Chapter 2

“That Marc?” Abraham asked, peering out the other window. He answered his own question immediately. “Yeah, that’s him! Come on, we’ve got lots of carrying to do.”

Concern for his belongings sent Sora down the stairs into the bustle of activity out front. All he had to do was muscle through the introductions and the awkward move-in phase, and he’d be able to avoid these people.

That was no way to treat the people he’d be living with, and he knew it, but the thought of trying to befriend people simply because he lived with them was too much to consider at that moment. Maybe eventually.

On the front porch, Sora had to dodge around the new guys. One was carrying a huge toolbox, and the other had a large plastic tote in his hands.

“Marc, this is Sora!” Lacie said, gesturing to him.

The one with the toolbox smiled. “Hey, nice to meet you!”

“You too,” Sora replied, smiling but already walking away. Abraham had gone back to Sora’s car and was picking up random boxes from the front seat. Sora ran to the trunk to get another box of his art pieces.

Despite arriving later, Marc finished carrying all his boxes in sooner.

“Need another set of hands?” he asked, coming back out onto the porch as Sora trudged up the steps with yet another box in his arms. After the past half-hour of carrying boxes, Sora had determined he was wrong to think of this Marc guy as ‘nondescript.’ He had a wide, easy smile and nicely muscled arms, warm brown eyes, and a neatly-trimmed beard. The first word Sora thought of was clean. Then he thought handsome

“Uh, sure,” he said, ignoring the paranoia about having other people touching his stuff. As much as he hated other people messing with his belongings, it made no sense for him to carry everything alone. “Anything in the back seat.”

“Got it.” Marc sidled past Sora and down the stairs to the open back door of his car. Sora paused to watch Marc, making sure he didn’t drop anything or break anything or…he didn’t know what. Steal something? That’d be dumb.

“You didn’t have to wait,” Marc said. He’d picked up the largest box. It was full of paint tubes, so it wasn’t heavy, just awkwardly large. It had been one of the first to go into the car, so it was almost the last to come out. They were almost done.

Sora went into the house, and Marc followed.

“So how’d you find this place?” Marc asked.

“Facebook.”

“Same! Are you a student?”

The university was only a couple miles away. Sora hadn’t even thought about it, but this would be a great place for a student to live, so the question made sense. “No. Are you?”

“Not for a while. I was a few years ago.”

Aware of the usual reaction to this next admission, Sora made it anyway. It was an easy way to judge a person. “I didn’t go to college.”

They were heading up the stairs now with their boxes, and Marc hmphed. That was the only reaction he gave to that statement, and Sora couldn’t determine if it was good or bad. He assumed bad. It usually was.

Between Marc and Abraham, it only took one more trip to get the rest of Sora’s boxes upstairs. Standing there looking around at everything, he found it hard to believe he’d fit all of this stuff in his car. Or in his old apartment, for that matter. This room was probably as big as his old place, and the boxes were stacked two high along most of one wall, with another wall lined with the more fragile items Sora had insisted on carrying up himself.

“No bed?” Abraham asked.

“Not right now.”

“Do you have to make another trip?”

“No,” Sora said. “Have to go buy one.”

“Oh. Can we take a break before you do?”

“Why?”

“For a breather. Drink some water, introduce yourselves, you know?”

“We already introduced ourselves,” Sora replied, brows drawn. He knew their names, they knew his. Then it clicked. “Oh, you mean like, ice breakers and small talk?” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t really do that.”

Abraham laughed, but it tapered off quickly, and his face changed to confusion. “Oh. All right then. Well, if you need anything, Lacie and I’ll be downstairs.”

“I got it. Thanks.”

Marc, who’d lingered near the door through the exchange, gave Sora a half-hearted wave and smile, then followed Abraham out of sight. Sora closed the door behind them, inhaled deeply, and let it out while counting to ten. Too much. Way too much. He still needed to get a bed, but that would be a problem for later, when his brain could actually function again. For now, he lay on his back on the floor, spread-eagle, and closed his eyes to quiet his mind.