He woke up smiling.
It had been a long time since he had and he vaguely wondered why, in the scarce moments of silence his landlord allowed at the breakfast table. It was like living with a machine gun, you waited for the recharging moments to try to duck out.
The night before, he had been dragged to a relative of Ray's birthday party in a nearby town and it had been better than he had expected. The family was overtly welcoming and forceful when it came to eating more than he should, but they were not silly in the least. He wondered briefly if that was why Ray was living here, if he had self-exiled like Patrick had, because he didn't fit in. If that was the case, Ray never mentioned it, even though he talked endlessly.
That only ended when Patrick took his business phone in hand and saw a lot of voicemail notifications. He managed to shush Ray long enough to listen to the first one until he let out a shriek of laughter. He stopped, gathered himself and listened on.
"Hi David, it's Patrick...", the voice was undulating, as if the person was on a roller-coaster, then settle down to a quasi-normal business tone. The 'Ciao' at the end was not and he chuckled softly. He was about to call back when another voicemail started and he lost it. This time, it was quite clear that David ("That's not your name" he had felt the need to point out) was... on something. Alcohol or more likely pot. It was hilarious and yet, David was more coherent about his business project that he had been the day before, which was not a high bar.
After having listened two or three times, with pauses to allow him to breathe, he resolved to note down any relevant information and put the speakerphone on.
It was actually a great idea. Behind the pretentiousness, David seemed to know what he was doing. Patrick had gathered enough information from Ray to know that the Roses were an über-wealthy family, fallen on hard time and that their fortune had been built on video stores. He had looked them up and one of the branches rang a bell. He had worked at one of these in High School with one of his cousins.
So, they were not just socialites, at least someone in their midst had solid business sense. And David seemed to have inherited a tiny part of it. He would still need help of course. Patrick was there for that.
When David finally showed up, he looked mortified. Patrick wanted to be kind but he could not help it. He had to tease, it was as if he could not help himself. He was at heart a sarcastic being, he knew that, but until now, he had always managed to keep it from affecting his work.
The thing was, David reacted so beautifully to his teasing, it was too tempting. He finally gave him the filled form and David left, looking affronted and grateful at the same time.
It was endearing.
The next weekend, he felt restless. He went for a walk, went for a hike, tapped on every surface he encountered.
He was bursting with he didn't know what. This past week hadn't been stressful. In fact, nothing of notice had happened.
Expect for David Rose, of course.
He kept picturing him, looking utterly... not ridiculous, per say, more like... different. It was hard to understand him and Patrick wished he knew him a little better to understand what his deal was, exactly. Underneath all the embarrassment and pretentiousness, he could feel a level of intelligence that was quite rare in the area and he liked that.
He felt a pang of homesickness. He missed the easy banter he had with friends, the good moments with Rachel... But now that he had quit his previous job, he could not afford to go back just yet and for what, anyway. There was a reason he left. He was missing a past life that could not be resuscitated. Expect of course if Rachel and him...
He felt his whole body coil. No, he couldn't. Not anymore. Why he had so strong a reaction, he could not tell. Rachel was familiar and they had been on and off for years, playing games... He sighed. He had hated that. He was done with games. It was time to be on his own, take care of himself and not look for romance.
The next week went by, boring to the chore. He tried going out to the town "cafe" but the food was really not any better than what Ray or himself could come up with.
One morning he got the business license for "Rose Apothecary" in the mail. He took it out of the envelope and put it on his desk, wondering if he should mail it to David, or bring it to him directly. Maybe a phone call...
He was curious, that was it. He would stop by, with the paper. But said paper looked too flat. He wanted to make it better so he took his car to the next town and found a nice frame. Yes, it looked good.
He would go there the next day. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.