by Willa Okati
A faint frown crossed Jesse’s face, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. Daniel could read the thoughts reflected in his body language. Jesse would mind being laughed at.
He along with most of the world. Sometimes Daniel did. He would have now, but…somehow, it didn’t seem to matter. Jesse had kept coming while he’d spoken, and he stopped just inside arm’s reach. Close enough for Daniel to feel the swishing of Dog’s tail.
So close that, if Daniel had chosen to, he could have reached for Jesse’s hand. Jesse’s wrist. Taken the cuff of his sleeve between two fingers to see if that woke the memory. This close, Daniel could see the scars, and he could imagine how shrapnel must have come at Jesse from the side in a vicious hail of metal and fire. His hand twitched, wanting to touch.
Carefully, carefully, Daniel lowered his hand to Dog and scratched under his muzzle. Dog licked him, surprising another laugh free. “Tell you what,” he said. “Walk with me as far as the edge of the park, and we’re even. Deal?”
Jesse’s smile hadn’t changed at all. Still sweet. Still warm. “Deal.”
Chapter Two
“What’s your name?” Jesse asked, one hand on Dog to keep him settled. “Cade didn’t say.”
“It’s Da—” Daniel stopped and cleared his throat. No need to upset Jesse, or to send him running if he did hold some grudge. At least not before Daniel understood what was going on here. “Darren. Call me Darren.”
“Darren,” Jesse repeated. He looked almost sheepish. “I still feel like I should recognize you.”
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not. Sometimes I get…fuzzy.” Jesse touched the side of his head. “When I try to think about things too much. I’ve been trying, but I can’t remember. Where do I know you from? When did we meet?”
Ah, Jesse. “A long time ago,” Daniel said. “Just in passing.” He gave Dog’s head one more scruff, for luck. “It’ll come to you.”
Or at least if he had anything to say about it, it would.
The first fat drop of rain splattered on the tip of his nose. Embarrassing, but worth it to see—and hear—Jesse laugh. “Very funny,” he said, wiping his face, and widening his grin so Jesse knew he was merely teasing.
“Or not,” Jesse said. He shielded his eyes as he took two steps backward to look up at the sky. “I knew this was coming, but I forgot.”
Drops two and three followed fast after the first one, and more after those, picking up speed as they fell. “Me too.” The rain tasted like the sea, cool and salty. “Think we’ll drown?”
Jesse closed his eyes briefly to let the rain fall on his face. When he blinked them back open, he looked startled somehow, as if he hadn’t known he meant to do that—or even that he was doing it before it’d been done. He wiped his face on his forearm and shook the droplets away. “I—”
Whatever he’d meant to say was lost in a low roll of thunder and the clouds parting to pour down rain in heavy sheets. This was rain that meant business and no two ways about it. Heavy enough to row a boat through! Daniel covered his face with his arm as Jesse had done and blinked, glad for once he didn’t still need to wear glasses—though he carried his old pair in his pocket for luck, no matter where he went.
A warm hand on his shoulder surprised Daniel into dropping his arm. “This way,” Jesse shouted, louder than Daniel would have thought he could be, to be heard over the clatter of raindrops. Even so, Daniel only caught every third word. “Shelter…clock tower…follow me.”
Good enough for a start. Daniel nodded, put his head down and ran behind Jesse.
Jesse led Daniel into the shelter half a breath before the skies truly opened up and let loose. Dog came last of all, barking at their heels all the way in, and planted himself at the threshold to let the storm know what he thought of it.
Standing barely inside the doorway himself, Jesse craned his neck for a look at the sky. Not that it did him much good. The sun had long since gone down. The chill of the raindrops that’d soaked his shoulders and wetted his hair made him shiver. Dog nudged his head under Jesse’s hand when he did, loaning him some warmth. Good boy. Jesse rubbed one knuckle lightly over the top of Dog’s noggin.
Dog licked his wrist.
“Dope,” Jesse told him.
Dog sneezed. Wetly.
A laugh, soft and warm, made Jesse turn his head. Darren had beat him into the folly, but just by a body’s length. He didn’t look as wet—either that, or wet didn’t bother the man. He turned in a slow half-circle one way then back to make another half-circle facing the other way. Pale reflections of street lights, filtered through the rain, skimmed over him, from wide eyes to sweet mouth open in—what was that, surprise or delight? Both?
“Any port in a storm, they say.” Jesse leaned against the wall, letting the good stone support his weight. He watched Darren poke his nose around, amused. He’d always wondered how someone would react, seeing this place for the first time. Whether they’d prune their nose up or stand stock-still with question marks bristling over their heads. “It’s the Folly the town got its name from.”
“Really?” Darren stopped by one of the high windows better suited for an artillery bunker than parks and recreation. He stood on his tiptoes to get a look at one of the old carvings etched in a rock. “1893. It looks its age.”
“Older than that. It’s fallen down a time or two, but they use the same stones to build it back up again. Or so I’m told.”
“It feels like it’s seen its share of life.” Darren stroked the stone. “Smooth. Almost like river rock.”
“I think most of them were.”
“There’s a story behind it, isn’t there?” Darren padded almost silently to Jesse. He took up position at the other side of the door, where he’d have light enough to see and be seen by, and lingered there, watching Jesse. Not impatiently, Jesse thought. Just waiting.
Lightning rippled across the clouds.
Jesse tucked his hands in his pockets, safely out of the way. “I’m not a good storyteller.”
Darren raised one shoulder. That’s okay, the movement said. As far as Jesse could tell, he meant it—and he’d wait, patient as the stone itself, as long as it took to get the words together.
He didn’t have to, no. But…
“I don’t know if it’s true,” Jesse said.
“If it’s a good story, does it matter?”
Jesse made a heh noise in the back of his throat. “I guess not, no.” He remembered, now, when he’d heard the story for the first time. That helped. He could manage. “But this is the way I heard it happened, back when Folly wasn’t so much a town as a stop in the road where a rich man lived—”
“Always the way,” Darren murmured.
“True. Anyway, he’d heard Thomas Jefferson had a gazebo. Or George Washington. I don’t remember which. So this rich man, he had to have one too.”
“Sounds like a few guys I’ve known.”
How did Darren do that? He kept making Jesse smile. Even when Jesse didn’t feel them slipping out until they’d changed the shape of his mouth. Darren leaned against the stone wall, small and warm, patient even though he had no reason to be. He was smiling, too, his parted lips pink and soft and…
Jesse coughed once and looked away, cheeks and ears blooming with heat.
“Sorry,” Darren said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.” At least not enough to make a difference, and they couldn’t go anywhere until the storm passed, so why bother him with the reasons? Jesse looked out of the doorway at the rain. He’d bet if Darren were caught outside, he’d be the sort to tip his head back and try to catch drops on his tongue.
He glanced sideways at Darren and wished he had more light to see by. Couldn’t tell anything important about the man. Whether he had a soulmark, or not, for one…
“I didn’t realize just how late it was.”
Jesse had heard you could feel the passing of the seconds and minute
s if you laid your hand on the old gears that used to run the clock tower. He drew on his memory instead. “Barely past ten. Not that late.”
Darren leaned against the inside of the door. Whatever he was looking at, it wasn’t in there with them. Some memory from long ago and far away, Jesse thought. “Late enough,” he said.
Not for someone his age. Never mind that Darren had to be barely a year or three younger than him, at Jesse’s best guess. Unless… “Do you have a mate waiting for you?”
A flash of a smile crossed Darren’s lips and disappeared as quickly as it’d come. “Mmm. You?”
Was that a yes or a no? Jesse couldn’t tell. No was the more likely answer. He’d never known anyone who wouldn’t answer yes or at least touch their soulmark when mates were mentioned. Just part of the human condition.
He flexed his wrist. Sore. Did he have any ACE wraps in the room he’d rented? Maybe. Maybe not.
“You should try some heat on that.” Darren snapped out of whatever strange fugue he’d drifted into.
“What?” Jesse resisted the instinct to hide his wrist behind his back.
“You’ve been rubbing the joint this whole time,” Darren said. He tilted his head as if that’d help him get a better look, and pushed himself away from the door. “Let me see.”
“Don’t—” Jesse took two steps back.
Give Darren credit for ears that worked. He drew up short, three feet away. Close enough that he should have been able to—
Jesse made himself breathe. His ribs rose and fell, his breaths ragged and out of tune, but as long as he was able to draw in air he could keep going. “Don’t come too close.”
He watched Darren hold back, and could tell just as easily Darren didn’t want to. He didn’t want Darren to stay that far back, either. Too bad that the world they lived in didn’t often give people what they wanted. “Why?”
“Because I won’t be able to feel it if you touch me.”
Darren was too young for deep frown lines, but Jesse could see where they would be as he got older, and that wasn’t right. Darren should smile, not wear a sober scowl.
“I don’t understand.”
Jesse couldn’t bear to look at him much longer. He bent to scratch Dog’s head and the barrel of his chest. Dog’s tail thumped the floor in distracted appreciation. That was how he knew the dog could feel him. “Say you’re in a room alone, looking out the window,” he started, fumbling at first. “And say your brother comes up behind you.”
“I don’t have any brothers.”
“Me neither. That’s not the point.” Jesse tried to think. The rain and the run had made his face hot. He could feel himself fine. Just not anything else. “Your friend, then. Do you have friends?”
“A few. Barrett. His soulmate Nick.”
“If they come up behind you in an empty room, would you know they were there?”
“Of course.” Darren paused. Jesse would swear he could hear the kid thinking. “Everyone can.”
“I can’t.”
“But—” A soft sound, as if Darren drew his tongue across the bow of his upper lip.
He had that habit, Jesse had noticed. Starting to get it now? And still denying, too.
“It’s human nature. One of the seven senses. Blind, asleep, unconscious, it isn’t supposed to make a difference. People know when family’s near. It’s part of how we find our mates.”
“You’ve never heard about people not having it? Not even in stories?”
“I thought those were urban legends.”
“If you can dream it, someone’s done it, or had it done to them.” Jesse exhaled. “I don’t dream much, either. Not that I can remember.” Except for the nightmares, but he wouldn’t be telling Darren about those.
“To them, or for them?”
“Either way works. And then, it doesn’t.” Jesse rubbed at one of Dog’s ears. Dog licked his hand, the memory of warm and wet. “That’s why I’m saying, don’t touch me. All I’d feel is the echo of body heat you left behind. I can’t find people. I don’t know when they’re near me. You might as well not be here with me. If I closed my eyes, I’d be alone.”
Silence. Silence that went on for what seemed like ages, reverberating in his ears.
“You never finished the story,” Darren said.
Jesse almost laughed for disbelief. “Seriously?”
Outside, the park lanterns—on a timer—clicked off. He sensed more than saw Darren raise one shoulder. “I’m curious.”
Jesse puffed out a crack of breath. “You… All right. The rich man told the builder what he wanted, and this rich man, he was…picky. Choosy. Just this exact river stone, and just that exact pattern to lay them in, mortared tight so no rain could get in. The builder put on a good face, though from what I hear, he hadn’t ever done anything more complicated than a wall.”
Darren laughed quietly. “I know the type.”
“Same here. He didn’t want the rich man to know the truth, so he brazened it out. ‘Sure, no problem, half payment up front’, all that, took those specifics about the stones, and away he went.” Jesse cleared his throat. “And he got to work while the rich man went out of town for a month or so. I don’t know why.”
“It’s okay. He’s not the point. Go on.”
Jesse wished he could see Darren’s face clearly. Talking to the dark like this… “That’s almost all there is.”
“It isn’t.”
Jesse’s hands clenched. He made himself loosen them before they could form fists. “No,” he said. “It isn’t.” This was meant to be a funny story, or at least people mostly laughed when they told it.
Why did he have to blink his eyes hard to keep them from stinging with salt?
“Go on,” Darren said. A flash of lightning illuminated his face for one second. Just one, but it was enough for—for something Jesse didn’t understand. Kind face. Gentle gaze. Calm pressure. Enough pressure to lean against. “What happened next?”
Jesse had to gather his words and choose them with care. “The rich man came back to town to find the job almost done. Good thing he did. The builder had done the walls up as you see them, almost to the top, with just those little slots for windows, and no door. ‘You damn fool’, he shouted, ‘You told me this, and you told me that, but you never told me I should build a way out!’”
Darren snorted. Laughter? Maybe.
The pressure behind Jesse’s eyes eased. Darren had a lovely smile.
“Is it a true story?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “I doubt it. I’m pretty sure they didn’t turn the folly into a clock tower until that 1893 date. But maybe.”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Sometimes. Some places.”
“Maybe more than you think.” And Darren was there, suddenly, moving when Jesse wasn’t paying attention. Dropping to a crouch beside Jesse. Covering Jesse’s hand with his. “Even if you had a soulmate, you wouldn’t be able to find them. You wouldn’t know them if they crossed your path.”
He saw too much, too clearly. Jesse should have resented the hell out of him for it, but he didn’t. Why didn’t he? “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Okay, then.” Darren lifted his head. “If I touch you, it won’t be because I want to please me. It’d be because I want to please you.”
Jesse’s mouth had gone dry. His hand flexed as if of its own accord, wrist bending up. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
And as if he could see in the dark, Darren leaned forward to touch his mouth to Jesse’s, light as a whisper and warm as morning sunlight…warm…
Daniel expected Jesse to pull away, and he was proven right. He left nothing behind but the warmth of his lips, dry and soft, the echo of a kiss.
Enough to give Daniel hope. Daniel touched his mouth, tracing the shape where Jesse had been.
“I told you, don’t,” Jesse said. Daniel could barely see him in the city lights reflected on the storm clouds.
He’d come to a stop with his back against a wall near the door, and he pressed the tips of his fingers to his mouth. “I…”
Daniel stayed where he was. Careful, careful. “You felt that, didn’t you?”
Jesse’s eyes were too wide, with too much white showing. He licked his lips once, quickly, and said nothing.
As good as a confirmation. “Even if it was only an echo, isn’t that better than nothing?”
Jesse shook his head. Not the tiny, careful tick, but a broader sweep that brought his hair forward to brush his cheeks.
Dog looked back and forth between the two of them, huffed, and padded to the door where he lay down with his head on his paws, watching the rain. Or standing guard. Depended on how much credit one wanted to give him.
Daniel stroked the dog’s silky head and was rewarded with a thumping of the heavily fringed tail. Good boy.
“He likes you,” Jesse said. “That’s why I…”
Why he’d lingered. Daniel understood now. Why he’d bundled them both into this old clock tower when there were other places they could go—including back to the Hart and Hound, if he’d wanted. Places with other people, and without privacy.
Daniel flexed his wrist, and pressed the pad of his thumb against the pulse that beat there. He couldn’t have seen anything in the dark, and he couldn’t be sure without a good look—or, no, that was a lie. He could. He knew. If he closed his eyes and let his sense of touch guide him, he could be certain.
He traced the faint impression of a broken hieroglyph circle rising over his pulse, and knew he’d find the same on Jesse’s wrist.
Daniel was no doctor. Neither was he a philosopher. All he knew about soulmates and soulmarks was much the same as anyone who didn’t study them for a living or an avocation. But one thing he did know, and for a fact—soulmates needed one another. They’d been made to crave the touch of one person above all others. They rested better when they slept together. Cut one, and the other bled.
Pull them apart and watch them wither.
You stupid, stubborn, selfless idiot. Years upon years of not getting better, and for what?
No more. Not after tonight. Daniel shifted forward, pushing himself from one kneeling pose to another, the second bringing him to a stop at Jesse’s feet. He laid his hands—his palms—light as thistledown on Jesse’s knee and hip. He bowed his head forward, just far enough to sense rather than see for himself that Jesse felt something.