Jovie & Bash

Seven || Haven

|CHAPTER SEVEN|

Bash was my haven. Somehow, he took me by the hand and set us flying into the clouds to a safe place. I loved to hear him talk in that strange slurred voice, but he had a way of making me talk too. He would stare at me with those sincere, inquiring eyes and have me undone before I even knew what happened. It was the most terrifying thrill to give him a piece of myself.

On our first real date he brought me to his apartment. We met at the library after his shift and biked to a tight-knit residential area I tended to stay away from. He lived in a large brick building that used to be single family home. A staircase that led up to the second floor had been added on to the outside of the building making it possible to rent either upstairs or downstairs. Bash was on the first floor.

He delicately threaded his fingers with mine and led me up the faded brick steps to a door that needed a fresh coat of paint. After digging in his pocket for the key and unlocking the door, he pulled me inside and gave me the grand tour.

The apartment had been redesigned for rental in a boxy way. Really, it was just one giant square with an L-shaped train of smaller squares lining the right side and back of the home. But, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it was nearly one-hundred percent Bash. Nobody could convince me he had a roommate sharing the space.

Overflowing bookshelves lined open walls with leaning, sometimes toppling towers of books stacked on the floor beside them. Sticky note reminders were on the back of the front door so that Bash wouldn’t forget anything when he left in the morning. Unread newspapers and half-eaten takeout boxes cluttered the coffee table. Sunshine fell through large un-curtained windows to illuminate every piece of dust. He lived in his own personal library.

“Home sweet home,” he announced proudly and led me to the second door of the L-shaped train of rooms. “My room,” he told me.

I poked my head in. It was the same deal. A desk in the corner was all muddled with notebooks and pens and small cactus I presumed was the only plant in the whole house. His walls were blank and floor mostly bare beside a couple stray books. It was his bed that struck me as odd. There was no box spring. It was just a mattress on the floor.

“Interesting,” I commented, nodding at it.

He shrugged, but tightened his hold on my fingers. “No place for monsters to hide,” he told me coolly with a wink.

“You are...bizarre.”

He laughed and then seemed to remember something.

“You highlighted idiosyncratic,” he stated of my choices in his notebook of pretentious words. “Perhaps that word is better suited to describe my quirks.”

“I liked the way it sounded,” I admitted a little embarrassedly, “But I don’t know exactly what it means.”

His eyes turned up toward the ceiling in a thoughtful manner, like he was searching the archives of his brain for a definition.

When he found the right words he explained, “Just that I have habits or characteristics that someone identifies as individual to me. They’re my quirks.”

With that, he untangled our fingers and slipped past me to kneel down and sprawl out on his bed, sinking into the mattress as he stretched and relaxed. He even kicked his shoes off. “Join me?”

I nervously glanced over my shoulder and cleared my throat, contemplating his offer. I admit, it was weird, but after taking a prolonged breath I slid out of my flip-flops and joined him, leaving a considerable amount of distance between us. I laid down on my back and stared up at the blank white ceiling wondering why on earth we would just lie in bed. I underestimated what he meant by not being a traditional dater.