Hunted

John Smith

“Good morning you lazy fat f**k!”

“What the f**k are you doing here?” I ask, not even looking at the person in the room. I just pull the blanket over my head and try to go back to sleep. 

“Well I had a gym-date with that man of yours but that was an hour ago and he is still in your bed.”

I decided to look who even is in my house.

“Chris?! How did you even get in”

“Caleb gave me a key so if he ever forgot about our date, I could kick his ass.”

“You gave him the key to MY house?” I turn to Caleb who is trying to avoid this conversation as much as possible.

Caleb climbs out of bed, ignoring my question. He walks to the bathroom while Chris is starting to pack a sports bag for Caleb so they can leave immediately.

“f**k” We hear coming out of the bathroom.

“What’s wrong,” Chris and I asked simultaneously.

“I have to shave, I look like s**t!”

“Honey you always do, so this won’t matter,” Chris yells at him. “This is going to take a while, have you had breakfast yet?” He asks.

“No, you just woke me up”

Chris walks to one of the cabinets and grabs a bottle of pancake mix. He opens another drawer, grabs a pan, and puts it on the stove. A couple of minutes later I had a pile of delicious pancakes standing in front of me. At the same time, Caleb is finished with his personal crisis and leaves the bathroom.

“I’m sorry man, I forgot that it was Wednesday already. Ooh, pancakes.”

“Too many carbs remember, only Malibu oatmeal for you.” Caleb and I start laughing. Chris looks very confused so I don’t even bother explaining. 

The following weeks passed quietly. The same story every day. Waking up, working, eating with the Slade family, getting drunk, and repeat. The Slades were very nice people. They originally came from Portland but later moved to New York for the schools here. They had two sons, Alex and Dominic. They went to the same gym as Caleb and I do, but there was a summer break now.

I am happy with how I am living now. I have a house, a boyfriend, people who want to take care of me. That's more than I could have ever dreamed of. I am spending a lot less money on food now that I can eat with the Slades. Little by little my life is becoming what most people would call ‘normal’.

Today it’s Saturday and we decide to go to the Phoenix, our favorite club. It is a very busy night and I quickly lose some of the friends I was with. No problem, because I pretty much know everyone here, I find another group of people I know. After a few rounds of shots, I walk outside to get some air. To my surprise, I see the boy with the blonde hair again. He looks worse than before. His eyes look lifeless, cheeks sunken in due to poor nutrition. He is shaking from the cold and soaked by the rain. His blond hair hangs lifelessly over his face. 

“Hey, are you okay?” I ask as I rub some blood off his face.  "Come with me, let's get you cleaned up." I hadn't thought how I would explain that the Slades, but if he stayed here longer, he would get sick anyway if he wasn't already. 

"Jesus, do I look like a homeless guy or something, that you want to take me home," he says irritably. 

"No, but if you stay here longer you will get sick. I’m just trying to be nice, but if you want to stay here fine, go ahead." I snarled back at him.

An uncomfortable silence follows. I turn around and just when I start to walk away, I hear him getting up. We walk back to the Slades in complete silence. It took longer than it usually does because this guy is not very stable on his feet right now.

Fortunately, no one is home and I walk to one of the bathrooms, grab a towel and send the boy over to take a shower. In the meantime, I walk to one of the boys' room to look for some clothes since they look like the same size. I put the clothes right in front of the bathroom and then walk to the kitchen to make some food. I have just put something in the microwave when I get a text from Chris:

“Hey princess, u ok? Your boy is kinda worried, told him not to be a pussy.”

“Yeah I’m okay, just didn’t feel good so I headed home.”

Suddenly I hear someone coughing behind me. I turn around and see the boy standing there. Topless, still a bit wet from the shower and his hair hanging in front of his eyes. The drops run gently over his perfectly muscular body.

"It ... Uhm ... The shirt didn't fit." He stammers while he looks around. 

"Are you looking for something?" I ask a little sarcastically. 

"This is not your house, is it?" He says as he walks to the microwave and takes the food out. "Nope," I say as I take cutlery and place it on the huge dining table.

"Is this not a kind of illegal?"

"Well, Mr. Detective, I have permission to come into this house." He sits down at the table with a smile and starts to eat. It wasn't a special meal or something, just frozen pasta. But he ate it as if it were made by a master chef. 

"What's your name?" We ask each other at the same time, after which I immediately start to laugh. 

I say "Kaya" while recovering from laughter. He looks at me, almost surprised, and then says "Jace". With the same dead look, I look back at him, and again we both laugh. 

“So, what’s your deal? Why were you in that alley?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go so yeah” 

“Are you homeless?”

“Oh, no. I live in San Francisco but I was here visiting a friend, we had a big fight and now we aren’t friends anymore so I didn’t have anywhere to stay for these last days.”

“Can’t you go to a hotel or something like that?”

“I kind of lost my wallet so no”

“Oh, that sucks. How is San Francisco? I hear the weather is very nice right now?”

“Yeah…. Uhhm very nice.” He tenses up, obviously very uncomfortable.

“I’m just trying to start a conversation, don’t take it as a personal attack.” I giggle. “But, how is the family doing?”

“Well, dad is busy as always, my sister is world champion at being annoying and my brother is planning a holiday with his girl, so he won’t shut up about that.”

“And how is the mom”

“Still very much dead”

“Hey, same here. High five” He ignores my hand and stares at the empty plate instead.  

“I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me” I added

“No, it’s okay. She died giving birth to me so I never knew her. But I hear all these great stories about her so I just wish that I did.”

It is now about an hour later and we are just about to leave when the Slades come home. Cat immediately sees Jace and looks at him indignantly. It seems as if she suddenly realizes who he is and she runs to Jace.

“Quick! Make sure you get away before Dominic comes home! "

Jace looks up in horror, runs to me, kisses me on the cheek, and runs out of the back door. Less than a minute later Dominic and Alex arrive. They look around and look at each other for an uncomfortably long time. Not much later, they walk to Edward's office and lock the door behind them. I look at Cat in surprise and turn around to do the dishes. While I'm busy Cat comes to stand next to me. 

"I think I owe you an explanation. The boy you had here was Jonathan, formerly a good friend of Alec and Dominic. But when the parents of that poor kid died, he had nowhere to go so we took him in. Somehow the boys got into fights with each other all the time and they came to the point that Dominic wanted to kill Jonathan. Since then he has fled and lives on the streets. "

She turns around and walks away without saying another word. My head is exploding with questions. Are both his parents dead or is his father still alive? Does he live on the streets?

I suddenly realized that all this could have been a big trick for a homeless guy to get in, have a nice chat, and then steal what he can carry and make a run for it. I look around and see that all of the silverware is still there. I grab a cup of tea and look at the clock. Half-past eleven, I haven’t gone to bed that early in ages. I walk upstairs and grab some clothes from the dryer and put them on. I put my dirty clothes back in the laundry basket. I walk down the stairs, grab my coat, and leave the house.

The house is on the edge of a forest and from the parking places, you can see the city’s skyline beautifully. Once arrived at my caravan I see that Jace, or Jonathan, is sitting on my doorstep.

"I just wanted to thank you for your hospitality before I leave." I look at him in surprise. 

"You owe me an explanation."

I knew Cat's side of the story, but something just wasn't right. The temperature has dropped significantly and Jace was still sitting outside topless. I open the door and sign that can come in. Once inside, I grab an old sweater from Caleb and throw it at him. I push all the stuff off my improvised bed and sit down, waiting for Jace to do the same.

"Well, Jace - or should I say, Jonathan? You have 5 minutes to explain why Cat says Dominic wants you dead.”

"Is that what she said? That b***h! Really? From the guys, I expected this behavior but she always seemed the nice one. " A very long pause follows.

"Okay, what I'm going to tell you now is hard to understand. Please, don’t judge until I’ve told the whole story”.