Wait and Hope: Chapter Ten
No Sleep Tonight
Rafe sat up, punched his pillow a few times, before tossing it back on the bed and flopping on his back to stare up at the ceiling once more. Falling asleep as a routine, at a set time at night or during the day as required for working the graveyard shift had been extremely difficult for him in the past few months.
For many years of John’s life, the luxury of a normal schedule wasn’t something he was ever afforded. But John had trained himself to sleep when the situation allowed it, when he truly needed it, to shut out thoughts or block out mental images that kept him awake. Maybe this was another skill softened by his time working with Harold. Even though John had never established a normal routine exactly, it had always been John’s choice to what extreme the level of his involvement in their cases was. He was never forced into grabbing moments of rest when time allowed. Harold had even recruited help to ease John’s burden when he had thought John was taking on too much.
Rafe's scheduled shift at the diner started in three hours. He had a long ten hours ahead of him after that. Besides performing his regular duties, he planned on preparing a picnic dinner that Harry would love. Rafe twisted on his side, lifting his head up for a second to stab at the abused pillow once more.
Harry wasn’t skin and bone exactly, but he was frightfully thin. His once pleasantly plump ass was almost flat; Harry no longer had the little love handles and soft pudgy middle John had found so adorable on Harold. John had at first damned his new life as Rafe the cook, but quickly accepted it. Rafe found he actually loved it all from barbecuing to toasting, baking to pan frying and most of all, his new found talent of improving on or inventing completely new dishes, appetizers to desserts. Now Rafe was going to put those cooking skills to use and start putting some necessary weight back on Harry’s too lean frame.
Only Rafe needed some rest first. It was not really a joke when Rafe had laughed it off that without gallons of free coffee he would doze off in the cooler. He just couldn’t fall asleep when he should. Rafe had only slept a few hours in Harry’s bed last night. With the scant sleep he had had in his own bed at home for the past three days and none he was apparently going to get now; after working a ten hour shift, then without any sleep in between, driving two hours to the place he had chosen for their ‘date’; Rafe was sure he’d stretch out on the blanket he planned to spread over the ground and fall sound asleep. How could he exercise Jack, talk to and get Harry to eat if he was dead to the world?
Rafe tossed and turned a few more minutes then sat up again and slipped out of bed. He cursed all the way to his bath to take another shower. What he blamed was his having softened up, his losing the ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, as to being the reason he was still wide awake now.
Rafe stood in front of the mirror, deciding he needed to trim up his beard first before showering. When he was done he inspected his reflection, making sure he would be looking his finest when Harry saw him again. At that thought Rafe grinned and shook his head, “You know damn well why you can’t fall asleep.”
It wasn’t insomnia or getting soft that had anything to do with why he couldn’t doze off. It would only take a huge dose of a sedative to knock him out now. Rafe was too ramped up with nervous excitement over being totally alone with Harry, thinking about his plans to seduce his date with food and more. First step in his plan to win Harry: the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
An hour later, Rafe opened the trunk of Sherry’s car. Since her Sunday plans had fallen through she had insisted Rafe take her Lexis. His uncomfortable hunk of junk was not fit for Harrington to ride in for two hours with his infirmities. Rafe grabbed his duffel bag and the wicker picnic basket Sherry ordered him to dig out of her storage unit. The duffel contained his uniform, but the basket held empty containers waiting to be filled with the fare Rafe had planned for his and Harry’s outing.
Kylie was working the register, ringing up the ticket for a couple of Saturday night regulars when she looked up hearing the bell clanging announcing someone had entered through the diner’s main door. The waitress nodded hello then turned her attention back to her customers even though Rafe caught her glance at the clock and quirk an eyebrow up noticing her co-worker was there two hours early. It really was quite comical to see Kylie’s head whip back up and her jaw drop when it clicked inside her head what she saw Rafe carrying.
Rafe mouthed, “I’ll explain later,” before heading toward the back and through the ‘employees only’ doorway. Off the kitchen to the left was a small employee’s lounge and in there an even smaller dressing room/restroom that Rafe slipped into.
Now in his uniform, Rafe almost ran headlong into the curious waitress as he exited the dressing room. Grabbing Rafe’s arm, Kylie pulled him to the lounge’s small sofa dragging him down to sit with her. “Okay. Spill it! What happened? Did you and Evil-Lynne make up? What about that cute little guy you left with last night? What’s with the picnic basket?” The redhead breathlessly fired one question after the other.
Rafe lifted his hands palms outwards waving them in front of her, “Hey! Slow down! One at a time darlin, one at a time.” Kylie snapped her mouth shut, but still bounced up and down slightly like an excited child waiting to unwrap their first present at a birthday party.
“First of all, yes, Sherry and I made up.” Rafe grinned and shoved her shoulder playfully when Kylie rolled her eyes and scowled. “She’s not that bad, you know? You might even like Sherry if you gave her half a chance.” Kylie just rolled her eyes some more. Rafe chuckled this time, “Hey, I get it, you don’t like her. But, Sherry and I are friends, just friends. That’s it. We had a little misunderstanding on what kind of friends we were, but that's all cleared up now.”
Kylie sighed in relief, “Good! She’s not your type.”
“Now about that cute little guy, his name is Harrington. I took him home, we talked and…”
Kylie clapped her hands in glee and finished Rafe’s sentence. “You both hit it off right away and you spent the night.”
Rafe’s face became somewhat somber, “I wouldn’t say hit it off right away, but I’m working on it. That’s why the wicker basket. I’m taking him out of the city tomorrow, to a lake a few hours away. I’m fixing us a picnic dinner. Well actually, I’m preparing enough for the diner for Monday; I’m just going to take some with me. Sherry actually cleared that with her uncle. Tom said to take all I need, on the house.”
“That’s sounds so romantic, a picnic by a lake.” Kylie cooed. “Need my help?”
At midnight, Kylie flipped the closed sign in the window. The busboy, the other evening waitress and Kylie quickly cleaned the dining room. Yet instead of saying goodnight to Rafe, leaving him alone to finish his shift prepping for Monday morning’s crowd, Kylie exchanged her waitress apron for a long white cook’s apron, rolled up her sleeves and mock saluted, “Chef’s assistant, Kylie Wright, reporting for duty, sir.”
Six hours later with the faint light of a new sunrise pinking the sky to the east, the two locked up the diner, before Rafe saw his assistant safely to her car. They had fixed enough of the cook's picnic dish specials to feed dozens. Rafe had packed enough in the basket to feed another half dozen more and left it chilling in the diner’s cooler, his plan to stop on the way out of town to pick it up.
Rafe headed home to try once again to grab a few hours before picking up Harry at their agreed upon one PM. Earlier Kylie had rolled her eyes again along with shaking her head and looking up after she caught him flirting with Harry over the phone when Rafe had called to set up the time during one of the cook's scheduled breaks. She whispered loudly as she walked by, “Now he’s your type.”
Unfortunately, again he just tossed and turned. Forty-five minutes later, there were no sounds of activity in the brownstone upstairs or down. Rafe hadn’t lost any of his stealthy breaking and entering skills. Only Jack sensed his presence, whining lowly then quieting at Rafe’s signal. He crept into Harry’s bedroom, sitting slowly on the bed. Still something alerted the older man to Rafe being in the room, his eyes startled until he recognized the intruder, “John? What are you doing here?” He tried to focus on the clock. “What time is it?”
“It’s early Harold. I couldn’t sleep.”
Harry pulled back the covers and scooted over on the bed. Rafe accepted the unspoken invitation, slipped off his shoes, then slacks and settled in the bed, his head on Harry’s chest. As Rafe listened to the thump-thump of Harry’s heart, he also heard the words, “Neither could I, John.”
Hours later, the alarm bleeped on and on, only Jack jumping in the bed between them roused the soundly sleeping men.
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Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Epilogue