The Gravedigger's Brawl

  “I’ll stay away from him,” he told Noah as he made a turn and started heading back toward the museum.

  Noah examined him. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Just . . . I’ll stay away from him.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He kissed me.”

  “And it was bad?”

  Wyatt rubbed his eyes and grimaced. “And it was really good.”

  “Yeah, that’s always my first warning sign.”

  “Noah. I just . . . something about him turns me into a selfish asshole or something. I don’t want to hurt him.”

  Noah was silent for an entire block. “Okay,” he finally said.

  Wyatt glanced at him, and Noah was watching him.

  “Look. Despite my knee-jerk reaction to protect him, I saw the way he looks at you. He likes you, Wy. Even after what you did, he still likes you. He can see the real you when he looks at you, just like I do.”

  Wyatt sighed heavily as some of the weight lifted from his shoulders. He’d never been happier to have a friend like Noah.

  “Don’t make any big decision until next week,” Noah advised. “Let it all settle.”

  “Yeah,” Wyatt whispered. “Yeah, okay.”

  “The only thing that could go wrong for you now is if his plumbing goes haywire,” Noah added, snickering.

  Ash tried, before the bar opened, to juggle three of his flair bottles as Ryan and Caleb watched. He dropped one of the bottles twice before giving up.

  He sedately tended the bar until almost seven, when the Friday night crowd grew larger, and then he and Delilah split the waiting duties as Ryan took on the entire heavy night of flairing with Caleb to back him up. Ash knew they were straining with the added load, but by the end of the night his head hurt so badly that he couldn’t even be bothered to feel guilty about it. He was just glad the night was over.

  “The new fridge is working,” Ryan gleefully announced as Caleb flipped over the closed sign on the door.

  “No more ghostly banging,” Ash said flatly, waving his damp rag in celebration.

  “Why don’t you go on home, lad?” Caleb said.

  Ash pursed his lips and looked up from the bar top. He knew the answer to that question: Because his couch smelled like Wyatt. Because his bathroom mirror would have a hint of Wyatt’s reflection in it. Because his bed was lonely. Because he’d fallen for the asshole even though he hadn’t wanted to.

  “I’ll help,” he said instead.

  “Okay,” Ryan said, tone measured and suspicious. “Well, the new fridge is working but it’s also in the middle of the floor up there, so I need some help moving it.”

  “I got that,” Caleb said before Ash could offer.

  Ash huffed at him. It’d be no problem if he never had to go into that damn upstairs again. There’d been too many unexplained noises coming from up there.

  He heard Ryan and Caleb’s footsteps shuffling up the stairs and across the floor, and then the heavy, tortured scraping of the refrigerator as they moved it. Delilah was in the kitchen, checking their inventory and singing. Ash turned around and began placing glasses on the shelves, shivering as the heat in the room began to seep out. All those bodies in such an enclosed space for so long made it perpetually warm. It usually took longer for the bar to grow chilly again, though.

  Fall truly was here in all its glory, but despite Ash’s love of the season, he felt none of the usual elation as he shut down the bar.

  He glanced around to see if a door or window was open, still tracking the dragging of the heavy refrigerator from upstairs. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, and he turned back to place another beer mug on the shelf. In the mirror above it was a reflection of a man standing behind his right shoulder, pale and drawn with dark, lank hair and black, angry eyes meeting Ash’s.

  Ash shouted and whirled around, throwing himself backward against the shelves that lined the mirror.

  No one was there.

  He remained plastered against the back wall of the bar, panting for breath as his entire body flushed with cold terror. His eyes darted around the room, trying to locate the man.

  He’d been standing so close, nearly touching Ash, and yet Ash hadn’t felt or heard anything but the chill. He grabbed one of the heavy flair bottles and held it up high, peering over the bar to see if the man was crouching there.

  Nothing.

  The room was empty, and Ash could see from where he stood that the door was still locked. There was nowhere to hide in the large, open space, and there was no one there.

  Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Ryan hopped through the doorway, looking around. “You okay?”

  Caleb ran into Ryan’s back like two characters from the clown parade. Delilah came hurtling through the kitchen door with her broom at the ready. “What happened?”

  “There was a guy,” Ash gasped, the flair bottle still held up like a weapon.

  “What guy?” Caleb asked.

  “I don’t know! I saw him in the mirror, he was like . . .” He gestured behind his shoulder to show where the man had been standing. “Right there! When I turned around, he was gone. I can’t breathe.” He put a hand to his chest and tried to gasp for air. He realized there was shattered glass all around him. He’d knocked all the glasses off the shelves.

  “He’s having a panic attack,” Caleb whispered to Ryan, and hurried around him toward Ash.

  Delilah reached for the phone at the end of the bar.

  “Don’t!” Ash said as she picked up the receiver. “Don’t do that. No hospitals, no 911. Please. I’m okay.”

  “You sure?” Ryan asked.

  Ash nodded and met Caleb’s eyes, then looked at Delilah, waiting until she replaced the receiver before he broke eye contact. “Just . . . can one of you drive me home? I think I need to get out of here.”

  Ash woke slowly, curled in his tangled sheets and sighing when he remembered that Caleb had forbade him to come to work today. He didn’t have to move at all for the next forty-eight hours if he didn’t want to.

  His head was pounding and his muscles were sore and not at all happy about having spent the entire night tense and hiding under the covers. He stretched and turned his head to look out the window, wincing as the pre-noon sunlight streamed through the blinds onto his face.

  He pushed up on his elbows and peered groggily around his bedroom. The vintage-inspired iPod dock alarm clock on the windowsill said it was nearing noon. The time clicked over and the alarm began to blast music meant to roust him out of bed.

  If he’d been planning to disobey Caleb’s very specific order not to come to work, he wouldn’t have made the lunch crowd. He hadn’t even bothered to shower the night before, too exhausted and freaked out to do anything but crawl into bed and surround himself with pillows as if they would protect him.

  In the light of day, he was embarrassed over just how close he’d come to panicking the night before. Delilah had dialed a 9 and a 1 before he’d calmed himself to a respectable point.

  The sheets pooled in his lap as he sat up and rubbed at his face. His fingertips came away smudged with kohl. His pillowcases were covered with it as well.

  “You’re such a freak,” he said as the frenetic music of the alarm continued to echo through his condo. It looked like a beautiful day, and the way the leaves on the trees lining the street swayed in the wind made him think there might be a chill in the air. Just as he liked it.

  He shivered when he remembered the chill in the bar before he’d seen the man in the mirror. The hairs on his arms raised and he had to rub them vigorously to shake off the feeling.

  What was he supposed to do with an entire weekend off? This was the first time he’d lain out of work in nearly a year, and it was definitely the first time he didn’t feel guilty about it. Just the thought of going back to Gravedigger’s made him shiver again. He couldn’t get the memory of the face he’d seen out of his mind. Everyone was convinced that the knock to his head had caused his imagination to go int
o hyperdrive. Maybe he did need a weekend off, just some time to lie out in the grass and stare at the sun and be safe in bed before nightfall.

  He reached over and smacked the alarm clock, and the music cut off abruptly. It was time to get some daylight hours under his belt.

  An hour later he had showered, foraged through his kitchen, and was dressed in a pair of black track pants and a hooded LSU sweatshirt. He grabbed his keys and left, heading across the way to pick up his neighbor’s dog for a walk. Anyone who saw him in the next couple of hours would never recognize him as the man who tended bar at Gravedigger’s. His unfettered hair was curly and still damp. There was no eyeliner in sight. The only possible hint of his “true identity” was the tongue ring he’d been too lazy to change out.

  He walked along the pond at Byrd Park, head down as the dog tugged at the end of its leash bounced along the sidewalk and yipped at the squirrels in the trees. Finally, he grunted at the dog to stop barking. His headache wasn’t quite gone yet, and the sunshine seemed to be doing weird things to his eyes, causing lancing shafts of pain every time he looked up for too long.

  “Ash!” someone called from across the large pond.

  Ash stopped short and looked up, shielding his eyes against the sun and squinting. He frowned when he saw Wyatt Case standing beside his blue Civic, holding up his hand.

  Ash swallowed down a sudden knot of nerves and an annoying burst of excitement. He motioned for Wyatt to start walking and continued on the way he’d been going, closing in on Wyatt at the head of the pond.

  “Hey,” Wyatt said when they got close enough to speak.

  “Hi.” Ash wound the leash around his wrist to keep the dog from jumping on the man.

  “I don’t remember you having a dog,” Wyatt said after an uncomfortable moment of silence.

  Ash looked down at the mutt and shrugged. “The girl across the way broke her leg,” he said, not certain why Wyatt’s sudden presence was making him huffy. Perhaps it was Wyatt’s non-reaction to his last advance that had hurt his pride just a little.

  Wyatt slid his hands into the pockets of his khakis, looking from the dog to Ash uncertainly.

  “What do you want?” Ash asked, deciding to just be blunt about it.

  His hostility was poorly concealed, and Wyatt shifted his weight and shrugged. “I went by the bar to check on you. Ryan said you were having a psychotic break; I thought maybe it’d be fun to watch.”

  Ash blinked at him, his cheeks growing warmer. “Oh.” He and Wyatt looked at each other for a long moment, and Ash finally just laughed. “I’m sorry. I just . . . It’s been a long week.”

  Wyatt offered a tentative smile. “It’s okay. Honestly, if you speak to me at all at this point, I consider it a victory.”

  Ash frowned. “That’s not what I wanted when I first met you.”

  “Me either. It’s what I deserve, though.”

  Ash wasn’t certain how to respond to the self-effacing honesty, so he looked away and released a bit of the leash so the dog could reach the grass.

  He cleared his throat. “So how’s the exhibition going?” he asked.

  “It’s going great,” Wyatt answered with what sounded like relief. “Noah and I did the heavy research and then put a bunch of undergrad interns on it. They’re much more creative with the spooky stuff than we are.”

  “That’s good.” Ash smiled. “Spooky stuff, huh?”

  Wyatt gave a long-suffering sigh. “Tasteful went out the window when the Board took over. I tried.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll bring in some new interest and offend some people who need to be offended. I guess I should come by and see it.”

  “You should,” Wyatt said, his voice low and gruff, sending a thrill of pleasure down Ash’s spine. “It was really your idea, you know.”

  “That’s because I’m a genius.”

  Wyatt laughed, looking back over his shoulder at his car. Ash recognized him as a man with something else on his mind. It hurt a little, knowing his well-being wasn’t the main reason Wyatt had sought him out.

  They didn’t fit in the same sphere; they’d never be able to parse the differences between the worlds of the museum and Gravedigger’s. Ash sighed. “Wyatt?”

  Wyatt turned back and blinked as if he were surprised Ash was still there.

  Ash smiled. The absent-minded professor part of Wyatt was charming. “Was there something else besides witnessing my mental breakdown that you wanted?”

  “Oh! Yeah, I . . . I was wondering if you’d . . .” He sighed and shook his head, looking at Ash in defeat. “Actually, no. I was going to ask you to have a look at some of the other documents I have about Gravedigger’s, but that’s just because I promised Noah that I wouldn’t get near you unless it was about the exhibition and I couldn’t think of another reason to come that wouldn’t get my ass kicked.”

  Ash stared at him, both dumbstruck and elated by the honesty. “Really?”

  “I’m sorry.” Wyatt’s cheeks colored and he looked out over the pond. “I just . . . I really wanted to see you.”

  “Have you eaten?” Ash asked. The dog strained on the leash and Ash tugged back to calm him.

  Wyatt smiled tentatively. “What did you have in mind?”

  Ash grinned and shrugged. He nodded across the street in the direction of his building. Home was about eight blocks away, and there were several restaurants and cafés between the park and there. “I could probably scrounge up something at home,” he said, not mentioning any of those convenient eating establishments. “Have to get Bullseye here back to Katie before she thinks I ran off with him.”

  “You sure?” Wyatt asked with a bigger smile.

  “Just don’t sneak out while I’m in the bathroom or something, and we’re good.”

  Wyatt had the good grace to look ashamed, but he nodded.

  “Better go get your car,” Ash added. “The only people that park there for extended periods of time are hookers, dealers, or undercover cops.”

  Wyatt raised an eyebrow as he extracted his keys from his pocket. “Extended periods of time?”

  Ash just gave him a suggestive smirk and headed for Wyatt’s car.

  Wyatt had been determined to keep his word. Right up until he woke that morning already thinking about Ash and wondering how he was. He’d discussed it with himself while driving to work, and he knew in his heart that he could make it up to Ash and then some.

  There was no reason to panic again. He’d seen what sort of person Ash was and he’d overcome the intimidating strangeness of Ash's lifestyle easier than he’d thought he could. The fact that Ash changed his tongue ring to match his outfit and exuded an odd Victorian charm and held almost rock star status among the denizens of the night didn’t mean that Ash was scary. All that, in fact, just made him more intriguing. And on top of all that, Ash was interested in him.

  Wyatt thought they at least deserved to give each other another chance.

  The decision to be stand-up about it hadn’t kept him from sneaking away from Noah, though. He’d begged off early, saying he had a dentist appointment. He knew Noah had an unnatural aversion to dentists and wouldn’t ask any questions about the trip before or after.

  Deciding to do things right also didn’t keep him from feeling guilty as he followed Ash up the stairs to his door. It had the air of an illicit affair, right up to when Ash handed him the key and nodded at the door.

  “I’ll take him home,” Ash said as he gestured to the dog. “Be right there.” He turned and went to the door opposite his and knocked. The dog was sitting patiently, its tail wagging. Wyatt stood watching Ash as he tilted his ear to the door, as if listening for a call, and then reached out and opened it.

  Wyatt looked down at the keys in his hand and waited.

  Soon Ash emerged from the other door and raised an eyebrow at Wyatt as he strolled across the landing toward him. Wyatt handed the keys back to him, and Ash took Wyatt’s entire hand in his. He looked from their joined hands to Wyat
t’s eyes with a crooked smile. Wyatt stared at him, mesmerized.

  “Would it be inappropriate to kiss you right now?” Ash asked.

  Wyatt licked his lips and inhaled deeply. “Depends, I guess.”

  “On?”

  “What color is it today?”

  Ash’s crooked smile grew and he opened his mouth to show Wyatt his tongue. The lime and black Koosh ball from the previous day was still in, and Wyatt raised one eyebrow dubiously. “No Saturday special?” he asked, trying to sound disapproving but failing spectacularly.

  Ash took a step and laid his hand against the door behind Wyatt. Wyatt’s back hit the door as Ash pressed against him. He reached for Wyatt’s wrist and brought it up, pinning Wyatt. The kiss was almost chaste, if the presence of a French tickler could be classified as that. Ash slid Wyatt’s hands up the door until he held them over their heads as they kissed, Ash brushing Wyatt’s lips with the tip of his tongue but pressing their bodies together hard.

  The odd dichotomy of the actions sent an instant pang of lust through Wyatt’s body. When Ash eased away, Wyatt exhaled shakily and opened his eyes.

  “I’ll see what sort of special I can come up with,” Ash murmured before kissing him again and extracting the keys from his fist. He continued to kiss Wyatt as he unlocked the door, getting more heated as the door clicked open.

  “I didn’t come here for this,” Wyatt said breathlessly.

  “No?” Ash pushed Wyatt through the door and nudged it shut with his foot. “You came for lunch?”

  Wyatt stared at him, unable to answer honestly for fear of saying the wrong thing.

  “We can do lunch, Wyatt,” Ash said with a smile. He reached out and hooked a finger through the belt loop of Wyatt’s khaki pants and pulled him near. Their lips almost touched as Ash brought his head closer to Wyatt’s, and then he moved away again and smirked as he backed up. Wyatt realized that the man was teasing him. Cruelly. Skillfully.

  Wyatt met his eyes, frozen as he tried to decide how to react. Then he offered a rueful laugh. “I may need a minute if we’re going to eat food.”