Blurb:
Brandon Reese isn't ugly, but
he thinks he is. He knows he looks better now that he's lost over 200 pounds,
but he can't get over feeling, well, less like the handsome men he writes about
in his gay romances. Then he meets Rhine Walken. He's intrigued. But the next
time he sees Rhine there's something really wrong with the young man. Like
really. Brandon finds out that Rhine suffers from a traumatic brain injury that
manifests in a strange manner, one that makes a relationship pretty much off
the table. Damn that sucks. Because he could love this man.
Excerpt:
An hour
later he realized he’d looked for Rhine at the grocery and was disappointed
when he wasn’t there. He headed back home, his mind already on his book. At a
stop light he braked and waited and when it seemed like a long time he realized
that the light was green and no one was moving. Unlike some people he knew, he
didn’t let things like this piss him off. He wasn’t honking his horn or yelling
out his window like others. He frowned as he looked ahead and saw that there
was a man walking in circles around the intersection. Tilting his head he
looked at the man and realized he knew him.
Brandon
pulled over to get out of his car and started walking toward the center of the
intersection. As he got closer, he heard several people yelling.
“Get out of
the way, Dumbass!”
“What’s
wrong with you, retard?”
“Get out of
the way, ya fool!”
“What are
you, five? Get out of the damn road!”
Just before
he got close to Rhine, the bagger from the grocery, he heard him muttering to
himself, “Stop talkin’ to me. Don’t yell at me. I don’t like you all. Leave me
alone.”
Brandon
understood his sentiment, but why didn’t he just walk away? What was up with
him moving in a circle in the busy intersection? He stepped forward and said,
quietly,
“Hey, buddy.
Rhine? I remember you. I saw you at the grocery the other day. Do you remember
me?” Brandon just wanted to see if he could get through to the man who seemed
to be having some kind of episode.
“Put me in a
book. You’re gonna put me in a book.”
That
answered that question. Rhine remembered him.
“That’s
right. Do you want to come with me? I can take you home or back to the grocery
store, whichever you want. It’s really not safe for you to be out here. These
people want to get home, I think.”
“They’re
mean. I don’t know them and they’re yelling at me. Why are they yelling?” For
the first time Rhine looked directly into Brandon’s eyes and Brandon could see
that the confusion was real. Brandon had the strangest desire to hug Rhine and
take him home. There was something really wrong here.
“I guess
they just don’t understand why you’re out here in the middle of the road. They
want to get on with their lives, but no one wants to hurt you, so they’re
waiting, not very patiently, I’ll admit. You ready to go? We should get out of
everybody’s way, don’t you think?” Brandon held his hand out and Rhine put his
in it and walked with him back toward his car. It was like he’d taken the hand
of a child who was just looking for an adult to tell him what to do.
“Is this
your car? It’s nice. I like the color. Red is my favorite color. I’m glad it’s
not brown. I don’t like brown at all. Do you like brown? Brown is ugly like
dirt. My hair looks like dirt.” Rhine stopped walking and talking just as they
got to the passenger side of the car and he looked at Brandon again and said,
“You got little bits of dirt on your face, but they’re not ugly. I like them.
Really, don’t feel bad ’cause I said brown was ugly. I like your dots.”
Brandon
didn’t want Rhine to get upset so he said, “Thanks, Rhine. They’re freckles.
I’m glad you don’t think they’re ugly. You want to get in and I’ll take you
home?”
Brandon
opened the door and Rhine got in. Brandon reached across and fastened the seat
belt around Rhine, thinking that it was the first time there’d been someone in his
passenger seat. He hurried around and got in, buckling up.
“Buckle up
for safety,” he said, in a sing-song voice he remembered from ads on TV that
repeated that over and over.
“Why am I in
your car?”
Brandon had
started the car and as the light was now green againand pulled out in traffic.
He whipped his head around at the question that came in a totally different
tone of voice from Rhine.
“I’m sorry.
I should have introduced myself. I’m Brandon Reese. I know your name is Rhine,
but I don’t know your last name.”
“Walken, and
no, I’m not kin to Christopher. I remember you from the store, but I didn’t
know your name. Why am I in your car? Where are you taking me?”
No comments:
Post a Comment