Hunter and Morgan: Gatecrasher

by H. K. Nightingale

  And Morgan was going to say, "No problem, it's a pleasure." But he didn't get the words out.

  Because Hunter kissed him.

  His mouth was incredibly soft. He touched the back of Morgan's head, so gently. It was over in a flash, leaving Morgan gasping, "Oh," as he registered that Hunter was moving away, towards the escalator to platform fifteen, but he was walking backwards so he could grin at Morgan and wave as he went. Morgan stood and watched him go all the way up, still grinning, until Hunter reached the top, turned and jogged over the bridge and out of sight.

  Back at the turnstiles, Morgan stared at the departures board, then at the vending machine, and then at the blue sign that said 'Leeds' in big letters.

  Then he said, "Well," to nobody in particular. And went to Platform 2.

  After a short wait and a ten minute train ride, followed by a brief walk to Cardigan Road, Morgan opened his front door, walked up two flights to the top floor apartment he shared with Caleb, fumbled his key into the lock - funny, his hands were shaking - and went to the living room. Caleb sat on one of the two big leather sofas. The TV was on, volume low. There was a tray on the floor with dirty dishes from Caleb's dinner. The coffee table was covered in books and comics and controllers for the PS4 and remotes for the TV and the strawberry lip balm Morgan kept forgetting to put back in his pocket. Everything felt normal. Not at all unusual. You'd never know his mysterious, very handsome boss had kissed him or anything. He might have imagined it.

  Caleb glanced up from the laptop he was balancing on his knees and frowned. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," said Morgan.

  Caleb gave him his 'what the fuck' face.

  "I mean," Morgan said. "Maybe something."

  "Uh-huh?" said Caleb.

  "Can I ask you a question?"

  "Absolutely anything. Nothing's off-limits to ol' Caleb, remember? TMI a speciality."

  Morgan edged into the room and perched on the couch beside Caleb. His rucksack squashed against the cushions, so he took it off and dropped it on the floor.

  "Well?" said Caleb.

  "Have you ever, um, felt attracted to someone you shouldn't feel attracted to?"

  Caleb laughed. "Only every other Thursday." He counted off on his fingers. "Gym teacher, best friend at school's mum, best friend at school, Ian McKellan - don't get me started, right? - that Mormon who knocked on the door the other week… I could go on all day. Why?"

  "It's never happened to me before. No, wait, it has. I had a crush on Roger Federer like, God, I mean, but. Not someone real. And forbidden."

  "Forbidden why? You don't have any restraining orders that I'm aware of."

  "The boss."

  "Pearl? Morgan, my boy, you are full of surprises."

  "Stop it."

  "Hunter," said Caleb, softly. Morgan liked how he said it, his northern accent deepening the 'u' and softening the 't'.

  "Yes," said Morgan.

  "Well, crushes can be fun. Innocent fantasies when he bends over the desk to pick up a stray paper clip, that sort of thing."

  Morgan instantly imagined Hunter spread over the newly cleared desk back in the office, his perfectly rounded, firm, gorgeous arse stuck in the air. He groaned. When had he even noticed Hunter's arse?

  Yesterday. When they went to lunch. Hunter had gone up the stairs ahead of him. "Caleb, what am I going to do?"

  "You've only got another couple of days working there, right? You'll be fine. Perfect length of time to pine."

  "And, um, what if I'm not pining, exactly?" Morgan gave Caleb a meaningful look on the word 'pining'.

  "Ooooh. You mean he recognises the wonder that is Morgan Kerry? And he's gay?"

  "Yes. Um. He kissed me. A bit."

  "A bit?"

  "Once. Tonight. At the station. Then he went to York, and I came here and now I have no idea what's going on or what it even means, or what the hell I'm supposed to do in the morning."

  Caleb put a hand on Morgan's shoulder. "Listen to me very carefully. It's simple. Tomorrow morning you get on the train and you go to work and you fuck him within an inch of his life on the photocopier."

  Morgan shoved his hand away. "It's not funny."

  Caleb laughed. "It is a bit."

  "I don't laugh at your sexual disasters."

  "I don't have sexual disasters. Merely triumphs."

  Morgan flopped back on the couch. He could still taste Hunter's kiss. Or at least he imagined he could. Beer, mostly. A trace of lip balm. Watermelon flavour.

  His mouth had been so damn soft.

  "It's not the end of the world," said Caleb. "You're both consenting adults. If you want a bit of that, you take it. Think of it as a bonus. When your week's up, walk away. Or if you want more, well, then you'll be free to do what you want, right?"

  Caleb made it sound so straightforward. Maybe Morgan was overthinking things. It might not even mean anything: maybe Hunter had done it on a whim, and all would be forgotten come the morning.

  "I know what'll cheer you up." Caleb snapped his laptop shut and discarded it to the other end of the sofa. "Let me tell you all about my absolutely delightful dinner party with Jennifer and Dave."

  "Can't wait," said Morgan.

  Chapter Four

  Morgan was in the office at eight thirty the following morning. Thursday morning. Only two days left.

  The south-east quadrant awaited, with its coat stand and coy hint of a picture frame, and the infamous sticky filing cabinet. If Morgan could crack this one, people would be able to enter the room without shuffling sideways.

  Nine am. No Hunter.

  Morgan set to work.

  Hunter still hadn't shown up by midday. Morgan went to Sophie's, but chickened out of going up to the cafe. Instead he spent far too long downstairs in the shop choosing a sandwich to go. But just as he was leaving Grace came down the stairs and said a friendly, "Hi."

  "Hi," Morgan said back. "Is, um, have you seen Hunter today?"

  "Not today. Are you expecting him?"

  "No. No, it's fine," said Morgan. "Bye." And he left before he could embarrass himself further.

  He checked his phone for the millionth time, then took his sandwich back to the office and ate it with the slice of leftover quiche he'd brought from home.

  Two pm. No Hunter. And something else was happening. Morgan wasn't making nearly as much progress as he'd expected to. He should have sailed through by now and filed away most, if not all of the papers. He'd done twice as much work the previous day. But he kept checking his phone. He'd find himself staring into space, going over half a dozen potential scenarios that ended up either with a phone call from Pearl to tell him Mr Hunter had put in a complaint and he was fired, or Hunter running up the stairs, into Morgan's arms and having his wicked way with him against the sticky filing cabinet.

  Or perhaps Hunter would never come back at all, and Morgan would be left to sort out the filing, leave on Friday, hand the key back via the agency and that would be that.

  Morgan slumped miserably on the shiny desk that had seemed so promising yesterday and stared at his phone. Willing it to ring and just as scared as to what might happen if it did.

  And then, a phone did ring. In the office. But not his. No Taylor Swift ring tone: this was an old fashioned 'brring brring'. A landline.

  Morgan hopped off the desk and looked around the office. He hadn't even known Hunter had a landline. All the publicity info, including his business card, just had his mobile.

  And yet, it rang.

  He finally located an old-style analogue phone under a pile of stuff under the window in the as yet untouched north-western quadrant. He picked it up, blew dust off the handset and, in his best telephone manner, said, "Hunter Private Investigations, how may I help you?"

  "Hello?" It was a posh sort of hello, male voice.

  "Good afternoon. How may I–"

  "Is Dame there?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Dame. Damian, I suppose."

  Da
mian Hunter. Right. "I'm sorry, Mr Hunter is out of the office at the moment. May I take a message? Or I can give you his mobile number."

  "He's not answering his mobile. I had a call from the hospital this morning but I was in a meeting."

  Morgan went cold all over. The hospital? Oh shit. "I haven't heard anything." His voice sounded like a hollow, far away thing.

  "Oh. I thought the hospital might have called his office but I guess they're only allowed to contact next of kin and he has me down as his partner, so–"

  "What happened?"

  "Sorry?"

  "What happened to him? Why's he at the hospital?"

  "Beats me. I'd better get down there and find out."

  "Should I… I mean could you… Um… Can I take your name? In case he gets in touch."

  "Oh, it's Peter. Peter Curtis. If he calls, tell him I'm on my way. Thanks."

  There was a click, and then the insistent hum of the dialling tone. Morgan put the phone down and sat suddenly on the floor.

  What the hell had happened to Hunter?

  And if this Peter was his partner, what did that mean? Hunter didn't have a business partner. Which left… Boyfriend. Spouse.

  Okay. Breathe, Morgan. Don't go jumping to conclusions.

  He got out his own phone and Googled Peter Curtis. He got the answer straight away. Peter's Facebook was locked down but his mother's wasn't. And there was Peter: fair haired, brown-eyed and devastatingly handsome, with his paws all over Hunter. Family gatherings, a Pride march, some sort of award ceremony. Morgan looked at Peter clutching a Perspex trophy while Hunter looked at him with googly eyes, and tried to breathe.

  It made a certain sick kind of sense, that was the thing. Like karma for wanting to have sex with his boss. Maybe Morgan was a revenge thing for Hunter. Or a spite thing. Maybe they had one of those relationships where it was okay to do other guys.

  Whatever he was, it wasn't what he'd hoped, and just when he should be getting angry, he was actually terrified, because what the hell had happened to put Hunter in hospital? He could phone but that Peter guy was right. They wouldn't tell him anything: he was just an employee. Worse. A temp.

  Shit.

  What should he do now?

  Face the facts. Hunter wasn't his boyfriend. Not even his friend, really. Hunter was a client, his boss until the end of Friday. They'd had a minor indiscretion. That was it. What he should do was perfectly straightforward.

  He should finish the job.

  Morgan ignored the squirrelly ache in his guts, picked up a fresh storage box and got to it.

  Just as he was boarding the train home that afternoon, Morgan got a text from Hunter.

  >Sorry, shit happened. OK now. See you tomorrow.

  There were no seats free, so Morgan looped his arm around a pole and leaned against the luggage rack. He put his phone away as the train lurched on its way and breathed a small sigh of relief. Hunter was okay. One more day at Hunter PI and then Morgan would go wherever Pearl sent him next, Hunter and Peter could carry on their lives together and life would go back to normal.

  Hard to believe that just twenty-four hours ago they'd been flirting over dinner and coming out to each other.

  When he got home he found a note from Caleb pinned to the fridge (Out with J and D, back late, don't wait up Cxx) so Morgan shoved a frozen veggie bake into the microwave and made some tea. The flat was hot and stuffy, so he opened all the windows that actually opened. It didn't make much difference; the air remained still and thick. He took his dinner into the living room, turned on the TV and sank his conscious awareness into Pointless while he ate. After dinner he had a cool shower, which made the air feel marginally less stifling. He pulled on the soft cotton shorts that served as pyjama bottoms for the summer, sat cross-legged on his bed and got out his book of magic.

  He traced his fingertips over the spine, the edges, the ridged stack of pages, until, with a soft whoosh of magic, the book transformed into its real form: a golden, sparkling, leather-bound tome. He flicked through the pages, each rich with brightly coloured manuscript, until he got to page seventy-three. He put his palm flat on the page, pulled his power into his chest and whispered: Draconis.

  Magic glittered and swirled down his arm to his hand and from there to the page beneath. The air around Morgan went cool as he pulled energy through himself to fuel the spell. He slowly pulled his hand away from the book, and there sat a little gold dragon. No bigger than a bunny, with shimmering scales and a feathery mane; soft, iridescent wings which it lazily spread and flapped, as if it was waking from a long sleep. Which, in a way, it was. Morgan hadn't summoned it for several weeks, restricting himself to just the magical exercises he needed to do each day for control and wellbeing. That's what Ms Rosero said they were for, anyway. It certainly hadn't helped much with either over the past week.

  "Are you going to be whiny?" said Aiyeda. She spoke in a husky Spanish accent, nothing like Morgan's blend of London and Yorkshire English. Her golden scales took on a hint of grey-blue at the tips. "I hate when you're whiny."

  "I don't want to talk about it. Just… Come here."

  Aiyeda waddled off the book and up onto his knee, then hopped into the hollow formed by Morgan's crossed legs. He gently stroked the dragon behind her ears and the little horns that sat between them and she made a rumbly noise. Aiyeda's claws weren't particularly gentle where she clung to his ankles, but she couldn't physically hurt him. She wasn't, exactly, real. She was a manifestation of Morgan's magic, an avatar of that part of his psyche. Most majos called them familiars, but Morgan was deeply averse to cliché. When Aiyeda had first manifested to his teenage self he'd rolled his eyes at the fact she (or he: gender was fluid for magical manifestations, apparently) was a dragon. He'd wanted an echidna or a wombat. A llama. Something cool but totally not what you'd expect to be magic. Ms Rosero had snorted and told him that a dragon was a perfect reflection of him, because he was so flamboyant and dramatic.

  Ms Rosero had a lot of opinions, but she was also a saviour as far as Morgan was concerned. She'd arrived mysteriously at his primary school at the end of year six, for special lessons with him and a girl called Hannah. Morgan had always known he could do things most other people couldn't. Little things, at first. He could make candle flames wave about a bit. Create ripples in a glass of water. The other children always seemed to like him. He was instinctively careful with it, but it didn't mean much more to him than, say, if he'd been really good at maths like Chantelle, or been able to turn his eyelids inside out like Sanjay did. Then one day Ms Rosero turned up and explained to Morgan and Hannah that she'd be taking them for extra lessons in elemental control. Which sounded suspiciously like chemistry but, it turned out, wasn't. It was what most people called magic. Hannah was way ahead of Morgan: she'd visited her grandmother in Jamaica last summer and had learned how to make little fireworks spring from her fingertips.

  Mostly what Ms Rosero taught them, however, was control. Because a lot of people didn't like magic, majos had to be regulated, licensed and regularly counselled and monitored. Once a month from the age of twelve, Morgan had to go to meetings with other local majos. He used to call it 'MA' because it felt a fuck of a lot like a meeting for addicts and losers. People who couldn't deal with their own abilities. And Morgan could deal fine, thank you very much.

  Until the day he burned down a warehouse.

  It was Ms Rosero he'd called from the police station. Most people might turn to a solicitor, or their parents - he was only just eighteen - but Morgan knew nobody would believe this was a case of teenage high-spirits, a dropped cigarette or even an expression of vandalism inspired by his frustration at being brought up without a father figure in his life (that had never bothered him, despite what the social workers said). It was, in fact, accidental arson, inspired by his own stupid desire to show off to a boy he'd fancied. It had backfired horribly. The boy could have been killed or maimed, if he hadn't been a really fast runner.

  Somehow, Ms Rose
ro convinced the police that it was an accident. The experience of being arrested was more than enough of a wake up call for Morgan. She wouldn't explain how she did it, but Morgan had his suspicions. People generally liked him, in a vague, friendly sort of way, at least until he did something really annoying to burst the bubble. But Ms Rosero seemed to get her own way more often than not, which was a whole step higher up the scale.

  From that day he went to meetings of the local coven every month; he meditated every day; he did his control exercises; and he treated magic with every ounce of the respect it deserved. He didn't use his power to light candles, or make ice cubes, or make extra fireworks for bonfire night. He tried to charm people with who he was, not the power he held coiled within him. He deferred his offer to study elementalism at university until it expired, and signed up to Pearl's agency as a temp. Temping was ideal: nobody could get too close. It worked.

  It had worked.

  Morgan curled up on his bed and tried very hard not to think about Hunter, while his magic curled up in his lap, rested her head on one knee, and purred to comfort him.

  Morgan awoke with a start as his bedroom door opened. He was instantly alert, heart pounding - until he recognised Caleb's familiar face peeping around the door. The room had got dark, but there was no missing Caleb's profile: the slightly hooked nose, angular jaw, the wavy hair brushing his shoulders.

  "Morgan?" Caleb whispered. "You okay?"

  Morgan flicked on the bedside lamp and blinked at him. "I was asleep."

  "Sorry, man. Sorry. It was just you didn't do the washing up and the TV was on."

  Caleb never did any washing up unless he was asked and spread chaos wherever he went, so it seemed unfair, to say the least, that he should wake Morgan up to complain about a dirty plate. Morgan sat up and tried to make sense of things.