Under Locke(77)

“You didn’t go to school together?”



He shook his head. “Nah. We lived in different hoods. Him and Trip went to school together.” For a brief moment, he got this far off look in his eye that made me wonder what kind of crap he was remembering. Probably nothing good.



“Oh. I don’t know why I got the impression you two were pretty close.”



Dex pushed away whatever had caught his attention on memory lane. “Close enough. I didn’t even know he still kept in contact with you ‘til a few years ago. He used to take off and not say shit to anyone about where he was goin’.”



Yeah...that sounded like Sonny. I lifted up a shoulder at him.



“Thought you were too good to come see him.”



And that had me narrowing my eyes over in his direction. It was a fact. A statement, and if I took the time to absorb what he was saying, I’d understand his point. So I saved my smart ass comment and went for a scowl. “I didn’t have money or time.”



He gave me a long look before nodding. “Yeah, I get that now.”



When he didn’t say anything else, I tried to think of what else to talk to him about. The distance between us wasn’t so painful at Pins, but at his house? It was. Oh lord, it was. I was grateful to him for letting me stay and sitting there quietly, well, awkwardly quietly, seemed wrong.



“I like your house,” I blurted out the first thought that came to mind.



He glanced up and looked around his kitchen, tipping his chin down. Dex’s mouth formed a serious straight line. “Me too.”



“Have you lived here long?”



“Almost a year in November,” he answered.



Why was he making this so difficult? I glanced at the bare walls and clean counters, listened to the cicadas outsides, thinking of the fact he lived out of the city limits. “I’m a little surprised you have a house out here and not an apartment like Trip’s.” A little shudder curled through my spine when I thought of the state his toilet seat had been in.



In typical Dex fashion he picked up on the last thing I would expect. “You been to Trip’s place?”



Did his tone sound off or was I imagining it? One look at the straight line of his jaw had me deciding I’d imagined it. “Once.”



“Huh,” he huffed. Those dark blue orbs narrowed for a split second. His fingers tapped against the counter before he started talking again. “I used to live in the same complex before I bought this place. Fuckin’ hated it there.”



“Really?”



Dex lifted up a shoulder. “Made me feel like I was livin’ in a beehive. Kinda reminded me too much of bein’ all cramped up in a double-wide as a kid, too.” When he went to start scratching at his throat, I understood how awkward and uncomfortable the memories of living in a trailer made him feel.



Then I remembered everything he’d said about growing up with his drunk of a dad. That kind of man in such a small place? Oh hell. With two sisters? Where the hell would he have even slept?



Acid built up in my chest and throat so quickly it caught me off guard. I was suddenly the one that felt uncomfortable. “I had to share a room with my little brother—bunk beds—until I was nineteen.” Yia-yia’s house had been so small, but it’d been home. I swallowed hard at the memory of sleeping on the couch at the apartment we’d moved into after selling the second home I’d ever known. “So I get it.”



And then, nothing. Silence.



O-kay. I could let that topic go.



I fumbled my way through making sauce for the pasta, hoping it wouldn’t taste completely bland since I didn’t have the right ingredients. In the mean time, Dex watched quietly, only getting up to grab a beer from the fridge and asking if I wanted a drink.



We sat on opposite sides of the kitchen bar, Dex drinking a beer and me with a bottle of water he’d pulled out from somewhere in the fridge I hadn’t seen. Considering the absence of necessary condiments and herbs, I thought the food came out pretty good. Dex’s murmurs of enjoyment told me he was either a great liar or it wasn’t too bad.



“Good food, babe,” he finally muttered after twirling ribbons of pasta around his fork, gaze leveled on me.



I smiled at him, taking a few more mouthfuls of food. I glanced up again only to see him still looking at me.



O-kay.



“Is there spaghetti sauce on my face?” I asked.



He shook his head, stringing more noodles along the tines of his fork.



I let it go until I caught his eyes one more time. “I’m not kidding, what’s on my face?”