Mason's Run

by Mellanie Rourke

  “Who did you sell it to?” I asked, half guessing. There was only one person the twins knew who had the kind of money the Black Lotus would demand.

  “Bill Conyers?” I asked.

  He shrugged slightly, ducking his head just like he had when he was a kid and was in trouble.

  I sighed and ran my hand through my short hair. Bill was a jerk who’d had it in for my brothers ever since he’d moved to town a few years back. I’d wondered whether his spite developed because he viewed the twins as competition to his own store, or if it was something else. Bill seemed to be an equal-opportunity hater. He ran an “inspirational” bookstore nearby and had made it clear he despised women, foreigners, gay people, pretty much anyone who didn’t wear a red hat claiming they’d make America great again. I could easily see him taking advantage of Sonny’s need for cash.

  “Please tell me you at least got a good price for it?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. Sonny’s face fell further, if that was possible, as he whispered a price that was about a quarter of the value of the card.

  “Shit, Sonny. I would have helped! Fuck the card,” I said, grabbing his shoulders. I was about to lecture him further, but I saw the tell-tale shine in his eyes that let me know my baby brother was just barely holding back tears. It was times like this that I had to stop myself and remember just how young the twins really were.

  Seeing the unshed tears in Sonny’s eyes, I wrapped my arms around my little brother and held him instead of shaking some sense into him like I really wanted to. He was stiff as a board for a minute, then relaxed and wrapped his arms around me.

  The twins and I had been really close growing up. Unusual for the oldest and youngest to be so close maybe, but we were. They had been the first members of the family to realize just how deep the scars of my service in Afghanistan were, and how much the loss of Mack had hit me.

  We’d never really discussed the night they’d found me in my apartment, an empty bottle of Scotch on the floor and a bottle of pills in my stomach. They’d taken me to the emergency department and stayed with me while I got my stomach pumped. Somehow, they had convinced the doctors that the overdose was accidental, and not an attempt to escape a world without Mack.

  They hadn’t said anything after I’d been discharged, just poured coffee down my throat and escorted me to the first of many sessions with a grief counselor and therapist who specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder. For several weeks, one or the other was with me at all times until they were sure I wasn’t a danger to myself anymore.

  We’d never talked about it much, but Hicks and Sonny were with me every step of the way through my recovery, which made me even more angry that not one, but two assholes were now causing them grief. First, Bill had taken advantage of them, then this asshole Cameron couldn’t be bothered to show up. Fucker hadn’t even called.

  Cameron was supposed to be here hours ago to celebrate the grand opening of their new bookstore, Twin Peeks. They had done a great job with the marketing, and the crowds had been massive… at first. Then the news had spread like wildfire that the star had failed to show. Now, only a few die-hard fans lingered outside in the heat, and even they didn’t look like they’d last much longer.

  Sonny let go of me, reaching over to the counter and grabbing a paper towel. He brushed it across his face then casually blew his nose, trying to work the last of the tears out of his eyes.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I feel happy!” he replied in a horrible British accent as he quoted Monty Python.

  “Yer’ not foolin’ anyone, y’know,” I said in the same awful accent, waggling my eyebrows at him.

  Sonny grinned back at me.

  “We’re not dead yet!” he replied. We both laughed then.

  “God,” I laughed, “You’re right, though. We aren’t dead yet. If we can figure out what happened to Cameron and get him here for the signing tomorrow, we might still be able to salvage this fiasco.”

  “That’s a big if,” he said, his troubled eyes looking up at me.

  From where I stood, I could just barely spy Hicks through the partially open break room door in the back of the store. I wasn’t sure what was going on with him at the moment, but he had his cell phone pressed tightly against one ear, and his finger in the other. The whirr of the box fans made it hard to hear just about anything in the store.

  Watching the twins suffer, I felt guilty for the mental bitching I’d been doing about being here. Our moms had guilt tripped me into showing, but we were family.

  “They’re nervous, Lee,” Mama K had said on Friday night after the mandatory family pizza and D&D session. “They won’t let Diana or me help, but they still need the support of their family.”

  We’d been washing dishes together in the kitchen. Mama D had shaken her blonde head, her green eyes smiling softly at her partner of thirty years as she insisted on drying the dishes by hand. “You know how bull-headed your brothers can be,” she’d said. “But, at least they come by it honestly.”

  I’d smiled at that comment and breathed deeply, enjoying the smell of the handmade candles that burned in the kitchen. The candles were Mama D’s hobby. She’d been mixing and making scents for us for as long as I could remember. She made each of us a special scented soap and candle combo that was unique to each of us.

  The twins were the youngest of the six Devereaux kids, having just turned twenty-one. Of all of us, they looked the most like Mama D, having been born from her eggs. Mama K had spawned and carried me and Weaver, but Kaine and Bishop had been adopted. The moms hadn’t intended to have twins, but with in-vitro fertilization, it was a fairly common occurrence. I thought they were pretty lucky they hadn’t had more than one set.

  Our parents had met in college and known that their relationship was “the one” as soon as they set eyes on each other. They’d each finished school, done a stint in the military, then started their own business, a martial arts school, that had flourished over the years. They now had ten dojos across the northeast and there had even been talk about franchising opportunities.

  Growing up gay in the eighties might have been easier than with previous generations, but it still wasn’t a picnic. Being strong women in a male-dominated sport had brought its own set of challenges as well. They could both attest to the fact that misogyny was alive and well in the Midwest.

  When the time had come to start a family, my moms had known exactly what they wanted, two boys, two girls. I’d been first, then Weaver, my red-headed spitfire of a sister, and they thought they’d been on track. Then fate had brought them Kaine and Bishop. Hudson and Hicks were born a few years after in a bid for more girls. Once the twins were born, they decided that six was enough.

  With Mama K and Mama D both looking pointedly at me, I’d reluctantly agreed to help out the twins this weekend. Now, here we were, hot, sweaty, and no superstar to make the grand opening grand. Plus, potentially no headliner for the Pop Culture Festival.

  The Akron Pop Culture Festival was run by committee. A committee that Bill Conyers had held by the nuts for almost four years... until the twins joined, that was.

  The twins had worked for Walt Geller and his wife, Alice, the original owners of the bookstore, for years. Walt and Alice had wanted to retire and get away from the harsh Ohio winters, so they’d offered to sell the boys the business at an extremely reasonable rate.

  Sonny had come up with an amazing business plan, rebranding “Geller’s Books” as “Twin Peeks”, and convincing even the disapproving suits at the bank to approve a small business loan, even though they didn’t have any experience running a business. Central to that plan was making a big splash at this year’s Pop Culture Festival... which turned out to be a lot harder than they had expected.

  As owners of the bookstore, they had inherited Mr. Geller’s spot on the committee for the Pop Culture Festival. Unfortunately, the spot came with more headaches than it solved.

  Attendance at the con had been down for the last
three years straight and the coffers had been hemorrhaging money. Hicks had told me things were so bad that if the convention didn’t do well this year, it was likely to be the last.

  The other members of the committee were well-meaning, but they weren’t used to managing the funds and planning events the size of Pop Culture Festival. The most established store owner was Bill Conyers, and his store was an inspirational bookstore. Conyers had joined the committee a few years back and always seemed to have money to burn. He had strong-armed many of the members into voting with him simply with his deep pockets.

  With Mr. Geller retiring and many other members of the committee too busy to regularly participate, the planning had fallen heavily on Sonny and Hicks. Hicks took on the position of Marketing Director, and Sonny became the Treasurer... an act that had not endeared him to Bill Conyers, who had apparently been eyeing the role for years.

  As part of their marketing plan to get the convention back into the black, they’d floated the idea to the committee to bring Cameron to town to support LGBTQ artists. That had brought them into conflict with Bill, because he wanted to have a local church leader headline instead.

  The committee was hesitant of signing Cameron at first, the members wary of risking so much on an unknown speaker. Cameron was well known for avoiding the public eye. What would they do if he didn’t show? Plus, they argued, they didn’t have the funds to pay to bring him to Ohio. Dowling, at least, was local.

  Sonny and Hicks had won the committee over when they’d agreed to take on the bulk of the cost for Cameron to attend, their hope being that the publicity and word of mouth that came from being a major sponsor of the Pop Culture Festival, as well as the anchor vendor, would give their store some much-needed exposure and they could recoup the cost of the event from comic pulls and increased traffic.

  However, none of that publicity was going to be good if the guy didn’t show up. As the hours had slipped by, I couldn’t help but think that the committee might have been right to question the move.

  The slam of the phone against the desk was loud enough to be heard even above the white noise of the box fans. It brought me out of my reverie and had me heading to the back of the building.

  “You okay, H?” I called, peeking in through the office doorway.

  Hicks and Sonny both had blond hair they kept around shoulder length, but that was as similar as their styles went. Hicks usually kept his hair pulled back in a kind of ponytail while Sonny kept his blond hair loose. He’d been teased for years that he looked like the quintessential surfer dude. Their hair was about as wavy as mine would be, if I didn’t get a cut soon to maintain the high and tight I normally sported. Even though my military days were over, some habits died hard.

  Hicks leaned tiredly against the desk, a wisp of hair escaping the confines of the elastic that held it back from his face. That, more than just about anything else, told me how frustrated he was: Hicks was fastidious about his hair. For him to have even one loose strand meant he had to be near the end of his rope.

  “Lizzie’s phone keeps going to voicemail, and Everett’s out of the country until next week,” he sighed, banging his head gently against the wall. Ironically enough, he hit the wall about two feet to the left of a printed bullseye sign that had been taped to the break room wall with the words “Bang Head Here” in the center. The twins never did like to follow directions.

  A friend of a friend of the twins (Everett, apparently) knew this Cameron guy, who was touted as the hottest comic writer and artist combo since Jack Kirby. They had reached out to Cameron’s agent, and for reasons known only to God and the saints, Cameron had agreed to headline the con as well as come out for the Grand Opening.

  “The airport confirmed his flight has landed, but they don’t know what happened to him after that,” Hicks said. We both looked up hopefully as we heard footsteps outside the door, only to see Sonny rearranging a miniature display for about the twentieth time.

  In the comic book business, customer service and reputation were critical. Margins were slim and the failure to produce the much-promoted star would be a major failure for the store and would cost them real money out of their own pockets. (Not even counting Sonny’s Magic card.) The boys had held a “soft” opening a few months earlier, as they had finished the renovations on the new building, but this was supposed to be the official grand opening event.

  Sonny and Hicks had sunk every nickel they had into the store. They’d scrimped and saved since they were ten years old to gather the capital they would need to do it properly. Every birthday present, every lawn they’d cut, every newspaper they had delivered, everything had gone into the store fund. They’d refused any help from our moms or from anyone else in the family. Being the youngest of six, the twins were remarkably independent. If the Grand Opening failed, it could ruin them before they even really got started.

  Hicks angrily scrubbed at his face. I pretended I couldn’t see the bright shine to his eyes, or the light sheen of moisture under them that he rubbed away with his knuckles. Just like Sonny, he wasn’t fooling anyone. I knew how much this store meant to him.

  He looked… defeated, as he leaned against the desk, head down. I hated seeing my baby brother looking that way. He deserved to be successful, to be happy. They both did. They didn’t deserve the shit the world liked to heap on people.

  “How about I head to the airport and see if I can track him down,” I offered. “Who knows? Maybe someone will have seen him or remember him.”

  Hicks brightened slightly at the offer.

  “Thanks,” he whispered.

  I walked up behind him and gripped his shoulder.

  “It’s going to be okay, C.B.,” I whispered, harkening back to a childhood nickname. He looked up to me and a slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  He chuckled slightly. “It’s been a while since you called me that,” he said. C.B. stood for “Chest Burster” – after the rather dramatic way we were all introduced to the titular characters in “Alien”. The movie just happened to be our parents’ favorite movie, and when Sonny and Hicks had been born by cesarean section, we’d started affectionately calling them “our little Chest Bursters”. My family was weird like that.

  I grinned at him.

  “Hang in there. I’ll go find your super star,” I said. He flashed a small grin at me, and I grabbed my keys.

  I made the drive to the airport in record time. The air conditioning hadn’t even had a chance to dry the sweat from my clothes by the time I parked my Jeep in the short-term parking lot and headed inside the Akron-Canton airport.

  The airport was on the small side compared to many I’d seen in my travels. It was more expensive to use than the Cleveland airport, but the convenience factor more than made up for it.

  I scanned the flight information boards, but didn’t find the flight listing. Not surprising since the flight was about three hours old now. I checked in with the airline desk, fortunate to find a single attendant locking up.

  Her name tag said her name was Daisy, and she was a very… um… “well-endowed” woman, her breasts barely held in check by the straining buttons of her airline uniform.

  Daisy seemed to take a personal interest in my plight, as she kept smiling dazzlingly at me and brushing her hand over my arm. She seemed to be trying to touch me any chance she got, at one point even leaning forward, unnecessarily, I might add, to give me a startling view of her chest, but nothing about her stirred me.

  I finally got Daisy to provide the information that Cameron’s flight had deplaned, and the luggage had been sent to luggage claim D. With a mumbled, “Thanks,” I hightailed it out of there and headed over to the baggage claim area. If nothing else, my moms had raised me to be polite.

  A small crowd of people were standing around at the next claim area over, waiting for luggage to come out on the carousel, but no one seemed to be around luggage claim D. Certainly no one seemed to be waiting for anyone or seemed to be looking for their ride.
I was kind of wishing I had one of those signs that people held up in movies that had the name of the person they were picking up. I looked at my watch. It was getting late. Aw, fuck it.

  “Cameron!” I yelled, cupping my hands to my mouth to amplify my voice. Using my best drill sergeant voice, I shouted, “Mason Cameron! Front and center!”

  2

  Mason

  I’d hoped to get some sleep on the flight, because I certainly hadn’t been sleeping well at home with the prospect of the trip ahead of me.

  I had to get through this signing and week of promotional events for my new graphic novel, or my publisher was going to drop me. Since I wasn’t the only one who relied on my success now, I had to make sure that didn’t happen. College tuition for Zem was expensive, and after Tira had passed away a few years previously, I’d been the one taking care of her.

  The flights had been about as horrible as I’d expected. A long layover in Denver, several delays, and then a screaming toddler on the final leg. I’d finally given up even pretending to sleep.

  Then I’d arrived at the ass end of nowhere and no one had shown up to pick me up at the airport. Thank god for Lizzie. She had talked me out of turning around and booking a flight back several times already. I was about at the end of my patience, though, and seeing if I could track down an airline agent when I heard a deep voice shouting my name.

  “Cameron! Mason Cameron! Front and center!”

  The entire luggage claim went quiet, and I felt my ears burn as everyone stopped and turned to look at the man yelling my name. For a moment I froze, then hesitantly peeked out from behind the pillar where I had tucked myself. The movement drew his gaze and he stalked toward me.

  The man, no, mountain would be a better description, approached, his eyes flashing angrily. He was taller than me, which I didn’t see often. He had on black, sweat stained tactical pants that molded to his body like a second skin. As he got closer, my breath caught in my throat. It wasn’t that he was really that big, it was just he had this presence to him that demanded you sat up and noticed him. At least, that’s what my cock was saying.