WinterJacked: Book One: Rude Awakening

by Athena Grayson

  “Put in two bike lanes outside and about thirty inches of rain for that. You know I’m from Portland.” And Ken had no room to talk. He’d grown up in Kentucky. She knew this because when she’d brought her mother here once, Yukiko had grilled the poor guy on his life history, his availability, his star sign, his blood type, and whether or not he took appropriate precautions with bad luck coming from the omikuji fortune-telling vending machine next to the vintage pachinko machine.

  After that mortal embarrassment, and the relief at finding he was married with two little kids—thus safe from her mother’s machinations—she couldn’t help feeling more friendly towards him.

  His smile grew wider. “We’re not always from the places we’re born, Oyuki, but the people we are born to.” Even if he gave her a hard time about ignoring her cultural heritage.

  A shiver ran through her at his words, and she thought of the modest house she and her mother shared. The massive quantities of trinkets, amulets, and talismans Mother put up to chase away evil spirits that kept her from inviting any of her friends over, lest they see how backward Mother could be. How she insisted on hamburgers and chicken instead of rice and noodles, because it was bad enough when you looked different from the other kids, and worse when you had to eat different, too.

  But then last night happened, and Mother turned out to be right about all those talismans and fetishes, but the last thing she’d ever do was admit that Mother was right. So she shoved a bean cake in her mouth instead, because maybe last night, being full of wonder and glory and orgasms hadn’t quite been all real. It was easy to imagine more than what was there.

  The little bean cakes sat warmly in her hollow stomach, and left a dusting of powdered sugar over her fingers as she texted Starla.

  Come get me. I fail at morning-after.

  As she waited for Starla to show up, she sipped the hot tea and thought of the blonde’s advice. It went against every instinct she had about Jack Winters, dating from college and all the way forward. She was used to hiding her feelings about Jack. Even from Starla, ever since the night she lost her big chance—the night he met up with Nancy for “drinks” and that was the end of that. Lin never wanted to be the spinster friend—the one who never got over her old crush.

  But the blonde had a point—why shouldn’t she let him know how she felt? She had fantastic fortitude when it came to negotiating changes for work, or telling her ex, Roger, exactly what he could keep from their relationship—and what he could shove up his ass—but when it came to Jack Winters…I’m still that star-struck co-ed.

  Maybe that was why she bolted this morning. The deceptive allure of imagining more than what was there sat in the back of her mind, ready to pounce. Adding weight to the tenuous grip of rational maturity she was supposed to have about an enjoyable night between two consenting adults with nothing to prevent them from acting on their mutual attraction. Seeing more than what’s there puts you on the fast-track to crazy town, whether it’s spirits or relationships. I don’t know if I’m ready to be that kind of crazy.

  ~*~

  In the time since his mother had become terminal right along with his marriage and his sanity, Jack had gotten so good at running away, he considered it a fatal character flaw. But one unexpected side benefit to that was that he’d gotten really good at just plain running. In fact, he had a circuit that took him along a rather pleasant loop around the downtown canyons created by the biggest high-rises—the bank building, and the Neiman-Marcus, the soaring new condos overlooking the river, and finally, back and forth over the river itself along the pedestrian deck of the bridge.

  Today he wasn’t particularly pleasant as his feet pounded the pavement and his breath condensed in the air. The mild winter saw a lot more other runners on his route, but even colder weather wouldn’t have stopped the hardcore lifers. He wasn’t alone on the running paths, but at least his company was human.

  As he approached the bridge, he spotted a familiar-looking lump of hobo hunched in the shadow of the main strut’s concrete boot. ‘Frosty Sal’ was stretching bits of shredded plastic grocery bags over the giant bolts and knotting them together. They picked up the cold wind and swelled to some sort of malformed, cancerous cold-air balloon. The gray-haired homeless woman lifted her face to the sky and watched her string of bags bob in the updrafts from the wind.

  He shook his head as he passed her. When he first moved into the loft, she’d been lurking around the alley with a battered grocery cart of blankets and knick-knacks. Motivated by a need to help, he’d called the homeless shelter and asked if there was anything he could do. Besides being understaffed and overcrowded, the shelter could only help those who sought their assistance, and the director had told him that Sal ran from the local mission groups that came into the city to round up the homeless and get them to shelters during the coldest nights. Once a summer, the woman said, Sal came into the shelter for a bath. The kindly woman told him, “If she’s bothering you, you can call the police and they’ll put her in lock-up for a few days…if they can catch her.”

  Jack had been horrified at the idea of incarcerating the poor old woman. Instead, he took to super-sizing the sandwiches he bought for lunch from the deli on 6th, and leaving half, wrapped and bagged on the stoop of the building. He bought a wool blanket from the military surplus store and left it and his old down jacket out. He spotted the blanket and coat in her cart one day, but a few days later, his jacket ended up on one of the other regulars that made up the downtown crowd. The shelter director told him that Sal never kept the coats they handed out to the regulars. “Frosty Sal’s just one of those special ones. We get a few of them from time to time. Only one foot in the real world.”

  Sal waved her hands in the now. “All the islands in the realm built bridges to make a country without a king.”

  Jack’s next step faltered. But he became determined to actively ignore the oddness in his life. “All I want is one run, okay?”

  “Run, run, as fast as you can, from one end of the realm to the other,” Sal sang. “Time runs, too, it runs faster than you but the enemy is not thy brother.” The homeless woman met his eyes and for an instant, Jack was trapped in a keen gaze that looked neither hopeless nor crazy.

  He stumbled again and tore his eyes away, adrenaline sending him faster along the curve to the bridge. If he let himself dwell on Frozen Sal’s state, he came to troubling conclusions. If he let himself dwell on her nonsense words…their meaning started to hint at a terrible sense.

  He pushed himself along the relatively flat stretch of the bridge, letting the drive of his pace, the sharp need to breathe, the hammer of his heart-rate, push out the uncomfortable thoughts and the nagging fears and the frustrations at his own inarticulate idiocy.

  Given the rest of his lifestyle—that of being hunched over a computer all day, talking to no one and eating the occasional frozen or take-out meal punctuated by a series of protein bars—he was sort of counting on the running keeping him closer to the “healthy” column than the “headed for an early grave” column. Although “early” was becoming more and more relative. More than the perceived health benefits—which he was sure he perceived a lot more of than were actually there—the running gave him a chance to clear his head and physically avoid all the little flashes and oddities that plagued him. He could ignore everything but the pavement in front of him and the next few steps.

  It was something of a shock, then, when he noticed his own white and blue sneakers were joined by a pair of black and gold ones close enough for comment. He lifted his head.

  “I thought I’d have to chase you down.”

  “What?” Jack jerked his head up. Shane trotted along beside him, auburn hair tucked under a black watch cap.

  “I said, good thing I wore my running outfit, because I knew I’d have to chase you down.”

  “Running outfit?” Jack laughed. It came out half a wheeze as he slowed his pace. “I thought you were impersonating a Euro-trash ski bum.” With the wrap
around shades and sleek running shirt and leggings, Shane looked more like a winter Olympics groupie.

  “At least I’m fully dressed. How are you not freezing your nuts off under those shorts?” Shane panted next to him.

  Out of courtesy, Jack slowed to a walk and edged off to the side as a woman passed them. “I don’t get cold. Why’d you have to chase me down?”

  Shane rubbed his hands together. “Look, I’m not going to sugar-coat it. I know you took Lin home last night.” Shane’s brows furrowed as he glowered. “So what was your excuse for leaving this morning?”

  Jack stopped and stepped back off the path. He failed to see the anemic mud puddle until his foot sank into it. As his sneaker squelched, he felt the squish firm up and heard the faint crackle of water freezing. His heel came to rest on firm ice. That was my excuse. “I...didn’t have one?” At Shane’s scowl, he bristled.

  Shane sniffed. The tip of his nose reddened in the cold. “With your history I thought—”

  “My history?” He did not want to get into it right now. “You’re the one who flounced out last night. All I did was show up—”

  “Why? What brought you out to the suburbs after all this time making excuses for why you could never be arsed to get up there before?” Shane was really not pulling his punches today, was he?

  Jack lifted his foot from the frozen puddle and started running again. “You jump my shit for reconnecting after all this time—” And he’d been worried about Starla.

  Shane stumbled to a start, legs pumping to catch up to Jack. “ ‘Reconnecting’? Cute. The rest of the world calls it ‘hooking up’ and it’s usually followed by ‘I’ll call you’ and then months of silence.”

  Now it was Jack’s turn to scowl. “I thought her mother was in Japan. And a Japanese woman.”

  “Yeah, that means I look out for her.” Unspoken in Shane’s words was the accusation that Jack hadn’t been around much to look out for Lin for the past few years.

  “Hey, she left me, man. I took her home to my place. Not the other way around. And what are we, nineteen? I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation with you. It’s none of your business.”

  Shane darted past him and turned around, jogging backwards as he stared hard at Jack. “If you’re going to screw it up, do it now, so I can start picking up the pieces.”

  Jack shifted his path, sprinting ahead of Shane. More than a year of near-absolute radio silence hadn’t been enough time to turn their relationship polite, and for some reason, as much as Shane was getting under his skin right now, Jack was kind of relieved. “Maybe Lin can look out for herself. She’s smarter than you think.”

  Shane darted up beside him. “Not when it comes to you.”

  A low stab streaked through his gut. “She was—” She was smart enough to get out this morning. “She’s a big girl, Shane. She knows what she wants.” He flung the words over his shoulder. For a brief stretch of time, she wanted him. “Maybe she left me this morning, did you ever think of that?”

  A few minutes of ragged silence went by as Shane sprinted to catch up to him. The burst of speed left Shane wheezing without speaking, and Jack couldn’t help being perverse in his gratitude for the respite. Shane sucked in a deep breath and opened his mouth.

  Jack’s lips tightened. “I’m not exactly in a good place right now.” He picked up speed again, knowing that Shane had to work to keep up with his long-legged stride. Like he said, he was good at running.

  “That’s—your problem, Winters. It’s all about—you. Did you ever think—that maybe she—might not be in—a good place? Or that the rest of us haven’t been—shiny, happy people all this time? But you wouldn’t know that, would you?” Shane slowed, but Jack kept his pace, pushing himself past the catch in his side. “Because you—picked up speed and—left us all behind!”

  “Picked up speed?” Jack was so stunned he stumbled, staggering off the path to go down on one knee. Shane came up and bent double, hands on knees and panting, as Jack turned over and pushed himself up, shaking the ache out of his knees. “Picked up speed?” He looked at the other man in disbelief. “Dude, I ran off a cliff!” He made a downward plunging motion with his hand. “I didn’t leave you behind, I left you safe!”

  Shane wouldn’t look at him, choosing instead to stare at the ground. “How were we supposed to know? All we knew is you wouldn’t answer the phone, you moved out of your condo, and you wouldn’t talk to anybody.”

  Jack scrubbed a dirty, wet hand down his face, leaving frost on the stubble on his cheeks. “What—you mean you wanted to listen to me piss and moan about my divorce?” Or freak myself out over things nobody else could see?

  “That’s what friends do, you asshole!” Shane threw up his hands.

  Shane’s perspective was a lot different from his own about the past three years. Sure, it had a lot of holes in it, but maybe those missing pieces would have— He crouched back down and rubbed his injured knee. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Chillsprites, their bark-brown skin blending in with the bare urban trees dotting the sidewalk. None of the joggers on the path afforded them even a first look, much less a second. They kept their distance even now. Shane had come around spoiling for a fight, but the alternative was Jack returning to his empty apartment and second-guessing himself. Might as well let Shane be the one to second-guess him. At least he’d have company. “You wanna call me an asshole to my face?” He glared up at Shane. “Like, over bagels?”

  Shane blinked. He gasped for several long breaths, the ruddy exertion in his face gradually returning to normal. “Is it close by? I’ve had enough of this exercise shit. I need a cigarette.”

  Jack got to his feet and brushed the rest of the dirt off his knees. “Can you make it two more blocks or should I give you a piggyback ride?”

  Shane snorted. “I can make it.”

  “Good. You’re buying. If you’re going to call me an asshole, I’m going to act like one.”

  ~*~

  They walked the last two blocks to the bagel shop. The Saturday morning crowd was usually made up of tourists and other idiots who thought being out in the early morning on a weekend was a good idea. True to his word, Jack made Shane pay for two coffees and two bagels with cream cheese. It ended up not being a hardship on his friend, because he left Jack slouched in a booth for five minutes while he chatted up the blue-haired guy making the coffee.

  “Took you long enough. Are you two planning a wedding or something?”

  Shane smirked as he set down the two coffees. “I wouldn’t plan a wedding without first sampling the goodies.” He flicked his eyes back to the counter and winked. “A blue-haired, bagel-buttering barista in my bed.”

  Jack’s eyebrows climbed. “At least he’d make you breakfast.”

  “That’s the idea. Making me breakfast.”

  Jack laughed. “You haven’t changed at all, and this is starting to stray into TMI territory.”

  The barista trotted over with a plate in either hand. “Here you go, handsome.” He set a bagel in front of Shane. “And one for somebody who must’ve wandered into rough territory last night.”

  The other plate slid home in front of Jack, who raised his eyebrows and glanced up to see the name tag that read “Puck.” “Thanks?”

  Puck—if indeed that was his name—tilted his head and saluted. “Back in play,” he murmured, meeting Jack’s eyes and for an instant, Jack’s vision flickered to the Inverse. A cold finger crawled its way up his spine at the hint of recognition in the barista’s eyes. Puck couldn’t be—?

  The inverse blinked right back.

  “Jack? Come back to earth.” Shane snapped his fingers in front of Jack’s face.

  He blinked and shook his head. “Sorry. I just—of course he looks familiar. I come here all the time.”

  “Dude, what?” Shane bit into the bagel. “You looked like you saw a ghost.”

  “Hah. No.” Jack glanced at the blue-haired Puck again. But maybe an Oddling. “I just re
alized I did recognize him.”

  “I see the effects of old age are already hitting. And you at forty for not even twelve hours, Old Bean.”

  “Oh, do go fuck yourself.” He didn’t mean it, but damn, it felt good to be bantering with Shane again. Why hadn’t he realized how much he missed this. “Anyway, when did you and Lin get so close?”

  Shane crunched on his bagel for a few moments before answering. “Around the time Starla’s twins turned one and her life turned upside down. It’s hard to have girl time with one year old twins into everything. I stepped up and did the gay best friend thing.”

  “I don’t know whether to be glad for you or sorry for her. Or vice versa.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out to the side of the booth, staving off the inevitable post-run kinks that came when he didn’t stretch.

  “I let her talk about shoes and pretend I get it, she lets me bitch about having to go to meetings and pretends to be sympathetic before she makes me go.”

  “I’m glad you’re still going.” Jack kept his tone carefully light, even though, ten years later, he still got a terrified clench in his gut when he remembered the night he and Bailey and Bailey’s older brother beat the cops by ten minutes to the back room of the dive club and pulled an overdosed Shane out of what they lightly termed a “bad situation.”

  Jack and Bailey had both taken a week off work and taken shifts detoxing Shane in Jack’s condo. Nancy had not been happy about the situation, but she was the one who’d given them the information about a local recovery group, and played Bad Cop when it came to the terms of the suddenly-homeless Shane’s stay in their spare bedroom.

  “Yeah, well, with my family history…Anyway, Lin also gives me good career advice that I don’t take.” Shane quirked his mouth. “And you got no room to talk about being the sorry one. Who’s more sorry—the one who knew where her friends were, or the one who ran from his?”

  Jack shifted uncomfortably. Outside, Frozen Sal stood on the sidewalk, staring at him. He hoped that when they left, she wouldn’t confront him. “Shane, you do not understand.” He pushed the remains of the bagel away. “Starla had her arms full of babies. I couldn’t drag Bailey from that for my stupid problems. You were barely holding on yourself.” At the time, he was sure he was either crazy or about to be diagnosed with the same mystery disease that ate his mother up from the inside. Having to unload on his friends, but be unable to answer anything besides, “I don’t know,” to well-meaning questions just seemed like an exercise in futility.