Stumptown Spirits

by E. J. Russell

  He didn’t want that for Riley, so he’d done his damnedest to make himself unworthy of devotion. Why couldn’t the man take the fucking hint that Logan had scattered all over their bedroom floor?

  Logan stormed down the hallway to the office. Bert Johnson, his short-term boss, sat at his desk, scowling at his dinosaur of a computer monitor and poking at the keyboard with both index fingers.

  Logan took an unsteady breath and grabbed a discarded bar towel from the back of a chair to hide his trembling hands. “You’d finish that a lot quicker if you learned how to type.”

  “Bah.” Bert didn’t bother to glance up. “Bunch of nonsense. Pen and paper were just fine in my day.”

  “Hate to tell you this, but it’s still your day.” But it wouldn’t be Logan’s day. Not for much longer. He had to remember that. Had to resist the temptation sitting at the end of the bar, an impossible feat if he got within touching distance of Riley. “How about this? You take my bar shift tonight, and I’ll finish the bookkeeping.”

  Bert raised a shaggy eyebrow, his long face and narrow chin making him look like a Victorian pen-and-ink illustration of Marley’s ghost. “You don’t get tips from bookkeeping.”

  “I know.” It didn’t matter. He’d have given the money away anyway. “Come on. You know you’d rather pour beer than inventory it.”

  Bert pushed himself out of his chair and stalked to the door. “Your funeral.”

  Logan dropped onto the unforgiving wooden seat. “It’s my butt’s funeral in this chair. Christ, Bert. Get a pad, for God’s sake.”

  He snorted. “Young folks. So soft. In my day, we knew how to make do.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Big talk. Go on. You’ve got a bar full of thirsty people.”

  Bert disappeared down the hall with another snort, as close as he ever came to laughter, and Logan settled into the hard chair. Maybe the discomfort would keep his mind off the fact that Riley was bare yards away.

  Nope. Nope. Nope. Thinking about Riley and bare in the same sentence was a recipe for disaster—or at least for a looser pair of pants.

  Perched on a barstool at the short arm of the L-shaped bar in Stumptown Spirits, Riley tried to focus on the notes he was compiling for his unwanted starring role at tomorrow’s production meeting. The heels of his new Converse high-tops bounced on the brass foot rail in time with the tap of his pencil on his legal pad, and his attention was hopelessly split between his work and the mouth of the hall where Logan should appear within—Riley checked his watch—seven minutes.

  Whenever someone emerged from the hallway, his stomach leaped for his rib cage. Whenever it wasn’t Logan, his stupid nonaerodynamic stomach went into free fall. By the time Logan actually showed up, Riley would probably be ready to puke on his shoes.

  Not the reunion he had in mind.

  He smiled at the friendly waitress who’d greeted him when he came in, and let his gaze wander around the room. Sheesh. Talk about your no-frills bars.

  Tucked into Portland Old Town with an emphasis on the old, the place was . . . plain. No neon beer logos in the windows. No big-screen TVs blaring sportscasts. Nothing on any of the bare plank tables that might be mistaken as decorative, although the rough-paneled walls sported a few faded sepia photographs of early Portland, back in the days when it had deserved its “Stumptown” nickname.

  The booths along the side walls were flanked by rustic settles rather than upholstered benches, and the chairs grouped around the tables were a mishmash of styles, from cane-bottomed bentwood to rough-hewn wooden stools.

  The bar was only two steps removed from dive status, and that confused him. He knew he was in the right spot. After all, research was his middle name, although Max would no doubt mock him by calling it wesearch. But why would Logan, with his love of elegant buildings and classic design, settle for a job somewhere so relentlessly . . . unlovely? In Eugene, he’d worked in a place noted for its architectural charm and historical significance, even though it had been packed to the rafters with half-drunk college kids six days out of seven.

  Yet Logan had left that job, left their funky apartment, left Riley, for this. Why?

  His whole life, whenever he’d been faced with a mystery or conundrum, Riley became obsessed with understanding why. It was the reason he’d gravitated to folklore in the first place. All the stories, from the grand mythic cycles to the smallest homely tales, were human attempts to make sense of their world. To understand why something happened the way it did. Why a person behaved one way and not another.

  This was his chance to demand his own personal why from Logan. How could he refuse The Call? No hero in any of the tales, great or small, let this kind of opening pass. The upshot of second chances wasn’t always positive—just ask Orpheus—but no hero worth his journey ever backed down from this perfect an opportunity.

  He’d take Logan’s dismissal, if that’s what was coming. But he refused to let the man sidestep the conversation. Who knew? Maybe he’d manage to land a few jabs of his own, make Logan feel a fraction of the hurt he’d inflicted on Riley. Did that make him a bad person? Perhaps. But damn it, he couldn’t move on until he knew why.

  The bartender who’d served Riley his Coke waved at the waitress and disappeared down the hallway at the open end of the bar. Riley tensed, his fingers tightening around his pencil. His breath sped up. He brushed salt and pretzel crumbs off the front of his sweater, fighting the urge to smooth down his hair. Should he push his notes aside and sip his Coke, try to appear casual and unconcerned? Or should he pretend to be busy, important, just here by accident? So overcome by some brilliant insight that he’d had to duck into the nearest convenient watering hole to capture his thoughts?

  Riiiight. Nobody, not even HttM’s gullible dwindling audience, would buy that one.

  He took a gulp of his Coke, wishing he’d ordered a beer after all. Judging by his skittering nerves, caffeine had clearly been the wrong choice. God, he probably looked as panicked as a wabbit in the crosshairs. Get your game face on. This is a confrontation, damn it. He ought to scowl, look tough—or at least as tough as he could manage.

  But he didn’t have to bother because the guy who emerged from the hallway wasn’t Logan. Not even close.

  Instead of six foot three of broad-shouldered, square-jawed, tight-muscled man candy, the man who shuffled behind the bar could have modeled for Munch’s The Scream.

  Riley ducked his head, thumbing through his notes, trying not to let his disappointment show. He’d triple-checked the schedule he’d conned out of a harried server, while attempting to convince himself he wasn’t turning into a creepy stalker ex. So where was Logan? Could his research be that faulty?

  Suddenly, a narrow shadow fell over his legal pad. Every hair on the back of his neck sprang to attention, and a chill crept between his shoulder blades. He glanced up, directly into the eyes of the cadaverous bartender.

  The man loomed over him and sniffed as if he were tracking down a nasty odor, the nostrils on his beak of a nose flaring. His brows pinched together over deep-set eyes colder than a frost giant’s balls. “Bitch.” The voice matched the face, grim and unforgiving.

  Sure, Riley wasn’t the butchest of guys, but he didn’t exactly flame either. Yeah, he’d worn his best sweater, a cashmere V-neck that had cost nearly as much as his second-hand laptop, but it was burgundy, not pink or lavender. It matched his shoes—was that a giveaway? But the bartender couldn’t see his shoes, and when strangers decided to hassle him, they usually passed through a rainbow of other gay slurs—queer, faggot, pansy, homo—before they hit on the b-word. And they certainly had never smelled him first.

  “I . . . um . . . Excuse me?”

  “We don’t serve your kind here,” he growled.

  Riley shifted on the unyielding wooden stool and glanced around at the other people in the bar. It was about half-full, mostly men, but a few women too. He’d bet his prized autographed copy of The Hero’s Journey that some of those men—and maybe some of the women
for all he knew—were gay. Why single him out?

  “I don’t want any twouble.” He winced. “Trouble. Just enjoying your . . . um . . . local dw—draft soft drinks.” He lifted his Coke, his shaking hand sending the half-melted ice cubes into a chittering mambo.

  “Get out.”

  Riley stalled with the glass halfway to his mouth. “What?” he croaked.

  “You heard me. This is my place, and I have the right to refuse service.”

  “But I’m not doing anything.”

  The other men sitting at the bar eased away, drifting to empty tables to distance themselves from angry-bartender fallout. Riley wished he could do the same, or maybe disappear through a convenient inter-dimensional portal.

  “You disgust me. That’s something. Get out. Now.”

  Riley’s hand jerked, and he lost his grip on the glass. It toppled over, and as the spreading brown puddle seeped onto his notes, his face heated until he felt as if he could barbecue on his forehead. Portland was supposed to be such a liberal city. He’d never imagined he’d get hit with homophobic crap here. He scrabbled the soggy papers together and shoved them in his messenger bag along with his tattered copy of The Golden Bough.

  God, how could Logan work for this guy? Although Logan could pass for straight in any lineup, he’d never suffered bigots gladly—or at all.

  Clutching his bag against his chest, Riley slid off the barstool and did his best to make an unobtrusive exit. Before he could slink out the door, the server caught up with him and tapped his arm.

  “Listen. I’m sorry about . . .” she jerked her head at the guy behind the bar, who was attacking Riley’s spilled Coke as if it was hazardous waste “. . . you know. The boss. I’m not sure what his deal is. He’s never thrown anyone out before. Come back tomorrow, okay? He won’t be here.” She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder. “Our regular bartender is much nicer, believe me, and I really think you should meet him.”

  Yeah. I do too. “I’ll try.”

  She scurried off, and Riley wrestled the heavy wooden door open. Outside, as the crisp night air cooled his face, he slumped against the wall, chin to his chest, and tried to collect his shot-to-hell wits.

  “Nice bag, faggot.”

  Riley’s head jerked up. Two guys in standard street-punk gear stood by the curb, sneering at him. Seriously? Twice in one night? So far, Portland wasn’t thrilling him with its stellar hospitality. The sooner he got back to his room, the better.

  But when the two of them flanked him, blocking his path down the sidewalk in either direction, he gulped around a lump the size of his heart. Shit. Classic Riley Morrel tactical error. How many times had Logan ragged on him for not paying enough attention to his surroundings? Maybe he should have taken the warnings more to heart.

  He edged along the wall, the rough bricks catching the back of his sweater. “Hey, guys. Not looking for a hassle.”

  The bigger one grinned, the chains on his leather jacket chinking as he hemmed Riley in. “Too bad.” He yanked the bag out of Riley’s hands and tossed it to his buddy, who rooted through it and dropped a fistful of Coke-infused notes onto the sidewalk with a sodden plop.

  Riley lunged for the soggy papers. The bag these goons could keep. But his research? His notes? Those he’d fight for.

  But the big leather-jacketed guy blocked him and shoved him toward the street. As Riley stumbled over the curb and into a puddle of icy water that soaked through his high-tops and socks, he remembered the crucial thing about the stages of the Hero’s Journey.

  Most of them really freaking sucked.

  Logan hunched over the keyboard, shifting from one numb butt cheek to the other, clammy damp denim making the hard chair a double torture. The window beyond the monitor framed a slice of the sidewalk at the end of the alley, where Leather-dude and Denim-boy still loitered. If they were hoping for another chance to strut their lame macho bullshit with Logan, they’d be waiting a long time.

  Logan had more important battles to fight. With himself.

  Damn it. He’d known Riley—who never quit until he ferreted out the answer to any question—would locate Logan someday if he wanted to. So Logan had done everything he could to make Riley not want to find him, because he didn’t have a choice, and Riley made him want a choice.

  He reached under the collar of his Henley and pulled out the chain he’d worn since the night he’d left, the one that held the rings he’d bought when he’d decided to give up his quest. He unhooked the clasp and coiled the whole gleaming mess in his palm.

  Riley had tempted Logan to violate his own sense of right and wrong—no, screw tempted. He’d succeeded. Logan had been ready to ignore the debt he’d left behind him in Forest Park that night seven years ago when his own idiocy and carelessness had consigned another man to hell.

  In the beginning, Riley had been his last-ditch effort to find the answer to his impossible riddle. But that had been when he’d thought Riley was just a resource like all the others before him, someone to pump for information and move on. Logan had kept their first conversation casual, like he always did—general Witch’s Castle lore, nothing about his own experience or his grandfather’s, not yet. Sure, the kid was cute, but a killer ass didn’t translate into the expertise Logan needed, and he’d never entrusted the whole sorry story to anyone.

  Then, on the night he’d watched Riley stand up to a bar full of drunken assholes, earnestly defending folklore as a way of life, he’d been intrigued enough to offer Riley a ride home. A guy with that kind of passion, that unshakeable confidence in his own knowledge and abilities, was worth a second shot.

  The instant Riley’s hard-on had snugged against Logan’s ass, he’d decided to postpone sharing the unbelievable—and mortifying—personal revelations until after a little recreational sex, because after all, nothing would manifest at that damn fork in the path for another eleven months.

  But something had changed that night, the first time he’d kissed Riley, the first time they’d lain skin to skin, the first time he’d heard Riley gasp and moan with Logan’s dick buried in that perfect ass. He’d drowned in the look in Riley’s dark eyes, the look that proclaimed Logan as some kind of superhero.

  He couldn’t bear to watch that adulation vanish into contempt, or disgust, or worst of all pity. So he’d hedged. He’d told Riley about the night his grandfather had witnessed the ghost war, but not about what happened to him afterward—the accusations, the arrest, the delusions, the disgrace. What sane man would want to hook up with a guy from that train wreck of a family?

  He hadn’t told Riley about his own experience either. About Trent. Because the shame of what he’d done, his failure, his guilt—well, that made him look like a full-time loser too. And after that first night, it had become vitally important that Riley think well of him. Respect him. Love him.

  Riley had listened with flattering attention as Logan related the redacted version, but had said he wasn’t really an expert on ghosts. Logan had been relieved. Used that as an excuse. I’ve done everything I can and nothing worked. Nobody can expect anything more of me, right? It hadn’t stopped him from making excuses to Riley the night of October seventeenth and taking one last trip to Forest Park. When midnight came and went, once again with no sign of the ghosts, he’d said his last apologies, his final farewell.

  He’d returned to Eugene and had dived into the happiest seven months of his life.

  In his years on the road after Trent’s disappearance, searching for an answer to something he was starting to disbelieve himself, Logan had learned to travel light. With Riley, though, he’d let himself get sloppy. Domestic. They’d acquired dishes. A dining table. Matching towels, for God’s sake.

  A bed.

  He’d been content, for Chrissake, comforting himself with the delusion that he’d given Trent his best shot. He still couldn’t believe he’d been that selfish, that complacent, nearly forgetting his best friend, who had no means of rescue, no one to depend on but Logan. But he had
. Riley had almost made him forget.

  Ironically, Riley had also made him remember, and unwittingly shown him what he had to do. Once he’d had the answer, the way to end Trent’s torment, he’d been forced to make a choice: stay, saddling his lover with a man who was little better than a murderer, or go, and prove himself the kind of man Riley deserved by accepting his own responsibilities.

  When he’d finally manned up to his obligations and bailed, leaving Riley had nearly gutted him. Tears that had nothing to do with the wind in his face had blurred his eyes as he sped north on his bike, every signpost on the highway another spike in his heart.

  Abandoning the possessions, though, the evidence of those months of self-indulgence—that had been a fucking piece of cake. He’d left them all behind and gladly.

  Except the rings. Those he’d never give up.

  “Hey, Logan.” Heather’s low voice from the doorway interrupted his brooding.

  He shoved the rings in the front pocket of his jeans and swiveled the chair to face her. “Hey. Sorry I bailed on you. Bert giving you his usual grief?”

  “Not me.” She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. “That cute guy. Bert just kicked him out of the bar.”

  Logan’s caveman instincts roused with a roar, his belly burning with the need to clock his boss in the face. He unclenched his jaw. “You’re kidding. Bouncing isn’t in his job description.” Bert always delegated that task, another on Logan’s list of least favorite and therefore most sought-after duties.

  “He made an exception this time.” She wrapped her arms across her belly. “I felt so bad for him. The guy. Not Bert.”

  “I get it.”

  God, poor Riley. He hated confrontational shit, which was the prime reason Logan had opted for the coward’s way out. Sure, he could have staged the bogus breakup scene in the bar where he’d worked, or at one of the nonstop pregraduation parties that had been going on for over a week, ensuring that he’d never come within fifty feet of Logan again. But Logan hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. He’d hurt Riley, but at least he’d done it in private.