Finding Home (15 page)

He jumped to his feet and reached across the table to hug her. “You’re looking stunning, as always. Fuck print, you should be in TV.”

“Yeah.” Megan laughed as she sat down. “The networks are really into piercings these days, I’ve heard. Any more career advice you care to share?”

“Doesn’t sound like you need any these days. I’m glad Rossi’s finally letting you write. I think we should toast this, in fact. Wine?” James pointed at the bottle of Chianti on the table. Megan held out her glass.

“You actually read my piece?” she asked, skeptical.
“Of course. I’m even thinking of visiting the playground this weekend, it inspired me so much,” James mocked. “Seriously though, nice one, Meg. You’ve done well.”

“I’m hoping my street kids story is coming out soon, too. That’s more of a real test, to be honest.”

“Yeah, with all your painstaking research. So how’s your pet hustler doing?”

Megan scowled at him. “Fine. And stop calling him that. He works construction now.”

“Sorry—ex-hustler.” James gave in when Megan narrowed her eyes. “Okay, I’ll stop it. Let’s talk about me, instead. Have I told you how great our new demo is?”

Dinner was as much fun as she’d been hoping. They shared the same sense of humor, and Megan spent a lot of the time at the restaurant giggling, and occasionally bent double and crying helpless tears of laughter. The Chianti helped.

By the time they hit the club, she was more than a little tipsy and had abandoned her car. The opening night was a glittering affair with a scattering of hip minor Hollywood celebrities, TV soap stars and the like. To top it all, they were on the VIP list, and the music wasn’t bad. They hit the dance floor early on, and kept going for a while, until James begged off and dragged Megan over to some seats in the roped-off VIP lounge, and poured her more free champagne.

When at some point in the evening, or possibly morning, he slipped an arm around Megan’s shoulders and leaned over to kiss her, she was more than happy to oblige. And it felt right, too. Good old James. He knew how to make sure she had a good time. It wasn’t as hot as the kiss with Sean, but Megan firmly put that thought out of her mind.

When they broke off from the kiss, James had the slightly out-of-focus look she knew so well. She smiled at him, letting her hand linger on his neck.

“Wanna hit the road?” he whispered in her ear, over the thumping bass.

Megan nodded.

They took a cab home, and spent most of the ride making out in the back like a pair of teenagers. At one point, Megan saw a familiar neon sign and looked out the window only to realize they were on Santa Monica Boulevard, just a few yards past the point where she’d first met Sean. She automatically scanned the street for any faces she knew, but they were gone before she could recognize any of the kids. Then James pulled her back into his embrace and she stopped thinking about them altogether.

The sex with James was good, as ever—they wouldn’t have kept at it all this time otherwise—but even though she was turned on, and she liked having sex with him, it wasn’t James she was thinking about most of the time, but Sean.

Sean, whose hard, bruised body haunted her while she caressed James, Sean, whose kiss remained seared in her mind, still generating more heat than James’s best efforts, Sean, whose hooded eyes and calloused hands kept intruding on her brain in mid-fuck, so that by the time she got off, it was to the thought of him rather than the reality of James. It was all she could do not to cry out Sean’s name when she came.

ZY

When she got back home the next day around lunchtime, after sleeping in late and a lengthy detour to recover both their cars, Sean was in a surly mood.

“Hey, I’m back.” She closed the door behind her. There was no immediate reply. Maybe he was out for a run or something. He often went running on weekend mornings, borrowing Megan’s MP3 player to keep him company as he looped around her neighborhood.

Then she stepped into the living room. He was lying on the couch in the T-shirt and sweatpants he wore to bed, reading one of his schoolbooks.

Megan felt a brief pang of guilt as she remembered the way he’d looked at her as she left the previous evening. Was she being unbelievably callous—or just rational in refusing to acknowledge the tension between them?

“Hey, lazybones, it’s not like you to still be in bed at this hour,” she teased. All in all, she did feel a great deal more relaxed than she had in the previous days. Until Sean looked up from his textbook and locked eyes with her briefly and the sexual tension flooded right back in.

“Had a good time?” His tone was so neutral she couldn’t tell if it was polite or cutting.

“Yeah, we hit this new club, and it was actually pretty cool. Nowhere near as lame as I thought it was going to be.”

“Good.” He looked back at his book as though dismissing her. His attitude was just this side of rude, but Megan was willing to cut him some slack as she went to her bedroom to change out of her party clothes and into something more suitable for a weekend morning at home.

“So do you want anything to eat?” she asked when she came back to the living room, wearing jeans and a faded sweatshirt. She was still feeling quite laid-back, and a little smug, too, as she always did when she had had decent sex the night before. The fact that Sean had featured prominently in her fantasies last night was best ignored, though.

There was a vague grunt from the general direction of the couch. “Come on, what do you want?” She was determined to do something nice for him, after having left him in the lurch. “Late breakfast? Pancakes, omelet? Or shall I heat up some leftover tuna casserole from, er, Thursday evening?”

“Not hungry.” Sean sounded sulky.

Megan walked over to the couch and looked down at him. He ignored her gaze and stared at his book, chewing on a pencil. He might as well have had a sign on his head saying “I’m jealous”, which was quite gratifying, in a perverse sort of way, but also added to her guilt.

She sighed. “Are you going to quit being such a teenager?”

He looked up from his book, his bottom lip slightly outthrust. “It’s not like I can help it. I am a fucking teenager, remember?”

“I meant it as a joke. But are you really not hungry?”
“Not if it’s last week’s tuna casserole,” he muttered, but didn’t sound quite as sullen.

Megan smiled. “I’ll make you scrambled eggs. With ham. I know you like them. Go on——I’ll throw in some buttered toast.”

He let his head drop back on the couch and sighed, eyes half-closed. “Okay, then.”

One step at a time, thought Megan. They were still figuring out this whole living together thing. If they managed to survive the sexual tension, maybe they could find an accommodation.

ZY

Over the following few days, Sean continued to sulk. He still did his share of the housework and the food preparation, but gone was the easy camaraderie they’d painstakingly developed over the first couple of weeks of his stay. Instead, she felt she’d been saddled with her very own grumpy teenager, sulking in the living room, communicating little, and looking to break the rules whenever possible.

He reverted back to some of the habits he’d shown when he first moved in, playing loud music when she came home in the evenings— once or twice loud enough to earn pissed-off calls from the neighbors— and he started smoking in the house when she was out without bothering to air the place. A couple of evenings he came home from work late and a little drunk, which made her wonder who he was drinking with.

For the first time in a while, Megan started worrying about Sean disappearing while she was out of the house. Every time she opened the door, she would look around for signs of his presence, his coat hanging on the wall or his boots by the door, before breathing a sigh of relief.

It was unfortunate this turned out to be the week Rossi decided to publish her article on the street kids. Excited as Megan was at the sight of the piece—it was her first real story, one she had seen through from the first idea to the finished product on the page—she was really worried about Sean’s reaction. They’d barely spoken about the article since he’d come to stay with her, but she knew how he felt.

As she reread the story for the tenth time, she was sure when he saw her printed words he would agree they were an accurate reflection of the street life. She hoped he would finally see the story had value.

That evening, she stopped on the way home and grabbed some pizza as a peace offering before confronting him with the fait accompli. When she walked in through the front door, Sean was coming out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry.

“I hope you haven’t started cooking anything,” she said as she walked past him to the kitchen. “It’s been ages since we’ve had pizza and I had a craving. I got some beers, too.”

“Beer and pizza? What’s the special occasion?” Sean said as he took a couple of plates from a cupboard.

Megan felt suddenly very shy, as nervous as she’d been that first night on the street when she’d talked to Sean. She put the pizza on the counter and pulled the paper out of her bag, folded to display her double spread. Without a word, she handed it to him. He quickly scanned the photos and Megan’s byline under the headline. He looked at her, his expression carefully neutral. “So. You finally got it published.”

“I hope it’s okay. I hope you like it.” She felt herself gearing up to start babbling and making excuses for why she hadn’t let him check it first. “Why don’t you read it in the living room while I get everything ready?”

As she set the table and took the pizza out of its box, she was aware of Sean in the other room reading her work. Mentally, she went through the whole article with him, starting with the striking silhouette of Sean, an eye-catching visual to draw the reader into the story, going through her first impressions of the street life and her deepening relationships with the kids, to what it really meant to be a homeless teenager. She’d ended with the story of Mr. X, the former prostitute turned client, underlining the fact that the cycle of child prostitution never ended, but the community should not give up attempts to try to help the disaffected youth. At the end of the article, she mentioned numerous agencies and groups in place to assist street kids.

She opened a beer and took a long pull to quell her nerves before walking back into the living room. Sean was still focused on the article, and something about the set of his jaw made Megan immediately apprehensive.

He looked up at her with a challenging glare. “So is that why you took me in? You pitied me, trapped in my ‘never-ending cycle of prostitution and despair’? Nice cliché, by the way.”

“I… No. I wanted to help you, yes, but it wasn’t about pity. Look, this was written before I really got to know you. And…” Megan trailed off. The picture of Mouth as she drew him in the piece was far removed from the Sean she’d gotten to know since he moved in, but she didn’t know how to tell him that.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Sean said, still sounding really pissed. “It’s a great story and I think you captured the atmosphere of the street. Congratulations.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t be. This is a pretty good description of fucked-up kids. I just didn’t realize quite how much of a charity case I am for you.” He stood and handed her back the article, avoiding her eyes. Damn, he was angry.

Megan opened her mouth, ready to launch into a rebuttal, but he walked straight past her to the front door. He left, slamming the door behind him. She was too stunned to move, or do anything except stare at the closed door, willing him to reappear. How could she have gotten it so wrong?

ZY

Long after she’d given up and gone to bed, Megan lay awake constructing fanciful scenarios in her head. What if he was so angered by her “pity” that he chose being homeless over living with her? What if he was back on the streets right now, turning tricks? God knew he could make more money with a couple of blowjobs than slaving all day on a construction site. There had to be a temptation there, and the thought made her shiver.

She finally drifted into uneasy sleep. Around four a.m, a loud bang and a muffled curse woke her up. Her heart hammered in her chest as she got out of bed and walked silently down the hall.

Sean stood just inside the front door, pulling his hooded sweatshirt over his head, his back to her. His T-shirt rode up and the foyer light shone on his white skin. There were long red marks all the way down his back.

Megan was puzzled for a second, then it clicked. Scratches. Sex. He’d been out getting laid. An irrational burst of fury ripped through her.

She cleared her throat and he froze then turned around slowly. Emotions flickered on his face, maybe embarrassment, maybe defiance. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. Sorry.”

“Yeah, well, at least now I know where you are. Next time let me know when you decide to barge in at four a.m. I thought you were a burglar!”

“You want me to check with you before I go out?” His tone was belligerent.

“No, just call me next time, okay? So I know not to worry when someone walks into the house in the middle of the night.” She struggled to sound calm and reasonable when she wanted to scream at him and demand an explanation for his scored flesh.

“You knew it was me,” he scoffed.
“No, actually, I didn’t,” she said stiffly. “Where’d you go, anyhow?”

“I went out and found my own entertainment, because the last days with you, it hasn’t been much fun.” He was almost snarling, and the bitterness in his tone shocked Megan.

“What? Look, I’m sorry if you’re feeling pissed off but…”
“You think you’re the only one who needs to blow off some steam?” he said, moving toward her, his voice so suggestive that Megan’s body responded immediately. Her pulse raced and her crotch clenched.

Sean stood too close to her and she could feel his body heat and smell his alcohol- and nicotine-laden breath, which was curiously sexy. Her nipples hardened under her light tank top and she crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

“Jesus, Sean, all I’m saying is—”
“I just got laid, okay?” He interrupted, leaning over her, his left arm braced against the door frame behind her. He was much drunker than she thought, because he slurred a little in his attempt to enunciate every word. “And no, I didn’t get paid for it, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just wanted a fuck. With a girl. End of fucking story. Sorry I woke you up. Good night.”