Blindspot (Daydream, Colorado Book 1)

by A. M. Rose

  “Why is this so hard?” Drew asked almost on a whisper after they’d spent five full minutes without saying a word.

  Mason finally looked at him, those blue eyes wide. Drew thought he looked just a tiny bit guilty before he broke eye contact to look down at the table, shrugging his shoulders. “I… I don’t know…”

  “You know, friends go out to dinner,” he said, and Mason scowled at him.

  “I know that,” he said, but his body was still stiff.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. What are you trying to say?” he bit back.

  “I’m saying… that it doesn’t have to be hard. We’re friends, we can have dinner, and just talk…” he suggested, hope making his heart tender.

  Mason deflated in front of him, hackles lowering. “Yeah… okay yeah. We can do that,” he said, and Drew flashed him a small smile.

  “Thank you.”

  Mason shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Okay, um… what do you want to talk about?” he asked, looking a little at a loss. Drew took a few moments to think of the most innocent thing he could.

  “How’s Orson?” he settled on and Mason smiled genuinely.

  “He’s good.”

  “Still fishing?”

  “Constantly. Him and Clive went to this weird lake retreat a few years back. They spent five days doing nothing but fishing.” Mason rolled his eyes and Drew chuckled.

  “Still doing it magic free?” Drew asked, remembering how Orson insisted that something you picked as your hobby shouldn’t be done by shortcuts. He preferred sitting by the lake for hours on end, waiting for the bite and if nothing came then… nothing came. He’d pack up and come back tomorrow. It gave Drew the idea to start using non-magic cameras to take his photos. To start developing photos the hard way.

  “You bet. Hobbies require no…”

  “Shortcuts,” Drew finished the line Orson would recite every time someone pointed out that he could catch so much more if he spelled his baits.

  “Speaking of hobbies. Why stop taking photos?” Mason asked and Drew shrugged.

  “No huge reason. I didn’t take my camera with me when I left. And then I couldn’t afford a new one for a while,” he said, thinking back on those long nights of sleeping in his car and working a billion shifts a week to be able to scrape up enough money to pay for four damp walls and a crappy mattress in the corner.

  “And later?” Mason asked hesitantly.

  “Other things took priority. School, rent, car. It was never the right time,” Drew said, choosing to forget the times when his hands itched for the shutter, only to push it aside. “I’m glad you saved my old camera, though. Thank you.”

  “No problem. I’m glad you can take photos again,” Mason said around a small smile. Drew returned it, feeling something warm bloom in his chest as they talked and he felt Mason relax into it.

  “Even if all the photos are of you?” he asked with a wink.

  Mason shook his head. “I figure you’ll get tired of that soon and find new subjects.”

  “I doubt it,” Drew said, looking at Mason, willing him to understand that he’d always be his muse. That the reason he never went back to taking photos is more than just not having money. He had no inspiration without him.

  “I—”

  “Here’s your food, gentlemen,” the waiter cut in, and Drew was both relieved at the distraction and annoyed at the interruption.

  “Thank you,” Mason said with a soft smile as he eyed the warm, delicious smelling meal.

  “Sure thing. I’ll be right back with your breadbasket and water too. Didn’t have room on the tray,” he chuckled, turning to walk away.

  They dug in, finally realizing how starved they were after spending the entire day on the road.

  “All good?” Drew asked Mason after a few bites, noticing how he kept looking around himself again, only this time with real interest instead of feigned, frowning at things, gaping at other things. He tried following his gaze, but all he saw was people eating and staff doing their job. It was a perfectly normal diner, nothing extraordinary was going on anywhere.

  “It’s just strange,” Mason said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “What is?”

  Mason waved his fork around. “The no-magic bit. I’ve never been outside of Daydream, and I don’t think I noticed just how much magic we use.”

  Oh.

  “A lot…” Drew said with a nod.

  “Like… he couldn’t fit all the stuff on his tray, and I was so close to asking why he didn’t cast a quick spell. And I heard that woman over there asking to have her tea reheated instead of doing it herself, and then I remembered…”

  “She can’t do it,” Drew finished for him and Mason nodded.

  “Is that…” he started, but he didn’t seem to quite have the words to say what he wanted. “Do you feel like you belong more out here? Without magic…”

  And wasn’t that a loaded question? One Drew didn’t really have an answer to. People out here were like him in the sense that they had no magic. And when he first got there it sounded like exactly what he needed. But as the time went by, he started realizing that, as much as Daydream didn't fit him completely, neither did anywhere else. These people knew so little about what existed around them. They had no idea there was real magic entwined with the world. Magic that may have hurt Drew before, but that could make amazing things happen. It made Drew feel detached again. It made him feel like his search for his place in the world wasn't finished yet.

  Or, as he looked at Mason, maybe it never needed to begin in the first place.

  “I… I don’t know,” he said finally. Because it was the only answer that allowed his conflicting thoughts to be voiced without them being a lie.

  “Was it hard?” Mason asked. “To hide where you’re from?”

  “It was… yeah at first. It kind of became second nature after a couple of years. To just gloss over the information.”

  “Nobody was suspicious? Friends? Boyfriends?” Mason asked, and yeah, it was true they’d be suspicious if he had those. But he didn’t.

  How sad was that?

  “I chose to think they found me mysterious and cool?” he tried covering the inner turmoil with humor.

  “There is literally nothing cool about you,” Mason jabbed, and it made him laugh.

  “You say the sweetest things to me.” Drew rolled a bit of bread and chucked it at Mason who flicked his fingers and sent it flying through the air so it didn’t hit him.

  “Mason!!” Drew warned and he paled.

  “Shit, sorry. I keep forgetting,” he said, looking around in panic. Luckily no one was paying them any attention.

  “Okay… how about we pack the rest of this to go before you go sailing the tables through the air?” Drew suggested and Mason gave a quick nod. They flagged the waiter over to ask for the check Mason insisted on paying.

  “That’s a hefty tip,” Drew commented when they walked out into the freezing cold.

  Mason shrugged, wrapping his palms around the containers with their food to keep his hands warm. “He had a rough night. And I wasn’t allowed to help,” he said.

  Drew smiled knowingly. “Feeling less guilty now?”

  “A bit,” he said, and Drew gave in to a sudden impulse as he threw his arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.

  “Hey!” Mason complained, but Drew didn’t miss the way he turned his head to stick his red nose into Drew’s shoulder.

  “Body heat,” Drew just said simply. Mason huffed but didn’t say a word.

  Wrapped in each other they reached their room, entering it and blasting the little extra heater they were provided at Mason’s insistence he was going to die without it. The motel owner looked so convinced of his impending demise caused by winter that she gave him the heater she kept running under her desk.

  The moment the doors to their room closed, Drew felt the relaxed air they’d created at dinner change.

  Mason peeled himse
lf out of his arms and put as much distance between them as he could in the tiny room. He dropped their food on the little table in the makeshift kitchenette, consisting of a mini fridge and an old microwave, and shed his jacket and scarf.

  Drew watched him fidget and it reignited his anxiety. Was this truly what they were now? Glimmers of sun inside a continuous storm?

  The more Drew pushed at these barriers Mason kept raising, the stronger he built them, and Drew could feel exhaustion creeping in. He didn’t want to force Mason to do anything, and he also didn’t have the energy to spare.

  He’d been trying to keep his mind off the impending day ever since they’d left Daydream, and the only way he could do that was to focus on Mason. But with Mason in the midst of his own internal struggle, fighting with him every step of the way, Drew could find no peace.

  “Are you still hungry?” he asked into the silence.

  Mason shook his head. He wouldn’t meet his eyes again. “I think I’m done for the night. I might turn in…”

  Drew sighed in disappointment. “I’m gonna jump in the shower,” he said, his voice betraying him.

  Maybe a bit of time apart would give Mason a chance to settle down.

  “Okay,” Mason said, digging through the bag he’d brought and pulling out his pajamas.

  Drew left the room with his own pajamas in hand, locking himself up in the bathroom. He stood under the spray letting the hot water loosen his muscles, but there was no remedy for the chaos in his head, so he stopped trying to find it after about twenty minutes. He stepped out of the stall and dried himself off, goosebumps raising on his skin. He pulled his pajamas on as quickly as he could, rushing out of the bathroom.

  The rush of cold air made him gasp as he stepped back to the room. He was warmed by the water, and the heater did little to fight the chills that broke out on his damp skin without it. The little lamp next to the bed cast a yellowish light on a tiny lump in bed that told him Mason had found his way under the covers. Drew swallowed heavily at the thought he'd be joining him soon.

  He put the clothes he was wearing into a little plastic bag and then into his backpack, zipping every zip and lining his boots neatly by the door as his toes grew colder and colder. He was trying to find a way to postpone the tension he knew would suffocate him once he laid next to Mason.

  Maybe pushing his luck and asking for a single room wasn't the greatest of ideas.

  He took his coat from where it was draped over the chair. He was searching for a hook he could hang it from when Mason sprang up into a sitting position, looking rumpled and soft and annoyed.

  “Are you gonna pace until you freeze in place or come to bed?”

  He stopped in his tracks. “I was just tidying up,” he said lamely and Mason snorted.

  “You were getting on my last nerve. Get to bed!” Mason flipped the corner of the covers on the empty side of the bed and gestured impatiently for Drew to hop in.

  Drew dropped the coat back onto the chair and ran across the room. He almost threw himself under the covers, sighing in relief as the weight of them settled on him. The single bed they were provided did nothing to help them keep their distance, and he was certain the shivering he felt wasn’t just him. Mason clicked the lamp off as he settled his head onto the lumpy pillow and stared at the vague shape of the ceiling, feeling drained.

  “How are you feeling about tomorrow?” Mason asked, the darkness around them once more, providing a backsplash that allowed them to be just a tiny bit more vulnerable.

  “I’ve been trying not to think about it all day,” Drew said, and he could feel more than see Mason’s nod.

  “I noticed. And I didn’t want to bring it up in case you didn’t want to talk about it, but…” he trailed off and somehow Drew knew what he meant. It was inevitable now. Mason had allowed him to spend the day pretending they were just going on a little trip, and that their final destination wasn’t something out of Drew’s worst nightmare, but the pretense was over now.

  “I don’t want to talk about it…” he said, turning on his side and hoping he'd be able to see Mason, but his eyes weren't used to the dark yet. “…but it’s not gonna make it go away.”

  “No, it won’t,” Mason said.

  Drew fell silent for a few moments.

  “Do you… have you seen anything about tomorrow?” he asked hesitantly, and Mason tensed next to him.

  “No… sorry,” he said, but his voice was clipped and rushed somehow.

  “It’s okay… it was a long shot anyway,” Drew chuckled darkly.

  "Wish it worked on demand," Mason said in that same tone, but Drew chose to ignore it. He didn't think he had the energy to prod into it just then.

  “I just want it to be over," he whispered into the darkness.

  “I know. And it will be, soon.”

  “What if… what if he doesn’t have the book? Or he’s not there? Or he does something to hurt you or Mal… Mase, I can’t…” He felt the build-up of the day finally bubble over, fears that he tried to conceal spilling out of him.

  “Drew… hey…” Mason tugged on his arm until he moved closer, his head resting on Mason’s chest. The suddenness of it stopped the waterfall of words. Mason’s unexpected touch soothed his fears, and Drew clutched the shirt of the smaller man’s pajamas between his fingers.

  “Reggie will be there,” Mason said, voice shaking slightly. “The book is with him, and if it isn’t, we’ll make him tell us where Pete is. And Mal… Malachi is amazing at what he does. Probably to an even bigger extent than we can imagine, the secretive ass that he is.”

  Drew chuckled at that, and Mason carded his shaking fingers through his hair. Drew could feel Mason’s heart hammering under his chest and knew this was all too much for him, but he couldn’t pull away. Not when he had spent the whole day tiptoeing around Mason. Not when Mason was the only thing keeping him sane. It was selfish, but he needed this.

  “I don’t even know what I want to happen tomorrow,” he said and felt Mason nod.

  “I get it.”

  “Should I want them to be sorry? To be miserable and alone and to have led terrible lives? Should I want revenge, or want them hurt? I don’t get what I should be feeling,” he spoke into the inky night, burying his face into Mason’s neck, the warm smell of him keeping the worst of the panic at bay.

  “You can want all of those things. Or none of them. Whatever you feel or don’t feel is right,” Mason said.

  Drew huffed. “I’m a mess…”

  “Hey…” Mason cupped his cheeks in his palms and lifted his head to look him in the eyes. “You’re absolutely a mess.”

  “Hey!”

  “But this is scary, and you have every right to be a mess. You have the right to be scared.”

  Drew looked at him for a moment, looking for any trace of a lie in Mason’s eyes, but he found none. He closed his eyes, leaning into Mason’s touch and dropped a small kiss to his palm.

  “You make me less scared,” he said softly, and Mason tilted his head up.

  A breath of insecurity later he brought their lips together.

  It surprised Drew. Mason had been distant and guarded all day, but he’d kissed him now, and Drew didn’t want to waste a single moment of it by thinking about what it all meant.

  He sighed into his mouth, kissing back, grabbing at his waist and pulling him closer. Their breaths mingled, hands found purchase on thighs, hips, ass and before either of them could even think twice, they were naked.

  Mason was spread on top of him, rubbing against him, kissing the life out of him, and Drew poured all the confusion he felt, all the fear and doubt into Mason, allowing him to carry a part of it. Letting him help him cope. He gripped him tight, darkness making it hard to see him, but it made everything else feel like… more.

  It didn’t take long. It was minutes later that they shivered and moaned into the darkness, bodies spasming and spilling onto the sheets as Mason whispered encouragement into his ear and held him as tightly
as he possibly could. He caressed his skin as his breath slowed and settled. He kissed his forehead, and wrapped him up in his arms tightly, lulling him to sleep.

  Dreams brought images that made his head spin. Fears were pulled to the surface. He’d hear laughter that used to make his blood run cold. He saw faces he hadn’t seen in years but were still the biggest enemies in his mind. He’d fight the phantom pain and break the surface of it only to be pulled back under. He’d startled awake countless times in the night, but Mason had been there every time. Eyes wide awake and trained on him, hands keeping him safe and caressing him back to sleep a thousand times it seemed. Despite everything between them, Mason had him. Drew knew that much at least.

  They received the text from Dominic at six in the morning, exactly to the minute, and if Mason had to guess, the second too.

  They had an exact address, and it was three hours away.

  The town Reggie had settled in was the one closest to the magical community of Wildepoint. He had obviously been paranoid of being found out by moving to a magical community properly, but living on the outskirts of one allowed him access to all the things he couldn’t find in the outside world.

  Neither of them had slept well that night, but Mason was happy he could bring Drew some form of solitude in the small snatches of rest he was able to sink into before waking himself fitfully again. They had both been awake when the message came, so it was a quick thing to get ready.

  Malachi was also already mysteriously up and ready when they texted him, so within an hour they were back on the road on their last stretch.

  It was a surreal experience as they pulled up outside their destination.

  The house was a normal suburban home in an average neighborhood. It probably had two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a nice garden. Nothing about it screamed magic. Nothing told of the dark secrets hiding within.

  They exited the car and stood by it, contemplating a plan of attack when Drew’s phone vibrated again.

  “He said he’s in there,” Drew said.

  “Right now?” Mason asked, eyeing the suburban home suspiciously.