Bankers' Hours (3 page)

“Interesting. Usually you react right away.”

“I know.”

“Maybe it was because the smell came off a really hot guy?” Mel goaded.

“Stop. He’s probably straight anyway, so speculating over things that would unnerve me is unnecessary—good and bad smells included. I think he was just being nice because I’m the new guy.”

“Maybe. But you better promise to call me if he turns out to be gay. I want to know if this
odd scent
is particular to his hands or found on other parts of his body.”

I chuckled. “You’re so incorrigible.” Mel was a great friend, but I needed to change the subject. “So, how about you? Are things progressing with you and that girl you saw working at the chicken place?”

“Boston Market,” he corrected. “And nah, I’m still hesitant about saying hello, let alone anything else. What if she doesn’t accept me? I think I’ll wait.”

“Really? You’re not even going to take a chance? You could start with going there to eat every week and see if she notices.”

“Maybe, but you know I want to wait to date until my scars heal and I figure out my next step in the process. I want to feel more secure about myself before I face my fear of rejection, especially from a girl as pretty as Cindy.”

“Mel, you know I love you, but just like you pushed me toward independence, I need to push you a little toward dating.”

“I know. Just… can you keep your fingers crossed for me? I’ll try going in for lunch and see if she looks at me. Okay?”

I nodded, but then realized he couldn’t see me. “Yes, of course. I’m here for you.”

“Thanks. I’m here for you too. And if Mr. Carr, the auto mechanic, turns out to be gay, I’ll be here for advice on how
not
to screw it up. The next guy you go out with will be
the one
,
I’m sure of it!”

“I hope so. My internal clock is ticking.”

“Grant, you’re twenty-six, not fifty-six. You’ll find the right guy to marry and settle down with. I promise.”

I sighed.

We said our good-byes, and I set my phone on the end table. I hoped Mel was right. I was tired of being alone. There had to be a guy out there who would tolerate my need to iron my boxers and group my shirts according to color. Other people
had
to despise it when their food touched on their plate, right? Or when restrooms only had air-drying machines instead of paper towels? I was not a freak. I was a somewhat nice-looking gay man cursed with an unusual personality that repelled men. I was special. I would find someone eventually who appreciated my quirks.

I went to bed thinking about what my second week of work would be like. This weekend I would do laundry and clean my three-room house. On Monday I could worry about the cougar woman Jessica had warned me about, and the auto mechanic who’d winked at me for no apparent reason. Because even if he
was
gay, he’d never want to take me to bed, so I was better off playing it cool and being his friend.

Friends.
My mother had told me I needed to make some.

Chapter 2: Making Friends, Moving On, And That Squishy Feeling In Your Belly When A Guy Says Your Name

HIS SWEATY
body pressed me against the wall. I felt a sting as he sucked on my neck. He lifted me off my feet and helped me wrap my legs around his waist. His long, hard shaft ran under my balls and pulsed with need. I gasped and cried out….

“Tristan!” I cried, bolting upright in bed. I looked around at my empty, dark room. “Oh, jeez.” I flopped back down on my pillow and panted in my residual dream euphoria. That was the most vivid dream I’d ever had.

AT WORK
on Monday, I decided it was time to get to know the people around me. Sure, I knew most of their names, but I didn’t know them like I had known the people at the other branch. I had worked there for four years. It wasn’t like making friends was difficult, but as I’d gotten older it seemed more tedious. I guess in high school, making friends was a given. When you saw the same people day after day, it made sense. In college, the group of people I hung with had gradually diminished. At the bank, those people in my daily life had shrunk to a smaller group that still fed my relational needs. And then my workplace sanctuary had closed.

When forced to relocate, it puts relationships to the test. Were they really my friends, or was it a nominal thing because we worked together every day? Well, so far it appeared to have been nominal, because the only person I talked to consistently was Mel. I rang Jenny and Mary, but they sounded busy making new friends and getting settled in their new positions.

I needed to move on like my friend Laura had the day she left. I hadn’t heard from her in months. Again, our friendship must have only been nominal. When would I make friends with someone who wanted to brush our dentures together or play chess in the park after we retired? I didn’t want that permanent fixture in my life to be my mother. How depressing.

Jessica handed a receipt to her customer, and when that woman left, I attempted a conversation over the little half wall that separated our cubicles, as I referred to them. “So, Jessica, how long have you worked at this branch?”

“Two years. I was at a different bank in Baltimore, and when this bank bought them out, they relocated me. I like Westminster, so it’s been good. I had another friend, though, who got transferred to an area she hated and ended up quitting the bank. She works at Safeway now.”

“I guess banks taking over other banks is typical.”

“Yeah, it seems so.”

“All my friends got relocated when a branch closed in Columbia,” I explained. I noticed bits of masking tape stuck to the top of my cubicle and scraped at it with my nail.

“How did you end up here? Columbia is like an hour south. Did they give you a choice?” she asked.

I was happy Monday started out slow, because last week had been a challenge to keep up. During this lull I could chat briefly without interruptions. “There were twenty employees who needed to find jobs, and twelve positions at other branches. Some bigwig sat us down individually and gave us a choice. Mine was here or Bethesda.”

“Oh, I like here better than Bethesda.” Jessica had one of those lilting soprano voices I liked. I could picture her singing “Whistle While You Work” alongside Snow White while dancing around the bank in an effort to help me see how much fun working here could be.

“I’ve never been there, but my mother lives closer to Westminster, so it made the choice obvious.”

“Did you have to move, or are you still living in Howard County?” Jessica glanced up when a person walked through the front doors and headed over to the side table to fill out a slip.

“I moved. I was renting a room from someone, and I really didn’t like it anyway. When I told my mother I was considering moving to Westminster to be close to work, she found me a house for rent. She knows the woman who owns it. It’s small, but I have it all to myself for less rent than I paid at my old place.”

“That’s cool. Are you close to your mother?” she asked innocently.

“Yeah,” I said, not wanting to divulge the fact that I had lived with my mother until last year.

“What about your dad?”

“He died in a car accident six years ago.” It was not a memory I enjoyed, but it was less painful to talk about as time went on.

She frowned. “I’m sorry. Are you an only child?”

“Yes. Probably why I’m close to my mother. It’s only the two of us. She had me later in life, and most of my relatives are dead.”

“How depressing,” Jessica commented before turning to the man who had finished filling out his slip. She changed her tone immediately. “Good morning. Can I help you?” I supposed it was like that for customer service employees. You could be all serious and deep one second, but in the next you had to flip the switch back to “pleasant and cheerful.” It was exhausting.

Two more people came in, and I knew our brief chat session would have to wait for a while. Maybe I hadn’t found out much about Jessica, but I felt comfortable answering her questions about me. I did a deposit for one gentleman and cashed a check for someone else, but when I glanced up to call over the next person in line, my breath hitched the same as it had the first time I’d seen him. Tristan Carr was walking through the front door. His eyes caught mine, but I couldn’t stare when I had someone else to take care of.

“Good morning sir,” I greeted an older man with a smile. The whole time I was talking to him about IRAs, I was peripherally aware of the auto mechanic in line. Would I be finished in time to help Mr. Carr? As soon as I said, “I hope you have a nice day,” to my customer, I heard Jessica call Mr. Carr over to
her
window.

Our eyes met again briefly as he moved from the front of the line to her window and my customer walked away. It was a huge disappointment, but if he’d been in on Friday and was back again today, then there was a good chance he did business here often. Maybe the next time I would be able to service his needs.

I giggled to myself as I punched in the account number for my next customer. I was glad when she didn’t comment, because I could not explain my internal fantasies about servicing the auto mechanic. If he needed a lube job, I was more than happy to assist. I giggled again.

“Thank you, Mrs. Smith. Have a nice day,” I said. She walked away, and the next customer walked up.

It was the cougar from Friday. “You look chipper this morning,” she commented.

I guess she had seen me snickering to myself. “Yes, I suppose I am. How about you, Mrs. Snyder?” I asked politely, taking her deposit.

“I’m well, thank you. Did you have a good weekend?” Her eyes on me felt strange. I think it was the way she
didn’t
blink.

“Yes. I painted part of my kitchen.” Not that she needed to know the details of my life, but that wasn’t revealing. Painting was a task, not personal.

“What color?” she asked.

“It’s called Salmon Sunset. I thought it seemed cheery.”

She smirked. “You know, the color of one’s kitchen says a lot about a person. It’s the room we spend most of our lives in, other than the bedroom.”

I handed her the receipt. “Oh? Then what does that color say about me?” I was slightly afraid to ask, but I couldn’t stop the question from slipping out.

She smirked again. “I think it says you’re…
happy
and carefree.” She put her receipt in her purse and winked as she walked away.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Happy and carefree sounded like code words for “gay.” Did she know, or was she toying with me? Or both?

I straightened my deposit slips and aligned my container of pens with the edge of the window, took a deep breath to cleanse me of Mrs. Snyder’s icky vibes, and then called over the next customer.

My breath hitched…
again
. It was Tristan Carr. Good God, I’d never had such trouble breathing normally before, and my tongue was plastered to the roof of my mouth. Where was a glass of water when I needed one?

I had to clear my throat. “C-can I help you, Mr. Carr?” I asked as steadily as I could. This time I kept eye contact as long as my jittering nerves could stand. His eyes were blue. Dark blue compared to my sky blue.

“You remembered my name,” he commented.

“You were just here on Friday. Remembering for a couple days isn’t a challenge.”

He nodded slightly.

“Weren’t you just in here? Jessica helped you.” I pointed out. “Did you forget something?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. I need change for my cash box.” He took a check out of his pocket and put it on the counter. “May I borrow your pen?”

“By all means,” I said, gesturing to the container full at his left.

“I find it interesting that you have a plethora of pens when other tellers have one pen lying in their windows.” He filled out the slip and signed it.

“I found a single pen seems to walk off. If I have a bunch, they tend to stick together longer.”

“Then I guess he needs to join his friends,” Mr. Carr said, smirking. Only, his smirk lacked Mrs. Snyder’s smugness. His was more of a whimsical grin. He slid the check to me and deposited the pen into the container…
upside down
.

I was not about to right the situation in front of him. It could wait. I might seem anal, and not in the way I liked to think about that term. “Did you want this back any certain way?”

“Four rolls of quarters, a roll of dimes, a roll of pennies, and the rest in ones.”

“Okay,” I said. I punched in the numbers and opened my drawer. “I only have one roll of quarters for some strange reason. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go grab a few more.” I locked my drawer and went to the vault, got my quarters and logged the exchange properly, and returned to Mr. Carr.

After I put the quarters in the drawer and left four rolls out for Mr. Carr, I noticed
three
pens were upside down. That couldn’t be right. I blinked and shook off my confusion when Mr. Carr asked, “Is there something wrong?”

I cleared my throat one more time. “What? Um, no. Nothing wrong. Why do you ask?”

“You spaced out for a second as if you were thinking about something.”

I couldn’t very well explain that my pens weren’t nestled correctly. I could fix it after he’d gone. “No. Everything’s fine. Do you need anything else?” My hands were shaking, and I wasn’t certain whether it was because of the pens or the guy. Mr. Carr made me self-conscious, but those pens wouldn’t write properly if the ink ran to the top and not the tip. I could not keep my eyes from darting to the container as I strained to pay attention to my customer.

“I suppose not,” he said.

“Then I hope you have a nice day, Mr. Carr,” I commented, thinking it was the end of our exchange and I could remedy the situation.

“Tristan,” he said.

I blinked. His voice was gentle and his gaze soft. Unexpected heat rolled down my chest and swirled in the pit of my stomach, and suddenly the pens weren’t as important as his attention. “Tristan,” I affirmed.

He nodded slightly and smiled as he walked away.