by Octavia Zane
You couldn’t do that right you’re going to ruin everything what’s wrong with you Theo you stupid fuck-
The flowers blackened to that dead Halloween decoration on Joleene’s desk, and Vaughn hurled them at him in a rage. The bouquet struck Theo’s cheek with a resounding slap that sent pain shooting through his entire body.
He woke up with a jerk, early morning light bathing the room in a soft yellow glow. In panic, he looked around at the foreign surroundings.
Who else would have you, Theo? Who else would want you? You’re a cringing, spineless, silent little coward who works with animals because that’s all he can do. You could have been a REAL doctor, but you-
Riley’s bedroom. Vaughn’s voice.
He was still slightly asleep. Shaking off the last of the dream, he stared at the sleeping form beside him in the bed. Once again his brain made a connection where there wasn’t any, substituting Vaughn for Riley in that similar hair color, which was all that showed above the blankets.
His logical mind knew that that was Riley under there, but his heart was beating fast from Vaughn in the dream. His anger was a monster that wiped out everything in its path, a Godzilla stomping on cities and swiping helicopters out of the sky. It was a terrifying and destructive force that radiated outwards from his person to flatten everything in sight. There was nothing too low or too hateful to say, nothing that qualified as too cheap of a shot.
You fool, Theo thought, for all the times he tried in vain to placate that icy, vicious temper. With logic, with love, with quiet, with space, but nothing stopped it or slowed it or diverted it save Vaughn running out of steam on his own. Whatever Theo did was immaterial.
Riley breathed, but Theo heard Vaughn.
He slipped out of the bed. Picking up the strewn pieces of his clothes, he dressed in the living room. He had not been ready for this or he wouldn’t have Vaughn stepping into his dreams so effortlessly. He’d thought he was ready, but he wasn’t.
He slipped on his shoes and opened the door slowly, dreading for it to creak. Once it was closed behind him, he hurried along the walkway. If anyone saw him at the big house, he would have to smile, make his goodbyes, pretend all was well for a few minutes, and he readied for that to happen.
When he came around the trees, the house was thankfully silent. He rushed to his car, which was parked along the sidewalk.
The engine started with a hybrid’s softness, but to him it sounded like the roar of a lion. He pulled a U-turn and sped off for home.
Chapter Nine
Riley
The phone rang. And rang.
“Come on,” Riley grumbled.
It went to voicemail. He hung up and stepped out to help the next person in line.
He had woken up alone the morning after Halloween. Called up Theo’s number in surprise and shared a brief conversation, Theo apologizing for flying out the door because he hadn’t meant to stay the night. His cat needed breakfast and he had to shower and change before going into work.
It was all very normal. Almost too normal.
Or maybe it was normal, but what wasn’t normal was that he hadn’t responded after that. Riley didn’t know what to think other than he must have misread some signal in the night. Or the chemistry, perhaps, was all on his end. So he woke up that morning with his arm on a quest for a post-sex snuggle, whereas Theo woke up some time earlier with that post-sex horror of what in the hell had he just done?
And proceeded to flee out the door. That was humiliating.
Or else things were truly fine, and Theo was just busy. Too busy to pick up or call back.
Whatever.
Riley didn’t like this internal back and forth without any answers. It was pissing him off so much that Rivers had noticed his bad mood and banned him from icing cookies. All of the Thanksgiving turkey cookies were frowning instead of smiling. Oh, they still put them in the glass cases in front, because grumpy turkeys would tickle somebody’s sense of humor, but there needed to be some happy turkeys in the mix, too.
If Theo wasn’t interested, then he wasn’t interested. And that was that.
There was a foam party going on at Bounce House tonight. Riley hadn’t been to a foam party since . . . well, he couldn’t remember how long. They lost their appeal after a while, and whatever they used for the foam always irritated his skin for days afterwards. If he wanted to drive farther out, there was a new place called Dippers. But the online reviews were uniformly awful: the club was overpriced, played bad music, and drew the weird crowd. Riley was all for keeping Portland weird, but a lot of people took the saying alarmingly to heart.
No, he wasn’t in the mood to check out a new place. Bounce House was familiar, and he was sure to see familiar faces there. Davis and Andrew would undoubtedly be present. They were party animals to the core. Riley mostly kept up with them over social media these days, but they were the sort of buddies that you could take up with again no matter how much time passed. Those two would catch Riley up on all the local drama, introduce him to the new people, and they could stand around and bitch about how gay clubs weren’t really gay anymore.
He was bored just thinking about it.
Riley didn’t care about the issue as much as they did, but even he was massively annoyed the night two gigantic bachelorette parties overran Bounce House. He wasn’t a woman’s sassy gay friend to whirl with around the dance floor, and one party was mixed-sex so plenty of straight men were there, too. Shifting uncomfortably around unknown guys, and loudly voicing their orientation or keeping an arm slung around a woman to signal it.
They had their own clubs, so why did they need to be here? It was a tired old conversation between Riley and Davis and Andrew. But with those two having their finger on the pulse of the community the way they did, he was sure to go home with someone who would be right up his alley.
He filled another order for the last customer in line and pushed it over the counter, barely registering the pleasantries he was voicing. Rivers brought a tray of freshly made cupcakes to the front and glared at him as she transferred them to the case. “You have to smile at the customers,” she scolded.
“I’m smiling,” Riley said.
“You’re baring your teeth.”
“That’s called a smile.”
“Do you want to just go home? Koala or I can handle the front.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say yes. He wanted to go home and sulk. Watch TV and figure out what to wear to Bounce House tonight. But he shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“Then stop looking like someone ran over your foot with a car.”
He gave her a huge, fake smile.
“Convinced?” he said through gritted teeth.
“You look like a deranged clown.”
He let the smile fall. “You look like a deranged clown’s twin sister.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, but A for effort.” She slid the glass door closed. “What’s going on with you that’s so bad?”
“Nothing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Riley snapped.
“Okay.”
She stared at him piercingly.
“Rivers, your office phone is ringing!” Koala called.
“Coming!” Rivers continued to stare at Riley until she was around the corner.
The line reformed. He withheld a sigh. Bread loaves went into bags, cupcakes into boxes, and Peppy Marden arrived at the register in a tsunami of confused perfumes to order twelve chocolate chip cookies and request a thirteenth for free.
He almost gave it to her just to make her go away. But that would create problems for the twins next time when she came in expecting another dose of special treatment. Give an inch and she’d take a mile. “Twelve chocolate chip cookies then,” he said, being deliberately obtuse. “Right away.”
She annoyed him even more than she usually did with her nonstop natter while he filled the box. “-The Sandpaper Bakery always threw in a little
extra treat whenever I went there. Every time I ordered a dozen cupcakes or cookies, I got thirteen! That’s called a baker’s dozen and it’s such a good business practice because it makes the customer feel so appreciated! You and Rivers should . . .”
Then go to The Sandpaper Bakery, Riley thought resentfully. With their crappy health grade rating and the inconsistent hours and the cobwebs in the corners, but she would get an extra cupcake or cookie out of the deal. He forced his face to maintain a placid expression when he brought the box to the register.
“-the cake was all wrong!” She smiled widely. “Can you believe it? It said right there on the slip that it was supposed to be a fudge filling, not raspberry, but they let me keep it and I got the replacement cake for half off! You know, if you and Rivers wanted to . . .”
In his head, he yelled in her face. His younger self would have said something rude, unable to take it any longer without snapping. Thankfully, he was not that younger self anymore. After blathering at him a little longer about how to improve customer service, she quit the bakery.
The line was gone again. The servers were going at an amble rather than a run since the lunch rush wasn’t amounting to much of anything today. It wasn’t even fun to watch Mr. Piggy doing his usual while he gabbed on his phone about pesticides, and Riley didn’t notice when he left.
Rivers reappeared and slid a box over the floor to him. He crouched down to open it and refill the shelves with bags of different sizes. The bakery door opened and he picked up the pace to finish the task. “Just a second!” he called.
Shoveling in one more handful of bags, he got up just in time to see a birthday gift card being put down beside the register. He looked up to Theo.
Anger flushed through Riley, and then a chill.
“What can I get you?” he asked at a professional distance. To have the most incredible sex of his life just for Theo to disappear afterwards tweaked his pride. It tweaked more than his pride. He’d thought there was a connection between them, but apparently he was wrong.
His reserve did not escape observant Theo. “I’m sorry,” Theo said.
Riley hadn’t expected an apology. “Okay.” Still smarting, he added, “Too much like slumming for your taste?”
“Slumming?” Theo asked with a quizzical tilt of his head.
It wasn’t an insult if Theo didn’t get it. “Never mind.”
Theo stuffed his hands into his pockets. All of the nervousness that hadn’t been present on their shared night was back in force. He looked like he wanted to run out of the door. Like it was taking an act of will to stand there and face Riley.
Something in Riley softened at the vet’s obvious distress. Just a little. There was so much going on behind those blue eyes that he couldn’t read. “I just don’t understand,” Riley said.
“It had nothing to do with you,” Theo replied.
“It didn’t feel that way.”
Theo nodded. “But it’s the truth.”
“I’m going to need more of an explanation than that, Theo.” Riley glanced around him to the handful of people at the tables. For the moment, nobody needed anything.
Pause.
“It was the first time after a long time,” Theo said, quietly and tentatively. “I just panicked.”
Riley’s anger ebbed further. “You could have woken me up and told me that.”
“You’re right. I should have.”
“Or at least called me later and been honest.”
Theo did not debate this. He nodded again.
Riley’s brow lowered. “You know, it’s really hard to argue with you when you agree with me.”
That prized a reluctant smile from Theo. God, he was handsome.
“It was some break-up you had with the rich guy, huh?” Riley asked.
“Yeah. It was as ugly as they get.”
Mollified to some degree, Riley said, “Want a pissy turkey cookie?”
Theo’s eyebrow shot up as he inspected the mix of happy and grouchy turkey cookies on the tray in the glass case.
“I was in a bad mood,” Riley explained.
“I can see that. How about you put two coffees and two pissy turkey cookies on the gift card, and take a walk with me if you can get away for a little while?”
Riley liked that idea. He made the coffees and slipped the cookies into wax sheets before calling into the back for a replacement. Rivers was on the phone taking a cake order, so Koala came up to the front. “Thanks, Koala. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes or so.”
“No problem. I need a break from being back there,” Koala said.
Following Theo outside, Riley said, “There’s a park just half a block away.”
“Then let’s go to the park,” Theo said.
“You don’t have to get back to the clinic?”
“The afternoon appointments are light, so I’m taking a long lunch.” Theo glanced back to the bakery with a quizzical expression. “I keep thinking I’m hearing it wrong. Is that man’s name really Koala?”
Riley laughed. “Koala Sunrise.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“No. Ask him for proof and he’ll happily show you his driver’s license. His folks were . . . uh . . . extremely creative with the names of their seven kids.”
“Seven?”
“Seven kids in ten years and not a single set of multiples in the bunch. They were a prolific pair.” Koala had told Riley all of the names of the siblings in the past, but there were too many to remember. “The oldest kid was a girl named Camel Justice. Poor Camel Justice Sunrise marched herself to a courthouse and changed her name to Melissa Ann when she turned eighteen. Then she married a guy and took his last name. It was Peters or Phillips, something regular.”
Theo was grinning. “I can’t say I blame her. What were the others named?”
As they crossed the street, Riley wracked his brain. “The next oldest was Butterfly Triumph, who also changed his name at eighteen.”
“They gave a boy that name?” Theo burst.
“They did.”
“Bad enough for a girl, but it must have been hell for him in school!”
“Which is why he dropped it and became plain old William. I’ll have to get Koala to tell me the names of the third and fourth kids again, but they’re just as bad as the first two. Koala was the fifth-born in the line-up, as I recall, and I don’t remember the name of the sixth either. The baby of the family was a girl.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Cricket Allegiance.”
“No!” Theo spluttered.
“Yes,” Riley said, amused at Theo’s horrified reaction. “She kept her name and gave her own three kids weird names as well, Sonnet and Haiku and Allegory. Koala kept his name, too, but he gave his two kids regular names.”
“What’s Koala’s middle name?”
“Initiative.”
They stepped from the sidewalk to the park path with Theo coughing over the sip he’d taken from his coffee. “Should have timed that better,” Riley said.
“You’ve broken me.” Theo cleared his throat. “It sounds like the name of some top-secret CIA intelligence program in a kids’ Saturday morning cartoon: Operation Koala Initiative. Why didn’t he change it?”
“He doesn’t hate it quite enough to change it, he says, and it never fails to break the ice when he’s talking to someone new. But he and Rivers have a ball in the back as they work, the two of them bitching about their names. Our parents weren’t trying to be creative with hers, though. Rivers is an old family surname on our mother’s side. She wanted it to pass on.”
They sat down upon a bench. It was dappled with light from the overhanging trees, colorful leaves dropping down as a lazy breeze meandered through the park. Fifty feet away across the grass was a small playground for the preschool set. Parents sat on the logs outlining the play area, chatting and looking at their cell phones as toddlers went down the slides and drove dump trucks through the sand. Dogwalkers and skaters threaded
down the paths. The park would be madness for the Autumn Festival, but for now it was quiet and peaceful.
“How did the interview with Derry’s Dogs go? Did you have it yet?” Theo asked.
“Yeah, just yesterday. Derry himself came over to our house to meet Sherlock. He brought his own dog along and the two were best buddies in a hot second. He took them on a walk together and said Sherlock is better behaved than his dog. Next we’ll take him in to see how he does in one of the kennels they use for resting time and then out on the playing field. He’s a happy-go-lucky guy, Mr. Sherlock. I think he’ll just run around in the pack once they let him off leash and have the time of his life.”
“No calls?”
“Not one.”
Riley bit the head off his pissy turkey cookie. Did he say anything more about how Theo had left? Or let it go?
He had to say it. His feelings were stung. “Are you sure it was nothing to do with me?”
Effortlessly, Theo followed the jump in conversation. “It had zero to do with you, and everything to do with him.”
“How so?”
The vet drank from his coffee and stared out to the trees, a hint of that haunted look coming to his eyes. “We were just a couple of months out from the wedding. Date set, vendors booked, invitations being readied to drop in the mail. It was going to be a grand event.”
“I guess with his money, it wouldn’t be any other way.”
“No. It was me,” Theo said. “I wanted the grand event. He was indifferent to it. It was supposed to be a fairy-tale day for a fairy-tale couple. But not all fairy tales have happy endings.”
Riley ate more of his headless cookie. “No, I guess they don’t. So, was he indifferent to the wedding?”
“He was looking forward to the day of; the details to get us there were an annoyance to him. I just handled it myself. His work demanded so much of him that he didn’t have any mental space left over at the end of the day to deal with our wedding preparations.”