Oleander House: A Bay City Paranormal Investigation

by Ally Blue

  Sam wanted badly to pull Bo into his arms, hold him and kiss his hair and let Bo’s warmth soak into him. But his guilt was too big for him to reach across. He took a slow, deep breath.

  “Maybe we’re both a little bit to blame,” Sam said quietly. “But in the end, I’m still the focus. I’m still the conduit it used to manifest itself. And I can’t put that responsibility on anyone else. Not when I knew what I was, and what could happen if I wasn’t careful.”

  A uniformed officer exited the building and motioned them to follow, stopping anything else Bo might’ve said. They trailed after him and climbed obediently into the back of the squad car. Sam gazed out the window during the short drive to the motel. The sky had clouded over. Thunder shook the humid air, bursts of wind ruffling the trees.

  When they reached their destination, Sam and Bo got out of the patrol car and walked inside without a word. The group’s three rooms were all on the same floor, but not next to each other. They reached the room Bo and Andre were sharing first. Bo glanced at the closed door, then turned back to Sam with a kind of desperation shining in his eyes.

  “I won’t leave Bay City Paranormal in the lurch,” Sam promised, guessing what Bo was thinking. “Unless you don’t want me back.”

  Bo let out a quiet little laugh. Then before Sam quite knew what was happening, Bo pulled him into a tight hug.

  “You have to come back, Sam,” Bo whispered against his cheek. “I need you to. This isn’t finished.”

  For the first time in longer than he could remember, a sense of real hope bloomed in Sam’s heart. He slipped his arms around Bo’s waist, closed his eyes and breathed in Bo’s scent.

  “I know. I’m not leaving.” Sam swallowed against the ache in his throat. “Unless they lock me up.”

  “They won’t.” Bo pulled back, sliding his hand down to clasp Sam’s. “The cops don’t like it, but they don’t have any evidence against any of us. For the very good reason that we didn’t…”

  Bo choked and trailed off, but Sam understood. Neither of them needed to voice it.

  “‘Night, Bo,” Sam said. “See you in the morning.”

  Bo didn’t answer. Instead, he hooked a hand behind Sam’s neck and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He was gone before Sam could react, sliding the keycard into its slot and slipping into his motel room.

  Sam stood there for several minutes, staring at the door and wondering. When he finally headed toward his own room, the icy lump in his belly had thawed just a little.

  Epilogue

  One Month Later

  Sam fell across the bed with a sigh of relief. “I don’t ever want to move again,” he muttered, eyes closed.

  No one was there to answer him. He hadn’t seen any of his co-workers for over a week, ever since they’d been allowed to leave Gautier. He’d driven straight from the motel to the apartment in Mobile he’d rented weeks before but hadn’t yet seen. The nine days since had been spent buying groceries and secondhand furniture and trying to turn the place into a home. Luckily, that wasn’t a difficult task.

  He hadn’t given much thought to the place when he’d rented it. He’d needed something quickly. This apartment was available and the rent was reasonable, so he’d taken it without worrying about what it was like. What he’d found was a small but beautiful one-bedroom on the second floor of a converted nineteenth-century mansion, with hardwood floors and large windows looking out over a narrow, tree-lined street. He’d loved it right away.

  He’d just hauled the last piece of furniture into the apartment. It should have been a relief to have the work done, but it wasn’t. Not when he had nothing left to keep his mind occupied.

  “Don’t think about it,” he ordered himself when all the unanswered questions started whispering in his ear. He glanced at the clock. “Go make dinner. It’s after seven.”

  Nodding to himself, he pushed to his feet and shuffled into the kitchen. “Yeah, dinner. That’s the thing. A frozen pizza, maybe. And a beer.” He laughed. “And for fuck’s sake, stop talking to yourself.”

  Easier said than done. He smiled grimly. Since leaving Gautier, he’d been thinking out loud constantly. Partly because it drowned out all the things he didn’t want to think of, but also because for the first time in his life he missed having someone else to talk to. He’d found friends in the members of Bay City Paranormal Investigations, and their absence left an empty space in his life.

  Sam hadn’t talked to Bo, David or Andre much during their time at the motel. Bo and David had taken turns staying with Andre, making sure he wasn’t left alone. The three of them had drawn together in their grief for Amy. Sam didn’t begrudge them that time. He understood that they all needed it. He and Cecile had come together in their own way. They’d spent hours talking over the events in Oleander House, trying to figure it all out. The only thing they’d accomplished was to raise more questions, ones they couldn’t answer.

  Predictably, thinking of his conversations with Cecile led to thoughts of Oleander House and all that had happened there. The dreams, the thing he’d called up and ultimately faced down.

  Amy’s lifeless body in Andre’s arms. The feel of Bo writhing under him, Bo’s mouth open and hungry on his.

  The tentative knock on the door was a welcome distraction from the memories that wouldn’t leave him alone. “Coming!” he called.

  The last person he’d expected to see standing in the hallway was Bo. Sam blinked, surprise holding him frozen.

  The corner of Bo’s mouth curved up in an uncertain half-smile. “Hi, Sam. Can I come in?”

  Sam stood silently aside. Bo edged past him, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, with dark shadows underneath. Sam longed to hold him, stroke his hair and comfort him, but didn’t dare. One thing Sam had learned in the past month was that Bo preferred to grieve in private.

  “So,” Sam said, finding his voice at last. “What’s up?”

  Bo glanced out the window, licking his lips, and Sam abruptly realized that Bo was nervous. “We never really got a chance to talk much,” Bo said. “In Gautier, I mean. After.”

  Oh. That. Sam swallowed, his nerves jangling. “No, we didn’t.” He gestured toward the battered two-seater sofa and mismatched recliner. “Sit down. You want a drink or something?”

  “No thanks.” Bo perched uneasily on the edge of the sofa, fingers twisting absently together. “Look, Sam, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  Nothing that started that way, Sam thought, could possibly be good. He sat in the recliner, which squealed in protest, and plastered what he hoped was a relaxed smile on his face. “What is it?”

  Bo looked down at his lap. “You weren’t the first.”

  Sam frowned. “First what?”

  “The first man that I…” Bo cleared his throat. “You weren’t the first.”

  Sam stared, shocked. He savagely suppressed his instinctive hurt and anger. Bo had something to say, and Sam was determined to listen calmly and without judgment. “Tell me.”

  Bo drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was after I met Janine, but before we got married. We’d only been going out for a few months at that point, actually. She got a job in Chicago, working for a newspaper there. She’s a journalist, you know,” he added with a little smile. “Anyway. She broke up with me. She said there was no way we could sustain a long-distance relationship, and it was better this way.”

  Bo fell silent, but Sam thought he could guess what was coming next. “Go on,” he urged. “I’m listening.”

  Bo didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, his voice had dropped to a near whisper. “I was upset, but not so much because she’d left. More because I wasn’t as upset as I thought I should be, you know? I felt…I don’t even know. I missed her, but not the way I thought I should have.”

  “What happened, Bo?” Sam asked gently.

  “I met this guy in New Orleans,” Bo said in a voice full of misery. “I’d gone there fo
r the weekend with some friends, and Cal and I met at the Voodoo museum. He worked there. We just, we got along so well, and I was lonely and confused because of what I did and didn’t feel about Janine leaving me, and one thing led to another, and we…” Bo closed his eyes tight, brows drawn together. “We never had sex. But the way he touched me…God, it was good. Better than anything with Janine ever was. I spent most of the weekend in his bed, and it was amazing. It turned my entire fucking life upside down.”

  Sam thought back to the conversation he’d overheard between Bo and Amy, another lifetime ago, and a sudden flash of insight hit him. “Amy was there, wasn’t she? She was one of the friends you went to New Orleans with.”

  Bo nodded. “She caught Cal and me kissing. You know how she is—” He stopped, voice breaking. “How she was. She didn’t leave me alone until I told her the whole story. She tried to tell me that it meant more than just satisfying some strange, one-time urge. She said I’d regret it if I tried to brush off what happened with Cal as an anomaly in my life.” Bo let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “She was right. I wish I could tell her that.”

  Sam felt a pang of sympathy, recalling the first time he’d recognized the tingly feeling he got looking at other boys for what it was. When you’ve been brought up to believe that a boy should only feel that way for a girl, it was horribly confusing. He supposed the confusion and trauma of it didn’t lessen any with adulthood.

  “You wanted to deny it,” Sam said softly. “You wanted to pretend it was just experimenting, that it didn’t mean anything.”

  Bo opened his eyes, some of the tension visibly melting from him. “Yes. It scared me. Lafayette isn’t exactly a hotbed of gay culture, you know. I wasn’t brought up to believe it was wrong so much as I was brought up not even realizing it was a possibility. Even when I was at LSU, I didn’t see that side of life, ever. Maybe I just chose not to, I don’t know. But I’d never known anyone who was openly gay, I’d never been exposed to it, and to have those feelings myself was a huge shock. I had no idea how to deal with it.”

  On impulse, Sam reached over and took Bo’s hand. A surge of joy rushed through him when Bo’s fingers curled unhesitatingly around his. “How’d you get back together with Janine?”

  Bo sighed. “She showed up on my doorstep the day after I got back from New Orleans. She told me she’d quit her job in Chicago. She hated the city, she said, and…and she missed me too much.”

  “So you asked her to marry you, thinking it might kill all those feelings you weren’t supposed to have.”

  Bo flashed a tight smile. “Actually, she proposed to me. Right there at the door, with her suitcase still in her hand.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “Wow. Must’ve been true love.” He tried not to sound as jealous as he felt.

  Bo laughed, the sound sharp and bitter. “I used to think so. I’ve wondered since if she ever actually loved me, or if I ever loved her.”

  “But you accepted her proposal,” Sam pointed out. “You married her. You must’ve thought you felt something for her. Right?”

  “That’s what I told myself.” Bo let go of Sam’s hand and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. “I convinced myself that I married her because I loved her. It’s taken me all this time to figure out that the real reason I did it was because I was terrified of what I was. I thought that marriage would make it all go away.”

  “And when it didn’t, you thought having kids would do it.” Sam gazed at Bo with a strange mix of irritation and empathy. “Were there others?”

  Bo shook his head emphatically. “Never. Even when it became clear that it wasn’t working between us, I never once cheated on her.” Bo gave him a sad smile. “Until you came along, that is. You have the dubious honor of being the one and only person to ever tempt me into being unfaithful to my wife.”

  Guilt prodded Sam’s insides. He looked at the floor, feeling his cheeks flush. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.”

  Sam lifted his head and stared keenly into Bo’s eyes. “What?”

  Bo flushed pink. “Maybe I should be, but I’m not. Janine and I have been like strangers for years now. We try to keep it civil, because of the kids, but we barely talk beyond what’s necessary, and we haven’t shared a bed in ages. Maybe this is the catalyst we both need to make us move on with our lives.”

  Sam smiled, his first genuine smile in what felt like forever. “Maybe it is.”

  Bo smiled back at him. “So when are you coming back to work?”

  “Whenever you want me to,” Sam answered, watching Bo’s face. “I need to find some answers, Bo. To what happened in Oleander House.”

  Sorrow filled Bo’s eyes. “You didn’t come to Amy’s funeral.”

  “It was best that way. I know you think no one blames me,” Sam continued before Bo could protest, “but Andre’s bound to blame me at least a little, even if no one else does. I didn’t want to intrude on his grief. Or yours.”

  “You’re wrong, Sam,” Bo said quietly. “We’ve talked about this a lot, and believe me, he doesn’t blame you at all. He blames himself more than anything, because Amy felt uncomfortable there and wanted to leave, and he wouldn’t go.”

  “He couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “He couldn’t, no. And neither could you.”

  Sam stared into Bo’s eyes and felt a little bit better. “Why didn’t it hurt me? I attacked it. I was…” He floundered, searching for the words to describe what he’d felt. “I grabbed the fucking thing. I was inside its mind, Bo. Why didn’t it kill me?

  Why Amy, and not me? He’d asked himself that question more times than he could count, and he hadn’t yet found an answer.

  “That’s what you need the answer to, isn’t it? Why it left you alone, and killed Amy.”

  Bo’s voice was gentle and understanding. Sam swallowed against the lump rising in his throat. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t have an answer for you. I wish I did.” Bo laid a hand on Sam’s knee. “But for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re still here.”

  Sam rested his hand on top of Bo’s, thumb caressing his knuckles. “I want to research this some more. Find out exactly what happened, and keep it from ever happening to anyone else again.”

  “You got it.” Bo stood, letting his fingers slip out from under Sam’s. “I have to go. I need to check on Andre. He’s staying with his sister and her family right now, but David and I are still taking turns looking in on him.”

  Sam nodded, pushing to his feet to follow Bo to the door. “Tell him…” I’m so, so sorry, I’d give anything to bring her back, please forgive me, please… “Tell him I’m thinking of him, huh?”

  Bo smiled. “Sure thing.”

  Bo put a hand on the doorknob, then stopped, let go and turned to face Sam. His need shone clear as daylight in his eyes.

  Sam smiled. Stepping close, he cupped Bo’s face in his palms and pressed a kiss to his lips. Bo made a soft little sound, hands slipping around Sam’s back to rest just above his buttocks. His tongue flicked over Sam’s upper lip as they pulled apart. The feathery touch went straight to Sam’s groin. He reigned himself in with an effort.

  Bo leaned his forehead against Sam’s, fingers idly stroking his back. “This changes everything,” he whispered. “I have to take it slowly.”

  Sam’s heart leapt. “As slow as you need to,” he heard himself promise, and was relieved to find that he meant it. “I won’t rush you.”

  “Thank you.” Bo drew back, his smile wide and unguarded this time, and Sam thought that smile was worth eons of waiting. “I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? We need to talk about work, and I…I’d like to see you again.”

  “Okay.” Sam brushed a thumb over Bo’s lower lip, then let him go. “‘Bye. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” Bo opened the door, smiled over his shoulder and was gone.

  Sam leaned against the wall, trying to absorb what had happened. He couldn’t quite beli
eve what Bo had just told him. Sam grinned at the sunny evening outside his window. Bo wanted to be with him. That simple fact started a warm glow in his belly.

  It surprised him a little that he wanted a relationship with Bo badly enough to wait for it. But he did. He didn’t even mind that he would undoubtedly have to hold Bo’s hand through all the stages of coming out, not to mention teaching him about sex with a man. Being Bo’s sex coach, he figured, could only be a good thing.

  Shoving away from the wall, Sam walked over to stand in front of the window. Outside, the sunset painted the cars and the tidy little houses red and gold. The Spanish moss trailing from the ancient oaks swayed gently in the breeze. Mobile was, Sam thought, a lovely city. A perfect place to make the changes he needed in his life.

  “Sam,” he said out loud, “you’ve got a chance here. Don’t fuck this up.”

  He realized, with something like wonder, that he truly believed he could do it. That he could build a new career for himself, and sustain a successful relationship. For the first time in his life, Sam felt a sense of optimism for the future.

  He managed to suppress the other question that haunted him—why was he still sane? How had he managed to channel that nightmare creature without ending up vegetative like the others?

  Except Josephine, he reminded himself. She was just like me. What was different about us?

  Turning away from the window, he headed to the desk he’d set up on the other side of the room and thumbed on his laptop. No time like the present, he figured, to start digging for the information he needed.

  “There’s an answer, somewhere,” he declared as the computer booted up. “And I’m going to find it.”

  It was a promise he was sure he could keep, even though he had no idea where to start. Squaring his shoulders, he launched the search engine and began to type.

  Ally Blue

  Ally Blue used to be a good girl. Really. Married for twenty years, two lovely children, house, dogs, picket fence, the whole deal. Then one day she discovered slash fan fiction. She wrote her first fan fiction story a couple of months later and has since slid merrily into the abyss. She has had several short stories published in the erotic e-zine Ruthie’s Club, and is a regular contributor to the original slash e-zine Forbidden Fruit.