Shadow Tales

by L. J. Hamlin

  "Don't cause any trouble. I don't want to have to get a shot gun. I'm not stupid enough to fight you fair," the wolf says.

  "Not looking for trouble. Just a good time to ease the ache," Travis replies, and the wolf nods, stepping aside to let him into the bar.

  The bar is a dive, but it's full of people, shifters, and the dozens of scents hit Travis all at once: animals, beer, sweat, cleaning fluid, food. There's so much it's overwhelming. So much so that, for a moment, he doesn't feel it, but then the burning in his ribs starts, and Travis doesn't believe it. He makes a beeline for the men's room. Finding an empty stall, he goes in and closes the door.

  Travis pulls open his jacket and pushes up his shirt, revealing what should be four lines of old scar tissue, but they're bright red, not broken open, just glowing. They've only done this once before, on another harvest moon when he'd still lived in his home town, and the man who'd given the scars to him, a bobcat shifter, had been there, explaining why he couldn't leave home with Travis.

  Jamison must be twenty-nine now, three years younger than Travis. Jamison had accidentally clawed Travis badly when they were play fighting. They'd just been kids, and Jamison had cried like his heart was broken. They'd been best friends, and at nineteen, Travis had finally had enough of his father knocking him around, packed a bag, and put it on the old bike he'd saved up for. He'd gone to Jamison, asked him to come, painting it as an adventure, even though he'd known it would be hard.

  He'd been burning with desire, the pain in his side confusing him. He'd gone to Jamison, who told him his mother was pregnant and he couldn't leave her. Travis had wanted to kiss Jamison, to get to taste him at least once, even though he was too young for that, but he hadn't been brave enough. And if he'd gone to bed with Jamison, and Jamison still wanted to stay, Travis would have stayed too, trapped with his father's fists, in a small town where no one seemed to understand him.

  The burning hasn't happened in all the years since, and as Travis covers up and pulls himself together, he can only come to one conclusion: Jamison is here. What's he doing so far from their small hometown, a place he'd said he'd never leave because he had too much responsibility in the form of a pregnant single mom and three siblings under the age of ten?

  Travis squares his shoulders and opens the stall. He goes to the sink, washing his hands and splashing water on his face before drying it on a hand towel and looking at himself in the mirror. His dark eyes are as wild as his messy black hair. He takes a breath and tells himself to suck it up.

  He leaves the restroom and heads into the bar, scanning faces. He doesn't find anyone who looks like Jamison sitting at any of the tables or grinding on what passes as a dance floor in this place. Then he spots sandy blond hair on a waiter walking the other way, and he follows. Bears have a pretty good sense of smell, and when he breathes in, he can pick up a familiar scent even with all the others. It's Jamison's scent.

  "Jamison Duke?" Travis calls when he gets close, not sure what he's doing. It's been thirteen years since he saw Jamison, and he'd made a fool of himself back then. He should be running the other way, not hunting his old friend down.

  "No one uses that surname..." Jamison sounds puzzled as he turns, but when he sees Travis, he stops talking, his big blue eyes widening.

  Travis looks down at him. Jamison has to be about five, five, and he's a skinny little thing still, just like when he was a teen, but the pretty, boyish features Travis knew so well have fleshed out into those of a beautiful man.

  "Travis?" Jamison says after a few moments of nothing but bar noise.

  "What are you doing working in a bar way out here? On a night like this?" Travis blurts out. No shifter wants to work the harvest moon, and will only usually do it if they have to. Travis has nothing against waiters, but Jamison had big dreams as a kid of making enough money to provide for his family.

  "This is home," Jamison says. His cheeks have blushed slightly pink, like maybe he's embarrassed, but the jut of his chin is defiant.

  "Is your family here?" Travis asks, confused, trying to ignore the call of his hormones, which are practically screaming at him to touch Jamison. The last time Travis tried to touch his arm, when they were teens on Jamison's front pouch, he'd pulled away before Travis could.

  "No, I'm working. I have to go. It was nice seeing you," Jamison says in a rush, and he goes to turn away. Like hell is Travis leaving it at that. He reaches out and grabs Jamison's arm, spinning him back around, trying to be careful, not wanting to hurt Jamison.

  Only touching Jamison does two things. It makes his dick harden in his leathers and his ribs burn so strangely that he gasps. It's not really pain, but it takes his breath away, and he doubles over a little, not sure if he wants it to go away. It's as weird as the first time it happened.

  "Travis? Come here, come on, come with me. I'll get you some water. You look weird. What's wrong? Are you sick?" Jamison goes from pulling away to guiding Travis through the crowd, toward a door. The whole time Jamison's hands are on his arms, Travis feels like his head is spinning. He feels like he's had eight whiskies, even though he hasn't even had one beer.

  They step through the door into a small staff room. There's a kitchen and a few grimy couches, a window that looks out over the forest in the back. Jamison pushes Travis into a chair, like he's a child and not a full-grown bear shifter, and then heads over to the sink. The moment Travis can no longer feel Jamison's touch, the weird feeling in his scars lessens to a tingle, and it's easier to think straight.

  Jamison fills a glass with ice water and hands it to Travis, without letting their fingers touch. He'd been so in control for a few moments, confident, in charge as he'd led Travis back here, but now he looks nervous as he folds his arms over his chest, standing as far away as the little room allows. "Are you on drugs?"

  "No. Why would you think that?" Travis asks.

  "You looked really weird for a second, and the way you bent over, like you were hurt, I don't know. I just, I don't know what's going on, and seeing you here is throwing me off my game, okay?" Jamison's voice picks up speed and volume as he goes along.

  "It's not drugs. I don't know what it is. Sometimes my scar acts up, and seeing you is damn well a shock to the system," Travis grumbles, keeping things vague, not wanting to say the scar has only ever felt like this on a harvest moon around Jamison.

  "The scar I gave you? You said after it didn't hurt, that it healed fine. Did you lie?" Jamison asks.

  "I didn't lie. It hadn't done this back then. And it's not really pain. It's like a weird tingling, really intense. Maybe I damaged some nerves." Travis hopes it's something like that, because he doesn't want to think about what else it could mean.

  "Well, I'm still sorry," Jamison says softly.

  "It's fine. Play fighting was my idea, after all. Besides, I'm a big ass bear. You're just an itty bitty bobcat," Travis teases, and it feels all too natural to tease Jamison, despite their years apart.

  "I better get back to work," Jamison says, instead of responding to the banter.

  "Wait, you can't just go serve drinks. After all this time, what happened? Why are you here?" Travis asks.

  "Why are you here?" Jamison counters.

  "Good a place as any to get laid tonight. I was in the area. But I travel a lot. I don't have a home. Last I checked, you did, and this wasn't it," Travis replies.

  "Why do you even want to know? It's been a lifetime since we were friends. Do you even really care what I'm doing here? Or do you just want to prove I made the wrong choice by not leaving with you back then?" Jamison asks, sounding pissed.

  "I don't get why you're so hostile. I might have left, but I asked you to come with me. It's not like I just walked out on a friend. Why are you mad at me?" Travis frowns. There had been times when he'd been mad at Jamison for not leaving town with him, but it never lasted. What had lasted was a continual ache for his best friend, and the lover he'd always wanted Jamison to be.

  Jamison slumped. "Damn it, I'm sorr
y. I don't mean to be an asshole. It's just, you were the last person I expected to see out here. Things didn't exactly go according to plan for me after you left. I'm kind of mad about that, but mostly at myself."

  "It's okay. You're not an ass. But I'd like to know how you came to be here, if you'd be willing to tell me."

  "You know my mom was pregnant when you left?" Jamison asks, and Travis nods, because of course he remembers. He remembers every word Jamison said to him that night.

  "Well, the father moved in, this total dick named Jerry. He didn't like me much. Told mom it was me or him. She chose him and kicked me out." Jamison sounds pissed, and Travis doesn't blame him. Jamison's own mother, a woman he'd always bent over backwards to help and support, had tossed him aside as soon as she thought she had a better offer.

  Travis is furious on Jamison's behalf, and if he ever rides through his hometown, it's not just his own family he'll be telling to go to hell.

  "I'm sorry, Jamison. That's rough. What did you do? You were just a kid," Travis asks, and Jamison hesitates. "You can tell me. You can tell me anything. No judgment," Travis promises, pushing down the ball of lust that's burning in his chest. His dick isn't the most important thing right now, even if it happens to think it is.

  "I went looking for you, okay? Happy now? But I didn't have a number, and I didn't know where you'd gone. So I hitchhiked around, hoping I'd run into you, or someone who knew you, but I never did." Jamison sighs.

  "And that brought you here? And no, I'm not happy any of this happened." Travis growls slightly.

  "No, I settled in a town, worked for people who didn't care about my age. Applied for my GED when I was eighteen, did some college classes. But, ah, I was living with someone, and they left, stole all my savings, pissed off my employer, caused a heap of trouble. So I drove till my car ran out of gas and found this place. Got a job here, a room in town, and decided to start again. And that's the whole sorry story."

  "Some roommate? Or a girlfriend stole your money?" Travis asks, feeling pissed. He's not a violent person, despite his size and his animal instincts, but he's protective of the people who matter to him, and Jamison has always mattered, will always matter, even if they haven't seen each other for years.

  "Boyfriend," Jamison says, chin jutting defiantly.

  They'd never talked about their sexuality with each other. Travis had thought Jamison was too young to know that not only was Travis sleeping around, but he was going to bed with both men and women.

  "Relax. I'm not a homophobe. Far from it." Travis rolls his eyes.

  "What does that mean?"

  "I mean I've probably sucked more dicks than you have, and sure as hell fucked more guys," Travis says bluntly.

  "You're gay?" Jamison sounds and looks surprised, his blue eyes wide.

  "Bi, actually." Travis might not have told his friends, even his best friend about it, but he's known from a young age that he liked men and women, and a fair share of them seemed to like him.

  "I can't believe it." Jamison sounds upset as he stands up, pacing the few small steps over to the window at the back of the room.

  "Don't believe it? Why would I lie?" Travis asks, confused. He stands, but he's hesitant about getting closer. The pull of the harvest moon is getting stronger, and his blood feels like it's on fire in his veins. Flames are licking at his bones, and the only thing that will put them out is sex.

  He wants Jamison, always has, and it seems like the attraction he'd once felt has only grown stronger. But Jamison seems pissed and hurt, and Travis doesn't want to be rejected by him again. He'd opened his heart when he'd asked Jamison to run away with him, and Jamison had shut him down for a mother who had no loyalty to him, which doesn't surprise Travis at all.

  "I don't believe I... Part of why I didn't leave with you wasn't just my responsibility to my family. Yes, they needed me. Well, I thought they did. But a big part of the reason I said no to leaving with you is I thought you'd freak out when you found out I was gay. I thought you'd be disgusted and leave me behind. I didn't want to lose my friend like that. I figured I'd stay and maybe you'd come back," Jamison says in a rush.

  Travis ignores his racing heart and sweating palms and walks over to Jamison, putting a hand on his shoulder and feeling his whole body tighten.

  "Even if I was straight as an arrow, which I'm not, I never would have reacted like that. You were my best friend. You were the only thing about that town I missed. I'm sorry I never came back, but I didn't think you wanted me to. And you don't know how free I felt, not having to be afraid all the time," Travis says firmly.

  "God, I'm so selfish. I knew what you were going through at home. I remember all the bruises and cuts and even broken bones. Of course you didn't want to come back after getting away from that. And you gave me a chance to leave with you. I've been acting like you were a bad friend, but you weren't. I was," Jamison replies sadly.

  "Don't be an idiot. You were trying to do what was best for your family. You put them ahead of yourself all the time. I should have known better than to ask you to leave them." Travis can't resist stroking up from Jamison's shoulder to his neck, his hand big enough to cover the whole side of Jamison's neck. He can feel Jamison's pulse pick up speed, but he doesn't pull away or look frightened.

  Jamison groans. "And look where putting them first got me. Alone since I was just seventeen, never even seen my youngest sibling. Working in a shitty ass bar, trying to save up, even though I don't know what I want to do. I feel lost, and it's hard to focus on a crappy job in a dive bar when your skin feels like it's humming."

  "Let me help you. I'll take you wherever you want to go so you can start again. Nothing wrong with bar work, but there are better bars, ones that wouldn't make you work a harvest moon. I have some money. I travel places, stay awhile and restore bikes for people. It pays pretty well. I can help you." Travis just wants to see Jamison happy.

  When they'd been young, Jamison had always been smiling, despite all the responsibilities his mom piled on him, and Jamison had always been the one to make Travis smile, to make him laugh, even when he was at his lowest. He's never told Jamison, but it was him, the little bobcat, that kept Travis going till he escaped his home life. Having someone who cared about him, who didn't try and hurt him, had meant a lot. So if he can help make Jamison happy again, he will.

  "I don't want your money! I'm not my mom. I don't need a man to come along and make everything better for me. The police are trying to recover my money. I left because I was embarrassed, and nothing was keeping me there. I don't mean to sound ungrateful—you're being so sweet—but I don't need a white knight," Travis says firmly.

  "Not many people have accused me of trying to be a white knight, and that's not what I want. I don't want you to feel like you owe me something. Shit, what I really want is to turn back time and be back on your porch, convincing you to leave with me." Travis has no doubt that Jamison can rebuild his life. He just doesn't see why Jamison should have to do it all alone, and he says all that almost without drawing breath "You were always the strongest person I knew."

  "Really? You think I'm strong? I feel like I've messed up so much. I used to dream you'd come and find me," Jamison says softly.

  "I dreamed about what it might have been like if you had come with me, just us and the road. I want to talk. I'm trying to focus, but the moon... Damn it, my skin's on fire." Travis can't help looking at Jamison's lips. When Jamison dampens his lower lip with just a flick of tongue, Travis growls.

  "You should go back into the bar, find someone to spend the night with, and I should go back to work," Jamison says, but the way he's staring, Travis would swear it's more than the heat from the moon between them.

  "Are you sure that's what you want?"

  "What other option do I have?" Jamison asks.

  "Come for a ride with me," Travis replies.

  "Are you offering to spend the night with me?"

  "Yes, I want you," Travis says bluntly.

  "I
'm not going to lie and say I don't want to go with you, to finally see what you look like in the moonlight, but I don't think I can handle watching you ride away again. It hurt a lot when you left," Jamison says softly.

  "So come with me this time. What's keeping you here?"

  Jamison shakes his head. "Travis, we're strangers now. It's been so long. It'll never work."

  "But what if it can? You say you regret not coming with me. Well, now's your chance to do what you didn't before. Take a walk on the wild side, little bobcat." Travis is sure he's doing the right thing. They were best friends from the moment they met, saw each other every day for years, and the feeling in his scar, the tingling when he gets close to Jamison, it's like they're connected. And looking into Jamison's eyes, inhaling his scent, Travis has never wanted anyone more.

  "This is crazy, but okay. Come on, before I change my mind. We'll go out the back so they don't try and get me to stay. I don't want anyone talking sense into me." Jamison takes Travis's hand and leads him to the other door in the room. He lets them out the back of the bar, and the night air hits Travis's hot skin. The moon is getting higher, and it's like a siren song. "Where's your bike parked? Out front?"

  Travis nods.

  "Let's be quick, before anyone sees me. I don't want you fighting about me leaving," Jamison says, and hand-in-hand, like kids, they run around the bar, Travis leading the way to his bike. He has a spare helmet, thank god.

  They climb on his bike, and Travis groans when he feels Jamison's body against his back, arms around his waist, so much closeness but not enough.

  "Where to?" Travis growls out.

  "My apartment isn't far. I'll direct you," Jamison says, and he sounds breathless. Travis is glad he's not the only one affected by their closeness and the harvest moon. Jamison leans close, giving a quick description of the directions to his place.

  Travis starts his bike and pulls back onto the road. Between Jamison's instructions and a few nudges, Travis soon finds himself locking up his bike outside a row of shops. Jamison leads the way up to his apartment over a bakery and lets them in. Travis doesn't even get a chance to look around. One second he hears Jamison drop his keys, and the next, all of his teenage fantasies are coming true as Jamison pushes him back against the door, going on tiptoes to kiss Travis hard.