by Z. Allora
“Yes.” Erick squinted at his brother as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. No help from Ethan so he shook the doctor’s hand.
Why were they being ushered into a doctor’s office? Bookshelves filled to capacity lined the walls. Any free space above the books was consumed by more books and papers wedged in.
“Thank you for calling, Alex.” The doctor spoke to one of the men who trailed them here. He sat on the edge of his desk. Pulling off his glasses, he tapped the frames against his thigh.
Ethan gasped. “Oh, shit. Erick, I didn’t even introduce you to my… friends.” He shook his head. “You know Cut.”
“Yeah, he’s supposed to be dead along with you.” Erick glared at Cutter, even though a piece of him was thrilled he too was among the living. “I’ve been putting flowers on your grave when I visited Ethan’s.”
Cutter frowned. “I’m sorry we—”
Ethan pointed to the blond and the redhead. “Um… this is Ulrich and Alex.”
Erick returned each of their nods but had no clue why they were here. “Ethan, who are they? Why are we in a doctor’s office?” More to the point Erick demanded, “Can’t you just tell me what’s going on?”
The doctor cleared his throat. “What do you know about zombies?”
“Huh?” Dr. Handsome got Erick’s attention.
“Erick, what do you know about zombies?” The doctor restated his crazy question.
This had to be a weird dream. His alarm would go off, and Ethan would still be dead. He grabbed his brother’s wrist, as if he could keep him alive past this bizarreness. “Please tell me.”
Ethan glanced at his three friends. Was he hoping they could save him from the answer?
Cut leaned into Ethan’s side. The tall, muscle-bound redhead the doctor had called Alex reached out and squeezed Ethan’s shoulder as if to give him strength. Ulrich gave an encouraging smile. Okay, Ethan somehow had gotten his own support team.
“You know The Walking Dead is bullshit?” Ethan asked.
Did Erick need to point out the obvious? “Well, yeah. It’s a TV show, and I mean, zombies don’t exist.”
Ethan took a deep breath and exhaled slow and long. “How about if I were to tell you zombies aren’t rotting corpses searching for brains?”
“I’d ask to have a puff of whatever you’re smoking.” Erick’s emotions were put on pause as he tried to process how his brother sat next to him alive but kept yammering about zombies.
“Zombism is actually caused by a protein deficiency.” His brother sounded serious, like he was trying to relay actual facts.
Time to stop the nonsense talk. “Ethan, stop. Why did you play dead?”
Ethan blew out a frustrated breath. “You know that I’ve never lied to you, even when a fib would have been easier.”
“Yes, you were the one who told me Mom ran over my dog and that my hamster didn’t decide to move to a farm but died. You’ve never lied to me….” Until his brother pretended to be fucking dead went without saying.
“I know this will sound crazy, but it’s not a lie. I’m a zombie, and these are my mates.”
Erick giggle-snorted. Oh, as far as dreams went, this rated high on the ridiculous scale. If this wasn’t a dream, then his brother was a piece of work and needed medication. He studied Cutter. Maybe he would take pity on Erick. “Cut, please tell me why you pretended to be dead.”
Cut took a deep breath. “We didn’t have much choice. Look Erick, Storm… I mean, Ethan didn’t want to lie to you but there wasn’t another way.”
He was tired of this bullshit. “Whatever. So how did you become a zombie?”
“Alex and Ulrich were born this way. They changed me and your brother into zombies, because we are their mates.” Cutter’s voice sounded normal but the words were coming straight from the Land of Insanity.
The lyrics of the Gaga song ran through his mind. She could make a crazy video of “Born to Be a Zombie.”
He studied Cutter and the other two along with the supposed doctor, who were all nodding.
Getting impatient waiting for them to burst out laughing, Erick said, “Yeah, right. Is this a cult?”
“No, it’s not a cult.” The doctor groaned and pinched his nose at Erick’s very reasonable assessment.
Erick stared at them. “Right….”
Finally, the guy looked at Erick. The so-called doctor broke the staring match by turning to Ethan. “Your brother has had quite a shock. Maybe he should get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired.” No more. He would no longer allow himself to be managed by everyone.
He stepped around the citizens of crazy town.
“Where are you going?” Ethan growled.
Erick opened the door.
His angel stood poised to knock.
Erick gasped. “Oh, um….”
“Cassidy, we’re a little busy right now,” Ethan almost shouted.
Something in Erick snapped at the dismissive way his brother spoke to his angel. “Shut up, Ethan.”
“Um, I found your purse and pom-poms. I didn’t want you to worry you had lost them.” His angel handed him the items. “I’m Cassidy Frost, by the way.”
Goodness. That shy smile melted away much of Erick’s anger and replaced the raw emotions with something very different. Something Erick didn’t have much experience with—overwhelming desire.
“Thank you. I’m Erick McGrath. I guess you already know my dead brother, who’s not dead?”
“Yeah, I know your brother. I’m sorry you were told he died. That must have been terrible for you.” He ducked his head.
“Finally, someone acknowledging how horrid that is to do to someone!” Maybe this wasn’t a dream.
Cassidy nodded. “But it’s—”
Ethan groaned. “Cassidy, we were trying to explain things to Erick.”
Cassidy leaned in. He smelled of sunshine and pineapples. “The whole zombie thing is pretty whacky, isn’t it?”
Was he serious? Erick shook his head, hoping to find space for the bullshit they were telling him. “I don’t understand how zombies are possible.”
“I didn’t either. Maybe you’d enjoy going for a stroll with me?” Cassidy offered the sanest thing Erick had heard since he stepped into the twilight zone.
For the second time in his life, Erick McGrath did exactly what the hell he wanted to do. “I would love that.”
Without looking back, he spun on his kitten heel and waltzed out, leaving his sputtering brother, the harem of Team Ethan, and the doctor sitting there with open mouths.
4
Zombie 101
Cassidy couldn’t mistake the “touch my baby brother and I will make you drink through a straw” look that Storm gave him. But screw it. Cassidy couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried.
Goddammit, he didn’t want to try. Compelled, he pointed his cheerleader down a different hallway and trailed after him.
Maybe he’d been programmed by that old TV show with its tagline “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” Although perhaps it wasn’t the world he wanted to save. Cassidy had seen… sucked a ton of babealicious men and never felt amped the way he did chasing after Erick’s twitching skirt and stomping heels.
Erick adjusted his blond ponytails, making them even more askew and that much more adorable. His innocence… and something else… made Cassidy crave the taste of his pink-glossed lips—
What was he thinking? Ever since he’d protected Erick from the fall, he wanted to shelter him from everything for the rest of forever…. Ha, crazy much?
Cassidy guided Erick to turn left and out of the building.
Erick took a deep breath. “Where are we going?”
Damned if Cassidy knew, but he gestured toward the duck pond.
Erick rustled his pom-poms around, then hooked their loops to his pocketbook’s handle as they meandered along the path. “So, you believe all this zombie stuff?”
Cassidy sat on his favorite bench ove
rlooking the water. “I sort of have to.”
Erick remained standing. The tiny lights the gardeners wove through the branches of the pink flowering crepe myrtle shadowed and highlighted him. Folding lightly toned arms across the charming uniform, Erick glared at Cassidy. “Look, if this is a cult—”
“Nah, just a group of guys who have a protein issue.” Cassidy gestured for Erick to sit next to him.
Erick shook his head and paced in front of the bench.
“I’ve no reason to snow you.” Cassidy tried not to enjoy how every tight turn of Erick’s circuit of stress made that blue skirt swirl, giving Cassidy a peek of Erick’s undies.
Finally, Erick’s rotations came to a halt, and he asked, “Really? This shit is real?”
Exhaling hard, Cassidy shrugged. “Yeah.”
“I don’t understand.” Erick dropped next to Cassidy. He stared at him with sad amber eyes.
Cassidy put a finger under Erick’s right eye, and fucking hell if he didn’t lean toward him. The trust shown slammed Cassidy in the gut. He fixed the eyeliner smudge, then did the other side and pulled back.
“Thanks,” Erick mumbled. He glanced toward the pond. “Are you telling me you’re a zombie too?”
“If I’m not, my body has been playing a super shitty trick on me.”
“What does being a zombie mean? Like, how does the mate thing work?” Erick’s animation died down. He was probably trying to piece the surreal information together in an understandable format.
Cassidy answered the safer question. “Zombies… hmmm, okay, when a zombie finds their mate, they will provide everything the zombie need to survive.”
“I don’t—”
“Club Zombie is a haven of sorts. The owners of the club allow people like me to get what I need safely.” He’d keep the information vague and pivot to a different subject.
“So, my brother has three mates?”
Cassidy nodded. “Yes, usually there’s one mate, but sometimes two. Alex, Cut, Uli, and Storm—I mean, Ethan—are the only foursome I know.”
“Mate means, like, they’re married?”
“Yeah.” Cassidy pressed his lips together.
Exhaling a whew, Erick confided, “My father would go ballistic. No wonder Ethan skipped to the playing dead part, because my father would murder him.”
Taking the opening, Cassidy pointed out, “Which is why he can’t know. No one can.”
Erick shrugged. “They wouldn’t believe me if I tried to tell anyone.”
That was certainly true.
“So, do you have a mate?” Erick asked the simple question.
Cassidy hesitated, not wanting to pass on his existential meaning-of-life bullshit and get into how he’d started to doubt the point of any of it. “I don’t know. I always hoped for one, but—”
“I’m sure you have one… maybe two,” Erick reassured him and added a heartwarming smile.
“I only want one.” Oh, Erick’s dreamy expression did things to Cassidy. He couldn’t get his hopes up but long forgotten wishes winged through his brain.
Erick leaned forward, offering himself for the position.
God, Cassidy hadn’t kissed anybody since he’d kissed his best friend goodbye on his deathbed in the late ’80s.
The aura of all things good in the world surrounded Erick. Cassidy longed to drown in that completion and peace. Not to mention the irresistible magnetic pull demanding he got closer to Erick.
Though who was he kidding? Cassidy had nothing to offer. He could suck Erick’s cock and wait until Erick got bored and moved on. Then Cassidy would be back on his knees, sucking off strangers, hoping for his mate. No sense of even going down that road.
Erick trembled, and the cute cheerleading skirt tenting a bit told Cassidy air temperature had nothing to do with it. Jesus! But he still said, “Hey, you must be freezing.”
“You’re the one who’s not wearing a shirt.” Erick shifted closer and studied Cassidy’s nipple piercing. His breath wafted across the tip. “Did that piercing hurt?”
Now Cassidy shivered. The piercing had been one of the few ways he could get any kind of pleasure, though sometimes the stimulation did little more than make things worse. Still, sometimes a little bit of sensation was better than none.
Now happened to be one of those times. “No. The needle felt great going in, and the piercing remains sensitive.”
“It’s very, um… I mean….” Erick licked his lips and turned away.
All the bad ideas about kissing Erick’s awkwardness away smashed into Cassidy’s common sense. Retreat! “Do you want me to take you over to Storm’s, um, Ethan’s apartment?”
“No. Couldn’t we—” Erick’s wide eyes begged for other options.
“What?” Terror and excitement warred. Cassidy didn’t have a clue which he feared more: getting what he wanted, or not.
“I just enjoy talking to you, and—”
“You want to come back to my place?” Had he lost his mind? Where did that invitation come from? Why didn’t he say “back to the club” or “to the library” or any other place they wouldn’t be completely alone?
Erick studied him for a minute. The tension grew in the air, then ballooned to unreasonable levels of expectation. “Um, yeah.”
Yikes! Cassidy added, “You know, to hang out and stuff.” Why did that sound even worse? “I’m not suggesting anything else.”
“I know.” Erick’s grin got bigger as if he did know. He stood and waited for him.
Cassidy didn’t move. This was—
Then the beautiful cheerleader reached out his hand toward Cassidy and wiggled his long fingers with the pink press-on nails on the tips.
No way could he refuse such an offer.
An unexpected contentment encompassed Cassidy as they laced their fingers together. When had he last held someone’s hand? Not for years… probably not ever. This was insane, but he wanted more time with Erick, whatever that meant.
“Wow! Look at the moon. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the glow this bright.” Erick’s voice wavered a little.
“Yeah.” The nervousness skating through Cassidy made the word come out high-pitched.
Erick glanced at Cassidy and squeezed his hand tighter.
Back at his apartment, Cassidy slipped out of his wings and hung them in his coat closet. He tugged on the T-shirt he’d draped on the doorknob. “Can I get you anything?”
Cassidy didn’t usually… or actually, he’d never had visitors, so to see someone in his space was totally weird. Though he liked how Erick set down his pom-poms and purse and began meandering through his living room.
Erick skimmed his fingers over the aqua ceramic vase filled with dried flowers, parted the lacy pink curtains to peek out into the dark, and traced the white marble bistro table Cassidy had gotten at a garage sale, along with the heart-back antique brass chairs. After strolling to the puffy pink-and-white-striped sofa, Erick caressed the fabric. “This style is called shabby chic, right?”
Cassidy grinned. “Guilty.”
“No, it’s perfect. Comfortable, pretty, and so very you.” Erick’s mouth dropped open. “I mean….” He fussed with the aqua-and-pink flowered pillows on either end of the sofa.
“I know, but how do you know that. You don’t know me.” Cassidy pointed out the obvious because he needed to be reminded of reality.
Erick shrugged. “I feel like I do.”
“Yeah,” Cassidy agreed. Fuck! His nodding turned into shaking his head. Too fast. Too much. “Um, I’ll text your brother that you’re with me.”
Cassidy pulled out his cell and stared at the screen. Get a grip, dude. You just met him. He scrolled through his contacts twice, and then he finally stopped on Storm’s name and number. The guy had to know Erick would be safe with Cassidy… right?
Cassidy couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to. He glanced at Erick flipping through a fashion magazine—holy fuck! God, this was insane. He’d never wanted anyone this much.
/>
Focus. He typed Erick’s fine. We’re hanging.
A message came back immediately. Tell him to come to my apartment.
Shit! “Storm, I mean, Ethan, wants you to go to his apartment.”
“Tell him no.” Erick folded his arms. His face morphed into a mask of stubborn.
Storm, give him some time. He can sleep on my pullout.
Fine. The doc said the same.
All this is a lot. He’ll see you tomorrow.
Later.
Erick’s stubborn expression transformed into worry. He clutched one of the pillows with white knuckles and asked, “What did he say?”
“He’ll see you later.” A text came in, so he read it: “For breakfast.”
“Whatever.” Tears gathered in Erick’s eyes.
“What’s the matter?”
Erick sniffed. “I don’t know. It’s all so insane. Ethan’s alive but lied to me for a year. I’ve been completely miserable. And some of the first words out of his mouth were about how I looked like some stupid freak dressed in this.”
“No!” The pain in Erick’s voice stabbed Cassidy in the heart.
Erick fiddled with the top’s hem and began pulling off his press-on nails.
Cassidy needed to reassure him. “You look gorgeous.”
“Ethan said I shouldn’t be so comfortable dressing like… this.” He grabbed a tissue and wrapped his discarded press-on nails and set them on the side table.
The words Erick had been called danced on the edges of Cassidy’s reality. “But you are comfortable dressing in what a girl… or what society considers something a female would wear.”
On an inhaled sob, Erick shrugged. “I took a gender studies class last semester, and some of the topics really made me understand things about myself.”
Fuck, Cassidy knew those questions in detail. They’d chased around his brain for years and years with no real answers. There were so many things he wanted to share and to say, but nothing found the path of out of his mouth.
Shifting, Erick tried to pull the skirt lower. “Maybe I should change.”
“You don’t have to change on my account. I mean, you were the prettiest one at the club.” Cassidy probably shouldn’t be so honest.
