From the Ashes by Daisy Harris Page A

Michael’s business. “What do you care?”
    “Listen…” Michael handed him some cups to fill and pretended to get something out of one of the cabinets so he could tell Jesse off. “I know you had the fire and things look rough, but you don’t need to turn into a rent boy. You can stay at my place if you want. You can’t bring the dog, but—”
    “Hold on a sec.” Jesse grabbed Michael’s arm and pulled him a few feet away from the customers. “I am not sleeping with Tomas for a place to stay.” There was a whole list of things Jesse wanted to say to Michael about his situation with Tomas, but he saw the way Michael was looking at him—like he thought Jesse was deluded and he felt sorry for him.
    Michael thought Jesse was a little country mouse who didn’t know about being a gay man in the city. Well, fuck him . Michael’s parents were covering the cost of his classes and part of his rent. He didn’t know the first thing about Jesse’s life.
    “I’m going back to work.” Jesse walked up to the register. The guy at the front of the line wore a deep scowl at having been left waiting, but Jesse was happy to serve him. He was happy to do anything that would let him avoid Michael’s smug looks and his own niggling worry that some tiny piece of what Michael said was right.

    The train sped alongside I-5, whisking Jesse south toward Tomas’s house. It was still light out, so Jesse didn’t really need the bag of takeout clutched in his fist, but he hadn’t wanted to get trapped down by the airport without anything to eat.
    Unable to shake the fear that he’d get off at the wrong stop, Jesse held tight to the metal railing, standing as he rode, and watched to get a feel for his location.
    “Next stop…” The pleasant, if disembodied, voice announced the station he’d mapped out on his smartphone.
    He hesitated for only a second before stepping off the train. Dragging his hood up, he jogged down the stairs.
    Jesse could have bussed it the half mile to Tomas’s house, but he decided to walk instead. Every time a car passed, he worried it would be Tomas’s brother pulling over to give Jesse a hard time.
    It didn’t happen, though, and before Jesse could even work up a sweat, he was walking up Tomas’s driveway. Jesse picked through the keys Tomas had given him, trying to remember which one opened the lock. The dogs barked like crazy out back.
    Eventually, his fumbling got the door open, and Jesse rushed into the house. He tossed his backpack in a corner and flopped down on the couch, feeling like he’d navigated his way through a jungle instead of south Seattle.
    He had so much shit to do—schoolwork, walking the dog, making phone calls to search for a new apartment—but Jesse just wanted to fall asleep until he had to wake up for work the next morning.
    Knocking broke through his haze of tiredness. Jesse must have nodded off, because as he lifted his head from the cushion to stare bleary-eyed at the back door, there was a trickle of saliva on his chin.
    Gross.
    He blinked. The figure at the door was female, but he couldn’t tell which Perez woman it was because the blinds blocked his view.
    Yawning, Jesse pushed off the couch and trudged through the kitchenette. When he flicked open the blinds, he was glad to see that Tomas’s sister, not her similarly shaped mother, was standing on the back porch.
    “Oh. Hey. Hi.” Jesse opened the door. He blocked the way so the dogs couldn’t get inside. Chardonnay and Sushi sniffed his knees, then his groin, maybe because they worried he wasn’t feeling awkward enough already.
    “Hi.” Maria had thick dark hair like her brothers, though she wore it in a loose ponytail. “I wanted to know if you needed anything from the store. Milk? Soap?” She made a prissy face, staring past Jesse’s shoulder into Tomas’s apartment like she imagined there’d be a mess or a dead body inside. “I don’t know what Tomas keeps stocked in there when he’s not out