Chapter Three

“Hey, sorry to keep y’all waiting,” the guy said to Wade, continuing to pull at the door. “Are we still good to go?”

Wade kept his hand on the door, but this man’s forearms bulged, making himself more room, until Wade gave up the resistance. The guy smiled when he realized Wade was no longer blocking his entry. He looked Wade up and down.

“Thanks, kid,” the delivery man said.

Wade scanned the guy, trying to get his bearings. The man was, luckily, a quick study.

There was a clipboard in his other hand. He wore a blue jumpsuit with a delivery logo on it. The man’s name was sewn on to the chest.

TREVOR. Dark hair. Green eyes. Olive skin. Firm build. Maybe 19 or 20. He smelled of Old Spice. Wade was standing too close to him.

“Anyway, like I said to dispatch, we were having real difficulty finding this place,” Trevor said. “Must’ve passed by it like four times. The sign out front is too damn small, if you ask me, and it just says DENTIST. Nobody’s name or anything. I thought it would be in an office complex, not a strip mall.”

Wade wasn’t in the right mindset for this. Trevor’s eyes sparkled. A bit of chest hair peeked out from the top of his uniform. Trevor just kept talking. Wade felt cold sweat on his forehead. There is a body in the next room, Wade thought to himself. There is a body in the next room, and you have to get the hell out of here.

“So, do you know where he wants it? It should fit through this door.” Bingo.

“Oh,” Wade said. “You’re here with the sofa he was talking about.” Trevor nodded.

“Daphne, the lady at dispatch, told me that he was still waiting here for it,” Trevor said. “But there’s a problem.”

“A problem?” Wade asked, wondering if he should just run. But Trevor was bigger than him.

“Yeah,” Trevor said, taking in the New York skyline. “Nice wallpaper. So, like, is Dr. Emmett here? Daphne said he was real particular.”

“He’s gone,” Wade said. His pulse quickened at the words.

“Oh,” Trevor said. “Man. What gives?”

“The office closed.”

“But Daphne said he was waiting on us,” Trevor said. “Look, can I just bring the couch in? You can sign for it, and, that way, we don’t have to come back here.”

Wade froze.

“I really don’t know where he would want it,” Wade said.

“So, are you like his son or something? If you’re 18, I think you can sign for delivery.”

“I just turned 17, actually,” Wade admitted. He had just turned 17.

Trevor regarded the young man a moment.

“You look older,” the delivery man said to the dangerous, panicked teenage father who, just then, did feel so much older. “You look my age. When was your birthday?”

“Last week.”

“Happy birthday, Aquarius,” the delivery guy said, then he winked.

Wade shivered. There was a moment. And then Wade imagined how much of Dr. Emmett’s blood was on the floor of reception.

Trevor switched tone, eased himself into the room. The door shut behind him.

“Look, I doubt this is going to actually matter, but could you sign for this sofa?” he asked. “I’m already here.”

“I really don’t think I—”

Trevor glared at him, wanting to get this done with minimal difficulty. “But, if you’re his son, I think I can still have you sign for the delivery.”

Trevor lifted the clipboard. Wade put his phone in his breast pocket.

“It isn’t a big deal,” he urged it forward.

A pen dangled from a chain off the clipboard. Wade grabbed it and scribbled Wade and an E Something Something on to the receipt, maintaining the ruse.

“So, it’s Wade?” Trevor asked. Then Trevor wrote a date and time next to the signature. Wade watched him do it. Then, Wade looked over his shoulder to the hallway door.

“I really have to go. Is that cool?” Wade asked.

Trevor scoffed at this, then raised an eyebrow.

“No, I actually have to deliver the sofa now.”

“Can’t you guys just bring it in?” Wade asked.

“That’s what I’m saying, there’s a problem,” Trevor complained. “My other guy is back at Burger King. He wanted me to find the place while he grabbed food for both of us.”

“Well, that was stupid,” Wade said. “Dr. Emmett was already waiting.”

“Your dad, right?”

“Right. My dad was already waiting.”

“But he left?” Trevor asked.

They were both trapped in an Abbott & Costello routine, and Wade hated himself every minute that passed. Life was never not complicated, never not going to be complicated, never going to be any fun, never going to be free. It was stupid. He was stupid. All of this was stupid.

Wade’s voice went sharp and insistent.

“Yes, damn it, he is gone. I told you he was gone already, and he’s gone. House call.” Trevor opened the door and began to step outside.

“Well, not to make you saltier, but then you’re going to have to help me carry this thing, kid,” the delivery man said.

Wade followed Trevor’s lead out the door. Wade wanted God to strike him dead right there, just unleash lightning from the sky. It might be the only way to escape this. Wade didn’t even have time to think.

Wade’s phone vibrated against his chest. He was expected home by now. But Trevor didn’t need to see anything but the lobby of the office. He didn’t need to see Dr. Emmett on the ground. Trevor didn’t need to call the cops. Trevor didn’t even have to know he’d walked into the middle of anything at all. Trevor opened the hatch of the delivery truck, lowered the ramp, then climbed inside the trailer by putting his feet on the bumper instead. His suit tightened around his muscles as he moved. Wade looked over Trevor, in spite of himself.

Damn it, Wade thought, I get turned on as often as a light switch. I’ve got a fucking body in the office and a kid at home, and I’m ogling a delivery guy who could be moments away from destroying my entire life.

Trevor walked around the bright sofa, wrapped in plastic, and faced him. He dropped the clipboard in the trailer and kept his eyes on Wade.

“Can you get yourself up here, or do you need a hand, Wade?”

As usual, when faced with someone more assertive, Wade did as he was told. Everyone in his life was more assertive than Wade Harrell. He approached the back of the truck, and Trevor offered an arm to steady him and lift him up.

“Nah, man,” Wade said, but Trevor grabbed a hold of him anyway. Wade was swept up into the trailer in a controlled, graceful manner.

Wade blushed, which made Trevor blush.

“I just—Sorry, I just—I just move a lot of furniture,” Trevor stammered. “It’s just easier for me to grab hold of somebody.”

Wade thought about the last time he blushed at a man. And he thought of that man’s body on the floor in the office. And he moved away from Trevor toward the end of the sofa.

“Let’s just get this over with.” Wade grabbed the end of the sofa and lifted from his knees, the way his dad once taught him. His actual dad, not Dr. Emmett.

Trevor’s smile dropped. He became matter of fact, echoing Wade’s tone. He grabbed the other end of the sofa and walked toward the ramp.

“It’s better if I go backward,” Trevor said. “I do this a lot. I’m used to it. My name’s Trevor, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Wade said, “I can read.” He nodded toward the shirt. Trevor’s forehead wrinkled as he wondered where he went wrong. Even dumbstruck, Trevor was handsome. Wade had no time for it.

The sofa was cream-colored, short. It didn’t have the charger stations within it, so Dr. Emmett probably meant for it to go somewhere other than the lobby. But Wade didn’t think Dr. Emmett would care at all where it ended up now. This sofa cost him his life, in a way. All Dr. Emmett had to do was just not keep Wade waiting, but this sofa was so damn important. So now it was going in the wrong place to spite the dentist, who’d been picky with his furniture yet careless with the people in his life. For other, more obvious reasons, this sofa was only going to the lobby. The delivery guy was never leaving Wade’s sight.

The sofa was easily carried down the ramp, down the sidewalk, to the doorway.

Trevor gently placed his end of the sofa down to open the door and tried to make more small talk.

“Is that your Prius?”

“Sure.”

“It looks new. Was it a birthday gift from your parents?”

“Nah,” Wade scoffed. “They can’t afford something new. I got it last year before Lyd—” Wade cut himself off.

“I mean, I just keep up with it, wax and stuff,” he said. “It’s not new. I work at the grocery store.”

“Your dad can’t afford a Prius?” Trevor asked, incredulous. “I guess dentists don’t make what I figured.”

Damn it all, Wade thought.

Δ

Soon, the sofa, Trevor and Wade were inside Dr. Emmett’s waiting area. The sofa was planted awkwardly in a corner. And Trevor just waited for Wade to say something. And waited.

“What?” Wade asked him. “You’re looking at me funny. Is there something on my face or something?”

Trevor moved toward one of the couches, as though he were about to sit down. Wade moved toward the door and opened it for the guy. Trevor didn’t budge.

“Don’t you have to go get your buddy from the Burger King, Trevor?” Wade asked him impatiently.

“I honestly have no idea,” Trevor said. “My phone’s dead. I was gonna ask you if I could charge it here.”

He pointed to the same charger station where Wade had left his phone.

“You can use my phone to call him if you want,” Wade said anxiously. “But we gotta go.”

From the reception desk, a folder of papers fell to the ground, startling them both. Wade turned from the New York room to the Chicago one, waiting for another noise.

“I thought you said your dad was gone,” Trevor said.

“He is,” Wade said.

“Well then, what was that?”

“What was what?”

“Something fell back there,” Trevor said.

Wade’s life was over. Trevor would call the police on him. He’d never see Lydie again. His parents would hate him. His church would disown him. His whole family would have to move out of town to escape the scandal.

“Probably just papers,” Wade said. “The receptionist is really disorganized.”

Wade forced a smile. He kept walking out the door. Trevor, hesitating a moment, followed him.

“Do you have keys?” Trevor asked once they were outside, the sky now dark.

“My dad said he’s coming back here, actually,” Wade said. “He can shut down everything, set the alarm, see the receptionist’s mess for himself. I have somewhere to be.”

Wade grabbed his own keys and hit the unlock button on the Toyota fob. He rushed to the car.

“Wait a damn second, Wade,” Trevor barked as Wade opened the car door.

Wade froze again. Trevor walked slowly toward him, a look of alarm on his face.

“You’re forgetting something important,” Trevor said expectantly.

“Huh?”

The car door standing open between them, Trevor reached over to Wade, his hand extended. Wade didn’t know what was coming, something tender or terrifying.

And Trevor’s fingers touched Wade’s shirt, reached into his breast pocket and grabbed Wade’s phone. Wade sighed in relief.

Trevor took the phone, turned away and typed a quick text.

Turning back, he announced, “—and send.”

Then he handed Wade back the phone. Wade glanced down at the phone screen. The text to 678-555-5519 said “OMW.”

As Wade looked up, Trevor was already walking away.

The delivery guy climbed into his truck, and Wade followed suit into the Prius. He made sure that Trevor was gone, in the direction of the Burger King, before Wade headed home himself, eager to finally get the hell away from Dr. Emmett’s office. It was past 7 p.m.

All the way home, he listened to Norman Vincent Peale’s guidance and prayed for his soul’s forgiveness.