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Kahlil shoved another loaded nacho into his mouth and considered his plan. For the last month he had spent more time outside Gray Space than he had in his entire first year in Nayeshi. If he failed today it would be a struggle to go back to how things had been. Life outside of Gray Space was addictive. Kahlil glanced around at the vibrant green of the public park, checking to be sure no one was watching him and taking in the beauty of Nayeshi at the same time. The air was cool and wet and full of birdsong. Kahlil wiped his hands off on a paper napkin, and carefully unbuckled the straps keeping his sword, the Nayeshi’hala, on his back.
Lowering his hand below the picnic table where he sat, Kahlil ripped a tiny seam of Gray Space open and levered the sword inside. He stowed it carefully there in the Gray Space, knowing that no one in Nayeshi could ever find it, but still feeling strange about leaving it behind. He also removed the yasi’halaun and the larger of his curse blades from his belt and slid them into the opening behind the Nayeshi’hala. Kahlil had asked the attendant at the gas station, who knew him well enough to be unfazed by his odd questions, what he should wear to meet a potential new roommate. The man had been emphatic on only one point: no knives. Kahlil had settled on a compromise, keeping one small blade hidden in his boot. Satisfied, he closed the seam of Gray Space and crunched into another nacho.
For the past six weeks he'd slipped in and out of the Gray Space multiple times each day, keeping an eye on John's computer and deleting replies to the want ad before John noticed them. He'd only missed one, and by a lucky coincidence the guy was stuck in Nigeria and couldn't find the money to get here anyway. John had deleted that message himself, Kahlil remembered with a smile.
John had looked worried last night though, Kahlil thought. Now that Bill had moved back home with his parents, John was by himself. Kahlil generally stayed in the musty third-floor attic, even when he was in Gray Space, but last night he had come down to watch John sit at the kitchen table and pay bills. There was no sound in the Gray Space, but he knew that John hadn’t turned on the radio or the television. They sat in mutual silence, John believing he was alone and Kahlil aching to tell him that he wasn’t. He followed John into his bedroom that night and hung in the cold quiet, willing him to keep up hope for one more day.
Today. Today Kahlil would speak to John in person. The temptation had been particularly strong since John's fight with his parents. Kahlil wanted so badly to let John know that there was someone out there who knew about what he was going through and who understood. Kahlil's chewing stilled and he touched lightly at the scar on his face. What would John think of this? Of him?
Abandoning the nachos to the nearby trash barrel, Kahlil strode across the park. Aside from the birdsong, it was quiet in the early morning. The air was still slightly chilled from misty fog, even though it was June and eventually the Nayeshi sun would warm everything up to a pleasant temperature. On recent nights, Kahlil had been sleeping on the roof of John's rented house. It was hard to see the stars with the hazy light from the city drowning out all but the brightest points, but Kahlil liked it up there anyway. The tarred shingle roof retained much of the day's warmth and the summer breeze would blow past carrying intoxicating scents of the city.
He ducked into the public restroom at the park entrance. The cracked mirror and leaky pipes were familiar to him; he used the park bathroom whenever John and Bill stayed in their house for long stretches and Kahlil couldn't risk coming out of Gray Space to use their toilet.
Quickly, Kahlil stripped his coat and hung it on the hook on the back of the door. He fumbled around in the baggy pocket until he felt the little soap tin and the leather case of his shaving kit. He washed at the sink, careful not to disturb the spiders that hung variously from the walls, the paper towel dispenser, and the pipes under the sink. Personally, Kahlil didn't care much for spiders, but he had heard John explain to his baby brother once why they were good for the ecosystem and how they should try to let them be.
John concerned himself with all sorts of small things, Kahlil knew. He had been that way since he was a child.
Drying his face with a paper towel, Kahlil tried for a smile in the mirror and grimaced at the way it puckered the scars on his cheeks. He gave up on vanity and brushed his teeth instead. He poked the escaping strands of black hair back into his braid, not bothering to redo it. It had gotten long enough now, finally, that it was a pain in the ass to maintain.
Satisfied with his grooming, Kahlil donned his coat and unlocked the restroom door. Without hesitation, he touched into the seam of the air and split the Gray Space open between his fingers. Stepping through it, he emerged almost instantly on the front stoop of John's house on Indian street.
Okay, so this was it. He fingered the wad of cash in his coat pocket. He had been particularly careful to make sure he would have enough money to cover the rent that was due. He wanted to give John every reason to say yes to him living here.
Steeling himself with a last deep breath, Kahlil stepped up to the carved wooden door and knocked on it sharply. He knew John would be home; he was always home on Thursday mornings. He didn't have class or work, so he usually puttered around the house catching up on laundry and vacuuming. Eventually, Kahlil heard the fumbling sounds of the locks being flipped, and the door was thrown open wide.
"Can I help you?" John asked him. It was the first thing John had ever said to him and Kahlil blinked. John looked like he hadn't slept well. He was pale, and his blonde curls were alternately matted and disheveled, like someone who had slept fitfully and hadn't bothered to shower yet. He was carrying a laundry basket under one arm, but instead of laundry it seemed to be full of textbooks and stacks of bright white printer paper. Kahlil wasn't sure what to make of that.
He cleared his throat, willing himself not to smile. You don't know him, he reminded himself. You've never met before.
"Yes," he said, hoping it sounded nonchalant. "I'm here about the room for rent.''
John frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. "You saw the ad?" he asked, his voice conveying deep distrust.
Kahlil was ready for this. He had practiced this part, knowing that John was methodical and thoughtful and that his mind would always try to put things together the right way.
"I tried to reply," Kahlil said, "but the email bounced back." He had quizzed the gas station attendant on how email might fail, so that he would know the right words to use. But John was still standing in the doorway, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"So how did you get my address," he asked.
Kahlil tried to put the smile into his voice instead of showing it on his face. "Oh, well the ad said Indian Street. A lot of these houses are vacant, and so I just took a guess. I actually tried 108 before I knocked here, but they weren't home." The lie slid so easily off his tongue.
John looked out the door and down the alley of Indian Street. Then he looked back at Kahlil and something must have clicked because he stepped back from the doorway and said, "Yeah, uh, come on in. I can give you a tour. I’m John, by the way." He held out his hand toward Kahlil.
"Thanks," Kahlil said as he stepped across the threshold. “I’m Kyle.”
He reached toward John’s outstretched hand and took it. He hoped John hadn’t noticed the crackle of energy that shot through the air in the last second before their skin touched. Kahlil’s blood was pounding in his ears, responding to the bond it had forged years ago.
The curiosity in his eyes as he looked around the foyer wasn't feigned; he had hardly ever come out of Gray Space on the first floor of the house and it was surprising to him to see John's space suffused with light and color. Faded blue drapes hung from the high Victorian windows at the front of the house, the sunlight finding its way in past the thin fabric. Aside from a haphazard pile of wooden planks and gray cement blocks that supported a television, there wasn't much else in the front room. The lack of furniture and the open floor plan allowed Kahlil an unobstructed view all the way to the kitchen at the back of the house. He had never realized that the walls in the kitchen were painted a cheerful yellow.
"My last roommate took his couch with him when he moved out," John said apologetically. He set the basket of books down near the foot of the staircase
"That's fine," Kahlil said quickly, not wanting John to think he would be put off by a living space without cushioned seating. John nodded and started walking back toward the kitchen.
"The kitchen and dining room are over here. My bedroom is off the living area. The bathroom is upstairs. There's just one bathroom, so…” John trailed off. He looked almost embarrassed, Kahlil thought. He desperately wanted to reassure John, to tell him that this aging two-bedroom, one- bathroom row home was paradise compared to weeks on end spent in Gray Space, watching and waiting. But he couldn't tell John any of that. Not now, at least, when John was meeting him for the first time. He had to say normal things that any stranger might say to a potential roommate.
"I don't mind sharing a bathroom," Kahlil said. Technically, he had been sharing a bathroom with John for nine years. The thought made him grin. He saw John's lips twitch in a reciprocal, if uncertain, smile.
"Oh, we do have a washer and dryer in the basement," John said.
"Is that where you were taking your books," Kahlil joked, waving his hand in the direction of the laundry basket that John had set on the floor.
He was hoping to make John laugh, but he frowned instead and looked down at his hands. "No," he said. "I was actually packing my stuff. I didn't think anybody wanted the room and I can't really afford this place on my own."
Kahlil had thought John looked preoccupied last night. Kahlil frowned. ''Where were you going to go?" he asked, worry coloring his voice and making the words come out more forcefully than he had intended.
John didn't seem to mind Kahlil's well-intentioned interrogation. He shrugged and said "I'm sure I would find a friend to crash with."
Kahlil felt a pang of guilt. If he hadn't deleted John's messages, he would never have been worried about finding a roommate. There were tons of people who wanted the room here. Kahlil couldn't bear the thought that John had spent the night staring down the possibility of being twenty-one and homeless.
"Listen," Kahlil said. "I'd like to take the room. So you can stop packing." He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out the cash he had prepared. "I can pay two months in advance. And a deposit, if you need one."
"You haven't even seen the room yet," John pointed out with a small frown.
"I'm sure it's fine," Kahlil said. “It's just a bedroom, right?" He held the money out toward John, who took it but didn't count it.
"Right," he said, slowly. "Are you a student? I'm going into the second year of my graduate program."
"Yeah, I know," Kahlil said reflexively, a twinge of pride coloring his voice.
John's eyebrows shot up, “I didn't think I put that in the ad,” he said.
Shit. Pay attention, Kahlil chided himself. “I just meant that I figured you were in graduate school. I don't know of many people who read Elements of Mathematical Ecology for fun.” Kahlil gestured to the book on the top of the laundry basket stack.
John smiled, mollified. "It's not actually as bad as it sounds," he said.
"Couldn't be," Kahlil said, his lips cracking into a smile. John laughed, and Kahlil felt his breath catch. He was standing with John, together in the same room with no Gray Space to separate them. It was a heady feeling, like throwing yourself down a mountain and hoping you can keep your feet underneath you.
John ran his hand through his hair, fluffing up the blonde curls a bit. "So you are a student," he prompted.
Kahlil was brought back to the present at the question. "Oh, sorry. No, I'm not a student.”
John's fingers rubbed absently over the folded bills in his hand. "So, what do you do for a living.”
"Um, I'm a milkman," Kyle said reluctantly, wincing a little as the familiar look of surprise, confusion, and finally boredom settled over John's face.
“Okay," John said slowly. "well, if you're getting up early in the morning you might see me. Most days I try to be in the lab early, so I leave here by seven. I go camping quite a bit too, mostly for fun but sometimes for class. So you'll have the place to yourself pretty often."
Kahlil nodded, recalling the last camping trip John had taken. He had hiked alone into the mountains and spent hours staring into his campfire. The next morning, he had been up early and driven directly to his parents’ house.
John continued through Kahlil’s thoughtful silence. “The rent is due on the first, but there’s also a water bill, a phone bill, and an electric bill that all come mid-month. We can split those, if that works for you. They’re not usually too bad.”
“Yeah,” Kyle nodded, finding that it generally worked to go along with things until you figured out what they meant. He wasn’t sure what a water bill was exactly, but he had at least a week or so to find out. “That sounds fine.”
“So,” John said, voice uncertain. “I can show you the upstairs if you want. Or, I mean, you’ve already paid. You can start moving your stuff in. I can give you a hand if you’ve got any heavy furniture.”
Kahlil didn’t own furniture, much less anything heavy, but he nodded. “That would be great. I’ll move my stuff in later today.” He wasn’t ready to leave John yet, so he went on. “I guess I’ll take a look at that bedroom, if you want to show it to me.” Something in his words must have sounded strange, because John flushed lightly and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Sure,” John said, turning back to the staircase. “Follow me.”
Kahlil smiled and grasped the railing, feeling the smooth polish of the years of hands that had trailed along the wood. He stayed a few steps behind John on the staircase, suddenly very aware of how well John’s blue jeans fit.
John pushed open a door at the top of the stairs and held it out for Kahlil. “This is the bathroom,” he said, nodding in the direction of the tub.
Kahlil poked his head in. It was more unusual than he expected to pretend to be unfamiliar with the place. He glanced around at the sink and toilet that he had been using for a year now, whenever John and Bill had both been away from the house.
He glanced back at John, who had moved down the hallway. “Looks great,” he called, taking several large strides down the narrow space to catch up.
“This one would be your room,” John said as he stepped through the door at the end of the hall. Kahlil had only occasionally poked through Bill’s room before. He stepped through curiously, and blinked in surprise. Now that it was completely empty, Kahlil could see that it was enormous. Without the clutter of Bill’s unmade double bed, stacks of vinyls and old magazines, and an antique wooden desk covered in empty beer cans and takeout containers, every empty corner was visible. The large bay windows along the front wall let in the morning sun, and the ceiling stretched at least ten feet high, dotted with an antique decorative panel around a bare light fixture.
“Woah,” Kahlil breathed, his gaze taking in the dimensions.
“Will this work?” John asked. “Will your stuff fit in here?”
Kahlil nodded faintly. “Yeah. Um, yeah I think it will.” He thought about the sword and knives hidden in the Gray Space under the picnic table and about the backpack that he’d left behind the gas station counter. What would John think when all he moved into his new room were a few things he could carry in one trip up the staircase?
He glanced over to the door. Maybe he could just keep it locked. John probably wouldn’t try to snoop through his things anyway. He didn’t have to worry about beds and desks and dressers right away. He could start with this. Maybe he would buy one of the cheap cots they sold at the army surplus store downtown.
Nodding, he smiled at John. “This is good,” he said, hoping he hadn’t worried John in his moment of hesitation. “This will definitely work.”