by Vivian Wood
He eyed the two girls, liking the look of the bigger one. A brunette with a little flesh on her bones, the typeof woman he liked. She kept licking her lips, and Wyatt could think of several things he’d like those lips to be doing.
“You gonna join, or leave? It ain’t a free show!” Wyatt shouted to his audience, making himself heard over the music. Club Tonique wasn’t one of Chicago’s secret sex clubs, though he knew those plenty well. He’d taken pains to secure this room for an hour, so these strangers were basically intruding on his privacy.
“Sorry!” squeaked the smaller girl, a scrawny dishwater blonde.
The whole group turned tail and ran, reminding Wyatt of a bunch of terrified does. When the swinging door closed behind them, Wyatt finally relaxed into the blonde’s attentions.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he coached, thrusting up into her mouth, enjoying every second of it now.
Then his phone started to buzz. He sighed and tilted to one side, sliding his phone out of his pocket. Gavin, the screen read. The blonde paused and looked up, confused.
“Don’t stop,” he told her, pushing her head back down. She acquiesced as he swiped the Accept button on his phone and put it to his ear.
“Yeah?” he said, shifting to hold the phone between his ear and shoulder.
“Jesus, where the fuck are you?” came Gavin’s voice.
“What do you want, Gav?” Wyatt asked. To the blonde, he said, “I told you not to stop.”
“What?” Gavin asked.
“I wasn’t talking to you. What do you want?” Wyatt asked again.
“Family meeting this weekend.”
“Don’t give a fuck,” Wyatt said, already tiring of the conversation.
“No-show means no clan,” Gavin said.
“What?” Wyatt asked, reaching out and stopping the blonde. “Hold on.”
Pushing the girl away, he rose and zipped up his jeans. Talking to Gavin had already killed his erection anyway. He moved into the next room, a private bathroom that afforded a little more quiet.
“Did you say what I think you just said?” Wyatt demanded.
“Yeah. Pa called me today. He was about as sweet as you when he told me, then he hung up.”
“You must have misheard,” Wyatt accused.
“Nope. And it is this weekend, four days from now. Be at the Lodge on Friday night, or don’t come back.”
“What in the fucking fuck?” Wyatt wondered aloud.
“If it’s about what I think it’s about, we’re all in deep shit.”
“It’s not Ma, is it?” Wyatt said, his stone-cold heart fluttering to life for a brief moment.
“Guess you’d better come find out for yourself. Or, you know, never run with Berserkers again. Stay in your human form all but a few weekends a year when you can get away to Canada. Whatever,” Gavin said, the taunting in his voice unmistakable.
“Son of a bitch!” Wyatt said.
“Yeah. Anyway, I gotta go,” Gavin finished.
“Wait, who am I supposed to call?” Wyatt asked.
“What?”
“In the phone tree,” he clarified.
“Oh. Uh, nobody. I got this,” Gavin said. “Later.”
Gavin hung up, leaving Wyatt in complete confusion. There was a family meeting in a handful of days, attendance mandatory, and he wasn’t even part of the fucking phone tree. Something weird was happening, and it killed Wyatt’s mood.
Leaving the bathroom, he saw that the blonde was still in the booth waiting, chatting to the curvy waitress that Wyatt preferred when he came to Tonique.
“Wyatt!” they both chirped, turning their attention wholly to him.
“Yeah, look… Annie?” he guessed, frowning as he tried to remember the blonde’s name.
“It’s Amy,” she said, her smile faltering.
“Yeah, I just got a call. Family emergency. I gotta go.”
“Oh. Maybe next time?” she said, looking hopeful.
“Uhhh, sure,” he said, turning to the waitress and handing her a fifty for a tip. “Megan, see you next time.”
He didn’t miss the jealous glare that Abby shot the waitress, but he didn’t care enough to stick around and see the outcome. If he was going to Montana in half a week, and it appeared that he was, he had a lot of work and social commitments to finish, reschedule, or cancel.
Foul expression on his face, Wyatt pushed out the back door of the club and into the waiting night.
Luke
Luke Beran stepped out of Three Muses, Portland’s swankiest cocktail bar, sucking in a deep gulp of cool evening air. He loosened his tie as he headed toward the L, using all his willpower to keep himself from sprinting toward the train. He’d only been in Portland for a few weeks, but the city overwhelmed him on every level. Especially at night, with all the noise and flashing lights and people darting here and there.
Where everyone else would see the normal goings-on of any city, Luke saw danger around every corner. Every man in a hoodie was an unknown combatant, every car backfiring was an IED blowing, every flashing light a signal between two T-men.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Luke muttered to himself.
He’d been so awkward in the job interview he’d just left. Though he was a perfect candidate for the position of Operations Security Analyst, having served sixteen years in the Army and rising to the rank of First Sergeant, he’d spent the entire meeting eyeing every movement and watching all the exits like some kind of crazy person.
It wasn’t fair, damn it. When he was at home, in his own space and with the security alarms armed, he wasn’t so tightly wound. He never relaxed, not really, but at least at home he didn’t feel like he was on patrol in a kinetic zone.
Luke stopped at the steps of the L, bracing against a cool metal as he got himself under control.
You’ve only been back from Iraq for five weeks, he reminded himself. Give yourself time to acclimate. Once you’ve got a traveling job, you can move out of the city, somewhere quieter.
His heartbeat slowed, his breathing returned to normal.
“Better…” he whispered. The first week he’d been in Portland, he’d had three full-on panic attacks. Last week, one. This week he’d mastered the art of talking himself down off the ledge, so to speak. Maybe eventually he’d stop gaping at every clean bathroom, every blissfully ignorant woman in short shorts, every place he entered that was filled with a sea of white faces.
Yeah, Portland was radically different from Diyala. He needed to get the hell over it, and soon. He’d spent the last few years dreaming of hot meals, sand-free beds, and an unlimited supply of toilet paper. Now he had it, and he needed to quit being such a bitch about it. Better to think about his disastrous interview than to mull over what a freak he’d become after so much time in the Army.
Maybe if he’d ordered a drink, the whole thing would have gone better. He’d stopped drinking on his third tour in Afghanistan. He’d done it partly because he wanted to understand the people there better, understand their religion and culture. Partly, though, he’d done it because alcohol brought his Berserker to the surface, and that absolutely could not happen.
If his Berserker came out and killed a bunch of T-men, word would spread. If anyone in his unit saw him in bear form, he was toast. If the Army caught a whiff of what he was, he’d be tied down, vivisected, and studied as a way to make better soldiers or some shit like that. The medicos absolutely could not be trusted, so Luke had developed a lot of habits to help hide his true nature from everyone.
“Fuck, no wonder I’m nuts,” he said, turning and trudging up the stairs to the L train.
He listened hard for a moment and determined that a train going North was departing. Just his luck. When he got to the platform he took a seat on the farthest bench, hoping that no one would bother to come sit by him. He wrestled his suit jacket off, neatly folding it and placing it on the bench next to him. Wrinkles had no place in the life of a soldier, and at this point Luke was more soldier than
anything else.
His phone rang in his pocket, the Top Gun theme song blaring. He jumped at the sound before he caught himself again, clamping down his ridiculous panic at the sound of his own phone.
“Christ on a fucking cracker!” he snarled, pulling the vibrating phone from his pocket. He checked the screen, trying not to marvel at the fact that when people called him now, he had the choice of simply refusing to answer. Not that he was getting a lot of phone calls these days. Score one for civilian life, there.
When the screen flashed Gavin, Luke decided to pick up.
“H’llo?” he said.
“How’s Portland?” Gavin asked. His brother’s voice sounded high and tight, like he was trying to cover his frustration with false cheer.
“Uh… good,” Luke said. He pinched the bridge of his nose, angry that he couldn’t even manage to communicate right with his own brother.
“Job search is going okay?”
“Yeah,” Luke said, then amended, “Uh, well. It’s slow going. Lot of interviews, though.”
“I hope none of them are this weekend,” Gavin said with a sigh.
“Uh… no.”
No interviews, though he did have a potential date with a sweet-faced brunette that lived in his month-to-month corporate apartment building. She was some kind of pharmaceutical rep from Texas, with a strong Southern accent, a big smile, and some thick curves that Luke definitely wanted to explore.
“Talking to you is a little like pulling teeth,” Gavin said after a long pause in the conversation.
“Sorry,” Luke said. “I’m, uh… tired. Long day.”
“Right. Well, Pa’s commanded all of us to the Lodge. Gotta be there on Friday night, it’s mandatory. You haven’t been home yet anyway, right?”
“Right,” Luke said slowly, puzzling over the reason his father would want them all home at the same time. It was sure to be pure chaos, complete with stupid competitions, wrestling fights, and booze-filled shenanigans.
“So you’ll come?” Gavin prompted.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“All right. Can you let Cam know? Anyone who doesn’t show is out of the clan, apparently.”
Luke’s mouth opened, but he didn’t know how to respond.
“Well… okay,” was all Luke managed after a moment.
“Kay. See you this weekend, Luke.”
Luke stared into space for a few minutes, turning the situation over and over in his mind. It wasn’t until his train rumbled into the station that he finally shook off the strange malaise that he felt at his father’s summons.
“Can’t be any kind of good news,” he muttered to himself as he got on the train. As the train carried him off toward his home, he wondered how best to break the news to Cam. It wasn’t a conversation that either party would enjoy, that was certain.
Cameron
The sound of his phone buzzing somewhere on the hardwood floor of his apartment woke Cameron Beran from a doze. He opened his eyes and inhaled the familiar scent of unfamiliar females, sighing and pushing away the arms wrapped around his torso. He sat up, taking care not to disturb either of the cute brunettes that snuggled on each side of him. One snored softly, the other drooled a little.
That was the reason he’d brought them into the guest bedroom. Well, that and the fact that when he had company over, he usually woke in the middle of the night and sought his own bed. He wasn’t callous enough to kick them to the curb after sex, but he sure as hell wasn’t missing out on a night of sleep either. Besides, the kind of girls that Cam brought home usually weren’t looking for breakfast in the morning. More often than not, they were already gone by the time he rose, sneaking out in their bare feet, heels in hand as they had the doorman hail a cab.
The sound came again, so Cam scooted out from between the girls. He grabbed the discarded pile of his clothes and shoes and padded out of the room, closing the door behind him. The hallway led to the two bedrooms and guest bathroom, but Cam wasn’t ready to head to his own bed just yet. It was early, just about eleven. The two brunettes had been more than excited to go to bed with him, and upon their invitation, Cam hadn’t been crazy enough to linger at the bar.
Dropping his bundle in front of his door, he fished his phone out of his pants pocket and went on to the living room. The loft-style apartment’s soaring ceilings and huge factory windows formed a perfect open floor plan, the exposed brick, gleaming stainless-steel kitchen, and spotless white furniture making the whole place look like something straight out of an IKEA catalog. It was a little impersonal, but easy to maintain. The place did have a great view, overlooking downtown Portland’s modest skyline.
Cam wasn’t putting a whole lot of work into decorating or keeping up a place he didn’t even own. No, he was saving that for his dream house, the one he was itching to build out near the mountains. Someplace where he could run in his bear form, a place where his kids could grow up like he and his brothers had at the Lodge, unrestrained and unafraid of their Berserker sides.
Of course, there was one missing piece to the puzzle. All the money and property and dreams of a perfect home and family didn’t mean squat if Cam couldn’t manage to settle down with one girl. And not just any girl, either… Just like his specifications for his dream home, Cam had a list a mile long when it came to picking a mate.
His phone buzzed again in his hand. Cam looked down, surprised to see a series of texts from Luke.
“Of all people,” Cam said.
We’ve been called home to the Lodge this weekend, said the first.
Mandatory, said the second.
Be there by Friday night, or find another clan. So says Pa, said the last.
WTF? Cam texted back.
No idea. See you Friday, came Luke’s response.
Cam groaned. He would get notified by the brother who barely spoke. For a moment Cam thought about calling Gavin, but then he nixed the idea. It was late in Billings, and Gavin might not even be in the loop on something this big. Though if anyone knew anything, it would be him. Gav spent the most time at the Lodge, helping ma out with her horses and generally keeping Pa from killing everyone he knew.
Cameron couldn’t even pretend jealousy of his brother. Pa was an asshole, Ma sweet but smothering, and Billings was about as boring as it got. On top of that, Gavin actually worked for Social Services. He spent his whole day helping strangers, a concept foreign to Cam. As far as he was concerned, his brother was a masochist of the highest caliber.
His phone buzzed one last time.
Tell Finn.
Cam supposed that Finn would have to be the next on the list, since he was the only one whose calls Noah would return. Who knew what the twins were up to, since they always kept to themselves. Hell, Cam didn’t know what country Noah was in. Realizing that any hour was a gamble, Cam opted to shoot off some texts to his little brother. Finn contact Noah, who would get the details when he got around to picking up the phone, his usual M.O. in life.
Cam drifted off after that, sprawling out on his perfect white couch in his perfectly clean apartment, forgetting the two perfect strangers in the bed he’d just abandoned. All in all, he reflected, a normal day in my life.
Noah and Finn
Noah Beran was literally falling asleep standing up. His head hit his chest and he swayed on his feet, before snapping to attention once more. He blinked several times, rubbing grit from his face as he stared at the luggage passing on the conveyor belt.
Right. I’m still in Baggage Claim. In… Seattle? Shit, I hope I made it all the way to Seattle.
He gazed around, trying to see if the airport was familiar. They all kind of looked the same to him now, though. He’d been on a series of flights for almost a full day now, this time flying back from Tunisia.
Today was very much like the last hundred times he’d flown home from some far-flung destination, wherever some high-end newspaper or magazine paid him to go. As one of the top freelance photojournalists in the U.S., Noah was as much at home in a
irports as in his own ill-used Los Angeles apartment.
Pulling out his cell phone, Noah ignored the flood of texts, voicemails, emails, and tweets that awaited his attention. He’d been in Libya for almost a month this time, having crossed over from the Tunisian border. His battered leather briefcase held his laptop and notes, and he had a hell of an article forming. With the photos he’d captured of government-approved violence against student protestors, he was sitting on a serious story. He was also going to have to stay the hell out of Northeast Africa for a while, but that was a concern for another day.
He sent a single text. Home, was all it said.
Call me. 911, came the response.
Noah was so tired that his first reaction was to stick his tongue out at his phone. He looked around, embarrassed, but since it was about three a.m. no one else was around to see his childish lapse. Clearing his throat, he realized that his two bags were the only ones left on the conveyor belt. Dragging them off, he tucked his phone in his pocket and made for the twenty four hour coffee stand near the airport’s entrance.
After fortifying himself with the biggest cup of black coffee the place sold, Noah finally made it to the long-term parking lot where his Land Rover waited. Once he and his bags were safely inside, he used the car’s computer to dial Finn’s number.
“Guess this means you’re alive?” came Finn’s voice after a couple of rings.
“Despite all my efforts to the contrary,” Noah affirmed.
“And to think, I paid those Libyans five g’s to take care of you.”
Though he was annoyed with Finn’s demand for a middle-of-the-night checkin, Noah softened a little at Finn’s sardonic humor. It was something they shared together, never flinching, never wondering whether the other was kidding. No one could read Noah like his twin brother, same for Finn.
“You’re an asshole, and I’m alive. Good enough?” Noah asked.
“Actually, I’m not looking for proof of life. I was calling to let you know that Pa has called some kind of family meeting for tomorrow.”
