Alluring Passion: A MM Contemporary Bundle

by Peter Styles

  I stepped aside and waved them in. I curled up in the armchair and winced. My ribs, which had been fine until then, started complaining. I poked at them, but everything still felt solid. I just felt bruised. It was nothing compared to the emotional beating I’d endured, but it still sucked.

  Christy and Gary both sat down on the couch, never taking their eyes off me. It was unnerving; I felt like they were holding the world’s weirdest intervention for me. “So I’m guessing the guys didn’t come around to an empty shop, huh?” Christy asked quietly.

  “Nope.” I shifted and let out a little gasp of pain. “They got me as I was leaving. Those tow homophobic cretins from earlier in the day came back later with reinforcements.”

  “Seriously? The Neanderthals?” Gary asked.

  “The very same. They hit like Neanderthals too. Except I’m pretty sure no Neanderthal had a twenty-two. Or maybe they did.” I gentled tapped at the bump on the back of my head. “They hit me pretty hard, so I may be suffering from a little bit of memory loss.”

  “Harris!” Christy gasped. “You should be in a hospital!”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t have a concussion,” I assured her. “I checked. It was just a stupid joke.”

  “This isn’t the kind of thing you generally want to joke about,” Gary explained. His face was calm, but I noticed his fingers picking at the skin around his nails. I could feel him starting to get agitated. “So what exactly happened?”

  “Uh.” My gaze faltered. I tried to pass it off as though I was just trying to remember the details, but I’m not sure if it actually came across that way. “I was going to my car when three dudes came up behind me with a gun.” Gary inhaled sharply, and Christy let out a soft little “oh” of sympathy. And people wondered why I didn’t want to share everything with them. “They tried to take my wallet, but I never carry cash and they were too smart to try to steal credit cards, apparently. I mean, they didn’t look it, but they said they were, so that must count for something—and they didn’t seem impressed by the Target gift card.”

  “You offered them a gift card?” Gary asked, incredulously.

  “I was improvising!” I snapped. “You try coming up with something better on the spot like that! It was scary as all hell. I figured I should give them something other than a crappy Captain America wallet and my completely useless driver’s license.

  “Besides,” Christy added, “Target is great. I get everything there.”

  “I mentioned that,” I told her. “They didn’t seem quite so impressed. Maybe I should have gotten a little more specific with it. After all, if bad guys don’t like being talked down to, what do they like?”

  Gary frowned. “That’s not important,” he said sternly, and the small smile that appeared on Christy’s face as we talked faded away. “They hurt you. What did they do?”

  I shrugged. I tried to think of not just what had happened, but of what to tell them. I chose my words carefully. “They figured there would be more money in the store, and I didn’t figure that telling them that there wasn’t much of anything in the register would help me out all that much. When they figured it out though, they decided to…” My voice broke. I cleared my throat and went to the kitchen to grab a perfunctory sip of water. When I came back, I sat perched on the very edge of my seat. Most speakers, I realized, would kill to have such a rapt audience. I was getting it all for free. “They threw me across the counter,” I said, and it wasn’t completely untrue. I was just leaving a couple of details out. “And they hit me with the gun.”

  “Jesus,” Gary breathed. “Are you alright? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “No, no, I’m fine. Seriously.” I pushed my hair off my face. It was still wet from the shower.

  “How did you get away?” Christy asked. “I mean, I’m not trying to imply that you’re not a strong guy, but—”

  “—but I’m also short and I’ve only been in like three fights ever, I know,” I said, irritably. “That’s when…” I sighed. “This is going to sound completely insane, but, uh, the Shadow Hunter showed up.”

  “The who?” Christy asked.

  “The… Shadow Hunter.” I felt stupid even saying it. “He’s this masked vigilante.”

  “He’s like Batman,” Gary explained.

  “You got saved by Batman?” Christy raised an eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “Pretty much. Honestly, he even kind of looks like Batman. He took down three huge dudes before I could blink. And he took their gun, which is, you know, a pretty Batman move.” I thought for a second. “Now that I’m thinking about it, it was actually pretty rad. Terrifying, but still. Rad.”

  “That’s insane,” Gary said, and I could tell he was bursting with questions. I didn’t blame him; it’s not like it’s every day that your friend gets saved by an actual superhero. “Was he cool?”

  “I guess. He was kind of standoffish.”

  “Makes sense. He’s a lone wolf. Maybe he has a tragic backstory. After all, he’s a man on the run from the law.” Gary’s eyes were shining, and I could see the gears turning in his head. “He’s doing what no one else can or will. The police are good people, but their hands are tied; they’re trapped by the laws of man, but not him. He can do what they all can’t.” He looked back at me. “Is he an orphan?”

  I blinked. “I don’t know, man. I didn’t exactly ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it seems pretty fucking rude to ask someone, ‘Hey, are your parents dead?’ within five minutes of meeting them!”

  “Okay, yeah, fair enough,” Gary muttered, nodding to himself. “Did he have a cool car, though?”

  “Nope. I drove him back here. I guess he’s not a big car guy. He told me he prefers to walk.” When Gary’s face fell, I added, “I know. I was disappointed too. I was really hoping for something with rockets in the back or something.”

  “I don’t think any of that is really relevant, do you?” Christy asked, her voice chastising. She glared at Gary, who shut up instantly. “Did you call the police?”

  “Why? The Shadow Hunter took care of it,” Gary said.

  She rolled her eyes. “The Shadow Hunter can’t arrest people. I mean, it’s not like he can just put them in a jail cell. These guys are dangerous.”

  “The Shadow Hunter called them,” I explained. “He told them he caught them breaking in and that they attacked him. Apparently, all three of them have warrants out for them. Aaron texted me to tell me all about it.”

  Both of them frowned, but it was Christy who asked, “And why didn’t he tell them about you?”

  I felt my muscles stiffen. Tension built in the air around me. “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t he tell the cops he was with you?”

  I shrugged, trying to look casual. “I was tired. I didn’t really want to deal with the police. I wanted to come home and sleep it off.”

  The two of them exchanged glances. I pretended not to notice.

  “I’m not sure when the shop will be operational again,” I added. I was rambling and I knew it, but it was better than their curious silence. “It wasn’t too bad from what I could tell, but it’s technically a crime scene. Plus some of the merchandise got messed up, and I can’t imagine it got any better with Leonard hanging around all day.”

  Gary nodded sympathetically. “You let him pick up his own stuff, huh?”

  “Yeah. So don’t expect anything you get to look decent. Or have a cover on it.”

  “You really shouldn’t let him work there,” Christy pointed out. “Can’t you, like, fire him?”

  “He’s not an employee. He just picks up shifts when I ask him to.”

  “I’d love to fire him,” Gary interjected.

  I frowned. “He doesn’t work for you.”

  “Oh, I know. I just really hate being around him.”

  I surprised myself by laughing.

  After asking about twenty more times whether or not I was okay, Gary finally left, promising me th
at he could run the store until I got back on my feet. I sent him copies of Aaron’s texts to me, then messaged Aaron to let him know to deal with Gary whenever possible for the next few days. He didn’t ask why, which was a relief; I didn’t want to admit to being shaken. Gary left with very little fanfare, though he did give me a gentle hug before walking out, whispering in my ear, “Call me if you need anything.” It was a relief to hear. I had kind of figured that Gary would be there for me if I needed him, but the confirmation was reassuring.

  And that left me alone with Christy.

  She and I didn’t say much for the next few hours. I thought about asking her to leave so I could go back to bed, but I knew that she would fight me on it, and she probably wouldn’t be wrong to. Instead, I sat numbly on the couch with a blanket draped around my shoulders and watching TV while she bustled around. Christy could always be trusted to find something to do, especially in my apartment. I didn’t consider myself a slob until she showed up; the woman somehow managed to make a studio apartment with massive splotches of unpainted, mismatched plaster with water spots on the ceiling look like Martha Stewart was living there. One time while cleaning, she found a vase and flowers to put in it. She sometimes reminded me of a magician with a very specific repertoire of tricks.

  I sat, staring at the TV without really thinking much of anything, enjoying having someone with me and listening to Christy hum and sing quietly to herself as she went around with a box of cleaning wipes and a magic eraser. She made her way from the bathroom to the kitchen to the living room, finally collapsing down beside me, her face red and shiny with effort. She looked at the TV and frowned. “I thought you said you’ve been watching too much Smallville.”

  “I have,” I admitted, “but I figured I might as well get a head-start on it before I have to go back to work. It’s a much better show when Leonard isn’t around.”

  “Everything is much better when Leonard isn’t around, isn’t it?”

  “Pretty much.” I shot her a wan smile. She didn’t know Leonard well, but what she knew of him, she didn’t like. I didn’t blame her; I was one of his best friends, and I spent most of my time around him wanting to kill him.

  We watched for a bit in comfortable silence. One of the many things I loved about Christy was that she never felt like she had to fill the void with noise. Occasionally, we’d make a joke about the show, talk about how hot one of the actors was, or debate the merits of Chloe versus Lana, but we mostly just sat in each other’s company. As much as I appreciated Gary—and even Leonard, in his own strange way—Christy was the only person I could really be comfortable with.

  After a while, the oven dinged, and I found a plate full of homemade mac and cheese in front of me. “Comfort food,” she said, with a small shrug when I frowned at it. “I’m sure you’re going through a rough time and, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that carbs and cheese make everything a little bit better.”

  I picked up the plate gratefully. “Things aren’t all that bad,” I tried to say but, when Christy raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at me, I sighed. “Okay, things are bad. That’s true. But I don’t want to make a big deal about it.”

  “I know,” she said. “I could tell. Especially since you didn’t tell us the whole truth.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “How do you know that?”

  She sighed. “Oh, Harris. You know you can’t lie to me. I can always tell.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is,” she insisted. “I know you. We’ve never been able to lie to each other.”

  She was right. We couldn’t. But I hated to admit it, and hearing her say it sent a spike of rage through me. “Why? Why are you so sure that you always know every single thing about me? Just because we share one shitty thing—”

  She glared hard at me, and I stammered to a halt. I had crossed a line. Even before I said it, I knew I shouldn’t, but when I was angry I put my foot in my mouth even deeper than usual. “I don’t know everything about you because we share the same crappy label of ‘victim’,” she snapped. “I know it because I’m your friend and because we’ve always shared everything with each other. I know you. And if you don’t apologize, that mac and cheese is going right in the garbage.”

  I rubbed my eyes, feeling exhausted. I wished I’d gone back to bed—at least there I couldn’t offend or hurt anyone. “No need to take it out on the soul food,” I said, quietly. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was really, really crappy of me to say, and I didn’t mean it. I just said it because…” My voice faded.

  “Because it’s embarrassing,” she finished, her voice stark and unafraid. “Because you feel ashamed. But you know that you don’t need to feel that way, Harris. Especially with me.”

  I nodded, but my mouth felt like it was glued shut. I couldn’t respond.

  I felt her soft, cool hand on my arm. “They did more than just hit you, didn’t they?” she whispered.

  My tongue came unstuck. “No,” I said. “They tried, but the Shadow Hunter stopped them just in time.” Tears sprang to my eyes and, before I could stop them, they spilled over. I sniffled and wiped at them, hoping Christy hadn’t seen, but I was sure she had. “I feel so fucking stupid.”

  “Why?”

  “For feeling like this.” My voice cracked in a sob. “For feeling like—like I want to crawl into a hole and never come out. For feeling afraid to leave my apartment. Just the thought of going back to the shop right now makes me nauseous.”

  “It’s normal to feel that way,” she insisted. “A lot of people do. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “But nothing happened,” I said, weakly. “They didn’t actually do anything to me.”

  “They did enough.” Her voice was gentle and understanding. Her thumb rubbed at my forearm, and it made me almost more ashamed; even after I’d said something so shitty and cruel, she was still willing to comfort me. I didn’t deserve such a good person in my life. “Just because they didn’t get as far as they planned, that doesn’t make it not scary. It doesn’t mean it’s not still traumatic. I’ve had close calls on the job, myself, and it brings all those old feelings back. It’s scary enough on its own, and when it reminds you of what’s already happened…” She tried to hide her shudder of disgust and fear, but she failed.

  “I thought this happened so long ago that it shouldn’t bother me anymore,” I said. “It was ten years ago. It shouldn’t even be a part of my life anymore.”

  Christy gave me a sad smile. “Honey, it’ll probably always be a part of your life in some way. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or that you somehow screwed up.”

  I nodded, even though I didn’t believe her. Her hand drifted away from my arm.

  “You know,” she said, hesitantly, “I really think it might help you to talk to someone again. I know you said you were done with therapy, but you didn’t really go for that long.”

  “I figured a year was enough.”

  “And for some people and some issues, maybe it is. But with the way you lock yourself up in your tower every day, something tells me that you’re not one of those people. You need a little bit more help. And that’s okay, but you need to be willing to come to terms with that at some point.”

  I thought back to my therapist. She’d been a perfectly nice woman and I’d actually really liked her, but I hated talking to her about my life. I felt alienated. My throat would close up whenever I’d try to talk about certain things or she used certain words. After a while, I figured that whatever healing I still needed to do could be done on my own, without a watchful eye full of sympathy and pity staring down at me. I just wanted to go back to being normal, especially when I’d started having friends and a social life. I didn’t want to feel so separated from everyone else, and that’s what happened when I went to therapy: I felt like a freak.

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do or that you’re not ready to do,” Christy continued. She stood, brushing leftover flour
off her skirt primly. “You know I don’t ever want to push you or anything. But I do think you need to do something. You can’t keep living your life in fear and, when you’re re-traumatized, you need to know how to acknowledge it and move on instead of totally checking out.”

  “So you’re saying I should go walking back into work tomorrow like nothing happened?”

  “Oh, fuck no,” she said, and I almost laughed at the resolution in her voice. “I wouldn’t go back that fast. Take a few days. Let Gary fight the angry nerd hordes for you. If ever there was a good time to take a vacation, this would be it. Just let yourself rest for a little bit.”

  “Good idea.” I bit at my lip, then asked my question before I could chicken out. “Hey, Christy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Could you give me the number of that jiu jitsu instructor you told me about?”

  She practically squealed with delight, but managed to hold it in long enough to give me a very composed, “It would be my delight.”

  Chapter Seven

  I hadn’t been to the local YMCA since I was about ten years old, during my dad’s extremely brief racquetball phase—which, of course, ended in a sprained ankle and him swearing off all exercise for life—and it looked like no one else had been there since then either. The Y had fallen off the side of the building, leaving behind its ghostly imprint, and the lines in the parking lot had faded into nonexistence. I parked in a rough approximation of where I thought the lines may have been and hurried inside.

  The local Y was in what was commonly regarded as the “bad” part of town. I lived in a very small city that was mostly suburbs and churches, but every place has to have their designated seedy area, and downtown was ours. The only crimes I knew of had happened downtown. I thought back to the Shadow Hunter and realized that he probably spent most of his time in the surrounding sister cities; the ones that were decaying far more rapidly than mine.