by Avery Ford
It was terrifying that the something was Hale.
“Just get it cleaned up, okay?” Austin murmured. “I’ll see you later, twerp.”
He shut himself back inside his apartment, twisted the lock, but felt no compulsion to slide the deadbolt into place or slot the chain into its catch. Instead, he leaned back against the door and sucked in a deep, grounding breath. His heart was racing.
Nothing had happened with Hale apart from a conversation, but that didn’t stop Austin’s insides from tumbling around inside of him like they were goddamn acrobats in a bounce house.
He closed his eyes, let the deep breath out slowly through his nose, and slid his hand down over the erection he’d been unable to hide out in the hallway. Pleasure shot through him, more urgent and intense than it had ever been before, parting his lips in a silent moan.
After months of therapy, of tweaking his meds, and of abundant self-care, something was finally happening... and it was all thanks to the guy across the hall.
Chapter Four
Hale
Hale glared at the door across the hall. Austin was gone, but there was still an itchy feeling in Hale’s chest that he didn’t appreciate. For one, he had no idea that Austin was back in town—he’d left for the Navy with Michael after they’d graduated high school and claimed that he’d never be back. At the time, that had been fine with Hale. Austin had been the one he wanted, but the one he could never have ever since their paths had crossed at that house party. The idea of sharing tiny Hidden Creek with an untouchable source of temptation was cruel, and while a part of Hale despaired when Austin left, a part of him celebrated, too.
It hadn’t helped him move on to bigger, better things—his dating life was pretty much non-existent, and he found he wasn’t interested in trying to change that—but it had, at least, taken some pressure off. No more worrying about awkward encounters at Rocket, or running into each other while getting a cup of coffee to go at Grind.
But no more eye candy, either, which Hale had taken as a loss. At least, until Austin had come knocking, accusing him of starting trouble.
The nerve of that man. He has absolutely nothing to do with me his whole senior year at high school, then pops back into my life at the worst time.
When Hale was sure that Austin wasn’t coming back, he let himself back into Michael’s apartment and returned to searching the rooms. The apartment didn’t seem half as frightening as it had before, and Hale was able to investigate without sending his heart racing. Probably, he figured, because he wasn’t being too distracted by the man living next door.
He checked the bathroom first—it was the first room accessible from the front door. Hale reached around the doorway to flip on the light, not wanting to step inside until he knew exactly what was waiting for him. The bathroom was empty. It smelled faintly of urine. Hale wrinkled his nose and stepped inside to take a better look around. He knew that Michael was a bachelor, but even that didn’t excuse him from cleaning the place up. No wonder why it stank all the way out into the hall.
The white tile floor was in need of being cleaned—there were dust bunnies behind the toilet and crammed into the corner space where the sink cabinet met the wall. A small puddle of urine had dried on the floor near the toilet, its faint yellow color only visible because the tiles were so pale. Austin stopped just short of it. The toilet seat was up, and the water was a very pale yellow—the last time Michael had used the toilet, he hadn’t flushed. And, if Hale was measuring right, it looked like he’d pissed on the floor, too. A few streaks of dried urine down the side of the toilet told Hale that the dried puddle on the floor was probably made at the same time that the rest of the mess was.
Why would Michael have pissed on the floor and left? Hale had never heard him complain about the apartment management before. He didn’t think that Michael was trying to make a point before leaving in a huff, especially since he’d left all of his belongings. Something else had happened here—he just couldn’t tell what.
Hale took his phone from his pocket and snapped a few pictures. He debated leaving the mess as-is, in case a police investigation was necessary, but decided against it. He closed the toilet lid gingerly and flushed the toilet, then checked the shower to make sure everything was in order there. Michael had clear shower curtains—a blessing in a tense time like this—so Hale already knew nothing was waiting around it to jump out at him. He saw nothing behind the curtain, and no mess in the tub, so he left the bathroom, turned off the light, and continued on his way.
The entrance hall led to the living room. Hale had already turned the television off, but he realized he hadn’t given the rest of the room a hard look. He returned to the coffee table and took a look at what was on it. Apart from the bills and pay stubs cluttering one end of the table, there was a mug of partially consumed coffee sitting out. Like the chicken in the sink, it had started to mold over. Fuzzy bluish-green mold ringed with white floated on the surface of the coffee and clung to the sides of the mug. Hale made a face, snapped a picture, and decided to leave the coffee where it was. Apart from being nasty, it wasn’t particularly offensive, and if he needed to get an investigator in here, he wanted to leave as many things as he could untouched. He’d already disturbed the putrid chicken breast, but if he could leave the coffee, he’d figured it’d be helpful. Investigators could track things like mold growth, couldn’t they? They’d be able to see how long it had been sitting out if they needed to.
There was nothing else of interest that Hale noticed in the living room. Michael had a few more bills stacked on a table near the television and some general clutter spread across his shelves, but nothing that would give away his whereabouts. Hale pulled the couch cushions off the couch, just to check for something he might have otherwise missed and opened the drawers on the television stand to see if there was anything suspicious left inside. Nothing. From the living room, Hale headed back into the kitchen. He found a plastic bag, picked up the putrid chicken with the knife he’d poked it with before, then turned it around so he could snap a picture of the mold with his phone. As soon as he was done, he tossed it into the bag. It crinkled against the plastic and wafted an awful smell his way. Gagging, Hale tied the handles of the bag shut and dropped it back in the sink. Unless he carried it out of the apartment, it’d sit and continue to mold in the trash, anyway. At least this way, if an investigator came, he wouldn’t need to dig it out of the rest of Michael’s garbage.
There was nothing else in the kitchen that merited investigation. Hale didn’t want to open the fridge—if the chicken in the sink was bad, he could only imagine what else was rotting inside. At least if it stayed shut, it wouldn’t contribute to the stink. Hopefully, now that the chicken was sealed in a plastic bag, the smell would diminish enough that the rest of the inhabitants of the apartment wouldn’t be accosted by it. He didn’t want Michael to be negatively impacted by this.
All of this had to be a mistake.
Maybe a friend of Michael’s had shown up unexpectedly and invited him on a road trip. Maybe Michael had heard that one of his Navy friends was back on US soil after sustaining an injury and had gone to visit him in the hospital. Hale knew he was grasping at straws, but he wanted desperately for his cousin to be okay, and the more he looked around the apartment, the more panicked he became.
He wished Uncle John had taken him seriously. At twenty-one, Hale didn’t feel like much of an adult. Confronted with something as serious as his cousin’s disappearance, he felt even more ill-equipped to handle the pressures of life.
Uncle John was always sure of himself. He would have known what to do.
Hale left the kitchen. There was one more room left to explore—the bedroom. He’d been putting it off, hoping that he might find a definitive sign of what had happened to Michael elsewhere in the apartment, but it looked like that wasn’t on the agenda. He approached the bedroom once more, standing in the doorframe for a prolonged moment before reaching into the room to flip on the lights. As
the darkness gave way to light, he braced himself for the worst, only to find nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
The bed was made. The room was tidy. Michael’s dirty clothes were thrown in a basket in the corner of the room, a wayward pair of jeans hanging clumsily over the edge, spilling onto the floor. The carpet Michael had laid beneath the bed looked vacuumed and well-cared for, and the curtains hanging over the window looked recently laundered. There wasn’t anything moldy, messy, or out of place.
And there was no Michael.
Hale checked the closet, certain that he’d find something grisly behind it, but all he found were Michael’s clothes and a few storage containers packed with personal belongings. Hale blinked, looked back over the room, and tried to connect the dots. Michael wasn’t in the apartment, which was a good thing because it meant that he hadn’t necessarily been killed, but was bad because Hale had no idea where he might be if he was alive. The impromptu visit to one of his old Navy buddies seemed likely, but it didn’t explain why Michael wouldn’t have answered his texts or calls.
And it didn’t explain why he’d left chicken in the sink and urine in the toilet and on the bathroom floor.
By the bedside was a notepad. The room was so tidy that it stood out. Hale approached it and looked down at the top page. On it were a series of dots and lines that brought him right back to his childhood.
The secret code...
Once upon a time, when the world was all about summer vacation and trips to the Hidden Creek public pool, Hale and Michael had come up with a code. It wasn’t particularly complex, and it would have taken anyone who was interested in cracking it all of maybe half an hour to figure out, but to young-Hale, it had been the coolest thing ever. In the heat of the summer sun, he’d exchanged coded messages with Michael while they got up to trouble together, pretending to be spies. Some days, they’d sneak out to the outskirts of town and explore by the railroad tracks, looking for secrets in the tall grass. On other days, they’d wait in ambush in the bushes by the pond in Moore Wood park, then spring out of nowhere to terrorize the geese who called the pond their home, pretending they were turncoat spies who’d been leaking US secrets to the enemy.
You know, in retrospect, maybe that’s why that goose is always so damned angry when he sees me...
He’d forgotten all about their adventures as spies, and the code they’d created together, after the summer had passed, but Michael was four years older than him, and it seemed like his attention span wasn’t quite as short. Hale glanced over the message on the page, trying to remember what the series of dots and lines meant. Slowly, he deciphered the message.
Grind at eight. Don’t forget. Quarter down, or they will come.
“What are you talking about, Michael?” Hale asked under his breath. He lifted the top page to see if there was anything else written underneath, but the rest of the pages were blank. It looked like this was the only clue he had as to what Michael had been doing before he disappeared.
At least now he had a lead. If he could avoid dragging the police into this, he would. After all, it wasn’t entirely unlike Michael to disappear for long stretches of time while he was licking his wounds... but there was something about all of this that set off Hale’s warning bells like nothing else. This time, it wasn’t just a coincidence that Michael had gone—he knew it.
Something strange was going on, and until Hale knew for sure that his cousin was okay, he wasn’t going to give up on it. He’d find Michael no matter what it took. With some luck, a visit to Grind would cast some light on the situation and put his worry to rest.
Chapter Five
Austin
The oven timer snapped Austin back to reality. He opened his eyes, blinked a few times until his vision had adjusted to the light, and tucked his dick back into his boxers. The depression medication he’d been put on dampened his sex drive, and it was rare that he felt horny, but the spark he’d felt out in the hall hadn’t left him alone, and he’d decided to capitalize on his good mood while he still had it.
He’d forgotten that he was in the process of making a casserole for dinner.
Flush-faced and unsatisfied, he rose from the couch, washed his hands in the kitchen sink, then turned off the timer and checked on the casserole. The breadcrumb layer on top looked toasted and crisp. Satisfied, he made sure his hands were completely dry, then grabbed a pot holder from the magnetic hook he’d stuck to the fridge and took the casserole out of the oven. It smelled great, which was surprising. These days, Austin didn’t have much of an appetite, and eating was more of a chore than a pleasure.
He set the casserole on the stove and went to take a plate from the cabinet only to find that his hand was shaking again. Disappointment and anger shot through him so swiftly, he didn’t have time to talk himself down. He balled his fists and slammed them onto the counter, enraged that his body was betraying him, but there was nothing he could do to stop the trembling now that it had begun.
If Dr. Shimota had been there to see him, she would have gently urged him to take a deep breath and reframe the situation—after the accident, of course he was going to be changed. His uncontrollable tremor was inconvenient and embarrassing, but no one was going to hold it against him. He was strong, and capable, and what had happened to him was beyond his control. She’d tell him that it was natural to be frustrated, but that it was a part of life, and that he needed to accept that it was a part of who he was now.
But Dr. Shimota wasn’t there, and Austin thought that was goddamn bullshit.
If the crash had not happened, he wouldn’t have had to leave the Navy. If he’d been able to fully recover, he never would have had to return to the small town that had only been his home for a short time, but that had somehow hooked its claws into him and refused to let go. If he’d fully recovered, maybe Eleanor would still be in his life.
Bitterness added to Austin’s foul mood, and he pushed off the counter and took a plate from the cabinet with shaking hands. It clattered as he set it down, and when he pulled open the drawer beneath the cabinet, the wooden sides knocked against the track and made a racket. He managed to grab a fork after a moment’s struggle, then set it on the plate, listening to the tink tink tink as the metal of the fork hit the ceramic plate again and again.
It was a problem with his nerves, the doctors had told him. Nerve damage wasn’t something they could repair, and while time would improve his condition, he would likely never get back to the way he had been before. His healthy, able body had deserted him. For the rest of his life, he’d be incomplete—missing a part of himself that he’d always taken for granted.
Austin carried the plate and the fork across the room to the oven. As he did, the fork continued to clink against the plate as his hand shook. He set it on the presently cooled burner of the stove, reached for a serving spoon in the utensil holder, and tried his best to clear his mind. The tenser he was, the worse the tremor became.
With some difficulty, he scooped a serving of casserole onto his plate, then went to sit down on the couch and eat. The rest of the casserole—enough to feed a family—was left on the stove to cool. He’d made too much, just like always, but there was something about cooking that let him forget about his struggles.
Figures that I like to cook, but nothing ever sounds good.
He was hungry, and he had an appetite for what he’d made, but Austin still found himself spacing out after he sat on the couch. His mind wandered back to the encounter in the hallway. He had more than enough casserole to share, and if Hale hadn’t mouthed off on him, maybe he would have invited him over to have some. He’d been close with Michael all through his senior year, after all, and even though Austin was pretty sure that Hale had a crush on him back then, they were different people now. High school crushes didn’t last. High school friendships sure didn’t.
Austin stuck his fork into his casserole. It was still steaming, which meant it was probably too hot to eat, but he tempted fate and tried a bite, anyw
ay. It was way too hot. He held his mouth open and breathed outward, trying to cool it off in desperation, then bit the bullet and swallowed it. He’d burned the roof of his mouth and probably his tongue.
Great.
Would Hale still have a crush on him now that he was returned from war defective? Austin set his plate aside and leaned back against the arm of the couch as he explored the thought. Back then, he’d been on top of the world—young, virile, and unstoppable. Now he was dead inside and less-than-whole on the outside. Hale hadn’t given him any pity out in the hall, but maybe it was because he didn’t understand the extent of Austin’s damage from what he’d seen. His injuries weren’t immediately visible, after all.
Once Hale learned the truth, Austin was pretty sure whatever interest he still had in him would wither and die. The thought troubled him in ways it shouldn’t have—Austin wasn’t gay, after all—but the thought of being desired made him feel better about himself, even if he didn’t reciprocate those feelings... and Hale was cute for a guy. Austin was comfortable enough with his sexuality to admit that.
He looked at the casserole, hoping it had cooled down enough to eat. It was still steaming, so Austin sank down on the couch and stared at the ceiling. He traced the popcorn finish mindlessly, kernel by kernel.
Would he ever feel desired again?
At twenty-five, he should have been at the prime of his life. He hadn’t even started to live yet. But it already felt like his life was over, and the only way forward for him was also the way down. He’d land some crappy job, make barely enough to pay the bills, find some local girl who he’d known in high school, and lead a stagnant, passionless life. If it wasn’t for the fact that the rehabilitation therapist he’d been referred to lived in town, he would have already gone... but that didn’t seem like an option when he had to check in every month to report on his progress.