SURE (Men of the ESRB Book 3)

by Hollis Shiloh

  Story copyright 2015 by Hollis Shiloh.

  All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from the author. All characters and events are fictitious, and any similarity to real people or events is coincidental.

  Cover art by Cormar Covers. Image content is being used for illustrative purposes only and any people depicted in the content are models.

  Proofreading by Carol Davis (http://caroldavisauthor.com/a-better-look-editing-services/).

  About the story:

  Pete has a pretty good life these days: a job he likes, friends, and a boyfriend who accepts him as he is. But despite all this, life isn't without its challenges — and dangers.

  takes place after "KEEP" and contains the same characters

  gay paranormal fiction - a Men of the ESRB novel

  66,000 words

  SURE

  by Hollis Shiloh

  sequel to "KEEP"

  (a 'Men of the ESRB' novel)

  My boyfriend, Ellery, twitched in his sleep, a sort of whole-bodied, unnerving twitch accompanied by a whimper. He seemed to be trying to curl as small as possible — and get away from me. It was probably just instinct, but I wished he'd move towards me for comfort and safety when he had a nightmare.

  I sat up, caught hold of his shoulder, and gently shook it.

  "Oh! Oooh!" He sounded unnerved, to say the least. I didn't want to think "frightened." But it wasn't a happy sound. He came awake twitching, uncurling from his nervous position, and blinked at me several times rapidly before he seemed to recognize me. Then the curious blankness left his face.

  "Are you okay?" I sounded gruff; it didn't hide my concern.

  He nodded. He looked small and sleepy, vulnerable and big-eyed. The fear wasn't gone, but it was sliding away, along with that blankness. I hated that look, like he was somewhere I couldn't go, somewhere I couldn't help him.

  Now he moved into my arms with a little lunge, awake enough to remember where he was safe, and with whom.

  He was my boyfriend, my partner. We'd been dating for nearly six months, and our life together had been good so far. At least, it was six months of dating for me. For Ellery, who's a clair (clairvoyant), we'd been in a relationship since we'd first met. In the past, visions had shown him we'd be dating someday, even married — although I didn't quite want to think about that most of the time.

  I couldn't rush into marriage just because he'd foreseen it. Even though he'd never been wrong about a vision before — call me crazy, but I wanted the relationship to go at its proper pace, not get jumbled up, complicated, and rushed because we were trying to make it come true sooner.

  To give him credit, he wasn't in any hurry, either. He was happy taking our time, just being with me. He was content, calm, and at peace — most of the time.

  Me, I'm an empath (ranking three-point-five, official ESRB graduate), so I really could tell how he was feeling. I never had to guess. I was glad when he felt happy and content with me, with our relationship. And right now, because I'd felt his distress in the dream, I was disturbed.

  I wrapped my arms around him, and he slowly grew still and heavy in my arms, relaxing, his breathing deepening. "Was it a vision?" I asked him, rubbing his back gently, wishing I could chase away every bad feeling that might ever attack him.

  "Mm. No." He shook his head against me, gently. He was smaller than I was, and a gentle and sensitive guy. He was also gorgeous and sweet and thoughtful, and an amazing lover. Sometimes I couldn't imagine how I'd gotten so lucky. Other times I felt pretty screwy and scared, because every other time I'd fallen for a guy, I'd ended up falling flat on my face, brokenhearted and alone again before long.

  Sometimes it was an effort just to get through the day without freaking out. But I hadn't lost him so far, and nearly six months had gone by of getting to know him, enjoying his company, doing things together — and sharing some pretty amazing sex, if I do say so myself.

  We worked together for The Shardwell Group, a big company that used our talents to keep honest the people associated with the contracts, business, testing and medical research the company did. I worked directly under Kevin Goodwin, my boss and friend, a very honest man and something of a workaholic.

  I worked hard, traveling with him or sitting in on meetings, paying careful attention to the readings I got off people he had to deal with. There were some heavy responsibilities to it, and I could work long hours with a big need for concentration. I had never been good at that before, but somehow it helped that it was with Kevin, someone who took my abilities seriously and really wanted to know what I could tell him.

  I was also good at it, and I liked Kevin. He was protective of me, respectful, generous, and warm-hearted. I could always tell what he was feeling, and he was calm and responsible, with a non-volatile personality. He was unfailingly respectful and pleasant to me; I really enjoyed being around him.

  When the day was done, or during various breaks throughout, I could meet up with my boyfriend, Ellery Smess. We often ate together in the company cafeteria, or worked out at the gym, or walked through the greenhouse area. It was a huge company in a huge building; we didn't have to leave it for days if we didn't want to.

  Ell worked hard, too. He spent his days going over contracts and studies, visiting different parts of the building, and being exposed to as much of the workforce and as many projects as possible. He was a small, delicate, nervous man with very pale hair which often got a bit wild. He was skinny, although he had nice muscle definition (earned at great cost in the gym, often with me working out beside him), and he needed to be around people and projects a lot to let his ability work.

  Although he was a clair, his ranking was four. There are few enough clairs around that it's still an incredibly valuable skill, one that The Shardwell Group paid through the nose for, along with extra perks and oversight to keep him from burning out. Because he had a low ranking, he only rarely had visions, and his talent usually manifested in a feeling of uneasiness about something. It had to be something fairly closely connected with him, which was why he had to visit as much of the company, as often as possible.

  He was also conscientious and had a nervous disposition, so it got pretty stressful for him sometimes. It was a big responsibility.

  About six months ago, just after we'd started our relationship, there had been an upset, an upheaval in the company, as a couple of the CEOs who wanted to do something crooked tried to have us kidnapped, and set up Kevin to take the blame. With honest Kevin gone, and the clair and empath missing, there could've been room for a lot more dishonesty slipped under the rug.

  Fortunately, Ellery's talent had warned him, and we'd gotten away safely. It had been touch and go for a while, but Kevin had eventually gotten everything straightened out, securing his position and keeping the company safe. The CEOs involved were currently serving time for a variety of offenses, including attempted kidnapping.

  The incident had taken a toll on Ellery. He'd been terrified he was wrong, or that I wouldn't trust him, or of something else going wrong. It had felt like a huge responsibility resting on his shoulders, and in fact, he'd felt that way about the whole company.

  He filled out regular reports on his condition, mental and physical, and was kept in touch with the ESRB regularly. On top of that, he had counseling sessions, frequent vacations, and anything he needed from Kevin, or Erin Comely, another friend in the company. She worked with Kevin and took care of us and a lot of other things with great efficiency.

  When Ell and I weren't working, we lived in a pair of rooms in the same building. We usually traded nights sleeping at each place. We'd been talking about picking one, or asking for a different, bigger place to stay together, bu
t inertia had kept us from it so far. Besides, it was nice having the extra storage of two rooms and getting to pick where we wanted to sleep every night.

  We watched a lot of movies, cuddling shamelessly, and enjoyed ourselves in bed a great deal. We did as many of our daily activities together as we could, and Ellery always felt happier if I was near him. I don't think he was codependent, but he did feel less nervous if I was nearby. I guess my brash, restless personality helped him feel less nervous and shy. He was a very quiet guy most of the time, and had trouble speaking up.

  He'd been through the wringer with his talents. I guess anyone who has enough of a talent to get ranked by the ESRB does live through some bad stuff — and it even happens to plenty who don't — but it had been especially hard on him.

  Sometimes I think that's why there are so few clairs. They end up drugged out of their minds for anxiety and hallucinations, diagnosed with mental disorders and locked up. It takes a strong person to survive all of that, and it hadn't left him unscathed. It was often really hard for him to confront anyone, deal with authority figures, or let people know what he was feeling and thinking. The constant fear that they would decide he was crazy again lived just under the surface of his safe, happy life.

  I wanted to make it better, of course. But there was only so much I could do. Add in my fear of commitment and fear of losing him, and we both had some issues.

  We'd been seeing a counselor somewhat regularly since the beginning. She kept on us to be our real selves and not try to change to be whomever we thought the other person wanted. It was a problem, for both of us. I'd always tried to twist myself into someone my partners could love, so they'd stay. It had never been very successful, but it was a hard habit to break. Ell was happy I was finally in his life after he'd waited for me so long. He was a people-pleaser anyway, but he tried even harder with me.

  We were trying to do better, though. We were working on it, taking life one day at a time, and trying to be honest with each other.

  Ell had complained more than once, though, that I could always read him and had an unfair advantage. I could hide things from him, and he had no way of calling me on it.

  I did rely heavily on my talent for understanding Ell and communicating with him, but it wasn't exactly something I could turn off. It had been both a blessing and a curse all my life, even before I knew it was a real thing. I'd always been the guy who couldn't shut up and had to call people on their lies and misdirections. Add to that a tendency to run off at the mouth, being unable to sit still, and having a somewhat abrasive personality, and I wasn't a real popular guy.

  Finally, though, I'd found a work environment where I fit. It felt like a lucky thing, since I'd never really had that before. Even in school, I'd pretty much been despised by all the teachers. Even the teachers I genuinely liked had usually ended up hating my guts. And, I mean, you can tell a kid the teacher doesn't hate them, it isn't personal, but if they're an empath? Even if they don't know they're an empath, they know. I always knew, and it always hurt.

  But Kevin liked me, and they listened to me here, and the job was something I could actually do. Add in my relationship with Ellery, a man who genuinely loved me and wanted to keep me, and it was pretty much the happiest time in my life.

  Oh, and the company paid me well, and I often got to go on vacation with Ell. It was a sweet, happy life. The problems were few, and were things we could work on. We could affect our environment, get help if we needed it, and we enjoyed a varied and fun life. The Shardwell Group's building, where we lived, provided a lot of things that made our lives easier. We had access to a buffet that was more like a five-star restaurant, a laundry service, a state of the art gym, and a beautiful greenhouse area. We lived in the very lap of luxury.

  If I sometimes felt like we hadn't earned it and never could, Kev was always willing to reassure me I was doing something important, and Ellery had told me more than once that it made a big different.

  "Keeping big, rich corporations honest is a huge thing, Peter," he'd told me seriously, more than once, staring at me with his earnest, soft blue eyes. "Add in the fact that they do medical research and development — new drugs, attempts to cure cancer, all kinds of things — and it's really, really important that they're as honest as possible. This company affects so many people, even if many of them never know it."

  I suppose it could've felt like we were working for some evil empire at times, if the people we worked with in person weren't generally so kind and honest. Kev was almost too good to be real, and Erin genuinely cared about taking care of us and doing the best, most diligent and trustworthy, honest job possible.

  With pillars like them, and a company that actually listened when we gave a warning about something shady, it felt like we mattered, and that the company actually gave a damn about not hurting people or twisting the rules.

  Personally, I knew it wasn't "the company" as much as enough people in it willing to work to foster a culture of honesty, oversight, and ethics. It had a much better feel than a lot of the jobs I'd held down. It made me feel good to work here, and it seemed to draw people who felt the same way. I naturally felt the emotions from anyone I came into contact with — it wasn't something I could turn off and on — and since I often went on Ellery's rounds with him, I had contact with plenty of people. From most of them, I got the same impressions. This was a good place to work; these were honest people.

  While I wouldn't say there was one hundred percent job satisfaction, it was a company where you felt like you were making a difference, and there were people who cared about you — a good place to work, a place that felt safe.

  In some job environments, you get the feeling they'd sell your body for dog food in a second, if it was even marginally legal. If it was even something that wasn't legal but would take years and millions of dollars to prosecute. After all, there were always lawyers on staff, and they needed to be kept busy somehow.

  It didn't feel like that here.

  #

  I hadn't realized how much my presence actually did change Ellery, until two separate people mentioned it to me in one day.

  I'd heard before that he seemed more confident, more comfortable in his own skin — and I knew it was at least somewhat true — but it hadn't quite occurred to me how big a difference it was, even from the outside, until then.

  "He's doing much better about telling us when something feels wrong," said a scientist, Dr. Collins, giving me an appraising, rather awed and respectful look. Ell was ahead of us, examining some more of the experiments, and Dr. Collins seemed in a chatty mood.

  He was wearing a white coat, and he was a man who loved his job, who couldn't believe he could get up every morning to do experiments, to study and learn and take apart the universe and put it back together and listen to it sing. He'd have done this job if he had to pay to take part in it.

  "He actually said right away that the cultures in sector A6 felt off, and sure enough, when we checked, they'd been contaminated. Normally he'd only have said something through the proper channels — if he said anything at all about such a small problem. But it saved us time and wasted energy, knowing right away. I've got the correct batch already started now." He hooked his thumbs through his lab coat's pockets. "I'm so glad when he says things right away, you know. We all trust Ellery here. We're glad when he can help."

  That wasn't actually true about all present, but it nearly was. There was one fellow in the corner who didn't like or trust any of us ESRB-ranked people, and always stayed as far away from us as possible; we gave him a creepy feeling. We made his skin crawl.

  I was familiar with causing that feeling in people. I was almost immune to it now. The fact that one person who'd felt that way about me had been a boyfriend of mine probably hurt worse than any stranger's opinion ever could. If I could survive that, I could survive other people's unease with my very existence.

  Actually, I'd been facing it longer than that. I hadn't known I was an empath when I was a child
. Nobody had; it wasn't even a thing then, still in the infant stages of understanding in science. I hadn't had a name for what I did, but I'd understood there was something about me that irritated and bothered a lot of people.

  When I'd piped up, "No, you didn't. You hid it in your locker!" I'd often gotten a beating for it later, pummeled by school bullies who hated me anyway for being short and loudmouthed and thinking I made a good class clown. It still wasn't enough to stop the knowledge, the wrongness of any lies.

  The fact that I was so good at knowing when other people were telling the truth didn't mean I was great at it myself. Knowing I was different and faulty in some way, both so irritating that it was hard for people not to punch me, and shorter than almost anyone in every class I was ever in, and knowing I was gay at a fairly young age, I'd always worked extra hard to try to create an acceptable persona for myself.

  The fact that it almost never worked hadn't stopped me from trying. And when I was older, when I'd found men who could stand to date me — and it was surprising how great it felt, to grow up pretty hot, to find myself the object of desire — I'd always, always tried to be someone they could stay for. Someone worth keeping.

  Ellery, with his six-month confidence in me, his bedrock-steady assurance that we were meant to be together, was the most steady boyfriend I'd ever had in my life.

  It was amazing and continually frightening. The thought of losing him was unbearable — and at the same time, I hid a lot of feelings from him because I couldn't bear to face them myself. I'd been bullied growing up, and I'd gone through the wringer a fair number of times as an adult, with unhealthy and emotionally damaging — or just painfully ending — relationships. It was probably something I should've talked about with him, or at least during our counseling sessions.

  But it's in my nature to hide my pain. I was trying really hard not to push Ellery away, although I sometimes felt the urge. To see if he meant it. To see if he'd stick around. Some part of me would far rather lose him now if I had to; it would only hurt more the longer we were together and I let myself believe in his love.