In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(30)

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just. Crap, well, I’m just leaving the library to go home and I—my car won’t start. So I’m just going to walk home and then get a cab to your place, but I might be a little late. There are cabs here, right? Like, do I call a number or something?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Rex says, and the line goes dead. Well, shit.

I pull up my hood and pop the car’s to take a gander while I wait for Rex. It’s probably just a dead battery since this one’s old, but I might need a new starter. It’s hard to see anything with the snow swirling around.

“Daniel!” Rex calls from the window of a dark-colored Chevy Silverado that’s pulling up next to me.

“Hey,” I say. “Sorry, man. I would’ve been fine walking, really.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says, eyes flashing. “You don’t even have a jacket. You should have waited inside.”

“I wanted to see what was up with my car.”

“I told you it was going to get cold, remember? Because I didn’t want you to be unprepared. I know you’re not used to this weather.”

I’m annoyed at him for telling me what to do, but also a little weirded out because he actually seems concerned.

“Yeah, but it’s October. I thought you were just making conversation. Like, ‘oh, the seasons are changing.’ I didn’t know you meant there was going to be a freaking snowstorm. Anyway, it’s no big deal. It probably just needs a jump,” I say, patting the hood of my car.

Rex is looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and concern. Probably coming out in a snowstorm to pick up a guy he barely even knows wasn’t high on his list of pre-date activities.

“I’ll just get my stuff,” I say, and duck back into the car.

When I turn around with my bags of books and my backpack, Rex is right behind me. Even in the swirling snow I can feel his heat. He closes his eyes like he’s trying to get himself under control.

“Hey,” he says, looking into my eyes, “Sorry if it sounded like I was lecturing you. But every year a tourist freezes to death or gets caught in a snowstorm up here because they don’t know the weather.”

“Okay.” I nod.

He shoulders one of my bags and I follow him to the truck.

I’m soaked to the knees, so we head to my apartment so I can change and drop off all my books.

As we walk through the door of my apartment I’m suddenly struck with a familiar feeling. This apartment, like every one I’ve ever had, is run-down and musty, with garbage furniture, milk crate shelves, and floors that stay dirty-looking no matter how many times I wash them. I wish Rex would wait outside and never see my unmade bed, its mismatched sheets in a nest where I left them, my stove gummed with oil and dust and god knows what—not that I use it for much anyway—and my dresser with the drawers that sag out of their tracks from what must have been years of someone—Carl?—jamming them in and yanking them out, though dissatisfied with what they contained or the life that surrounded them I don’t know.

It’s a dump, depressing even with every light on. I’ve gotten used to it the last few weeks, since it’s become my haven from work and from a town that seems to know what I do before I do it, but now, looking at it through a stranger’s eyes, I once again see it for what it is.

“So, I’m just going to grab a shower,” I tell Rex. “Do you want some…?” I glance around the kitchen. Do I have anything to offer him?

“I’m fine,” Rex says.

“Wine,” I say, “or water?”

He shakes his head.

“Okay, well, make yourself comfortable. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

I grab the Ginger-approved outfit and duck into the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself as I run the water, and make a mental note to buy a heavy winter coat, like, now. My lips are almost blue and my cheeks are dead white against the black of my hair, which my hood has squashed into an unattractive helmet around my head. I look tired.

“Great,” I say to the Daniel in the mirror.

As I step under the mercifully hot water, I think I hear the opening notes of Wish You Were Here from the living room, but then the hiss of the water is all I can hear.




IT’S NOT entirely true that I’ve never been out on a date, though I never told Ginger about it. Richard and I went on one date before falling into the pattern that I thought was dating and he apparently thought was just getting his rocks off. It was soon after we met at a lecture on campus. Richard was a grad student in the chemistry department, done with coursework and writing his dissertation like I was. The lecture was dull and the question and answer portion that followed downright painful, and I caught him smiling at me when I accidentally rolled my eyes at some pompous nonquestion that the chair of the history department asked like he was a king bestowing a knighthood.

We chatted. He was handsome and funny and incredibly smart and so not my usual type. He was very clean and well dressed, like a perfect ivory tower Ken doll. But there was something about him that made me feel… grateful that he thought I was interesting enough to talk to. He asked me to dinner the next night and I looked up the menu online in a panic to see what I could order that wouldn’t wipe out my cash for the whole month. Not much.