Dreams and Clipped Wings - 9. Chapter 9

9:Leaving the Nest
: edited by viv :

“I can drive you,” Zach offered, a whisper in the dark, listening to the faint sounds of Cody’s feet shuffling along the matted carpeting.

Cody stopped looking for his other shoe, and turned his attention instead in the direction of Zach’s voice. His reaction to seeing Zach lying on the bed, bathed in what little amber light entered the room from the window, covered partially with a tangle of bedclothes from the waist down, was a mixture of a smile and sigh.

“Nah,” Cody said, resuming the search for his errant shoe. “I’ve got it,” he continued, paying no attention to the way Zach flung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes.

“Right,” Zach said pulling his boxer shorts on as he looked at the bedside clock, “because buses start running at oh-four-hundred.”

Cody halted the search for his other shoe. He wasn’t exactly sure how to combat Zach’s reasoning, and truth be told, he was rather sure the buses weren’t running this early in the morning. He’d just neglected to think much past the sneaking–out–under-the–cover–of–darkness part. Now that Zach had brought it up, Cody rushed to come up with a valid reason why he didn’t need a ride.

He couldn’t think fast enough, as the comfortable, if well used, motel room was flooded with the warm glow of the bedside lamp.

“Looking for these?” Zach asked, Cody’s boxers swinging from a hooked finger as he stood there already half dressed in a pair of jeans that hung loosely on his hips.

Cody felt himself flush as he looked at the confident smile Zach was wearing as he held Cody’s boxers aloft. It wasn’t a sudden attack of modesty, more the way Zach’s pants hung on his hips accentuating the arrow of his abdomen drawing attention to an organ best left hidden behind the thick denim, that forced Cody to tear his gaze away. Cody’s gaze dropped to his feet, one already in a shoe, the toes of his other drumming nervously against the carpet.

“My shoe, actually,” Cody said, looking up again. “I’d already given up on those.”

“Ahh,” Zach mentioned as he attempted to shove Cody’s abandoned boxers into his pocket with a bit of difficulty.

“You know,” Cody smiled as he watched Zach struggle with the undergarment. “I have a little red number that would have gone in there a lot easier.”

“Now you say something!” Zach said, rolling his eyes for effect.

Cody chuckled and shook off the display of delirium. “My shoe?” he asked, “or did you squirrel that away, too?”

A slow smile spread across Zach’s face as he pointedly looked down at his crotch before looking at Cody again. “That’s not your shoe…”

“I’m tempted to prove you right…” Cody admitted as he looked at Zach’s crotch. “But as much as I would rather not go to work, I kinda have to.”

The smile vanished from Zach’s face, replaced with one of the most pathetic looking pouts Cody had ever seen, complete with a quivering bottom lip. Zach held the face as he crossed the small gap that separated Cody from himself. Once he was in front of Cody, he dropped to his knees.

“It’s not in my pants either,” Cody offered a joke. Zach ignored the joke, as he stooped down between Cody’s legs and rooted around underneath the bed.

Pulling the shoe out with his right hand, Zach curled the fingers of his left on Cody’s calf. With a gentle grip, Zach urged Cody to lift his leg, so he could ease Cody’s toes into the shoe before allowing Cody to put his foot down and step the rest of the way into the shoe.

“Thanks,” Cody offered, focusing on the tickle of Zach’s fingers along the short hairs of his lower leg. “Come on,” Cody said reaching down and grabbing Zach’s hand. “Give me a ride and I’ll get you some breakfast.”

“I knew you’d give in,” Zach said with a wink, as he stood up. Walking back to his bag that was dumped on the floor beside the bed, Zach bent and retrieved a basic, drab-olive t-shirt. Pulling the shirt on, he crossed the room to the dresser and opened a drawer to retrieve his wallet and truck keys.

Jonathan didn’t know exactly where he was. East of the Castro, he thought. The party, the play, had been, perhaps, too hard. His mind still floated from the chemical in his blood. His thighs still sore from positions inspired by the pillow book.

The night had been surreal, starting out like a gross amount of others in the last several months. Then there was Lee. Almond shaped eyes, glistening like onyx. There was something about the steel of his smooth skin. The black hair kept short, accentuating the shape of his head. He carried himself as if he were bigger than his lithe frame allowed. The clincher was the smile; confident, yet reserved in a refined, deliberate manner.

There was a drink. Lee offered, Jonathan accepted, then another and another after that. Somewhere, Lee’s house, there was a needle, and the shock of red mixing with the cloudy liquid within. The plunger fell and for a moment, nothing. Then, as the supple leather strap cinched around his arm was tugged away, a brief span of seconds passed before familiar feeling of nausea gripped his chest, combined with the faint chemical taste flooding the corners of his mouth. A wave of euphoria washed over Jonathan, replacing the initial negative sensations with a vivid rush of color. Colors which were always there, but now seemed to radiate a light all their own. Then bare flesh and a painted dragon, with three claws on its feet, in reds and greens. The animal swirled around entwining Lee’s perfectly smooth, perfectly sculpted, alabaster physique.

More color from the small book... The pages yellow and delicate with age, the colors, muted and faint. The words, foreign. Lee whispered their meanings while practicing what they said with his fine, strong hands. The pictures, provocative. Men doing things with one another that Confucius derided.

Lee made full use of the images hand-painted on the brittle pages, whispering the poems in his native Mandarin as he did. Together, the two of them practiced the moves until they each had, had enough. Lee collapsed into his silken sheets; Jonathan lay awake reveling in the experience, reveling in the feeling of finally catching his big fish.

He would have stayed, he should have stayed, but his lust led him from the large, silk dressed bed. On his way out, he took notice of, and carefully lifted the small black attaché, and the party favors it contained.

Now he found himself on the streets, south of the Castro, he thought. Or was it Bunker Hill? He didn’t know, and he was sobering up too fast to think coherently. Jonathan stumbled up over the sidewalk squinting at the brightly lit gas station. He paid no mind to the stations convenience store or the bored looking old man who was leaning on the counter reading the day’s news before anyone else would. Instead, he stumbled round the side of the building towards the public restroom.

The restroom was a stark contrast to the brightly lit, spotless fuel islands. The mirror was dirty, streaked with water and only the devil knows what else. The floor was littered with bits of toilet paper and an unfurled condom tossed carelessly aside after it served its purpose. The florescent light overhead couldn’t decide if it wanted to work or not, flickering all the while emitting a nauseating electric hum.

Securely, if not safely, entrenched in the restroom, Jonathan placed the small attaché he had lifted from Lee’s nice house on the small sink. As he did, Jonathan mused that he should have taken the small pillow book too. Sure he couldn’t read it, but words weren’t needed when it was as wonderfully illustrated as it was. Zipping the pouch open he rooted around the contents: sharps, a spoon, a few small Zip-lock parts baggies filled with a whitish powder.

Jonathan selected one of the small baggies, stroking it with purpose, assuming it to be the mix of opiate and amphetamine that Lee had used hours before., He began to open the small baggie, but paused, deciding that he needed to call someone first. The only person he could call in the darkness of morning. The only person that ever put up with everything that Jonathan threw at him for as long as he did.

Fishing the cell phone from his tight black jeans, Jonathan didn’t need to scroll down far as he kept Cody’s number at the top of his phonebook…

The ride to the Old Goat was mostly silent, except for the occasional course correction offered by Cody. The largest being Cody telling him not to turn onto the street the bagelry sat on, but to follow the side street down to the alley, so they could go in the back entrance.

“Embarrassed of me?” Zach asked with a good-natured smile as he pulled alongside the dumpsters and engaged the parking brake.

“It’s not you, honestly,” Cody said, his brow furrowed with worry. “It’s just, being seen with a guy that has most of his shit together… people just won’t understand,” he finished, breaking into a grin as he opened the door.

Walking to the back door of the bagelry, Cody pulled out the cell phone that was vibrating in his pocket. Taking one glance at the Caller-ID, Cody hit the ignore button before sliding the phone away and getting out his keys.

Zach too, got out of the truck and hustled across the alleyway to the door Cody was already standing in front of. “I guess that means I’m not your type, huh?”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Cody teased, as he pushed the door open. “Honestly, though...” Cody said as he stepped across the threshold into the already warm back room of the bagelry, “you should be, would be… if I had my shit together.”

Zach arched his brow to Cody’s back as he followed him through the door. He wasn’t sure what Cody meant by the statement he had just made. “I happen to like your shit,” Zach offered. “You’ve got a job that you seem to enjoy.”

“Why would you say I enjoy it?” Cody asked, throwing an inquisitive look over his shoulder as he pulled an apron over his head.

“Well, if you’re willing to leave my bed at oh-four-hundred for a job, I’d say you damn well enjoy it,” Zach reasoned.

“I couldn’t just be trying to escape an awkward situation?” Cody prompted as he tied the apron strings around his waist.

“So, you don’t like the job then?” Zach mused Cody offered an enigmatic smile as an answer, one that Zach read easily. “I knew it,” Zach settled on saying with a pleased smile, as Cody turned away from him to head into the kitchen proper.

“I wasn’t talking about hating my job,” Cody mentioned. “Just… other things.”

“Other things?” Zach echoed.

It was too early, and the direction their little friendly chat was heading in began to weigh on Cody’s nerves. Spinning on his heel, Cody asked, “Tell me, if you like dick so much why’d you join the Air Force?”

The words hit Zach full force; so strong, it took him a moment to comprehend them. Once he had processed the question, Zach’s face contorted into a mixture of confusion, hurt, and anger; an expression that stole the power behind Cody’s instinct.

Pressing his lips together, Zach gave Cody a firm nod. “I’ll just go.”

Cody’s shoulders slumped. “No, it’s just…”

“Just what?” Zach demanded, his voice rising slightly as he squared his shoulders.

“It’s early and there are some things I don’t like to discuss, okay?” Cody responded, matching his own stature to Zach’s.

“Then that’s all you have to say, Cody, you don’t have to go all Dr. Jekyll style on me.”

“Dr. Jekyll?” Cody asked, already knowing what Zach had meant by it.

“Yeah,” Zach answered. “What would you call being nice one moment, then just mean the next… evil-Cody?”

“I was trying to continue the conversation,” Cody answered, as his eyes narrowed. “I could have been blunt and told you to shut the fuck up.”

“Would have been better,” Zach countered. “Being told to shut the fuck up is a lot better then being blindsided by what you asked.”

“How so?” Cody asked.

“We both know the question was meant to make me feel like shit, and it did.” Zach replied, not sure if this was getting them anywhere, or if he really wanted to ask Cody out to a movie later on.

“That is not what I meant!” Cody argued.

“Yes it is,” Zach countered, crossing his arms over his chest. “You ought to have just asked me what business a cocksucker like me is doing hiding in Uncle Sam’s closet.”

The wall separating the storeroom from the hallway wasn’t as thick as it could be. Saul had set two fifty-pound bags of flour down on the floor and readied to open the door that had closed behind him. He would have opened it, too, if it hadn’t been for the voices. Barely discernable at first, but they became clearer, if muffled, as their levels rose. Hearing the challenge in the last comment, Saul figured it was high time to interfere and make his presence known.

Wheezing slightly as he hefted one of the bags, Saul fumbled for the door handle; making every attempt to look as feeble as he could. Angling out the doorway, Saul resembled more a toddler attempting to carry a mastiff pup, than he did the able bodied man who had hefted around the same bags every morning for the last twenty years.

The noise Saul made distracted Cody from Zach long enough for him to see Saul looking entirely awkward and about to injure himself. “What are you doing?” Cody demanded as he rushed to Saul’s aide. “Are you okay?” he asked Saul with concern as he relieved Saul of the bag of flour, as he hefted it onto his shoulder instead.

“I’m fine,” Saul answered, patting Cody’s cheek and panting slightly from his labor.

Cody gave the old man a quick appraisal. “No, you’re not, go sit down,” he demanded, leaving no room for argument from Saul as he turned and headed off into the kitchen.

With Cody gone, Saul looked in Zach’s direction and offered him a slight nod with a warm smile. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Sir,” Zach said as he walked the few steps that separated the two of them and held out his hand in greeting to Saul.

Saul chuckled to himself as he accepted Zach’s firm handshake.

“What?” Zach asked.

“Oh, it’s rare any of Cody’s…” Saul paused to choose the word carefully “friends acknowledge me, let alone offer me their hand and call me Sir,” he said letting go of Zach’s hand.

Zach beamed. It didn’t show outwardly, but the approving words from the man made him feel good. “My pleasure,” Zach offered honestly.

“Indeed,” Saul replied, still smiling warmly. “Who is your friend?” Saul asked as Cody returned wiping his hands of the flour that had leaked out of the bag.

Cody looked between the two of them appraising Saul’s warm smile and Zach’s smirk. He should have felt uncomfortable at the smirk on Zach’s face, but on him it just looked like he had figured something out and was better for it. Yes, the smirk on Zach’s face was a far cry from the similar, scheming smirk that always seemed to mare Jonathan’s face whenever he thought he had an upper hand.

“Saul, this is Zach. Zach, this is my boss, Saul,” Cody said making the introductions as instructed.

“Nice to meet you, Sir,” Zach respectfully nodded at the older man.

“My pleasure,” Saul countered returning Zach’s nod. “Well I’ll leave you boys to whatever it was I interrupted.”

“Listen, I’m…” Cody started only to be silenced by Zach’s finger.

“No need to apologize,” Zach whispered, aware now that they had an audience. “Looking at you… Just being around you… I get a flutter in the pit of my stomach, but watching you, when nothing else matters to you but the people that you care about needing help, knowing you’ll put their comfort above your own, or what you are doing… I… I like that,” Zach said with a sly grin as he moved his finger, allowing him to lean in and give Cody a gentle kiss. “Someday… someday you’ll do the same for me.”

If Cody’s heart had the ability, it would have whimpered and surrendered itself to the man who just slipped under its defenses with a few simple words. But there, in the quiet solitude of the hallway where the two of them were standing, echoed the quiet whispers in dark recesses of Cody’s foggy mind, stopping him from following his heart's lead. “You’re not good enough…” his own voice whispered tauntingly. “He’ll only leave. They always go away…”

“Anyhow, I should get going…” Zach left the statement hanging in the unsure silence that enveloped them.

“They always go away…” Cody’s inner monologue smiled again.

“No!” Cody insisted, silencing the voice with his determined defiance. Squeezing the hand he hadn’t realized he was holding till that instant. “I promised you breakfast.”

“It’s just sex…” Cody’s doubt reminded him as he tugged at Zach’s hand, leading him into the kitchen.

“It’s never just sex,” Cody argued under his breath.

“What?” Zach asked, halting his feet and planting himself firmly in place.

Cody whirled in place and the first thing he saw was the confused look on Zach’s face, he didn’t need any further confirmation to know that he had just said something that he didn’t mean to say out loud. Swallowing nervously, Cody asked, “Can we talk about it while I work?” As the question left his lips, the phone in his pants began to vibrate again. He knew who it was, and he knew he didn’t want to deal with whatever Jonathan was dishing out this morning.

Zach studied Cody for a second, his furrowed brow, pleading eyes, and nervous smile. “Sure,” he said, cocking his head to the side, curious as to what was going through Cody’s mind, what was causing such mix of emotions to bubble on the surface of his normally placid, determined, face.

“Fucker,” Jonathan growled in frustration, after the fourth unanswered call. “Worthless little shit. I honestly wonder why I call him back,” he said to the blurred image of himself in the dirty mirror.

Giving up on Cody for now, Jonathan retrieved a few of the items concealed in the attaché. Using them, he followed a procedure which he had managed many times in the past, most recently only a few hours ago. Using the heat of a lighter he dissolved the contents of a baggie in tap water provided by the restroom sink.

Into the solution went a small packed ball of cotton. Into the cotton went the needle of the sharp. Jonathan pulled back on the plunger, siphoning the liquid from the cotton into the syringe. Done with that, Jonathan placed the syringe in his mouth, as he used his hands to put the various items back into the bag and zip it closed.

Using his foot, Jonathan flipped the seat down on the commode and sat down. Using the leather cord from the satchel, Jonathan tied off his upper arm. Making a fist with his left hand, he squeezed several times until a vein presented itself. Keeping an eye on the vein, thinking it would flee if he didn’t; Jonathan took the syringe out of his mouth and aimed the fine end at the vein.

Jonathan winced as the sharp pierced the vein on his arm. Drawing a breath, Jonathan drew back the syringe’s plunger. Red, his red, swirling into the tainted liquid. Exhaling with anticipation of the coming roar, Jonathan depressed the plunger. A flash of white encased him. A white that seemed to leach what little color there was in the dingy bathroom. A white that burned everything away. Cody, Lee, the past, and the future dissolving along to the frantic hammering of his heart, Jonathan’s arm fell slack, as he trembled, overwhelmed and subsumed by that all-powerful but very different roar.

The flickering fluorescent light flashed a few more times before surrendering the small, grimy room to stygian darkness.

Joe lay in his bed, waiting for the grating buzz of his alarm clock, listening instead, to the sounds of the city waking up, encroaching on the silence of his bedroom. Lost in dream mere moments ago, he found himself struggling to remember the images dissolving from his memory like a sugar cube in a cup of hot coffee.

Giving up on the alarm which was still fifteen minutes away, Joe pushed himself up. Scratching the back of his head before stretching, Joe stood and scratched other areas as he padded out of his room and down the dimly dawn lit hallway. Switching on the light in the bathroom, ritual took over for conscious thought, as Joe showered and shaved and prepared for the day.

With all the primping a day in construction deserves, Joe moved on to the kitchen. Discovering all three of the bowls he and Cody owned sitting in the sink, Joe opened the cabinet and pulled out the fine Del Taco glass-ware they had acquired during their tenure as room-mates. His plastic 64oz. drink cup in hand, Joe pulled a box of Cap’n Crunch from the pantry and the milk from the fridge.

After pouring the cereal into the cup, Joe opened the milk and gave it a cursory sniff to determine freshness. With a shrug of his shoulders, Joe poured what was left of the milk into his cup, and tossed the container into the trash before grabbing a spoon.

Breakfast in hand, Joe padded back to his bedroom. Before he got there, he stopped in front of Cody’s door. Rapping on the surface lightly, he waited a second before pushing the door open. The bed was just as unmade as it had been the night before. The note Joe had scribbled about dinner being in the fridge lay haphazardly on the pillow, exactly where Joe had left it to be discovered by Cody whenever he managed to get in.

“He could pay you minimum wage and you’d still show up.” Zach mentioned, hypnotized by Cody’s hands as the kneaded a mass of dough.

“I like my job,” Cody looked up with a grin.

“I like your hands,” Zach countered.

Cody smiled. The smile wasn’t exuberant or exceedingly bright, but Cody didn’t allow himself to suppress the urge to show appreciation for Zach’s words either. Stealing a peek at Zach, whose eyes were still focused on the hands rolling out a long snake of dough, Cody seized the opportunity. His fingers worked down the down the cylinder, kneading the dough in an obvious, bawdy manner.

“How was the bagel?” Cody asked, as his fingers continued to massage the dough.

Caught; Zach swallowed, as he dragged his eyes away from the dough in Cody’s adept fingers. “Huh-what?” he mumbled, blushing fiercely at the amused look on Cody’s face.

“The bagel,” Cody said with a short nod to the empty plate sitting on the counter next to Zach. “How was it?”

“The bagel?” Zach repeated, slowly coming up to speed on the conversation. “Good, it was… really good.”

“As good as my hands?” Cody joked.

“What?” Zach asked confused, his mind racing through the bits of conversation, the thoughts he had been thinking in the last few minutes… “I didn’t say that, did I?” he asked in horror.

“You’re distracted,” Cody said chuckling in a strange mixture of nervousness and ease.

“I’m sorry,” Zach offered pushing away from the counter he was leaning against.

“Don’t be, I like it.” Cody said. “It’s flattering, in a poetic way,” Cody shrugged before getting back to forming bagels out of the dough he was working.

“Poetic way?” Zach queried.

“Yeah, it’s like all those poems written by young lovers. Nothing intrigues them as much as the mundane aspects of their love’s life.” Cody answered.

“Are you calling me a romantic?” Zach asked, smiling at the thought.

Cody raised a brow, “Well, a romantic would take a one in a million chance on the guy he sat next to on a Muni bus.”

Zach smiled, remembering the bus ride well. He was bored, alone in the city on leave, so he struck a conversation with the guy who looked equally as lonely. Yes, he remembered the bus ride well, the day, the simple conversation it turned into, and the night that followed.

He was just about to tell Cody that he was romantic… to a degree, when he heard the slam of the back door to the Bagelry.

The scratchy noise from the ear buds Stacey was wearing preceded her into the room. She had the volume of her iPod maxed out, allowing everyone to hear the punk music she was listening to. To her it sounded great, evidenced by the way she paused her stride to shake her purple and black dyed head enthusiastically, yet to Cody and Zach, the music sounded like it was being performed by screaming fleas.

Caught in her own world, shaking her head and generally looking like she was having a standing seizure, Stacey opened her eyes. Seeing there was more than the usual Cody and Saul present, Stacey abruptly stopped her method of dancing and ripped the ear buds out of her ears, causing the noise to increase slightly.

“Good morning…” she said looking to Cody, who was trying to stifle the amusement at her surprise. Stacey moved her attention to Zach, who she looked at with more than a little uncertainty. That vanished, and was replaced by a slow, smoldering smile as she gave the stranger a thorough visual appraisal. “Hello there…”

“Morning,” Cody responded, as he got back to shaping the latest batch of bagels.

“Who’s your friend, Cody?” Stacey asked. “More importantly, is he available?” she said, closing the distance between Zach and herself.

The way Zach backed away from her answered the question long before Cody could even look up from his work. Looking annoyed and defeated all at once, Stacey leaned against the counter and crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest.

“Figures…” she huffed. Looking at Cody only left her with a bitter taste in her mouth. It didn’t take long before her smile reappeared, accentuated by a gleam in her eye. “That’s okay, it’s nothing a six pack and some blue boys can’t solve!” she announced with triumph.

Zach coughed, surprised at her blatant advances, even if she was just playing, which he thought she was, but couldn’t be sure. “I should be running actually,” Zach said pushing himself off the counter he had been resting against.

“Awww…” Stacey pouted. “But I just got here!”

Zach chuckled nervously, unsure of how else to react to the girl. “I’ll catch you later, Cody.” he said, wanting to kiss Cody, or at least give him a hug goodbye. He didn’t know about Stacey though, and didn’t want to risk putting Cody in a position that neither of them wanted to be in.

“I’ll walk you out,” Cody offered, wiping the excess flour on his hand on the apron he was wearing, all the while ignoring the puppy dog faces Stacey was making.

“Call me!” Stacy called out, still pouting, but already more focused on the onion bagel she was cutting open in preparation to eat.

“Thanks,” Zach offered, once they were out of Stacey’s line of sight.

“No problem,” Cody said, as he opened the back door. “What are you up to today?” he asked, trying to delay Zach’s departure.

“Honestly,” Zach said rubbing the nape of his neck. “I figured I’d go back to the room and catch some sleep, then… maybe see you later this afternoon.”

Cody smiled, “I’d like that… I’d like that a lot.”

“Great!” Zach beamed, his smile brightening the cool morning. He stared at Cody for a moment before turning to walk to his car. Then as if forgetting something, he turned back and grabbed Cody in a secure hug, before kissing him gently, enjoying the warmth of Cody’s body, enjoying the freedom he found dressed in civilian clothes.

“Mmmm,” Cody groaned, not wanted the kiss to end when it did, or to experience the loss of Zach’s solid torso, and the warm defense against the cool air it provided. “Go get some sleep, I’ll give you a call when I get up,” Cody said, pulling away. He knew if he didn’t, neither of them would get anywhere.

“Too strong?” Stacey asked fifteen minutes later as Cody reentered the kitchen.

“Just a tad,” Cody answered chuckling. “Next time just rip your top open and jump him. That may be a little more subtle.”

Right,” Stacey laughed, “He’d run out the back door screaming.”

“Who would?” Joe asked as he walked into the bagelry’s kitchen, carrying a Tupperware of gnocchi from his uncle’s.

“Cody’s new friend,” Stacey smiled.

Joe turned from Stacey to look at Cody with an arched brow.

“Zach,” Cody shrugged.

“Ahh,” Joe answered, ignoring the pang he felt in his chest. “At least it wasn’t the other one,” he said smiling to mask what he was feeling. “I brought you dinner last night,” Joe continued, focusing on Cody. “I figured you could have it for breakfast… or something.”

“Thanks,” Cody smiled as Joe tossed the container on the counter.

“No problem,” Joe said. “I have to get running…”

“Could you unlock the front door on your way out?” Stacey asked.

“Sure thing,” Joe offered giving Cody and Stacey a small wave before he headed out of the kitchen.

“He seemed… bummed,” Stacey offered in a low voice as she grabbed one of the metal push carts that housed baskets of finished bagels.

“Huh?’ Cody asked, “Oh, Joe, he’s been a little odd lately. I think there is something going on with his girlfriend.”

“Ooo…” Stacey cooed, ignoring the bagels as she hopped up and took a seat on the counter. “Dish!”

Joe flipped the closed sign in the window around to read open to the street out front. Unlocking the front door, Joe pulled it open, refusing to think about what it was that he wanted to think about. About that stupid ache he was feeling, and couldn’t explain.

He had Julie, Cody was just… Cody, and he still didn’t know what was going on when it came to Cody. Given his confusion on the subject, Joe was almost thankful for Zach, whoever Zach was. That was unless Zach turned out to be as useful as Jonathan had been. If that was the case; Joe resolved not to remain as silent as he had been in the past.

Lost in these thoughts and resolutions, Joe walked out the door and nearly tripped over the body huddled up in a dark grey jacket, lying in the doorway of The Old Goat.