We drove in separate cars to Darden Street. The lights were out, which told me Ben the Perfect Bottom wasn’t trespassing again. I keyed the lock and Hatch stood behind me, breathing on my neck, close. I felt his palms on my hips. I pulled away from him and went inside and punched digits into the security system’s keypad. We moved into the kitchen, and I found two glass tumblers. While pouring a cheap whiskey in both, he said, “You’re tidy, unlike me.”
I passed him his drink. “To cleanliness,” I toasted.
We tapped glasses together and drank.
The whiskey burned going down; I didn’t mind.
I carried the bottle of whiskey into the living room, and we retired there. We sat next to each other on the sofa and talked: about summertime and how we both liked the beach at Presque Isle; making the
