Fox Hunt

by J. Leigh Bailey

  On the floor at the foot of his bed, he rested on his knees, his body bowed backward, hands gripping his ankles. It was… obscene? Crazy? Sexy as fuck?

  And this was the exact moment my generalized awareness and attraction became straight up perving. With the way he contorted his body, his pelvis thrust forward, and his thin cotton shorts left nothing to the imagination. He released his ankles and slowly flowed forward, reversing his arching body until his palms lay flat on the carpet in front of him. Then he lifted first one knee, then the other, until his body made a perfect inverted V, his ass on full display.

  I may have drooled a little. Because, damn.

  Buddy the grumpy grizzly shifter did yoga. I had no idea that a burly man working through yoga poses would be more exciting to me than a lap dance at a strip club.

  “You should join me,” he said.

  I’m not sure what word I meant to say, but an inarticulate grunt was my response. Because if by joining him, he meant letting me drape myself over that massive—and bendy—body, then I was all in. But… “Wait, what?”

  Buddy tilted his head meeting my eyes. “Yoga. It’s good for you. Centers your mind and body.”

  “Yeah, it’s not my kind of thing,” I said, trying to keep my voice and my breathing even.

  His shirt fell until it bunched up at his neck, giving me a clear view of that mile-wide back, and if I looked right, I got a good shot at his hairy chest. My heartbeat picked up.

  “You should consider it.” His nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed. His right hand slipped, and he fell forward, barely catching himself before face-planting into what was undoubtedly gross carpet.

  Nope, nope, nope. This wasn’t happening. I forced myself to think of what a black light would pick up in this place. The floor was probably a Pollock painting of various bodily fluids. When even that wasn’t enough to push away the heat in my blood—and loins—I jumped up. “I’m more of a runner.” In more ways than one. I tumbled off the bed, scurrying to the bathroom. “Is it okay if I shower first?” I hollered, even as I closed the door, not waiting for an answer.

  Damn. I needed a shower, stat. First, because traveling all day yesterday and being accosted in a rest stop restroom took its toll on me, but also because only a liberal application of soap would wash away the aroma of my arousal. Strong soap. And if I took an extra few minutes to take care of personal business while decidedly not thinking about my surly travel companion, who could blame me?

  WE decided to stop at the diner next door before heading out of town. We’d had dinner there the night before, and it had been surprisingly delicious. After surviving the night in the motel that time and disinfectant forgot, we deserved a hearty breakfast. My Denver omelet, stack of crispy hash browns, and sourdough toast reminded me of full moons before my mom became a council member. Once a month, the morning after a full moon run, the family would tuck into a full country breakfast and share stories from the night before, whether it was the grasshopper that sat on my nose making me sneeze, the field of wildflowers Aiden discovered, or us falling through the thin ice on a creek that was way too early in the season to hold our weight.

  Buddy had ordered a spinach-and-tomato egg-white omelet with fruit on the side.

  I eyed his plate, then examined his hulking form. “There’s no way you got that size eating that way.”

  His face shuttered.

  “Oh shit. That’s not what I meant.” Damn it. Out of context, that sounded really bad.

  I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. “I swear, however you’re interpreting what I said, you’re wrong. You’re a big guy—strong—and there’s no way you can sustain that body with a couple of egg whites and chunks of cantaloupe.”

  He relaxed a bit, but that hint of suspicion remained at the edges.

  Damn it, David, don’t do it. His unexpected vulnerability made me set aside my own discomfort. “I almost jacked off in the shower thinking about you.”

  My eyes bulged. Holy shit. What was that?

  He gasped, rearing back in his seat.

  Screw it. I certainly couldn’t make things any worse. “My point is—”

  “You have a point?” His voice cracked, and he grabbed his water glass, taking a big swig.

  “My point is,” I repeated, “that I think you’re sexy as hell and your appeal is not lessened in the least by the extra padding you have.”

  Red stained his face and his eyes darted away. He cleared his throat. “Um. I’m not sure what to do with that.”

  My cheeks burned, likely matching his blush. “Well, if it were up to me, you’d forget everything about the last few minutes so we can go on without the awkwardness hanging over our heads.”

  “That’s… that’s probably a good idea.”

  Despite our best efforts—and because amnesia wasn’t something a person could willfully invoke—the freaking awkwardness totally hung over our heads for the next ten minutes.

  “So, what’s the itinerary for today?” Buddy asked, crossing his fork and knife over his empty plate.

  “Picking up I-90 there”—I pointed to the overpass half a block south of the diner—“and keep heading east until we hit Madison. It’s a straight shot.”

  Buddy pulled up his phone and fiddled with the screen for a moment. He tilted it toward me, and I saw he was looking at a map application, following the line of I-90 east. “Looks like it’s going to be about ten hours, give or take.”

  I nodded. “We’ll get in about sundown unless something happens along the way.”

  “You’re meeting someone from the college?”

  I picked at the last triangle of toast on my plate. “I’ve got an interview with a professor of journalism studies at the School of Mass Communication and Journalism.”

  “What time?”

  “Tomorrow at nine.”

  “How are we going to explain my presence?”

  I jerked back, dropping my fork. “Excuse me?”

  Raising his brothers probably gave him plenty of practice perfecting the long-suffering sigh he gave me. “You’re really struggling with this whole bodyguard thing, aren’t you? Part of the gig means I’m with you 24-7. It’s not like I’m going to be waiting in the car during your interviews.”

  “Well, you can’t come in with me.”

  “You’re not leaving my sight.”

  “I can’t tell the people who potentially hold my future in their hands that I need a 24-7 bodyguard because a secret group of terrorist scientists are out to get me after I hacked something I shouldn’t have. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be very impressed by that.”

  “So we need to come up with an explanation that does not include the words bodyguard or hacking.”

  “Like what? Maybe if you were old, I could convince someone that you’re my dad. Of course, then I’d look weak and codependent. Who brings their dad to grad school interviews?”

  “I could be your parole officer.”

  “Parole officer? You want them to think I’m a criminal?” His face was so bland that it took me a few seconds to notice the humor lurking in his eyes.

  “Pretty sure hacking is a crime,” he said with a shrug.

  “You’re not funny.” If I’d been in my fox form, the frustrated growl I let loose would have been more like chittering. “We need to get moving.” I waved to the server to bring us the bill.

  “So how do you suggest we explain me coming with you? I’m not your daddy, not your parole officer.”

  My mind fritzed as the words who’s your daddy echoed in my brain. Two breaths later an idea bloomed. “We’ll tell them you’re my boyfriend and you’re there for moral support.” I smirked at him, sure the idea of posing—even if only barely—as part of a gay couple would freak him out.

  “Sure,” he said, not freaking out in the least.

  “But… but…,” I sputtered.

  The server hustled over. Her eyes glanced back and forth between Buddy and me before she finally set the
ticket exactly in the middle between us.

  Buddy snatched it up before I could. After glancing at the total, he withdrew a couple of bills from his wallet.

  He leaned forward, his dark eyes penetrating. “David.”

  “Yeah?” My voice cracked.

  “You should know, the gay thing isn’t going to scare me off.”

  I licked suddenly dry lips. “No?”

  “I’m gay too.” With a smug smile, he surged to his feet and headed to the register to pay.

  I sat there, mind whirling. Holy crap.

  Chapter Six

  THE flashing red and blue lights were almost as annoying as the irritated “I told you so” look Buddy wore.

  We waited for the Wisconsin highway patrolman to finish running my license. The suffocating weight of Buddy’s glare made me glad that I had the window open despite the heat. I hunched in a little.

  “I didn’t know!” I told him in desperation. “We’d been driving seventy-five or eighty for the last two days. I didn’t know the speed limit changed when we crossed into Wisconsin.”

  “There are signs,” he growled.

  “At a certain point, the signs become like white noise. They disappear into the background.”

  “Says the man who claims to notice the details. Which means you just stopped paying attention to them.”

  “That’s… not entirely inaccurate,” I conceded.

  “We’re splitting the driving going forward.”

  “No, I told you, nobody—”

  “You’re tired, David. And when you’re tired, your brain gets fuzzy, your reaction time slows, and you start to become a danger on the road.”

  The crunch of boots on gravel interrupted Buddy’s lecture. The patrolman leaned in from the passenger side window, and passed over my license, registration, insurance card, and a piece of paper that was presumably the speeding ticket. I didn’t even want to look at the how much the fine would be. Or think about what would happen to my car insurance rate.

  “Hey, buddy, you’ll want to ease up a bit.”

  Both Buddy and I looked at the officer before realizing he’d said buddy in a generic sense, not that he was actually speaking to Buddy.

  “Yes, sir.” I made a show of calmly inserting my ID back into my wallet.

  The patrolman went back to his car. When I reached down to press the ignition button, Buddy’s hand covered mine. “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m driving the rest of the way tonight. Maybe the rest of this trip.”

  “Now listen here—”

  “No, you listen here. You’re tired. You just got a ticket for speeding. You regularly get distracted while driving. I’m surprised you even have a valid license. And you’re not going to fight me on this.”

  I was so ready to fight him on this. On principle, if nothing else. “Really?”

  “Really. Because I’m going to take over the driving if I have to get out and haul you bodily from the car. And there’s a nice highway patrolman waiting for us to leave. Do you really want to make a spectacle in front of law enforcement?”

  The cop probably would be on my side—I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and Buddy trying to take my keys by force or something would likely come off as assault. I was tempted to call Buddy’s bluff. But even if the patrolman stood up for me, it would lead to a lot of drama and discussion—and probably end up with a call to my mom. He had me and he knew it. “You’re a jerk.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “But only today. After tomorrow the drives aren’t so long between destinations. And this will give me time to prepare for my interview tomorrow,” I added.

  “Whatever you need to justify it to yourself, David.”

  I gritted my teeth but undid my seat belt as Buddy did the same. We left the car and met at the hood. “Keys,” he said, holding his hand out to me.

  “They work by proximity. You don’t need—”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re in my possession from here on out.”

  “Damn it, Budd—”

  “Is everything okay?” the patrolman called from his car.

  “Fine,” Buddy and I chorused.

  I growled, yanking the key fob out of my pocket and shoved it at him.

  “Good choice.”

  Buddy adjusted the seat to accommodate his bulk, and then we continued east on Interstate 90.

  It was stupid, but the passenger seat—heated and scented by Buddy’s body—made me feel comforted and safe. I raised the seatback until it was a nearly uncomfortable angle. I needed to keep my wits about me and not get distracted by inadvisable warm and fuzzy feelings about a certain bear shifter who would be out of my life in approximately nineteen days.

  A glance at the dash showed me Buddy drove at exactly the speed limit. Of course he did.

  Rolling my eyes, I reached behind his seat to grab my messenger bag. A minute later, I had my iPad powered on and resting on my knee. I was supposed to be reviewing my notes, prepping myself for my first interview at a nationally recognized journalism school, but instead I got distracted by my email inbox. The red bubble with the number 138 reminded me that I hadn’t checked in at all the day before. Usually I’d be refreshing my email a couple times an hour. I guessed driving for twelve hours could keep the mind occupied. Granted, if Buddy hadn’t been such a stickler, there’s a good chance that I’d have checked my email on my phone during the drive.

  Half the emails were news updates and forums I belonged to. I filed some of them, but it didn’t take long for me to get sucked into some of the firsthand accounts from a small Wyoming town’s recent notoriety regarding the treatment of LGBT students.

  “This is such bullshit!”

  “What’s that?” Buddy asked, eyes steady on the road ahead of us.

  “Some asshole politico radio host went off about a high school’s use of a Love Is Love component in a student mural. The same old schtick with words like family and immoral and inappropriate. Called the school administrators a lot of names for allowing it. It was just one component of a mural, but he called for the mural to be completely painted over.”

  “Did they do it?”

  “No, thankfully. The superintendent stepped forward and said the schools in town would be an inclusive, accepting space for all students, including LGBT kids.”

  “Good.”

  “And this was Riverton,” I added, mentioning the name of the central Wyoming town. “It’s people like that radio host who give Wyoming its narrow-minded, bigoted reputation.” I shook my head. Wyoming wasn’t always the stereotypical ass-end of nowhere TV and movies would have people believe. Unfortunately, when it came to LBGTQIA rights and diversity, it was seriously lacking. It was one of only five states that hadn’t adopted hate crime laws.

  “And people like the superintendent help balance the scales.”

  “I suppose. It’s so frustrating, though. For every silver lining, there seems to be a bigger storm cloud. Like this.” I brandished my iPad in his direction, even though there was no way he’d take his eyes off the road to even glance at it. “A kid—nine freaking years old—told his friends and family he might be gay. The next day—the next fucking day—a bunch of kids at his school harassed him, told him he was gross and wrong. Told him to kill himself. Four days later, he did just that.”

  “Damn,” Buddy murmured. “Nine?”

  “Nine. Nine-year-olds should not be bullied into suicide. And that’s the core of the problem. The bullying. Where were the teachers? The parents? Who taught these other kids that this was accepted, normal behavior? And you know damn well it was taught. Kids don’t erupt from the womb with hate in their hearts. They’re learning this from their families, from their communities. Hell, they’re learning it from politicians and preachers. And those kids, those poor kids who happen to be different, there’s no hope for them. Not when bullying and hate has become normalized.”

  I jabbed at the iPad, wishing I’d pulled out the attachable keyboard
. “It’d serve them right if I wrote an article about it. Do a full-on exposé about school complacency with LGBTQIA bullying.”

  “Why don’t you?” Buddy said.

  “Why don’t I what?”

  “Write your article. Do your exposé.”

  I squirmed. “I don’t know. It seems a little on the nose, you know? I want to show I’m a serious journalist who can broadcast a wide variety of important issues. I don’t want to be pigeonholed as another gay guy writing about gay issues.”

  Buddy scrunched his forehead. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

  “It’s not a bad thing. It’s an important issue that deserves more proactive media attention. But when a public figure is openly gay, two things happen. First, their sexual orientation becomes the default descriptor used, and then they become a spokesperson or representative for queers everywhere. People look to them to define what gay or lesbian or transgender means. It took years for people to stop referring to Rachel Maddow as ‘that lesbian political commentator on television’ and leave her sexuality out of her credentials.”

  I scrubbed my hands over my face and took a breath. I hated the twinge of guilt, almost shame, I felt. I was a member of a marginalized group, a group facing certain challenges, but I hesitated to step up, to stand up, for them. But I had to think about the reality of my future.

  “Anderson Cooper was an established, respected journalist when he came out publicly. I don’t intend to hide my sexuality—it’s part of who I am—but if I start my career with a piece about LGBTQIA kids or bullying, I’ll be viewed as a crusader, and I won’t be taken seriously as a true reporter.”

  Buddy patted my knee before returning his hand to the steering wheel. “You don’t need to be Anderson Cooper. Be you. You’ve got talent and a platform. You can use your voice to shed light on the problem. Be the change you wish to see.”

  “You sound like a fortune cookie.”

  “Don’t deflect. And Gandhi said it.”

  I squirmed.

  His words planted a little germ of an idea. There were less than 2000 people enrolled at Cody College, which meant I knew a lot of the students personally. Which meant I could get a feel for bullying policies, enforcement, the rumors, and so much more for several local school districts. From there I could dig even further. If it turned out schools’ administrations were knowingly turning a blind eye, or worse, encouraging discriminatory behavior, it could be a hell of a story. And since I wasn’t a complete bastard, I had the chance to shed light on a growing epidemic.