. He was waiting for the latter to do it, but he never did. No matter how long he waited to reply, they were still dating. They had started when Roman was an eighteen year old high school senior, and Andy seventeen. They had both just had their birthdays not too long ago. Andy had the idea that they were going to move in together when they both graduated. Roman wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment but agreed anyway, to keep Andy happy. He didn’t plan on going through with it, though. Andy was cute. He had some excess weight on him, he was the lead guitarist in a band, and he had a rocker’s beard. Yes, he was cute. Yes, he was someone Roman wanted to date. But no, Roman didn’t want to date. He didn’t want to date right now. He was wanting to focus on work and money, and he wanted to fuck people without feeling like he was cheating.

Roman ended up falling asleep before he could reply.