He did not seem pleased about it.
“That’s good, right?” Nick asked.
“Meh,” Wes said with a scowl. “They’ll just tell me that I’m being silly about this whole thing and that I should come back home where it’s safe and everything is familiar. I’m tired of safe and familiar.”
“After what happened though, you can’t blame them,” Nick said.
“No, I really can’t,” Wes said. “Except I can, too. They were doing that before I ever left Atlanta. I’m staying. That’s it.”
“Really?” Nick had not thought he would, had figured Wes would bolt from Sparrow Falls as soon as he was able to stand up.
“Yes,” Wes said. He balled his hands into fists in the blanket over his legs. He couldn’t sit up very well, so he was propped on a stack of pillows that looked in danger of falling over, his torn up shoulder poking out to the side. It looked incredibly uncomfortable and the dark circles under Wes’s eyes left no illusions about how well he hadn’t been sleeping.
“Okay,” Nick said. “Welcome to Sparrow Falls, New Resident.”
That got him a little smile. “What a party,” Wes said. He laid his head on his stack of pillows, neck bent at a new and even more uncomfortable looking angle. “This sucks.”
“Living here does have its downfalls,” Nick said.
“Not the town, I like the town,” Wes said. “I don’t like having nearly been eaten though. That was… God, Nick. It was so bad. I can’t sleep worth a heck anyway, but when I do, I have nightmares unless they pump me full of painkillers. Those are nice. I like painkillers.”
“Are you going to need rehab when they let you out of here?”
“No,” Wes said with another little smile. “A lot of physical therapy though. My pinky is all floppy and dumb now. That’s the nerve damage. I can use it, but I have to really think about it to make that happen. Then there’s all the other mess that is me now.”
“You are not a mess,” Nick said.
“You’re sweet,” Wes said. “A total liar, but a sweet one.”
“Thank you,” Nick said. “I try.”
“I know,” Wes said. “At least you bother with that much.”
He was starting to look sad again and Nick didn’t like that. Wes was in a private room and had been since early that morning. Christmas Eve was a slow day, so that meant he didn’t lie in the ICU, alone and forgotten until later. That night was probably going to look like the gates of Hell had been moved to the ER and left open, but the daylight hours had left the hospital looking like a ghost town.
“I think you need cheering up,” Nick said.
“I know I need cheering up,” Wes said. He huffed out a tired, annoyed breath of laughter. “They can’t even find my damn phone. It’s a stupid phone with a stupid case on it, but nope. It has officially gone missing. It would be crappy any other time, but right now it’s even worse. It’s like… like…”
“Adding insult to injury,” Nick said.
“Exactly,” Wes said.
Nick rolled his shoulders and got up from the uncomfortable, hideously mauve Naugahyde chair he’d been sitting in. He slipped his hand under the blanket covering Wes and smiled slow and sly when he jumped a bit then followed the traveling lump that was Nick’s hand moving under the covers. Lower. Lower.
“Jesus,” Wes said, hissing it out when Nick slid his hand up his naked thigh. Wes was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else because of all the gauze wrapping his torso. “Oh, God, you are evil, Nick.”
“Call me Satan’s elf,” Nick said.
Wes laughed, the sound choking off on a gasp as Nick slid his hand inside the fly of Wes’s boxers and pulled his cock out. Stroking it slowly, Nick smiled as Wes’s mouth fell open in an O of pleased shock.
“Someone could walk in,” Wes said. “Nick, someone could see.”
“They could,” Nick agreed as he stroked the ball of his thumb over the head of Wes’s cock. “Wouldn’t that be awkward?”
Wes licked his lips and made a whimpering sound in the back of his throat. He closed his eyes only to open them again to glance down at the shape of Nick’s hand working beneath the blankets. “So awkward,” Wes said. “We’d be in a lot of trouble.”
“I’m sure we would be,” Nick said as he used his free hand to push back the blankets more so Wes could really see what he was doing.
“Oh,” Wes said softly as he rocked his hips forward.
Nick kept his grip loose, let Wes gently fuck his fist. Wes looked up at him and Nick winked before he ducked his head and licked over the head of his cock.
“This is very naughty,” Wes said.
“Ho-ho-ho,” Nick whispered then took the head of Wes’s cock between his lips and sucked gently as he continued to stroke him. It was a god-awful angle to be giving a blow job from, but the bed was high and Nick was tall, at least it wasn’t much of a stretch to reach.
Nick laughed around the head of his cock and Wes moaned at the vibration. A second later, he laid his hand on Nick’s head and stroked his hair. He made soft sounds at first that grew louder as Nick moved faster, sucked harder. He had to let go and switch back to using his hand when the strain on his neck got too bad. Wes watched him through heavy-lidded eyes, the sweep of his eyelashes dark watermarks on his pallid cheeks. Nick smiled as Wes sucked his bottom lip into his mouth.
“Yes,” Wes said, chest hitching with his catching breath. “Please. Yes.”
“Please what?” Nick said.
“Your mouth,” Wes said. His hips stuttered forward and he whimpered again, the sound humming through his clenched teeth. If they hadn’t been in a hospital room, he would have been giving Nick the full show and he was sorry to miss out on that. Wes came apart so prettily, so loudly.
He bent over again and took Wes’s cock into his mouth as deeply as he could. Wes groaned and laid his hand back on Nick’s head, petting him with anxious fingers as he neared completion. Nick made a soft mhmm sound of encouragement in the back of his throat then began humming “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. Wes loved Christmas after all, so Nick made every effort to give him the best present he could think of.
Wes was panting, hips rocking gently forward every time Nick pulled his head back. “Nick… Nick… I’m gonna…”
Nick never slowed his pace, never stopped caroling; only grabbed Wes’s ass with his free hand and pulled him closer as he deep-throated him. Wes came with a strangled sound, a bitten back cry that grated out through his clenched teeth as his fingers tightened in Nick’s hair. With a pleased chuckle low in the back of his throat, Nick swallowed him down then slowly eased off, Wes making soft, almost distressed sounds of pleasure as he slid his mouth across his sensitized flesh.
“Wow,” Wes said after a moment. He was flushed now, no longer pale and faded looking from all the blood loss. He looked up at Nick, peeling his eyes open with great effort. Nick used his thumb to wipe at the corner of his mouth then sucked it clean. “My goodness,” he said as he watched Nick do it. “I feel a little woozy now.” That made Wes laugh then hiss in a little breath as Nick began to set him back to rights. It wouldn’t do for a nurse to come in and find his covers all in disarray and his dick hanging out of his shorts.
“Merry Christmas, Wes,” Nick said as he leaned forward to press a kiss to Wes’s forehead.
Wes flushed deeper red then his mouth turned up at the corners as he peered up at Nick, eyes sleepy now and still a little dazed. “That’s definitely the most interesting Christmas present I’ve ever gotten,” Wes said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But… Nick, I don’t have my wallet, I can’t—”
“It wasn’t for pay, Wes,” Nick said. “It was for you just because I wanted to do it. Like you said: it was a present. You don’t pay for your presents.”
“Yes, well, that is true,” Wes said. He plucked at his blankets when Nick pulled them up around to his chest. “I’m sorry about that though. I shouldn’t
have… I wasn’t—”
“I get it, it’s fine,” Nick said. “In my profession we aren’t in the habit of handing out freebies.” He leaned close to whisper in Wes’s ear. “But you’re special, so I made an exception.”
Wes ducked his head, smiling but trying to hide the fact. “See? You are a nice person,” Wes said. With his head down like that, Nick could pretend Wes was talking to his pillow, not to him. Then he glanced up again and added, “I do have a little cash and I was wondering if I gave you a few bucks, would you go buy me a phone to use until I can call and get mine replaced?”
“Sure,” Nick said.
“In the nightstand is a little bag with my cash and stuff in it,” Wes said. “My wallet hasn’t been returned to me yet though I don’t know why. It was in the glove compartment, it can’t possibly be evidence.”
“Make sure your credit cards are all there,” Nick said. “The police department is supposedly a lot more on the up-and-up than it used to be, but back in my day, they were the biggest damn crooks in the parish. I figure at least some of the bad eggs are still around stinking up the place.” He got the money and showed Wes how much he had taken so he’d know. When Wes nodded, Nick put the cash in his pocket.
“I liked my phone,” Wes said. “That’s such a stupid, lame-o tech-geek thing to say, but I did.”
“I can’t believe they didn’t find it,” Nick said.
“I think it was stolen,” Wes said.
“Well, I did tell you the cops—”
“I don’t mean it was stolen by the cops,” Wes said. “I think it took it.”
“Wait. What?” Nick was suddenly a lot more concerned about Wes’s mental health than he had been a few seconds before. “You think the… uh… the…”
“Werewolf.” Wes said it through his teeth, making the word rock hard, his voice tight with conviction.
Nick scratched his nose and cleared his throat. “Out of morbid curiosity, you mind telling me why a werewolf would steal your phone?”
Wes looked at him like he thought Nick’s IQ had just dropped by several points. “Because sometimes they’re people, too, Nick,” Wes said. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t be werewolves, they would just be wolves and of course, wolves have no use for cell phones. They don’t have thumbs.”
He was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing.
“That is just… What the fuck, Wes?” Nick said. He didn’t intend to say it, but it was impossible not to because that was front page of the Weekly World News levels of nutshit: A WEREWOLF STOLE MY CELL PHONE “He racked up a huge bill,” Says Distraught Victim.
“I don’t expect you to believe me,” Wes said. “No one believes me and I knew that from the get-go.”
“Did you actually tell the cops that?” Nick said.
“No,” Wes said. “I’m not dumb.” He gave Nick a sharp look and pointed at him, damaged pinky flopping ineffectually to the side. “I’m not crazy either.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Nick said, which was a lie; he was starting to worry about that a little bit. “I think you had the hell scared out of you and nearly died. It’s that… thing… people do, I don’t know what it’s called, but you know—your brain made whoever attacked you into a werewolf as a way of… um… trying to make sense of what happened or whatever.”
“Or whatever,” Wes repeated with a tired sigh. He tried to scowl, but the expression warped out of true when he yawned. “It stuck its fricking head through my window. I know what I saw. It wasn’t a dog. It wasn’t a bear. It wasn’t a dog-headed bear courtesy of some top-secret government experiment gone wrong. No. It was a werewolf.”
Nick felt like a broken record considering what he had so recently discussed with Crash, but it bore repeating: “Werewolves don’t exist. They’re impossible.”
“No they’re not!” Wes yelling took Nick aback and he raised his hands in a placating, calming gesture. “No… no… You know what? Damn. It. There. They’re not. I was never sure, you know, before, but I am now. I saw it and it was…” Wes shook his head and closed his eyes, a shiver running through his entire body. “I’ve never been so frightened, not ever, not even close. But it was… it was magnificent. I know that sounds even loonier than the rest probably, but it’s true. For all that it was terrifying, it was still beautiful because it is so impossible, but I saw it.”
“There is nothing beautiful about something wanting to rip you apart and probably eat you.” Nick was disturbed by the whole damn thing—from Wes’s assertion that it was indeed a werewolf that attacked him all the way to him calling whatever (whoever) it was beautiful.
“It was so black I could see the starlight reflected in its coat,” Wes said. He frowned and drew his knees up. “I shouldn’t think it was beautiful, that’s true, but I can’t help it. It’s like I saw folklore, all the things I’ve read about since I was old enough to pick up a book, walk right out of the night and prove it was more than a rumor on a page.”
“Jesus, Wes,” Nick said. “That is not healthy.”
“It isn’t,” Wes said. He tapped his temple. “But I’m not exactly healthy, mentally speaking. I’ve known that forever.”
Wes did have some damage, Nick had seen it and couldn’t deny it, nor would he lie to him about it. The werewolf thing was a different kind of damage and Nick thought it a very bad thing indeed for Wes to be sympathizing or more accurately, romanticizing his attacker.
“You’re not that bad,” Nick said.
Wes cracked one eye open to look at him, the corner of his mouth twitching with the barest hint of amusement. “Neither are you,” Wes said.
Nick looked away and then stood up, clearing his throat. “I’m not that great either,” Nick said. “Try to keep that in mind.”
“Okay.” Wes sounded sleepier by the second and it was time for Nick to be on his way regardless. He had an idea for a little adventure and then a Christmas gathering he was expected to show up at.
“I’ll come by and see you in a couple of days and bring your temporary phone,” Nick said. “Get some rest and watch plenty of bad television in the meantime.”
“Okay,” Wes said again, nestling down in his pillow with a little wince when he nestled too enthusiastically. His expression smoothed out a second later and he sighed deeply, well on his way to Nod.
“Okay,” Nick echoed then he turned and left, letting Wes get on with the business of dreaming.
Two hours later, Nick sat in his truck watching Dawn Marie carefully pull down the yellow police tape blocking the entrance to the driveway of the little Acadian-style cottage. Nancy sat next to him and sipped her drink. In the bed of the truck, Hylas and Tobias sat together sharing Hylas’s blanket. Like Linus from the old Charlie Brown cartoons and comics, Hylas came with his own blanket. He said it was all part of his Unexpected Nap Preparedness Plan.
“Just because Hylas says Mr. Dunwalton won’t throw a fit about us doing this does not make it true,” Nancy said around her straw.
“He won’t have us arrested though,” Nick said. He hoped not anyway. “Tobias and Hylas are his kids, Dawn Marie is like a daughter to him and he likes you. Plus, you’re totally respectable all on your own, Dr. Lange.”
“Dr. Lange is currently a far cry from respectable what with her being half-loaded and not exactly dressed to impress or inspire respect.” Nancy looked down at her old Tulane t-shirt with a bleach stain on the front then shrugged. “Mr. Dunwalton likes you well enough, too.”
Nick scoffed and then laughed. “Like hell he does,” he said.
Mitchell Dunwalton had proven to be a good sheriff in the years he’d held the position; before that he had been a good patrolman. Tobias had never run all over the fact his father was a cop, but Hylas had a tendency to push the limits of the man’s willingness to let him slide on certain things. He was still pissed about the info Hylas had leaked about the Anaise Corgan murder, so they might well be pushing their luck with this little bit of trespassing on a crime scene. All Ni
ck could do was cross his fingers and hope Hylas had the capacity to charm and talk his way out of all of them getting arrested.
That was if anyone came by and noticed anyway.
Nick pulled forward far enough for Dawn Marie to string the police tape back across the driveway again. She ran back to the truck, climbed in and said, “Woo!”
He took his foot off the brake and eased the old truck down the long driveway, the trees and a slight curve taking them from view. Nick stopped at the end of the driveway instead of going through the grass. They all got out and stretched, Tobias’s neck cracking like a gunshot when he popped it.
“This is a shitty idea,” Nancy said. She sipped her drink again and did not seem bothered. “At least half of every bad horror movie cliché is being dragged through the mud right now.”
“True,” Dawn Marie said. “A group of attractive young people creeping onto a plot of land they aren’t supposed to be on so they can scope out the scene of a terrible thing.”
“Yes, that,” Nancy said. “Absolutely that.”
“That’s why we brought Toby though,” Dawn Marie said. “He repels ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all things with his creep ass-ness.”
“Thank you, Dawn,” Tobias said. “Really.”
“Don’t be mad,” Dawn Marie said as she took his elbow and leaned against his side. “There’s nothing wrong with being a human scarecrow.”
“Scarecrow?” Tobias asked.
“Fuck yeah,” Dawn Marie said. “One that does its job a little too well, but like a scarecrow, you don’t mean to do what you do, you just stand there and it happens.”
“I can’t say that I follow your logic,” Tobias said with a sigh. “But all right.”
Hylas lit a joint and blew a plume of smoke up at the bright sky. He had folded his blanket and tucked it beneath his arm as he walked past the group and into the front yard, following the wildly weaving trail of tire marks that had flattened the grass. They had to be the ones made by Wes’s car as he was trying to get away from what(who)ever had attacked him.
“We could all stop talking about how Tobias is a freak of nature and maybe start talking about why we’re here,” Hylas said as the others began to follow him.
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 19
