Bowl Full of Cherries

By
R
AINE
O’T
IERNEY

Bowl Full of Cherries

Most Beautiful Words

Sweet Giordan, Please Remember

Under the Table and Into His Heart

Published by
D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

Published by

D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886  USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bowl Full of Cherries

© 2014 Raine O’Tierney.

Cover Art

© 2014 Paul Richmond.

http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

ISBN: 978-1-63216-519-0

Digital ISBN: 978-1-63216-520-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948400

First Edition December 2014

Printed in the United States of America

This paper meets the requirements of

ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For anyone who ever said, “I am not beautiful
in spite of
my weight.
I am just capital B, Beautiful. Full stop.”

A
HUGE
thank you to Jessica Ford for her vigilant eye and cries of “Consistency!”, to Lisa Campbell, as ever, for her wisdom and grace, to Erin Moss for the cheerleading, to Jake Wallace, who loved Crowley, and to Evin Hone, for every damn thing.

I
T
’
S
THE
little things
, Crowley Fredericks thought to himself as he pushed back the door to his small apartment. Like leaving for the airport, returning half a day later without having ever made it to your destination, and opening the door to hear aluminum scraping across the hardwood. The little things.

Tense, tired, and heartsick in ways he hadn’t even begun to process, Crowley couldn’t help it—his lips quirked. It had taken his best friend and roommate, Tyler Lang, exactly twelve hours to organize and host a soirée or meet-up or fete. Maybe a bacchanalia? Anything but a “party.” And the aftermath was seventy-five empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans set up like a minefield on their floor.

“Tyler?”

A figure stirred on the couch. Their friend Xondee sat upright—her dreads slipping in front of her face—and glared at him through bloodshot eyes. She moaned low, swiped a hand at him to be quiet, and then slumped back into a pile of blankets. So Xondee had hung around. He wondered who else might still be around and why it was so damn chilly in the apartment. Crowley shivered. They’d either turned off the heat, left a window open, or both.

A quick glance at the kitchen as he passed through revealed more of the same mess. Dirty plates, Sharpie-decorated Solo cups, and what looked like their whole silverware drawer formed into a sort of abstract artwork. Someone had started to wash up, because the sink was full of now icy-cold, gray water that had an iridescent sheen across its surface. Their cabinets stood open. Someone’s purse, forgotten, rested on the counter where the toaster should be. He wasn’t even going to
look
in the fondue pot.

Quietly he knocked on the door to the bedroom he shared with Tyler, hoping his roommate didn’t have a girl with him. Silence greeted him. He pushed the door open.

No girl, but sure enough, the window was ajar. Snow drifted lazily down from the sky, and if the puddled water on the sill was any indication, a lot of it had blown into the room.

“I hope you didn’t die from the cold last night,” Crowley kidded, going to the window and closing and latching it. The chill still hung in the air, so he knelt next to their old radiator and turned it on. It protested like a crotchety old man, rattling and sputtering, but eventually, heat began to ooze from it. “And did you really leave
this
on?”

On his knees under their tiny desk, Crowley started to unplug the multicolored twinkle lights and the shirtless Santa that Tyler had ironically placed on the side table.

“Don’t turn off Stripper Santa.” Tyler Lang’s voice came out low and gravelly. “And don’t be a drag, sir.”

“Stripper Santa is going to burn the whole apartment down.” More than once, while plugging him in, Stripper Santa’s cord had thrown sparks.

“What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were going to Kansas.”

“Kansas
City
,” Crowley corrected, flinching as he readied himself for what was to come. You didn’t leave with a “See ya after Christmas!” only to return half a day later and not catch any flack. “Kansas City on the Missouri side.”

“Same difference.”

“Unless you’re from Missouri.”

“Fine. Missouri. You’re supposed to be in
Missouri
. But you’re not in Missouri. Why are you here?”

“Flight got… canceled,” Crowley lied haltingly.

Don’t come home. No one will pick you up from the airport.

If Crowley could get a bath and a nap, then maybe he could talk about it without, well, crying. He’d already done that in the airport concourse and had a
very persistent
old woman pull every detail from him while plying him with butterscotch candies.

Tyler grunted and rolled over so he faced Crowley, not bothering to open his eyes. “Xondee still here?”

“Asleep on the couch. She did the zombie thing again. She was wearing clothes this time, thankfully.” When Tyler didn’t reply, Crowley asked quietly, “You want help cleaning up the apartment?”

“How bad is it?”

“Didn’t see any puke this time. Don’t
smell
anything, either. Haven’t run into any pigeons, even with the open window.”

“It was hot,” Tyler justified, pulling the covers up over his head.

“Fifteen people shoved into a five hundred square foot apartment would get a little toasty.”

“Didja sleep at the airport?” Tyler’s voice was muffled under the covers.

“A little.” He’d closed his eyes for just a minute and drifted off. Nothing had changed when he opened them, though. Sleeping in airport chairs—even the fancy ones the airline reserved for important customers—wasn’t exactly restful. Especially with such a heavy heart.

“Go to bed.”

Bath could wait. His twin-size bed in the corner tempted him, especially with the temperature rising in the room. Just a little nap.

T
HE
SOUND
of indie Christmas music filled the small room, and Crowley smacked in the moist heat of trapped breath. A little headache twinged behind his eye and his stomach grumbled. Groaning, he rolled over and pulled the covers off his head. Bright afternoon light blinded him. The snow was falling harder now, and some of it gathered on the window, obscuring the view. Stripper Santa gyrated on the side table once again.

Tyler hummed along to the music and knitted on the floor. A long swath of knitted fabric rolled out between Tyler’s legs. All he knew how to make was scarves and blankets, mostly for babies. But he also said babies were parasites, so all the blankets stayed with them.

Crowley asked Tyler once how he could call something so adorable a parasite and Tyler had replied, “When one creature survives by feeding off the life force of another one, that’s called a parasite. I don’t care how cute they are.”

Tyler’s biggest fear in life was that he was going to get some girl pregnant.

“What time is it?” Crowley asked.

“Time for you to get a watch?” Tyler muttered, and then laughed dryly. He loved old jokes.
Knock knock. Who’s there? Mercy book. Mercy book, who? You’re welcome,
mon ami
.
“I dunno. iPhone is over there. Maybe about one?”