Badlands

by Morgan Brice

“I’m talkin’ friends with benefits, not man’s best friend,” Tracey said. “Seriously, did you buy a gun? Are you going to?”

  “I’d probably hit everything except what I was aiming for,” Simon answered, as he finished his sub. “That’s not my thing.”

  “How about pepper spray? Or a knife? You need to have a way to protect yourself.”

  He knew Tracey was right, but buying a weapon made the threat all too real. “I’ll get something,” he promised.

  She gave him a look. “Fine,” she said, with an emphasis that made clear it wasn’t. “Don’t come running to me when you get killed.” She checked her phone. “Shit. I have to get back.” She lurched forward and folded Simon into a spine-snapping hug. “Seriously, fuck the cop—I mean that literally—and see if it makes him less grumpy. Trust me, I know about these things,” she added with a wink. “Then come by and tell me how it went. I expect details.” Tracey pocketed the cash he handed her for the food and tossed the garbage in a bin outside the shop.

  Simon exhaled. Tracey was a whirl-wind of energy, and when she swept on to the next target, it seemed to suck the air out of the room. Still, he thought, maybe she was right on both counts. He ought to take the threats seriously enough to find some kind of weapon. And getting laid—especially if it involved Vic—would surely help both their moods.

  He tidied up the back room, then took his soda up front to flip the sign back to “Open.” The rain eased up, as forecasted, and by the time the six o’clock group showed up, the sun had come out, and the sea wind dried off the boardwalk. But by the end of the early tour, the air had gotten cool as night fell. He wondered whether that would affect the turn-out for the late group. There were still a couple of spots left, and on a nice night, there were usually enough drop-ins to fill the tour to capacity.

  At ten until eight, almost everyone scheduled had shown up, milling around the shop, picking up books, charms, and t-shirts. Simon was so busy ringing up customers, he didn’t pay attention when the door opened.

  “I’d like a ticket for the next tour.”

  Simon’s head snapped up to find Vic standing on the other side of the counter, with a smile that was part bravado, part nerves. His stance signaled confidence, but his eyes suggested uncertainty. “Sure,” Simon replied, taking Vic’s cash and handing him the tour voucher. Their fingers brushed, and Vic didn’t jerk away. “Didn’t expect to see you here. I mean, I’m glad, but—”

  “Thought I ought to try something new. Broaden my horizons,” Vic replied. He looked good, with a black jacket over a concert t-shirt and worn jeans that clung to his muscular thighs. Simon caught sight of a dark bulge beneath one side of Vic’s jacket and realized he was carrying. Somehow, that just made him hotter.

  “Maybe I can teach you a few things,” Simon answered, never looking away from Vic’s dark eyes.

  “I bet you could.” Vic’s slight smirk sent a bolt of lust right to Simon’s cock.

  The alarm on Simon’s phone went off, reminding him it was time to start. “All right everyone, gather up front. Time to go!”

  Myrtle Beach didn’t have haunted old Victorian homes like Nantucket or Cape May, or ante-bellum mansions filled with ghosts and secrets like Savannah or Charleston. It hadn’t been a city at all until around 1900 when a timber company decided to capitalize on the beachfront land it owned and started to develop an affordable seaside destination. But the coast had long been home to pirates, smugglers, and wreckers, and legendary shipwrecks lay beneath the waves not too far out from shore.

  Simon’s ghost tours weren’t the dramatic presentations he’d enjoyed in New Orleans or the old cities in Europe. He told stories as the group walked along the shadowed side of the promenade, building drama and tension with his voice. He started with the tale of poor, doomed Alice Flagg whose parents kept her from her true love, throwing her engagement ring into the ocean and thereby trapping her spirit to wander forever.

  Every ghost guide in town told Alice’s story, but from there, Simon’s penchant for research regaled the tourists with the shipwreck SS Georgiana, a steamship full of guns and supplies whose iron hull proved no match to a Union blockade boat during the Civil War, sinking the craft and its cargo. That wreck led to two more, as the side-wheeler Mary Bowers and another blockade runner, the Norseman, were scuttled by the remains of the Georgiana.

  He wove in the story of Captain Kidd and the rumors of buried pirate treasure, then came back to the shipwrecks, telling more tragic tales of unlucky sailors back to the Revolution, and the ghosts that still wandered the coast, looking for the sails that would carry them home.

  That last, Simon could vouch for personally, and before their hour ended, he spun a few more stories he learned from the spirits themselves, dating back to the turn of the last century. They never left the boardwalk, but Simon led them down to a section where the bright lights from the bars and Skywheel were partly hidden by a curve in the walkway, and the jut of a hotel closed for renovation. The darkened, empty building added a sense of desolation and creepiness that had some in the group huddling together for his last, dramatic story.

  Throughout it all, Vic had hung back in the second row, listening carefully, his eyes always on Simon. Simon felt self-conscious at first, but then as he warmed to the familiar tales and felt the audience buy into his storytelling, he almost forgot the weight of Vic’s gaze. Almost, but not quite.

  “And that wraps up our tour for tonight,” Simon said as his final tale came to an end. “Don’t forget to take your ticket stub with you—it’s worth ten percent off at participating bars, restaurants, and shops.”

  He turned to lead the group out of the shadows, and felt the hair on the back of his neck rise an instant before a loud bang sounded, searing pain tore through his arm, and Simon fell.

  “Gun!” someone in the tour group yelled. “Everybody down!”

  Another tourist screamed and ran. A few followed her.

  “Stay with him! Call 911!” Vic yelled, as two in the group knelt beside Simon.

  Simon heard the pounding of running feet. He was dimly aware of the frightened voice of a man calling for an ambulance; then everything went black.

  8

  Vic

  “Police! Halt!” Vic yelled, running in the direction the shot had come. As he ran, he pulled his cell phone and called the police. All he could see was a figure in a dark hoodie. The shooter headed into the crowd on the boardwalk, which parted sluggishly for Vic even as he shouted at them to move. A few steps farther, and he found the discarded hoodie, but with no idea of the clothing or hair color of the attacker, nothing called attention to any of the pedestrians.

  “Shit,” Vic muttered. He gingerly lifted the hoodie using a latex glove from the pocket of his jacket. Nothing on the hoodie was likely to ID the gunman at first pass, but if they arrested someone later and got a match, it would place the perp at the crime scene. He glanced at the buildings, looking for video surveillance that he could retrieve, without luck.

  Vic had chased the shooter like a hound with a fox, training and instinct canceling out emotion. But as he jogged back to stretch of boardwalk near Grand Strand Ghost Tours, his heart was in his throat. Please don’t let this fall in my department, he thought. Vic and Ross didn’t chase regular perps. They only got involved with murder. Simon was hit. He went down. Oh, god. What if…

  Vice saw the flashing lights of an ambulance and two squad cars which had driven onto the boardwalk. A cop tried to stop him as he approached. Vic pulled his badge. “Lieutenant D’Amato. Homicide.” He lifted the hoodie between his gloved fingers. “I gave pursuit. The gunman was wearing this, and ditched it.”

  The cop jerked his head toward a knot of uniforms kneeling on the boardwalk. Vic handed off the hoodie to one of the patrol officers and then moved toward the others.

  “Lieutenant—”

  “My friend got shot,” Vic snapped. “I’m damn well going to see how he is.” He strode over, badge visible, barely breathing unti
l he glimpsed Simon.

  Simon’s shirt was bloodied, and an EMT knelt next to him, bandaging his left bicep. Simon looked pale and shaken, but he answered the cop’s questions.

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Simon insisted.

  The EMT glanced at the cop. “It winged him, but the slug isn’t in his arm.” He nodded toward the dark boardwalk. “It’s out there, somewhere.”

  “You patched me,” Simon argued. “I want to go home.”

  “I’ve got this,” Vic said, shouldering in as the EMT drew back. He flashed his badge at the patrol officer. “I’ll make sure he gets home safely.”

  “I’m not sure—” the cop objected.

  Vic gave a thin, unfriendly smile. “Protective custody. You’ve got your statement. I’ll handle the escort.”

  The cop glared at Vic, then shrugged, and muttered something to his partner. By this point, the other two patrol officers had taken statements from the few ghost tour participants who had remained after the shot was fired.

  “Come on,” Vic said, steering Simon by the elbow until they were out of the crowd. Simon stumbled, and Vic slipped an arm around his waist. “I’ve got you,” he said quietly. “You’re safe.”

  “Thanks,” Simon murmured.

  “You really should go to the hospital.”

  Simon shook his head. “You heard the EMT—the bullet grazed me. No evidence to recover, and that means it’s just a deep cut. He fixed me up and said I didn’t need stitches. I’m fine.”

  Vic didn’t agree, but he also didn’t want to argue. They were halfway to Simon’s house before he turned to Vic. “How do you know where I live?”

  Vic had the courtesy to look embarrassed. “I ran you through the system after you did the reading.”

  “Invasion of privacy, much?” Simon’s voice lacked any heat behind it.

  “Is it bad?” Vic said, taking in the blood on Simon’s shirt.

  “Still hurts like hell. But I’ll be okay. Couple of butterfly bandages, an antibiotic script, and I’m back in business.”

  They arrived at Simon’s bungalow. “Cute place,” Vic observed. It wasn’t at all what he had imagined Simon’s house would look like. Too retro. Too…blue.

  Simon fumbled the key. Vic took it from him and worked the lock, then stepped in front of Simon, gun drawn, as he flicked on the light. “Stay behind me,” he growled, sweeping one room and then the next until he felt sure they were alone in the house.

  “Vic, I don’t think—”

  “Someone just tried to shoot you,” Vic snapped. “Let me do my job.”

  Simon walked into the living room and sank down on the couch. Vic guessed that his arm throbbed, and knew from experience that after the adrenaline rush of fear, the crash would bring him down, hard.

  Vic returned from checking out the back rooms and stood in the kitchen doorway. “Cute place you’ve got here.”

  “Used to belong to my aunt and uncle. They can’t come down anymore. He’s got heart trouble,” Simon replied.

  “What did they give you for the pain?”

  Simon frowned, trying to figure out the purpose for the question. “Just local anesthetic. They wanted to give me something stronger, but I didn’t want to be… out.”

  “You got any beer?” Vic asked, and then headed into the kitchen to look for himself. He came back with two open bottles and handed one to Simon. In his other hand was a knotted plastic grocery bag filled with ice.

  “Put this on it,” he said, handing the bag to Simon. “Keeps the swelling down. It’s gonna bruise like a mofo.”

  Simon nodded his thanks, took a swig of the beer, and then put the ice bag over the wound. He grimaced at the pressure against the injury.

  “Yeah, it’ll be that way for a while,” Vic sympathized.

  Simon looked at him. “You’ve been shot?”

  Vic shrugged. “Coupla times. No big deal. I’m still here. Goes with the territory.”

  He had chosen a seat on the couch next to Simon, close enough that their legs touched. He reached up and pushed a strand of hair out of Simon’s eyes. “Any idea—?”

  “No. None at all.”

  Simon shuddered, and Vic slipped an arm around his shoulders. Vic wasn’t sure whether Simon would pull away, but when he didn’t, he drew him in close. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” he said quietly. “And I’m sorry I didn’t catch the perp. I saw you go down, and I was scared,” Vic admitted. “I know we got off to a bad start. I suck at this kind of thing. But…I’d like to do better.”

  The brush of lips against his own surprised Vic. Simon stared up at him, so close, hazel eyes blown wide with desire and uncertainty. Waiting for Vic to make the next move. Vic cupped Simon’s face in his hand, turning slightly to better press his mouth against Simon’s full lips. He touched the tip of his tongue to Simon’s mouth, and Simon opened to him. Simon tasted of coffee and cola and mint, and Vic’s heart sped.

  “This okay?” Vic murmured, reeling from the way they usually rebounded from desire to anger and back again.

  Simon shifted, straddling Vic with a knee on either side of his thighs. The hard bulge in Simon’s jeans rubbed against Vic’s equally stiff erection, and Vic could not stifle a moan. “More than okay,” Simon whispered. “Vic, help me forget.”

  Vic looked at Simon, brown hair loose around his shoulders, eyes dark and lips parted. “I don’t want to take advantage.”

  “They didn’t give me anything for the pain besides a local anesthetic,” Simon breathed. “No drugs. I’m not high. Just…scared. Please, I need to feel you. Make me feel something good.”

  In response, Vic slipped his arms behind Simon, mindful of his wounded shoulder. He let his hands explore Simon’s back, and discovered that while Simon might be a bit shorter and slender, he was all toned muscle beneath his shirt. Vic claimed his mouth again, deepening the kiss, and Simon ground their erections together, rubbing with enough friction that Vic thought he might come in his jeans like a teenager.

  “Please, Vic,” Simon whispered, and this time, it was his tongue slipping between Vic’s lips, tasting, claiming, exploring. Vic reached down between them, moving slowly to give Simon a chance to pull away if he changed his mind, but Simon rolled his hips, making his intention clear. Vic worked Simon’s belt buckle loose, then the button, and finally the zipper.

  “I’m clean, just so you know,” Simon spoke the words softly into Vic’s ear.

  “So am I,” Vic replied. The department mandated regular bloodwork. Not that there’d been any partners recently. “Just so you know.”

  He pushed down Simon’s boxer briefs and moved to wrap his hand around Simon’s shaft.

  “Together,” Simon whispered. “I want to feel you.”

  Simon’s breathy words and the vulnerability and need behind them made Vic painfully hard. He made quick work of his belt and jeans, lifting them both off the couch just enough to shove his pants down so he could pull his cock out from his briefs. Both he and Simon leaked pre-come, enough to slick his hand as he wrapped his fingers around both their shafts and began a slow, delicious slide that made them gasp.

  Vic had jerked off to thoughts about Simon like this, in his arms, groaning with desire, but the reality was far hotter than the fantasy. Simon trusted his weight to Vic’s supporting arm, letting his head fall back and his hair hang loose, eyes closed, face taut with hunger.

  “I’ve wanted this since the first time I saw you,” Vic confessed, working them slowly although he knew neither would last long. “Fuck, you’re beautiful. Feel so good. You’re so hard for me.” He glanced down at his hand, holding both their swollen cocks together, and had to bite his lip not to shoot at the sight. “Gonna make you feel good. Real good. Let go. I’ve got you.”

  Simon cried out, sounding as if the intensity of his orgasm wrested the moan from his soul. Hot come spilled over Vic’s hand, spurting between them, marking up Simon’s shirt. A moment later, as Simon shivered and jolted through the aftersho
cks, Vic shot his load, climaxing hard enough that everything went white for a second. Simon fell forward, resting his forehead against Vic’s, as both of them gasped for breath.

  “Thank you,” Simon murmured, brushing a kiss against Vic’s jawline, barely a touch, but Vic felt it like a jolt of electricity.

  “I’d say the feeling was mutual.”

  Simon glanced down at the sticky residue streaking their t-shirts, grimaced, and reached for a handful of tissues from the box beside the couch to daub them both dry.

  Now that the passion had ebbed, an awkward silence stretched between them. Simon gently tucked Vic back into his briefs, meeting his eyes with a look that was both bold and challenging, before putting himself away. “Stay,” Simon asked suddenly, looking as if the word surprised him as much to say it as it did for Vic to hear it. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Vic pressed a kiss against Simon’s temple. “Are you sure?”

  Simon nodded, blushing with the admission. “Is that weak? I mean, you get shot all the time.”

  “Not quite that often, thank God,” Vic said. “It’s not something that gets better with practice. And no, it’s not weak. Sometimes mortality’s a little too close for comfort.” He didn’t usually talk like this, didn’t admit fear or discuss feelings. Cops didn’t unpack the dark shadows in their minds unless the department shrink made them, and even then lies were easy to manufacture. So why did it feel right to console Simon, to reassure him that his reaction was normal, just human? Vic didn’t know, and he didn’t want to examine those questions right now, so he pulled Simon close. Simon’s head fell forward, resting against Vic’s shoulder, and Vic brought both arms up around him, careful of his injury, holding him tight.

  He toed off his sneakers, and Simon did the same. Vic took off his holster and laid his rig and gun on the coffee table. He pivoted, making sure Simon rested on his uninjured side, so that they lay back to front on the long couch, with Vic stretched out behind, one arm pillowing Simon’s head, the other hand splayed over his abdomen, protective and claiming.