Page 42 of Controlled Burn

It was still raining by the time the movie was over, and even though I had to get up early to make my shift, I wasn’t ready for the night to end. Until tonight, our focus had been on pretending I was his Daddy and making sure he was getting what he needed out of our time together. But tonight, we’d just been hanging out, spending time together, and I’d enjoyed it way more than I should.

As the credits rolled, he stood up and stretched. “I guess it’s time for me to go.”

And before I could talk myself out of it, I heard myself saying, “It’s still raining pretty good out there. Maybe you should stay. Here…” I stretched out on the couch and patted the spot in front of me. “There’s plenty of room. We could watch a couple of shows if you want.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Unfortunately, I have to work in the morning, so I can’t cook you breakfast, but I have a spare bed, so there’s no reason for you to drive in this.” And just to prove my point, the entire room lit up from the light show Mother Nature was still putting on outside.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” He came over and lay down beside me. As I wrapped one arm around him, I reminded myself this boy wasn’t mine.

We’d never set a time limit on this thing we were doing, but as he snuggled back against me and let out a little sigh, I realized that continuing with this for much longer was probably a really bad idea. At least one of us was going to end up forgetting this wasn’t real, and I was afraid it was going to be me.

Caleb

I woke and stretched out my body, and I opened my eyes to find an unfamiliar ceiling. I looked around, trying to figure out where I was. I fell asleep on Keith’s couch and woke up… I looked around here, wherever this was. Light was streaming in the window on my left, and my phone was lying on the table by the bed, so I picked it up to check the time. It was eight o’clock, so that meant Keith had already left for work.

I got up and walked quietly over to the door, opened it slowly, and peeked out. I was sure I was in the house alone, so I had no idea what I was doing sneaking around, but what I did know was that I could smell coffee, and I wanted a cup.

I made my way down the stairs to the kitchen where, sure enough, there was a half-full pot of coffee. With a mug sitting right in front of it on top of a piece of paper. I picked up the mug and looked at the note Keith had left for me.

Rabbit,

You don’t have to be in any hurry to leave. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Just be sure and lock the door behind you.

Also, while you’re at the store, could you do me a favor and grab me some of the pecan-flavored coffee I like? I left my car unlocked so you can just slip it in there for me. I would really appreciate it.

I’ll text you later.

Daddy

I rolled my eyes and shook my head at that silly nickname, but I carefully folded up the note and slipped it into my pocket. I poured myself a cup of coffee, walked over to the fridge, and pulled it open.

Naturally, it was clean and full of healthy-looking foods. I always said that the reason I didn’t take the time to cook good food for myself was because it was too much trouble for one person, but obviously, Keith didn’t think that way.

I poured a little of the half-and-half into my cup and took a drink. It was good coffee, so I could see why Keith liked it. I’d been considering skipping shopping and trying to make do with what I had at the house, but if I was going to the store anyway to get Keith coffee, I might as well do my shopping.

Sneaky, sneaky Daddy. He knew that, and by asking me to get him that coffee, he was ensuring that I’d go to the grocery store. And, of course, it worked because there was no way I wasn’t going to do that for him.

Wednesdays were traditionally slower days at the library so that was the day I tried to get most of the sorting done on the books for the upcoming book sale. Thank goodness we only had a couple more weeks of this. We’d gotten in a large donation that was part of someone’s estate last week, so I had Giles in the back room helping me sort books while one of the other librarians manned the front desk.

“I think we should put the authors’ biographies with the books from their genre.” Giles held up a biography of Shirley Jackson. “I mean, who do you think is more likely to buy a copy of Shirley Jackson’s biography? Someone who’s browsing biographies or someone who reads gothic horror?”

“You have a good point. These people are shopping, not using the card catalog to check out research materials. I say do it, put it with the horror novels.”

“Awesome.” Giles grinned and took the book over to the table we’d designated as horror. “We should put Terry Pratchett’s with the fantasy then, as well.”

My head popped up. “We have a biography of Terry Pratchett?”

“Yeah, it was in the books I helped you sort last week. But he’s so well known it didn’t occur to me to move it last week, unlike Shirley Jackson. She was brilliant, but people mostly only know her from that short story we all had to read in school.” He kept on, talking about how underrated she was and how she would’ve been known as the best gothic horror writer of all time if she hadn’t died so young, while I went over to the biographies table and dug around until I found the Terry Pratchett biography.

“I’m going to keep this one. I’ll pay them for it the day of the sale.”

He looked up at me in surprise. “Terry Pratchett? I mean, sure, he was great, but fantasy isn’t your favorite.”

“It isn’t, but it’s Keith’s favorite, and I noticed he had what looked like the whole Discworld series on his bookshelf. So I thought he might like it.”

“So, how’s that going?” Giles asked.