Junk (28 page)

“These are all somebody else’s souvenirs.” Yusef shook his head, biting his lower lip. “She stopped living her own life when her husband died, but she took pleasure in surrounding herself with things from places she’d never go. Nothing from Egypt, though. Or not that I ever saw.”

“No? Why not?”

Yusef just shrugged, but this time Jasper raised his head, revealing red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. His specs had fallen off in his lap somewhere. “She couldn’t bear it. Being cast out. Having reminders of that. If she wanted to revisit Egypt, she’d take me up to the museum.”

“Hey, you’re back,” Lewis teased, smiling gently. “Thought I’d lost you for a while there.”

“I’m back,” Jasper assured him and returned a wobbly smile.

It was impossible to resist kissing him then, even though Lewis knew he shouldn’t. On top of the cosy family lunch, it would all mean too much. Raise Jasper’s hopes too high.

But Jasper looked like a man who needed a kiss, and Lewis was a born helper.

Yusef cleared his throat loudly behind them, making Lewis jump.

“You want us to start clearing this room now?” Yusef asked. “It will be much quicker than the ones filled with books.”

Jasper stuffed his glasses back on, and his eyes moved back and forth, gaze dancing over the room. He sniffed and rubbed his hand under his nose, then absentmindedly swiped it on his jeans. “Not this one,” he finally said, his voice quiet but level. “Not yet, anyway.”

“But we need to start somewhere up here. Come on,
canim
. We’re staying for another four hours at least. We can clear a room. Maybe two, if they’re not too bad.”

“Not this one,” Jasper repeated firmly. “My bedroom. You can start there. I want to make it less of a health hazard, and I’m going to want an early night. I think we all deserve one.” The look he gave Lewis then was one of both promise and pleading. How was he meant to resist those imploring eyes, still liquid with tears?

“An early night sounds like a good idea,” Lewis croaked. Lust crackled in the air between them, and Lewis had to tear his eyes away before he jumped Jasper in front of Yusef. “Best carry on with it, then. If you’re ready?” He held out a hand and Jasper took it, getting to his feet.

Jasper’s bedroom looked totally different without the books. Oh, he still had a few paperbacks lingering around the perimeter, but they no longer blocked the window and they no longer crowded his bed. You could walk around it now. You could see everything in the peachy evening sunshine slanting in. Every mote of dust stirring in the air. Every scrap of rubbish they’d uncovered under the piles.

While the rest of the clearing team were finishing up downstairs, Jasper set to work with the vacuum cleaner Lewis and Carroll had brought with them. It was one of those cheerful red Henry ones with the smiley face. They had one at work and he’d always thought them ridiculous things, but he couldn’t help grinning back at it while he transformed the floor from a layer of dust and detritus into an expanse of ugly beige-flecked carpet. Maybe he could get that replaced sometime soon, now the house was almost fit for outsiders to enter.

Mama wouldn’t have approved, of course. She’d chosen that carpet because it was practical: didn’t show the dirt and was hardwearing. Too hardwearing, really. It was expensive wool and would probably last another twenty years. He could hear Mama’s voice in his head lecturing him about the wasteful ways of Western living, so different to how things had been back in Egypt. Of course, she’d loved that aspect of British life too—being able to pick up the spoils from charity shops. Living her life through other people’s cast-offs.

Would it be wasteful to replace the carpet? Yes…but that didn’t mean he couldn’t, did it? Lewis had taught him that. That it wasn’t evil to occasionally waste resources in the pursuit of harmonious living, and he did love hard floors far more than carpets. Carpets were… He scrubbed at a stubborn dust bunny with the vacuum nozzle. Carpets were dust traps, that’s what they were.

He’d finally cleared the floor when he remembered the bed. He’d already pulled the pile of clothing off the end and shoved it into his newly unearthed wardrobe. When he’d opened it, there was a distinctly musty smell, but fortunately none of those clothes-eating moths. There were, however, garments in there he hadn’t seen for years, and he wondered if any of them would stand up to Lewis’s ideas of what he should be wearing. It would be good to have things Lewis liked him in. He didn’t care so much for himself, but just to see Lewis look at him in that appreciative way. Yes, that would be nice.

But the bed still looked a rumpled mess, so he yanked off the duvet and straightened up the sheets. Yep, fresh ones were probably called for, but the ones in the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe had smelled funny too. At least the ones on the bed only smelled of Jasper, rather than a vaguely unpleasant mouldy niff. Of course, he realised the moment he’d replaced the shaken-out duvet that he’d done things entirely the wrong way round. The floor was now covered with little bits again.

Housework, that was definitely something he’d need to put in some practice with. He’d managed okay when Mama first got sick, but she’d let him know when his efforts weren’t up to her standards. Would he meet Lewis’s standards? The man seemed easygoing, but he must have certain expectations.

Would he have expectations in bed? Would he want to top or bottom? Would he expect Jasper to take control? It was hard to answer any of those questions based on their limited mutual experience of hasty hand and blowjobs.

Jasper plumped up a pillow while he considered his tactics. Mas had always liked him to be more controlling and aggressive, but it wasn’t his favourite way to act. But waiting for Lewis to make a move was excruciating. Lewis tended to flirt and make suggestions with his eyes, but he wasn’t bold in coming forward. More of a tease. No, Jasper would have to take matters into his own hands in terms of actually getting Lewis into bed. Once there, though, perhaps he could ease up. Let them both discover each other at their own pace.

“You think he’s going to stay?” he asked Henry’s shiny plastic face, then slapped a hand over his mouth and stifled a chuckle. Talking to appliances, whatever next? He didn’t want Lewis to find a single excuse not to stay, and Jasper talking to inanimate objects would definitely furnish him with a cast-iron one.

“How’s it going up here?” Lewis called from the bottom of the stairs. “We’re just taking the last load over to the warehouse. Thought you might want to stay behind and get things in order. Or just crash out.”

Jasper raced to the top of the stairs. “Will you be coming back afterwards?”
Please-please-please-please-please!

“Do you want me to?” In the half-light at the bottom of the stairs, Lewis’s eyes were too dark to read.

“I want you to.”

Lewis climbed up the stairs two at a time and stood, just inches from Jasper. Far too close for friends. Their chests almost touched every time they breathed in—something Jasper was starting to have trouble with.

Lewis reached out and cupped Jasper’s jaw, rubbing him gently. His thumbnail scritched in Jasper’s five-o’clock shadow.

“I’ll be back, if that’s what you want.”

“I want…” Jasper shook his head and gave a wry laugh. If he couldn’t admit this to Lewis, what chance did they ever stand of making things work? “I want so many things. With you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Jasper’s heart lurched. Did Lewis mean okay to the night or okay to the whole boyfriend thing? He didn’t dare ask.

“Okay, I’ll be back. And okay, we can do
things
tonight. If we’re not too knackered. My arms feel like they’re going to fall off after lugging boxes full of books all day.”

Jasper smiled ruefully. Just an okay for the night, then. Right, he’d have to make it a good one so Lewis wanted more. “I should probably get cleaned up and shave.”

Lewis’s thumb rubbed the wrong way against his stubble again. “Don’t bother on my account. It’s sexy like this. Unless you meant shaving somewhere else, that is?” He waggled an eyebrow.

Oh, now that was just too cute.

Lewis cocked his head. “Do I take it by the silence you’re thinking about shaving? Because if I’m honest, I like a man hairy. If I’d wanted smooth, I’d have been into girls, wouldn’t I?”

“No, I uh, no, I don’t want to shave. But some men are nice smooth.” A memory of Mas’s startlingly white, hairless buttocks flashed across his vision. When he’d asked, Mas had asserted that he felt more sensations when he was hairless, and that it was totally worth the pain of getting a back, sac and crack wax. “Erm, not that I’m suggesting you shave or anything. Not unless you wanted to. But, you know, no pressure. It’s not a fetish or anything. Not even a kink. Er, should I stop talking now?”

Lewis was grinning widely. “You’re pretty adorable when you get embarrassed, you know that?” He kissed Jasper quickly, then stepped back down onto the stairs. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. You make sure you save your energy, yeah?”

“Okay,” Jasper croaked, too embarrassed to come up with anything more suggestive and commanding. But maybe that didn’t matter if Lewis found him adorable. Not that adorable was a particularly masculine or sexy adjective. Did gay men fall in love with adorable men? Did they want to move in and share their lives with them?

Or were adorable men only good for sharing a bed with? Someone you’d enjoy looking at now and again, but not the kind of appeal that stood up to the trials of day-to-day living. Mas was pretty adorable, and Jasper didn’t want more out of him than a friendly, warm body to tangle with on occasion. And he didn’t even want that anymore. Just the friendly part. No tangling.

Then again, Lewis wasn’t Jasper. And, more to the point, Jasper found Lewis pretty bloody adorable too, and he’d be more than happy to find out whether that opinion stood up to the test of time.

As usual, he was totally overthinking this.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jasper gave himself a mental pep talk after he’d thanked Lewis and the others for their help and the front door had closed behind them. He needed to get ready, not hang around torturing himself with unanswerable questions. He should try some easier ones, like did he need a shower? He took an experimental sniff under his arm.

Right. He definitely needed a shower. First things first, though; he’d try to locate some clothes that didn’t stink of shut-up wardrobe or sweaty pits. He eventually remembered the ones he’d hung out on the line several days ago, and went outside to retrieve them.

The evening light had turned golden, brushing the tops of the trees and hitting the veranda from a low angle so the whole back of the house was lit up. The garden itself was mostly in shade, the greens muted but every warm-hued flower glowing as if lit from within. Mama had loved this time of day. Even when she’d taken to her bed for good, she still asked to be helped out to the veranda every chance she got, a hot water bottle in her lap and a blanket over her legs.

Jasper smiled. There. That memory hadn’t hurt. He wandered barefoot down through the garden until he reached the ancient rotary clothes line. Cool grass tickled his toes as he unclipped the pegs from a pair of soft, thin pyjama bottoms and an old V-necked T-shirt. They were both grey…or perhaps black. Lewis would probably call them something fancy like pewter or charcoal. They weren’t clothes he’d go out in—even Jasper with his dubious grasp of fashion knew that some things were only suitable for sleepwear, and cotton that clung so close it showed every plane of his body was definitely included in that definition.

Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and, along with the load of underpants and socks hanging on the line, these were the only clean clothes he had.

Jasper sluiced himself down in the shower as fast as possible, although his aching muscles did demand a slightly longer than usual time spent luxuriating under the hot spray. He then threw on his pyjamas and gathered up a large armful of clothes destined for the washing machine. At the top of the stairs, he turned his body sideways like he usually did, and then it hit him. He didn’t need to do that anymore. Here was an unobstructed staircase, leading down to a clear hallway. What’s more, he’d been reliably informed that all the downstairs rooms were now empty. Completely, one hundred percent empty.

He walked down in a daze. The house not only looked different. It felt different. His footsteps echoed. There was a cool draught around his ankles. That sweet smell of old paper had gone, replaced by something tangy and citrusy.

It wasn’t until he’d set the washing machine going that he really took in just what the downstairs team had been up to while he emptied his bedroom.

The kitchen sparkled.

The taps gleamed, the tiles shone. Even the melamine doors were scrubbed clean of their usual grease marks. The vinyl floor still bore a few wet patches in the corners, and was cleaner than he’d seen it in years. He walked around the dining area. Okay, when they’d said empty, they had in fact left him his table and chairs, but they could have been a new set with the way they shone. A few stubborn white rings in the varnish remained from where he’d been placing his coffee cup, but other than that you’d never know it was the same table.

He turned around on the spot, scanning the walls, the ceiling, the shelves. Everything had been cleaned, at least superficially. There certainly wasn’t that giant cobweb joining the lampshade to the ceiling anymore. A funny part of him missed it. Or maybe he was just missing the books. But as he took in more of the room, he could see possibilities for storing them. The wall opposite the kitchen area had an old chimney breast in the centre, and on each side there was a perfect alcove for bookshelves. He stepped into one and guestimated the depth of his largest tomes. Yes, even they should fit in there without sticking out. Maybe it would be okay to have books in the kitchen. It wasn’t like they’d be on a shelf over the cooker or anything.