Ghoulish

by Kat Bellamy

  Ghoulish

  Kat Bellamy

  Copyright © 2017 by Kat Bellamy

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed are fictional, and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Now that one is definitely a seven,” Chuck Miller announced as a blonde in a tight pink skirt passed across the street from the high-rise building in mid-construction. The foreman was in his late fifties with more scalp than hair, but he smoothed down the gray strands all the same as he watched a young woman walk by across the street.

  “You kiddin’?” Evan scoffed. The burly construction worker was half Chuck’s age, but he’d already accumulated twice the gut. “With those ankles, she’s a five at best.”

  The twenty-something worker taking measurements a few feet away could hear them perfectly, but he was pretending like he couldn’t. He loved his job and he liked Chuck and Evan well enough when they weren’t being jackasses, but he could do without the commentary they felt the need to make on every woman that passed by, as if they’d both taken the job for the sole purpose of proving the stereotype.

  “Hey! Colt!” Chuck barked. “Come over here and settle this.”

  “Kinda busy, fellas,” Colt said, jotting down a couple of measurements before he grabbed another board to lay down on his table saw bench. “It’s called work. You might give it a try sometime.”

  No response. Just footsteps on the gravel. Colt sighed and straightened up. It was hot and he already had a migraine. Looked like it was about to be a worse one.

  “Colt’s a pretty boy,” said Chuck, giving Colt a pat on the bicep, as if to illustrate his point. “A real solid ten. Men like that can afford to be picky.”

  Evan squinted at Colt and cocked his head to one side like he was doing the math. “Eh, he’s more like an eight-point-five.”

  “Thanks, Evan,” Colt said dryly.

  “My point is, our friend here is more equipped to give an objective assessment of the situation,” Chuck said with the air of someone conducting a scientific experiment.

  Evan grumbled a reluctant acknowledgement.

  “Therefore,” Chuck continued in his most mockingly proper tone, “it falls to the objective third party to break the tie.” In his thick New England accent, it came out more like thoid pahty. “If Colt here says the lady’s a seven, she’s a seven. So what is it, Colt? On a scale of one to ten, what’s she rate?”

  Colt let out a heavy sigh. “You guys are pigs, you know that? I’d give any woman who can put up with either one of you for five minutes a ten.”

  “But if you were gonna give a rating,” Evan pressed.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. If it’ll get you idiots to go back to doing your job, fine. She’s a nine. They’re all nines, now grab a board and start cutting,” said Colt, shoving a plank into Evan’s chest.

  “Ha!” Chuck cried victoriously. “Fuckin’ told ya she was at least a seven. Picky bastard.”

  “You can’t ask him that shit, anyway. He’s of that persuasion,” said Evan, pointedly wiggling his little finger in the air.

  Colt cocked an eyebrow. “You wanna say that shit again, fuckface?”

  “Hey, no disrespect!” Evan said, holding up his hands. “I got a gay sister. What you do with another man between the sheets and other locales of your choice ain’t none of my business. I’m just sayin’, maybe you’re not the best source of objectivity for this sorta thing.”

  “Hey, don’t be ignorant,” Chuck scolded. “Colt’s one of them guys who swings both ways. He’s fancy.” Another demonstrative whack on Colt’s arm. “Y’know, in a good way.”

  “Thanks, Chuck. You’re a real forward thinker.”

  “Damn right I am,” the foreman said, puffing out his chest proudly. Whether Chuck was impervious to sarcasm or simply oblivious to it, Colt still couldn’t be quite sure. He’d been working for the guy for the last six years. Long enough to know that he meant well, even if his execution was at times unrefined.

  “Now that that all-important matter has been settled,” Colt jeered, “you guys mind if I knock off a little early today?”

  Chuck and Evan exchanged a knowing look. “What for?” Chuck asked with a taunting lilt to his tone. Colt had never so much as taken a sick day, so he knew his boss didn’t actually care where he was going.

  Colt sighed. He’d hoped he would be able to get out of it without an explanation. He wasn’t sure why he’d hoped. After six years, he should have known better, but that never seemed to stop him. “Just a belated birthday thing. Dinner.”

  “Birthday?” Chuck asked sharply, looking at Evan. “Did you know this jerk was havin’ a birthday?”

  “News to me,” said Evan.

  “Man, we gotta do somethin’!” Chuck cried.

  “This is exactly why I didn’t say anything,” Colt said, tossing a couple of split boards into the growing pile. At the rate they were going, the damn high-rise wasn’t going to be done anytime in the next decade. “It’s not even my real birthday. It’s just some date my first foster family picked, and everyone insists on making a big deal about it.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forget you’re adopted sometimes,” Evan said, scratching at his scruff. “How’d they not even know when you were born?”

  Chuck gave him a withering look.

  “Because no one gave me up, they just left me in the woods,” said Colt. Everyone he’d known for long enough asked eventually, and Colt knew it was better to be blunt about it. Secrecy only invited more questions. Subconsciously, he knew it was probably part of the reason he avoided forming close attachments. At least, that was what the court-assigned shrink he’d seen from the ages of ten to eighteen would have said. “The cops found me wandering down a road in Exeter when I was three. For all I know, Colt’s not even my real name.”

  “Damn,” Evan murmured. “That’s some real Little Orphan Annie shit, bro.”

  “You’ve got the heart of a poet, Ev.”

  “Hey, their loss, bud,” Chuck said, shaking Colt hard enough by the shoulder that he nearly tripped. “All the more reason to celebrate. You like strip clubs?”

  “He likes all the strip clubs,” said Evan. He paused, as if he was weighing the benefits of non-heteronormativity for the first time in his life.

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” said Colt, rolling his eyes. There was only one person he wanted to disrobe, but it was always a fifty-fifty shot as to whether that someone was going to turn him down or not. “Like
I said, I have dinner plans.”

  “Dinner,” Chuck sneered. “You hear that, Evan? Our boy’s got a dinner date.”

  Evan grinned. “Ooh-la-la.”

  Colt wished it was a date. With Jason, he could never be quite sure. They had been best friends ever since they became neighbors when the Jagers became Colt’s adoptive family. Even though they had both done a lot of growing up since that time, their relationship hadn’t changed all that much. The transition from friends to lovers had been a natural one for Colt, but Jason was the only living child of a “good Catholic family” and he had been doing the hokey pokey in and out of the closet since his teenage years. Nonetheless, Jason was the one who’d asked Colt out that night, and Colt was cautiously optimistic that the other man might finally be ready to try a different dance.

  After grudgingly agreeing to go out with his coworkers for drinks over their break, Colt finally managed to get the small construction unit back on track. How they were still ahead of the others on the project, he had no idea. Chuck wasn’t the most organized foreman, but he was good to his crew and he knew his weaknesses. He’d realized Colt had a knack for planning and logistics years ago and was more than eager to delegate.

  Colt headed home an hour early, as planned. It was just enough time to get back to his apartment, shower, change into something that wouldn’t get him teased by Jason for being a “flannel fashion victim,” and then pick his friend and maybe-or-maybe-not-date up from the campus dorms.

  Jason was almost three years Colt’s junior, and he’d moved into the dorms his first semester at Brown University. Colt knew he would have moved out even sooner if he’d had the chance. As Colt pulled up in front of the dorm in his well-loved but less-than-luxurious pickup truck, he felt as out of place as he ever did. Ivy League college kids definitely weren’t his people, with one notable exception, and he felt every bit as out of place as his old truck was surrounded by a sea of sporty SUVs and hybrids, most of which had probably been purchased with mommy and daddy’s money.

  The front door flew open and Jason breezed out, a thousand-watt smile on his mug like he wasn’t perfectly aware that he was infinitely too good for the man he was so excited to see. With floppy brown hair that was always falling into his eyes and begging to be fixed and big puppy dog eyes to match, Jason was an idealized version of the boy next door.

  Hell, he was literally the boy next door. As kids, Colt had always been equal parts fascinated by Jason’s nerdy charm and quick wit--his Jasonness, for lack of a better word--and driven to protect him. Despite the fact that Jason was far from the scrawny kid he’d once been and that he was now a good solid inch taller than Colt--a fact that never ceased to irk him--that instinct had never changed. Jason was good and compassionate, and for all his book smarts, he could be naive at times. He saw only the good in people and situations, and there were plenty of people who would take advantage of that.

  Jason stopped beside the truck and leaned in through the open window. “One of these days, maybe you could actually come inside.”

  Just name the time and place. Colt cleared his throat. “I’ve seen your dorm.”

  “No, you haven’t. The last time you visited, I was still in the Lou Building,” Jason said, pulling the door open. He climbed inside and eyed the dancing hula girl on the dashboard with a grimace. “You still have that thing? It’s so politically incorrect.”

  “She came with the truck and she’s kind of glued on.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. Colt waited until he buckled up to head out onto the road. “How was class?”

  “It was great. Especially since it’s the second-to-last day of the semester,” he said with a grin that made Colt’s heart flop violently in his chest.

  “Come on, you know you love all that nerd shit,” Colt said with a snort. “I give it a week and you’ll be counting the days until you go back.”

  “Probably,” Jason conceded, tapping his nails on the door. “But it’ll be nice to have some time to breathe before my final internship.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  “I’ve got advanced criminal justice, forensic law, and an internship with the SVU. Ominous is pretty much a guarantee.”

  “I still don’t know why you can’t pick something more chill to study.”

  “Like what?” Jason asked, a glimmer of amusement in his brown eyes.

  “I don’t know, divorce or something. There’s always gonna be plenty of work in that.”

  Jason cocked an eyebrow. “Colton Jager, since when did you become a cynic?”

  Colt hated the long version of his given name and Jason was the only one who could get away with using it. Jason was the only one who got away with a lot of things. “I’m just saying, it’s gotta be a more lucrative field than hanging out at crime scenes all day and wiping up blood.”

  “For your information, forensic law is about making the connection between forensic evidence and a criminal case. It’s not like TV where everyone does everything,” he said pointedly. “There are forensic scientists, lab analysts, police officers, attorneys…” He paused to look at Colt. “Your eyes are glazing over.”

  “Nah,” Colt said with a smirk. “Just a long day. I like hearing you talk about this stuff, even if I’m not smart enough to understand half of it.”

  “You shouldn’t say things like that.” Jason frowned. “You’re so much smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

  Colt doubted that, but he also doubted he’d ever win an argument against Jason. He’d certainly found the right calling in becoming a lawyer. “So, where am I headed?”

  “It’s your birthday. Shouldn’t you pick the restaurant?”

  “You know me, as long as there’s steak, I’m a happy man.” And as long as I’m with you…

  Jason sighed halfheartedly. He’d been trying to convince Colt to go vegetarian since they were in junior high and Jason had made the mistake of watching some rough videos on the Internet. Not even Jason’s debate skills could convince Colt to give up his love affair with USDA prime beef. “You’re barely twenty-five, but you’re going to need a coronary bypass by the time you’re thirty if you don’t watch it.”

  “Hey, at least I’ll die happy,” Colt said, pulling into the parking lot of the Rackhouse. It sounded like a place Chuck and Evan would like a little too much, but it was classier on the inside. It was also the one time of year Colt could guarantee their pseudo-dates would take place anywhere other than the uppity hipster restaurants Jason liked so much, but that was as far as Colt ever wanted to ride the birthday train.

  The hostess gave them a big smile and it took Colt’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior in contrast to the well-lit parking lot. The place had gone through some renovations and it was far more romantic in atmosphere than it had been the last time he’d been there. Not that he minded, but it was anyone’s guess where Jason’s head--or his heart--would be that night.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” the hostess said brightly, grabbing a stack of thick leather menus. The Rackhouse knew what it was about. Even the menus were covered in flesh. “Table for two? Or are you waiting on your dates?”

  Colt hesitated. If it was up to him, the whole damn world would know how he felt about Jason, but the other man had a different set of priorities. Not that Colt could blame him. His own parents had taken his coming out in stride, just like they did with everything else, but Jason’s were so high strung they made their ambitious son look like a stoner--and in their eyes, he might as well have been for choosing to be in any career other than neurosurgery or celebrity law. Even if it wasn’t for “the gay thing,” as Chuck so elegantly put it, there was plenty of reason for Jason not to want to go public with their relationship. If it could truly be called one.

  “Actually, we’re together,” Jason said in that diplomatic tone of his.

  The hostess blinked, clearly caught off-guard that the two men did not fit any stereotypes, but she was nowhere near as surprised to hear those words as Colt was. “
Right this way,” she said, leading them to a table by the window. The view of the parking lot and the outlet mall across the street wasn’t exactly breathtaking, but it was nice enough. Now if Colt could just summon the courage to broach a conversation that had never gone in his favor in the past…

  Colt let the shallow smalltalk persist until they had their food and drinks. Just when he thought he’d found a decent opener, Jason leaned in and eyed Colt’s steak. “That thing is so rare it looks like it could still moo.”

  Colt impaled a bloody hunk on his fork and popped it into his mouth. “Just the way I like it.” He felt an immediate surge of energy and hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been. It had been a mistake to fill up on drinks at lunch.

  Jason gave him a halfhearted scowl. He knew his efforts to guilt or gross Colt into a more humane diet were futile, but it had become part of their repartee. “So, tell me. How’s it feel to be alive for a quarter of a century?”

  “Considering I could’ve been twenty-five for a few months without knowing the difference, it feels pretty much the same as twenty-four.”

  “I know you don’t like to talk about your parents, but I still have that friend down at the station. If you ever decide you want to try finding answers again…”

  “I have parents,” Colt said firmly. “Matter of fact, I’ve had several sets, and Renee and Gerald Jager are the only ones who stuck around. Far as I’m concerned, most of the others don’t matter. Especially not the assholes who abandoned me.”