The Whole World Tinder

  The Whole World Tinder

  FLINT AND TINDER BOOK THREE

  GREGORY ASHE

  H&B

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Whole World Tinder

  Copyright © 2023 Gregory Ashe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: contact@hodgkinandblount.com

  Published by Hodgkin & Blount

  https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/

  contact@hodgkinandblount.com

  Published 2023

  Printed in the United States of America

  Version 1.04

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-053-7

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-052-0

  1 | EMMETT

  I slowed at the top of the stairs; if Jim caught me, he’d kill me. Or, worse, be disappointed in me.

  The door to our apartment was closed. In March, the breeze up the stairwell still made me shiver. The building was silent, and outside, I could hear the rumble of a truck idling on the street. I thought about waiting, calling him to make sure he was out of the apartment, but the plastic bags were heavy and cutting into my fingers.

  I tested the door; locked. He’d gone for a walk. Or he’d gone to work out. Or he’d gone somewhere else.

  Perfect.

  I let myself inside and walked straight into Jim.

  He’s pretty solid, it turned out. Not quite as tall as I am, although he made up for it by being older. Broad across the chest and shoulders. He wore his strawberry-blond hair in a classic part, although he kept it long enough that it made him look boyish instead of like a business bro. It was spring break, and he’d gotten into all sorts of reckless behavior like sleeping until eight and making pancakes for breakfast. Even in gray sweat shorts and a blue tank, he never felt the cold—that had something to do with his ability to call up fire—and the tops of his bare feet were dusted with gold hair. The shorts and tank were a recent—and welcome—change. For a long time, years after he’d stopped being my teacher, he’d been uptight about stuff like being naked even partially. That had ended the first time I got my hand on his dick. Well, maybe not right then. We’d both been focused on other things.

  Jim said something like “Oof.”

  “Hey!” I twisted to hide the bags behind me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here. I’m the guy in your bed, remember?”

  “No. I don’t know. Go get naked and jump in bed, and we’ll see.”

  He was trying to look over my shoulder. “What’s going on back there?”

  I smirked. “Get in bed and I’ll let you have a look.”

  “I thought you were going to get a haircut.”

  “I did get a haircut.”

  “I see that; it looks nice. I was talking about those bags.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  He smiled, but only with his eyes. When I tried to take a step around him, he said in a different voice, “Emmett, what’s in the bags?”

  It shouldn’t have worked. It certainly hadn’t worked in the classroom—well, not all the time, anyway. Maybe he was getting better at that trick. Oh God, maybe I was losing my edge.

  “Stuff.”

  Sighing, he folded his arms.

  “I’m serious: don’t worry about it.”

  “We talked about this.”

  “Groceries,” I said. The moment of genius had come too late, though.

  “I don’t want presents for my birthday.”

  “Good, because these are groceries.”

  “Jeez, Emmett. How much wine did you buy?”

  “It’s not wine. It’s—a secret.” My face heated. “Stop it with the third degree already.”

  But he followed me into the kitchen. “How did you even get wine? I shredded your fake ID.”

  “Yeah, Jimothy. That was my only fake ID.”

  He wrinkled his nose and poked one of the bags.

  “Stay out of there,” I said. “That’s none of your business. Jim, I’m serious!”

  He raised his hands in surrender, but he kept looking at the bags, and the smile went out of his eyes. For the second time, he said, “We talked about this.”

  “Ok.”

  “We’re trying to save money.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And one of the ways we agreed to save money was not to make a big deal out of our birthdays.”

  “Great. We’re not.”

  “Don’t you want to move out of this place? Or go on vacation?”

  “Where would we go on vacation?”

  “What does that mean? Anywhere. London. Or Paris. Or—or Saskatchewan. Or we could use the money for something else. If you want to try college—”

  “Oh my God, stop talking about it. It’s my money. I can spend it however I want. And if you keep annoying me, I’m going to pour all these bottles of—”

  I stopped.

  Jim arched an eyebrow. “Surprise?”

  I shot him the bird, scowled, and said, “Get out of my kitchen.”

  After a moment, Jim kissed my cheek and went back to the living room. The TV came on, and the springs in our secondhand sofa squeaked and protested.

  “You could have done this when I wasn’t on spring break, you know,” he called toward me. “If you wanted to surprise me.”

  “Feedback is not welcome!” I shouted back.

  I put away the few grocery items that weren’t party related. The inside of the refrigerator was so white that it made me squeeze my eyes shut. College. Sure. And I can tell everybody I slipped and got my face caught in a paper cutter.

  I shut the fridge door too hard. Bottles rattled. When I passed through the living room, Jim was sitting up, on high alert. I headed for the second bedroom—previously my bedroom—which had been transformed into our storage room because of our new sleeping arrangement. I hid, as best I could, Jim’s presents and the decorations and the wine and the nonperishable stuff that, a few hours ago, it had seemed like a great idea to buy. Why hadn’t I thought of doing this when he was at school? Because I’d gotten an idea for the party. Because I was excited. Because in this, as in all things, Jim Spencer made me an idiot.

  When I got back to the living room, I threw myself on the couch, got my head in Jim’s lap, and went boneless. He ran his fingers up the back of my head, where the hair was buzzed to a two and it rasped pleasantly under his touch. Bob Barker was on TV, which meant this was a rerun, and an old one. The ladies had such big hair.

  “I’m sorry,” Jim said.

  I grunted.

  “The money isn’t a big deal.”

  I made another noise.

  His fingers came to a stop on my neck. When Bob took a commercial break, I reached up and started his hand again, and I could feel his smile.

  The rest of the day was ok. We went for a walk when the marine layer lifted. San Elredo in spring was beautiful, although it wasn’t hugely different from San Elredo any other time of year—northern California was like that, all the differences a question of degree. The annuals hadn’t started to bloom yet, but the air was warmer, and the smell of salt on the breeze was fresh. For dinner, we ate a few blocks away, on a street where food trucks lined up most nights. Jim had sushi, which I told him, out of a truck, was asking for dysentery. I had bulgogi and, for dessert, waffles with pearl sugar.

  We were in bed, and Jim was reading, and I was doing a good job of drinking up all the lines of chest and shoulders and arm.

  “You’re so white,” I said.

  He turned a page in Hamnet. “You don’t have much of a tan either.”

  “No, I mean.” I held my arm next to his. The olive tone of mine, the creamy smoothness of his. Dark hair versus red gold.

  “Mm-hmm,” he said and put an arm behind his head, and I’m not a pit guy, but he had nice pits, and his biceps looked huge.

  I scooted closer until I bumped him. Part of me bumped him, anyway.

  He didn’t put down the book, but he did cut his eyes toward me.

  I shrugged.

  Outside, someone was singing mariachi, the guitars going a hundred miles an hour. Or maybe that was my heart.

  He put down the book. He took my chin in his fingers, his thumb resting on that line where the scars started. He was warm, always so much warmer than me.

  “Trouble,” he murmured as he rolled to straddle my hips.

  I sank down into the pillows, smiling as he kissed me, his mouth like a bloom of sun. “Definitely.”

  2 | JIM

  “You were sleeping in the tub again,” Emmett said as we pulled into his parents’ driveway.

  That was true; I’d woken in the night—before the nightmares started, fortunately. I’d slept on wet towels in the tub, which was standard practice when the nightmares got too bad. It’s better to have a few singed towels than set the bed on fire.

  “Are you stressed?” Emmett asked. “Because you shouldn’t be.”

  I barely hea
rd him. In San Elredo, a condo—an ok condo, a normal condo, a condo that in Vehpese (if Vehpese had condos) would probably have cost in the high five figures—went for over six hundred thousand. This house, which had to be three thousand square feet if it was an inch, with its shake siding and its windows, its detached garage and pool, with its oceanfront view—this house had to be in the millions. And this was their vacation home, the one they’d bought so they could be closer to their only son. Not that they’d be so crass as to call it a vacation home. I wanted to giggle. They probably called it an investment property.

  “This is—” I stopped. “What does their house in LA look like?”

  “Jimbo, focus: why were you sleeping in the tub?”

  I had my hand on the shifter, and the Tesla was still running. Emmett’s Tesla X. The one his parents had bought him. The one that cost more than an imaginary condo in Vehpese.

  “Fuckity fuck, Jimbo. Ok, here: my mom is going to brag about how this is a North Coast property, she’s going to talk about the view of the cove, she’ll point out that it’s on a cul-de-sac, like she’s the one who personally plopped it down on a dead-end street. My dad is going to talk about celebrities he’s represented, and he’s going to get a boner about classic cars, and he’ll have too much to drink and be an asshole to my mom. There. Feel better?”

  I flicked a look at him.

  “I don’t care what they think,” he said in a quieter voice.

  No, I thought. No, because you’re their son; you’re not fourteen years older, you’re not a deadbeat, you’re not the one who’s taking their baby away from them.

  “It’s going to be fine,” I said.

  Emmett snorted. “It’s going to be awful.”

  “Then it’ll be awful.” I tried for a smile. “We’ll get through it.”

  “Will you feel better if I tell you this house has so many decks and balconies and bullshit, it’s one boy in eyeliner short of our high school production of Romeo and Juliet?”

  I laughed in spite of myself, and then I leaned across the seat to kiss him, and we headed for the front door.

  Emmett walked inside without knocking, and it took a moment for my brain to catch up—these were his parents, he’d been to this house before. Inside, it was glossy wood floors, ecru walls, wide archways that connected high-ceilinged rooms, and sunset tipping in from the huge windows that looked out on the cove. The water was coppery with hammer marks.

  “Emmett?” a woman called.

  I recognized Jennifer Bradley when she stepped into view. She was thin and dark-haired, and Emmett had her eyes and, when he wasn’t in fight mode, her smile. In her Aran sweater and jeans, she struck the right balance between looking fantastic and being comfortable. She smiled as she pulled Emmett into a hug, either not recognizing the stiffness of his body or not caring. She shook my hand, still smiling. Her eyes reminded me of a bird’s, sharp and restless.

  “Come in,” she said. “The kitchen’s a mess. We’re eating family style—I hope that’s all right, Jim. I can call you Jim, can’t I?”

  “You’re setting me up for one of my dad’s favorite jokes,” I said, trying to match her smile. “He loved to say you could call him anything except late for dinner.”

  Jennifer pealed laughter.

  Emmett groaned. “Don’t encourage him.”

  “Don’t be mean. Jim, come on. Would you like a glass of wine? Beer? Emmett, what does he like?”

  “Wine sounds great,” I said.

  “He likes beer.”

  “I like wine too.”

  “He wants a beer, but he’s too polite to tell you.”

  “We have beer, Jim; it’s perfectly all right. I shouldn’t have opened the bottle before you got here.”

  “Wine is fine, honestly.”

  “Well, we don’t want fine, Jim.” She swept ahead of us into the kitchen. “We want perfect.”

  “Please tell her wine is fine,” I whispered to Emmett as we trailed after her.

  “That rhymes.”

  “She already opened the bottle.”

  “Please. She’s not worried about it; she’ll drink it herself.”

  “Robert,” Jennifer sang from the kitchen. “Dinner. Robert. Dinner.”

  When we rejoined her, she was opening a tall white can with a turquoise line around the rim. The movement put her manicured nails on exaggerated display. The can hissed, foam speckled the perfect manicure, and she offered the beer to me with a flourish. I was starting to realize where Emmett got it from.

  “Humble Sea,” she said. “Their Pilsner. It’s the only thing Robert will drink when we’re up here. Robert!”

  “What’s the only thing I’ll drink?”

  He came in from the deck—one of the decks—dressed in a UCLA sweatshirt and golf shorts and boat shoes, and the skin on his legs was pebbled from the spring evening. He had Emmett’s dark hair, although his was longer and slicked back, and when he caught Emmett’s eye for a moment, he had his smirk too. He was heavier in the jaw than Emmett, though, and he leaned toward handsome, while Emmett was stunning. Just enough gray, I thought, that you could see him on the box of a men’s hair coloring kit.

  “Robert Bradley,” he said as he shook my hand. He moved toward Emmett, and Emmett stiffened again. Robert’s movements became awkward, uncoordinated, and he settled for squeezing Emmett’s shoulder and pulling Emmett against him. Emmett stumbled, his joints still locked, and then they separated.

  “You’ve met him before,” Emmett said as he steadied himself against the counter.

  “I’m meeting him now as your partner.” Robert was a lawyer, and clearly a good one; he hadn’t even stumbled over that little word. “Are we going to eat?”

  The food was takeout, although that seemed too casual a word for the ribeye and scallion potatoes and garlic asparagus that Jennifer served from the foam containers.

  “I told you it’s family style,” Jennifer said with a trilling laugh. “Robert, I set the table, but would you rather eat in here?”

  “My mom’s showing off her kitchen.” Emmett slapped the countertop. “All twenty thousand dollars of it. Or was it thirty?”

  “Don’t be common, Emmett.”

  “This was her cross to bear. When they bought this house, I mean. Pink-tile countertops. Can you imagine? And the cabinets were oak.”

  “He loves to tease, Jim. Have you noticed that?”

  “Thank God they could get the Carrara marble and not something cultured like the Patels.”

  “That’s enough, Emmett.” Robert carried his plate through a connecting archway into the dining room. “We’ll eat in here.”

  The first few minutes were full of stilted sentences, one-off attempts to keep a conversation going—about the weather, about San Elredo, about Jennifer’s favorite places to swim.

  Then the inquisition started.

  “So, you’re a teacher,” Robert said.

  Emmett stopped, fork halfway to his mouth. “Dad.”

  “I’m talking about here, now. You’re teaching—that’s your job?”

  I nodded. “Brookdale.”

  “That’s a wonderful school,” Jennifer said. “It’s the best school in the area. The Mackeys send their kids there.” As though confiding a secret, she said, “He’s an orthodontist, and so is she.”

  “What’s the pay like?”

  “Dad!”

  Robert dismissed the objection with his knife. “I’m not asking for exact numbers. Is it competitive with other schools in the area?”

  “Better,” I said. “It’s fantastic.”

  “Are there bonuses? For test scores, things like that?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  Robert made a noise that could have meant anything. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Emmett said.

  “It’s fine—” I began.

  “It’s not fine. Leave him alone. I brought him because you made me. He’s here. Stop bothering him.”

  “You understand Emmett is on a strict allowance,” Robert said, and for the first time all night, he met my gaze and held it. “Jennifer and I believe that he should work for his money, but in light of his trauma—”

  Emmett grinned—the expression hooking across his face. “He means my heroin addiction.”