Good Bones (25 page)

Chris continued to cook for Dylan, bringing him soup and crackers and later a thick, meaty stew with hunks of bread on the side. He brought water and OJ and coffee. And when Dylan could sit upright for extended periods of time, Chris tossed a couple of paperbacks onto the mattress beside him.

But Chris barely spoke, other than a few monosyllabic efforts to find out when Dylan had to piss and whether he was hungry again. And even though the couch hurt Chris’s back, that’s where he slept every night. One room over, a world away.

Five days after the full moon, Dylan wrapped a blanket around himself like a toga and—as Chris watched impassively from the kitchen doorway—made a few hesitant circuits of the rooms, trying not to notice the bloodstains on the living room carpet. When Dylan didn’t fall, he decided he was well enough to manage on his own. He hovered at the back door, which had not yet been repaired. “Um, I’ll return your blanket later,” he said.

“Don’t bother.”

Of course. Chris didn’t want to see Dylan again or have anything to do with him, even if it meant losing bedding. Fine, Dylan decided. He could leave the blanket on Chris’s front porch sometime, along with the considerable amount of cash he was owed for his renovation work and some extra to cover the damage to his house.

It was sunny and warm outside, and the glare made Dylan squint. He looked over at the poplars. He could just make out his own rooftop and small bits of his siding behind the trees. Then he turned and faced Chris, who hadn’t moved from his spot near the kitchen. “Chris, I….” Dylan swallowed. He’d almost apologized again. “Thank you. For… for taking care of me. I know you didn’t—well, thank you. You saved my life.”

“Owed you that,” Chris said with a slight growl.

Dylan didn’t see it that way. Yes, he might have stopped Andy from harming Chris, but if it weren’t for Dylan, Chris never would have been in danger to begin with. He wasn’t about to argue, though. Instead he simply stood there, wanting to say something but unable to find the words. Finally, he gave a single jerky nod and limped across the porch.

Andy must have been inside Dylan’s house before he went over to Chris’s. The place reeked of canine urine, and there were piss stains on the walls and rugs. The smell made Dylan’s stomach lurch so badly that he stumbled to the bathroom and puked up the toast and eggs Chris had given him for breakfast.

Afterward, he glanced in the mirror. His soul patch had morphed into a true beard, and he was sporting a mustache as well. He’d just shave everything off later. The wound to his face had left a scar, but it was close to the hairline and therefore invisible unless he swept his hair back. He was almost disappointed by that—he felt he should have a more obvious mark of his own failure to adequately protect Chris, some way to be recognized, in the way they used to brand criminals.

He wandered through his empty rooms, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He wasn’t yet in good enough shape to clean, and he was going to have to find someone to help him finish the remodeling. At the moment, his only operational bathroom was downstairs. “Shit,” he said out loud. He was too exhausted to deal with any of it just then. He made his way very slowly upstairs, clutching the banister for support, and shuffled down the long hallway. His bed was exactly as he’d left it, clothing still folded neatly near the footboard. He let the borrowed blanket drop from his shoulders and then climbed tiredly between sheets that still smelled of Chris.

“
Y
OU
sure you’re going to be able to cook for yourself, kid?” Rick asked doubtfully as he shut the fridge.

“As well as I ever have. I’m feeling pretty good now, anyway. Just kind of sore.”

“That guy just about gutted you.”

“Yeah, but now all my insides are firmly inside again.”

Rick crossed the room and sat at the table across from him. “Kay sent one of her pies, you know. Wouldn’t even let me have a piece.”

“I saw. Thanks. Thanks for everything.”

“’S what family’s for.” Rick reached for the salt and pepper shakers and started toying with them, rolling them a little between his palms and pushing them gently back and forth across the polished wood. He didn’t look at Dylan. “How are you doing?”

“Told you. I’m still looking a little Frankensteinish, but I’m okay. I’ve been having to do a lot of catch-up on the Beaverton project. The clients are really chomping at the bit to break ground. But it’s going more smoothly than I expected and—”

“That’s not what I meant.” Rick lifted his head and pinned Dylan with his sharp gaze.

Dylan sighed. “Did Kay put you up to this?”

“She might’ve hinted. But you know, I care too, Dyldo.”

“I’m not some kind of brokenhearted Victorian maiden, Dickhead. I’m not going to lock myself in the attic and write poems until I overdose on laudanum.”

“You’ve had a tough time of it lately.”

“My own damn fault,” Dylan replied.

“Part of it, yeah. But have you noticed that it isn’t as bad as it could’ve been?”

“I murdered someone and lost the man I lo—someone I cared about.”

“You
saved
the guy you care about, asshole.” Rick shoved the shakers away impatiently. “You were so worried for so long that you might attack Chris, but when push came to shove you put your life on the line to rescue him. You’re not a monster, Dyl, not even when you’re a wolf. You wouldn’t hurt the people you love.”

In his grief, that thought hadn’t occurred to Dylan, but Rick was right. Even as a wolf he had recognized that Chris was his, a member of his pack. Someone to protect. And damned if he wasn’t still thinking of Chris that way, even now that he was lost. Dylan felt one of the knots in his chest loosen a little: Chris might hate him now, but at least Chris would be safe.

“Got a little news,” Rick said after a long silence.

“Yeah?”

“Turns out my little wigglers are alive and well, and one of them was a brave little soldier.”

It took Dylan a moment to decipher this, but when he did he whooped with joy, jumped from his seat, and ran around the table to give his brother a hug. “Ow,” Dylan said, pulling away. “I think physical stuff is a little premature for me.”

“Then I’ll skip the ass kicking you deserve for being so goddamn stubborn.”

Dylan punched Rick on the shoulder. “When’s she due?”

“January fifteenth.” Rick was grinning from ear to ear.

“Are you happy or scared shitless?”

“Um… about fifty-fifty, but the ratio shifts.”

“You guys will be the best parents ever.”

Rick smiled at him. “And you’ll be Uncle Dyldo.”

A
LTHOUGH
Chris had apparently taken some pains to hide the burial site, Dylan had little trouble finding it. Maybe most people wouldn’t have noticed, but his hunter’s eyes knew the look of recently disturbed ground, and he could still smell fresh earth. Chris had chosen a spot in the middle of the Christmas trees, in between a large downed limb and a clump of young sumacs. Dylan had to scramble over a fair amount of debris to get there, but he didn’t even feel a twinge anymore. Supernatural healing was an amazing thing.

He stood over the makeshift grave and thought about whether he should clear the area a little, maybe make a small stone cairn. He wasn’t sorry for what he’d done—he’d do it again to save Chris or Rick or Kay—and he wasn’t sure there had been any way for him to avoid the situation. Even if he’d told Chris what he was, Andy still would have come around and might very well have attacked Chris out of jealousy or spite or some misguided attempt to win Dylan back. And to be honest, Dylan was relieved to know that Andy wouldn’t be haunting him anymore.

But he was still a little sad. He could understand Andy’s desperation to have someone to call his own, someone to love him. Yes, his way of trying to get those things was pretty fucked up, but then Dylan wasn’t exactly the healthy-relationship poster boy himself. Maybe once upon a time Andy had been a decent guy, a normal person with a job and friends and a home. Maybe he used to like to watch football on Sundays and do crosswords and spend long weekends at the coast. Dylan didn’t really know much at all about Andy, apart from how he liked to fuck—and that was sad too.

“I hope you’re running happily somewhere,” Dylan said quietly. “Good hunting, Andy.”

An early season heat wave had settled in, and as Dylan headed back to the house he felt sticky. He was going to take a cool shower but then realized he had his own private swimming hole, so he turned instead down the pathway toward the pond. He was going to have to rent a Cat or something soon; the brambles were starting to really take over.

The ducks were back, eyeing him disapprovingly from the opposite end of the pond as he stripped off his sweaty clothes. “Don’t worry,” he told them. “I’m not in the mood for foie gras today.” They quacked a response.

The water was cold enough to make him yelp, and the mud squished between his toes. He waded out until the water was shoulder deep, then submerged himself. He came up sputtering and spitting, already nicely chilled. He wasn’t much of a swimmer, but he rolled onto his back and floated there for a while, gazing up at a robin’s egg sky edged with a thousand shades of green. He’d never swum naked before. It was kind of freeing.

He was still drifting on the water when he heard the growl of an engine. At first he assumed the farmer who rented Chris’s land was plowing or something—Dylan was still pretty vague about the specifics of farming activity. But then he realized that the sound was much too close for that, and coming closer. Alarmed, he splashed his way back to shore. Between the water on his skin and the mud on his feet and the tightness of his jeans, it was quickly apparent that getting his pants back on without falling on his ass was going to be an impossibility. “Fuck it. My farm,” he muttered and wrapped his shirt around his waist as a sort of makeshift loincloth. He toed his sandals back on and trotted up the hill.

And nearly got run over by a small tractor.

As Dylan hopped out of the way—getting himself good and scratched by the blackberries in the process—the Cat came to a shuddering halt. “Dig the outfit,” Chris said with a half smile.

“What the hell?”

“Told you this needed clearing. By the time you figure out how to do it, the bramble’s gonna be big enough to fight back.”

“But… but….”

“Could use some cash. You still got your job, right?”

Dylan tried to make his tongue work. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Good.” Chris reached as if to turn the machine back on.

“Wait!” Dylan cried. “I thought—you said you wanted me out of your life.”

Chris was silent a moment, and then he shrugged. “Kinda hard to do when you live next door. Kept picturin’ you like old Uncle Frank, glarin’ at me from that window.”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t—”

“Didn’t say you were. Just said I was picturin’ it.”

Dylan felt ridiculous standing mostly naked among the thorns while having this conversation. A jay squawked from a nearby tree, as if it were laughing at him. Dylan tilted his head and squinted to get a better look into the cab. “Does this mean you’ll help me with the reno too?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It doesn’t bother you to work with a werewolf?”

Chris gave him a long look and then hopped out of the Cat. Little trickles of sweat had formed around his hairline and were sliding down his tan neck. Dylan licked his lips and then had to look away.

“Dude, I didn’t care that you were a pretentious latte-swilling hipster wannabe with a goddamn Prius and NPR coffee cups and irony oozing from your pores. I can live with fuckin’ Fido once a month. Enough to work with you, anyway.”

Dylan struggled to bring his heart rate under control. He wondered whether werewolves could have cardiac arrests. “But you were so angry at me.”

“You think that’s ’cause you’re a wolf?”

“Well… yeah. And because I almost got you killed.”

“Asshole.” Chris folded his arms across his chest. He gave a pointed look at the scars on Dylan’s torso. “You fuckin’ bounced in there like a comic book hero and wiped the floor with that bastard. I didn’t get a scratch on me, and you got your guts scooped out. I ain’t mad at you over that.”

“Then… what?” Dylan shook his head in confusion.

Chris pointed angrily at him, his finger like a weapon. “You didn’t fuckin’ trust me! I let you see… let you see what I am, but you couldn’t fuckin’ let the stupid hick know what you are.”

“You’re far from stupid, Chris.”

“Goddamn it!” Chris pounded the tractor behind him so hard that Dylan wondered if he’d dented the metal. “You stand there and act like you fuckin’ respect me, like you think I’m… I’m worthy of you. But you think I can’t handle reality, that I’m gonna scream like a little girl, like fuckin’ Little Red Riding Hood.”

Dylan took a step closer, almost within reach. “That wasn’t it.”

“Then you thought I’d sell your story to… to the
National Enquirer
or
Fox News
or some other goddamn idiots.”

“Honestly, that never even occurred to me,” Dylan replied.

“Then why didn’t you trust me?” shouted Chris.

Dylan’s answer was almost a whisper. “I knew you’d leave me when you found out. I was… trying to delay the inevitable, I guess. Hoarding my time with you.”

A strange look came over Chris’s face. “You didn’t trust me to love you.”

Dylan had never before wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “Why would you?”

“Oh, dude.” Chris closed the space between them and gathered Dylan into his arms. His hands were hot and rough on Dylan’s bare skin, his hair was dusty and full of bits of leaves and twigs, and he smelled strongly of sweat and tobacco smoke. Dylan closed his eyes, inhaled, and allowed some of his weight to rest against Chris. His fingers clutched at the soft cotton of Chris’s T-shirt. “You’re such a fuckin’ moron,” Chris said against his shoulder.

The kiss that followed wasn’t the longest or hottest or most toe-curling they’d ever shared. Chris tasted like cigarettes and onions, and Dylan was in imminent danger of losing his loincloth altogether. But it was the most wonderful kiss Dylan had ever had, and all the knots in his chest finally unraveled, allowing him to breathe freely for the first time in years.