Junk by Josephine Myles Page A

back into the bathroom, and when he next opened the door he was fully clothed, much to Jasper’s simultaneous disappointment and relief. It was strange, seeing him in Jasper’s own clothes, his hair all wet and mussed up like he’d just taken a shower. The T-shirt was a little baggy on Lewis, but the jeans seemed to fit him well, so perhaps they weren’t so far apart in physique. This was how a boyfriend would get to see Lewis, Jasper realised with a pang. Swapping clothes and seeing him in all kinds of disarray. What would those golden locks look like first thing in the morning? What would it be like to wake up beside him?
    More to the point, what would it be like to wake up beside another man? Thirty-three years old, and Jasper still didn’t know. How sad was that?
    “You all right, Jasper?”
    “Yes. No. I don’t know.”
    “Well, that just about covers all the options.”
    Jasper screwed his eyes shut in embarrassment. “You must think I’m terminally indecisive. I couldn’t even decide on one single sodding book over a whole weekend.”
    “Hey.” Lewis’s hand landed on his arm and squeezed. “There are worse things than being indecisive about clutter. It usually just means you’re an intelligent and imaginative person who can see hundreds of different uses for things the rest of us dismiss as useless.”
    “That’s definitely true. About the different uses for things, anyway.” Jasper snuck a peek at Lewis to see if he was making fun of him, but he looked earnest. Did he really believe Jasper was intelligent and imaginative? “But at the moment, the main use all these books are being put to is building blocks, and that isn’t right, is it?”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I can’t find the ones I want anymore. They could be anywhere, buried behind or under others. I had a system. I’m trying to keep it going, but there’s too many to cope with. And every time I think about clearing a room out and sorting it properly, I get exhausted. Where am I meant to clear them out to anyway? There’s nowhere for them to go. I’m not using the kitchen because I know… I just know—” Jasper swiped at his eyes with his fist. He wasn’t going to cry over this, because that would really cement him as pathetic, wouldn’t it?
    “What would happen if you put them in the kitchen?” Lewis asked, his nonjudgmental voice quiet enough to calm Jasper down.
    “I’d lose that room too. I wouldn’t be able to cook or even make a cup of tea. And all the food in my cupboards and fridge would rot because I couldn’t find the energy to move a few heaps of stupid books.”
    “Do you often get tired when you think about sorting them out?”
    “All the time. It’s exhausting.” He looked around at the books on the landing, and it hit him. This wasn’t a home anymore. This was a burden. The weight of all those hidden words, dragging him down until he could barely find the energy to read a sentence, let alone file a book correctly. “Just being here is exhausting. I go out running in the evenings just to get away from it. Funny how much more energy I get as soon as I’m out of the house. Can we do that now?”
    “Go for a run?”
    Was Lewis teasing him? “I meant get out of the house. Maybe down to Yusef’s?”
    “Good idea. Looks like it’s stopped raining, so we can take the books down there with us and talk them through.” Lewis smiled, and gestured at the stairs. “You’ll have to go first. There’s no passing room.”
    “Mama used to say you should never pass on the stairs.” Uh-oh. Where had that come from? He didn’t want to start talking about her again. Jasper turned and started down the stairs, hoping Lewis would forget the subject.
    No such luck. “She was superstitious, then?”
    “A bit. Sometimes.” A lot, really, but he didn’t want to pique Lewis’s interest. No doubt it would all go towards explaining why Jasper was so monumentally screwed up, but he