From her minute-long silence on the phone, I’d guessed Pearl was as bowled over by my proposition as I was having said it. But she needed somewhere to live for the summer; I had an extra room. I’d have offered the same thing to Maxfield or Thompson or Vega… who were all guys. Though it had been known to happen, I’d never even wanted girls to stay over after sex. I’d always reckoned that was because I lived with my dad, but he’d been in and out of the hospital for months and I’d had the trailer to myself most nights. He’d been dead for four weeks. Neither made a lick of difference. I was flat-out opposed to hookups getting cozy in my place.

Yet the notion of Pearl living there hadn’t bothered me enough to keep it from coming out of my mouth. I hadn’t even hesitated before offering it. If anything, I was ready to talk her into the idea. Sort of like signing up for voluntary torture. 

I left the keys hanging in the lock when I got home and walked straight to the closed-off master bedroom. After wasting two evenings and half a weekend searching for the documents Mr. Amos had asked me to find, I’d rid the room of cans and bottles, bagged up an ass-ton of odds and ends and pointless documents, and pulled the door shut on the rest. The old man had amassed piles of statements, bills, and junk mail mixed with mildewing stacks of Field & Stream, Car and Driver, and the Hustler mags I’d stolen and stuck beneath my mattress until I discovered the Internet and real girls. His closet and dresser were crammed full of clothes that should all be trashed. Ditto the bedding. Shit—and the soiled mattress. No fucking way I was allowing Pearl Frank to lie down on that.

Pissed at myself for putting off this chore, I wished I could set fire to the whole room like I had that damned recliner. But that chair had been worthless, and this room meant freedom to Pearl. I pulled the keys from the door, grabbed a box of heavy-duty trash bags from the garage, and started separating useful from useless.

Four hours later and an ass-ton of black bags stacked at the end of the driveway—where they’d sit until garbage pickup Tuesday—I heard back from Pearl. We’d agreed that she should have dinner with her parents and hope her mom did an about-face, but where parents were concerned, I never held my breath.

Pearl:  No change. Thomas seems opposed to her ultimatum, but he won’t contradict it. Boyce - that car doesn’t belong to me. Neither does my phone. I’ve never felt so stupid and naïve.

Me:  You didn’t see this coming. Stop blaming yourself. Do they know you’re leaving? Will they take your car away?

Pearl:  I’ll tell them tomorrow. I’ve packed my clothes and plan to ask them to leave my phone on long enough for me to get my own, but if I’m determined to be self-sufficient, I can’t justify taking the car. I can walk the few blocks to class from your place, and I’ll have to find a job nearby. Guess I’ll be doing lots of walking.

Me:  We’ll work something out.

Pearl:  Are you sure about this? I’ll pay you rent once I have a paycheck.

Me:  The hell you will. Like I told you earlier, I would do this for Maxfield or any of my close friends. It’s less than three months and you’re a tiny thing. You won’t bother me none.

With those lying words, I pictured her shampoo and bodywash and razor in my shower, bras and panties hanging over the rod, her in a towel, blow-drying that mass of dark hair in my bathroom… Goddammit. She would bother the hell out of me. Just not how she was thinking.

Pearl:  Okay. I’ll come over after class tomorrow. What time do you finish up? I’ll need a ride back to your place after I leave my car at home. At *their* place, I mean.

Pearl:  I didn’t think I’d graduate college and be immediately homeless, haha. ☹

Me:  You’re not homeless. Just a little transient. ☺

Pearl:  I don’t know how to thank you.

Me:  No need. Just take it and go do your thing.

Pearl:  See you tomorrow. Goodnight.

Me:  Yep. Nite.

I texted Thompson about using his truck to haul the disgusting mattress to the dump tomorrow and he responded: NP I’ll git er done without asking why. Shouldn’t take more than a week to get a new one in there. In the meantime, Pearl would sleep in my bed, and I’d lie wide-awake on the sofa, struggling not to visualize her sweet little body curled up in my sheets, her soft mouth falling open with an eager sigh when I stroked a hand over her hip to pull her closer, her sleepy eyes blinking slowly as I woke her to a need that I would fill.

I was fucked. I was so, so fucked.

• • • • • • • • • •

I was up until two a.m. cleaning the bathroom after battling that goddamned mattress out the front door in the middle of the night. My neighbor, Mrs. Echols, eighty if she was a day, flipped on the floodlight at the corner of her place—blinding me momentarily—and glared out her bedroom window, clutching her robe to her chin. I propped the mattress against the side of the trailer and saluted, and she snatched the curtain closed.

After a quick shower, I fell into bed and slept like the dead until the alarm went off at six. Not the best day to face on four hours of sleep, because I’d forgotten all about my surly probationary employee until she wheeled into the bay where I was testing fluid levels as part of a tune-up. Her father walked up behind her, sizing me up with all the friendliness of a rabid dog. Jesus Christ.

Despite the fact that I felt like I was hungover and wished they’d just turn around and leave, I wiped my hand on a rag and stuck it out. “Mr. Adams? Boyce Wynn.”