Lost Souls

by AJ Lange

  And anyway, it didn't matter. Matt was scared of plenty of things, and Gavin knew almost all of them.

  Matt kicked at a pine cone, flushing when he thought of the way Gavin's hand had tentatively rested on him that night, on the bare skin of his waist above his pajama pants. Matt was usually cold, and slept completely covered up in flannel pants and a t-shirt, even in the sticky heat of summer. But the air before the looming storm had been especially oppressive and humid and he had peeled his tee off early and tossed it to the wide-plank floor of their elevated tent. Gavin was his opposite, in almost every way, and slept in boxer briefs and nothing else. Matt had tried not to notice how the small garment had clung to his newly filled out form, but that was difficult since Gavin pranced around mostly naked whenever possible. And while Gavin's regular body temperature burned like a coal-fed stove, he might have been showing off a little too. He had grown three inches over the spring, and could now look down at Matt.

  He was also filling out in other ways, below the waist, and Matt had really tried not to notice that at all.

  The crack of a twig broke his reverie and he looked up sharply. Far ahead, he could hear the squeals of the youngest campers in the throes of a game on the playground. He glanced behind him on the trail, hairs standing at attention on the back of his neck. He felt something, a presence, like a breath across his temple, hot and damp. He spun around.

  Nothing.

  The laughter of the children faded into the distance and he listened, hard, as the silence surrounded him, pressing him into the darkness of the thick cluster of pines. He stood very still, waiting, and then just as he thought he was losing his mind, he heard it; a whispered, singsong "I see you..."

  Matt ran.

  He burst through the edge of the treeline and into the hot, bright sun, colliding with Gavin and bouncing back hard, flat in the grass.

  "Matt, ow! What the hell?" Gavin caught himself before he tumbled to the ground on top of his friend, an ice cream held aloft in each hand.

  "Fuck," Matt whispered, blinking hard against the sudden, dizzying change in direction.

  Gavin howled, bent over at the waist, dripping orange sherbet onto Matt's bare chest. "You said fuck, oh God," he gasped between barking honks. "Matt, buddy, you're an f-bomb virgin no more!"

  "Shut up," Matt said, leaning up on an elbow. He swiped at the sticky orange droplets that ran down his side. "I said Rocket Pop, douchebag."

  Gavin shrugged, still grinning, and handed him the plastic tube. "And I got you a push pop instead." His bright pink tongue lapped at the top of his own cold treat, catching a droplet of the fast-melting liquid.

  Matt sighed and took the ice cream. He kind of hated orange sherbet, but he would never say so. He may know everything there was to know about Gavin DeLuca, but there were some things Matt would never tell Gavin about himself.

  Present

  "What are you doing here?" Matt's words were flat.

  Gavin was watching too closely not to see the flicker in his eyes before they shuttered. His pulse ticked up and he stepped closer to the bed.

  "How are you doing?"

  Matt frowned, then stood quickly, whipping around to face him. It startled Gavin and he held out his hands as if to steady him, calm him. Matt's face darkened. "How the fuck do you think I am, Gavin?"

  "I..." Gavin hesitated. Damn it. He wished suddenly that he had waited for Dom. "I'm sorry, Matt. About Leanne."

  Matt flinched, eyes falling immediately to his hands. They were clean, but Gavin wondered what Matt saw when he looked at them.

  "Can you tell me what happened?" He inched closer. The room smelled of disinfectant and the bleach they used on the bedding, of sterilized steel and filtered air. But his nose picked up something so achingly familiar his heartbeat clogged his throat.

  "Is this an official visit then, Detective DeLuca?" The words were bitten off, harsh, and it was Gavin's turn to flinch.

  "No," he said quietly. "I'm, for obvious reasons, not supposed to be here." He hesitated again, willing Matt to meet his gaze. "It's just me and you."

  Matt did look at him then, and Gavin felt the full brunt of his former friend's agony and anger, and something else, something deep and long hidden. He didn't blink, forcing himself to remain still, to allow those eyes to cut into him, read him, the way they hadn't done in so fucking long.

  "It hasn't been me and you in five years, Gavin. "

  Their gaze held.

  The door pushed open and a white-clad orderly stepped into the room. He held a plastic bag in his hand. "Excuse me," he said, looking cautiously between the men. Gavin thought he could probably cut the tension with a knife.

  "Your clothes, Mr. Laurel." He set the clear bag on the bed and quickly retreated, pulling the door closed behind him.

  Gavin opened his mouth but Matt cut him off.

  "Get out," he whispered, his eyes on the bag.

  Gavin could see the blood-stained fabric of a shirt cuff through the plastic.

  "Matt," he said, reaching for him for the first time, hand hovering.

  "Leave me alone, Gavin," Matt said coldly, his voice stronger. "Just--" his breath caught and Gavin's palms itched with the desire to hold him, at war with a deep-seated resentment and jealousy, feelings Gavin thought he had buried a long time ago.

  "Just go," Matt finished and turned away.

  Gavin let his hand fall. He strode out of the room and across the white tiled floor of the exit, across the cool black asphalt of the parking lot, unseeing, uncaring, until he found himself next to the squad car he had snagged from the crime scene. There, he dropped his head in his hands, covering his face. And tried to forget.

  Gavin drove to the precinct on auto-pilot, dropping the keys at the front desk when he signed in the car. He grimaced when he left through the side door to the parking lot and found Dom leaning against the Jeep's bumper.

  "How was he?" Dom didn't mince words, which Gavin usually appreciated. Sometimes though, it was a real trial not to slam his fist in his partner's fat, knowing mouth.

  "Peachy, Dom. How do you think?" Gavin immediately felt a sharp sting of guilt. Matt had been Dom's friend too. Gavin wasn't the only one who had lost him when everything went pear-shaped. Matt had been as much a part of Gavin's friends and family as any blood relative, and they had all missed him, in equal measure. He sighed and met Dom's concerned gaze. "He wasn't doing so hot when I left."

  "She's dead."

  Gavin nodded wearily. "Yeah, the doc told me." He shifted from one foot to the next, brow furrowing. "Matt didn't kill her."

  Dom rolled his eyes. "I know that." He straightened and clasped a hand to Gavin's shoulder, a warm, steadying hold that calmed his skittering nerves. "But it doesn't look good." They were the same words he had spoken earlier and Gavin felt the eerie brush of déjà vu.

  "I'm going home," Gavin mumbled, suddenly exhausted.

  "You want to come over to the house? Gina made dinner." Gina, Dom's wife, was an angel, beautiful and sweet. She was a kindergarten teacher, every inch of her suited to her profession.

  Gavin shook his head. Simple domesticity had the power to break him these days, and tonight he wasn't strong enough to face it. "No, I just want to sleep."

  "Lay off the booze." Dom's words were tight, concerned, and it was Gavin's turn to roll his eyes.

  "Yeah, okay Mom. Thanks."

  "I mean it, Gavin, you--" he paused, then squeezed Gavin's shoulder again before dropping his hand. "Have a Pepsi-Cola or something."

  Gavin snorted, loving his friend in that instant with a fierceness that surprised him. He swallowed the hot burn of tears in his throat. "It was Nehi grape, loser," he teased, voice gruff.

  Dom chuckled. "Then have a Nehi for me, asshole. I'll call you in the morning."

  Gavin watched in amusement as Dom contorted himself to fit into his small, environmentally sound, hybrid car and waved tiredly as he pulled out of the lot. When he followed in the Jeep a few minutes later, he turned north
instead of south, toward his parents'. He really didn't want to face his empty house alone.

  Antonia DeLuca met him at the door, eyes sad and wet. Dom must have called ahead. She pulled Gavin into a tight embrace, patting him and making him feel six years old again. "How's Matt," she whispered against his neck.

  But Gavin couldn't speak; he shook his head and held her tighter.

  Antonia responded by thwacking his back hard a few times, sniffing loudly and giving him her brightest smile. "I saved you some spaghetti."

  Gavin gave her a watery laugh. "How'd you know I was coming?"

  Antonia's smile softened and she caressed his cheek with her warm hand. "I knew."

  Gavin let her lead him to the kitchen, where he ate his mom's homemade spaghetti and allowed her to distract him with family gossip until it was time for bed. Then he crawled between the fresh, clean sheets in the bedroom of his childhood, and tried not to think of dark, messy hair and deep blue eyes, and all the years his heart had lain broken and bleeding.

  Chapter 3

  Matt was allowed to stay with Leanne before they removed her body to the morgue to await the funeral home. He sat on a hard chair in the empty, silent room, and wished, absurdly, that Gavin had stayed.

  That he had asked him to stay.

  He looked away from Leanne’s still, pallid form, a white sheet covering her from the neck down. He didn’t need to sit beside his dead wife to say his goodbyes, but he had instinctively known that the hospital workers wouldn’t understand his reticence, so here he sat, beside her bed, waiting for his cue to leave.

  He was ashamed to admit that he hadn’t loved her. She had been kind, a good friend and companion over the past few years, but theirs had been no great love affair, and they had both known it, perhaps Leanne most of all.

  She had deserved better.

  Now he was numb, exhausted, and he just wanted to get as far away from this place, this day, as possible. He recognized that his thoughts were becoming fragmented, that he was likely dissociative. He stood and walked to the window, gazing out over the dark parking lot and thought of his wedding day; but even that was wrapped around the ghost of Gavin.

  Gavin.

  He had seen him around town; of course he had seen him. Olathe wasn’t that big, and that goddamn Jeep was like a beacon, a vintage missile aimed straight for Matt’s gut whenever he passed it on the street. He was conditioned to look for the handsome square jaw of its driver, had been conditioned to do so since he was seventeen years old. It was a habit he had never been able to break.

  The last time Matt had stood face to face with Gavin, he had tried desperately to sever their connection, a conduit formed when they were children, grown stronger and interlaced more tightly than any bond Matt had ever formed with his own family. Matt had used the only weapon he had available to him at the time: words. And lies. Mostly lies.

  He had stared Gavin in the eye and told him that he was dead to him.

  Now Matt looked at his grim reflection in the window and knew that if that were true, if Gavin were the one lying behind him on a hospital gurney, cold, breathless, his exquisitely handsome face a mask of lifelessness...there would not be enough morphine in the building to dull his pain or stifle his cries.

  If it were Gavin on that gurney, Matt would follow him, gladly.

  Just as he had been following him his entire life.

  June 29, 1993

  “I’m not staying out there all alone, Gav and I can’t believe you, of all people, want to.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes and leaned in to punch Matt in the shoulder, hard. “Oh come on, Matt, why not? Are you afraid?” He waggled his eyebrows.

  Matt tilted his head. “Do you really want me to answer that?” he asked drily.

  Gavin scoffed, dismissing Matt’s objections with a wave of his hand, knowing he would eventually agree with him, he always agreed with him in the end. “We’re doing it. We almost have enough points already.”

  There was a cabin nestled in the heart of the woods, rustic, removed from the rest of the camp. Decades ago it had been the only structure on this tract of land, the original owner’s dwelling. For a time, it had been a hunter’s retreat, then after Camp Chitaqua opened in the 1970s, it had briefly served as the main office, until the larger buildings were constructed closer to the access roads, adjacent to the lake.

  Now the cabin was simply a reward; tucked deep in the thick of the pines, away from the prying eyes of adults and counselors. A night in the cabin was offered as an incentive to the tent that earned the most points during each fortnight of camp. Campers could earn points in a variety of ways: completing their assigned chores on time and correctly, winning games, mastering survival techniques, earning badges. Gavin had been dying for an overnight in that cabin almost since the first day, which Matt found rather ironic; Gavin typically hated being away from the bustling hub of wherever he was at any given moment. Gavin was the sun and everything else had a way of rotating around him.

  Matt was ambivalent. He liked being alone, had spent enough time hiding from his regular life (albeit, normally with Gavin), that he felt no real draw in spending a night removed from everything familiar. If anything, the idea of being essentially trapped in the cabin gave him the creeps, although he wasn’t sure he could articulate why. He had been avoiding the woods after his moment of panic the day previous. He couldn’t say exactly what had spooked him, only that he knew instinctively it had come from the woods, and that it hadn’t been his imagination, no matter how many times Gavin poked fun at him when he tried to explain it.

  No, he didn’t want to spend a night in the dark of the forest, away from the grown ups and the other campers, with no outside contact until morning. But he knew he’d never convince Gavin.

  “You’re a stubborn jackass,” he muttered, flopping back on his cot. He covered his eyes with a sticky forearm. He was hot. He could hear a fly buzzing and his skin twitched when he felt the prickle of its legs.

  Gavin was silent, and Matt knew he was studying him. He held his breath, willing himself not to give in, before sighing in defeat.

  Gavin interrupted before he could speak. “You should face your fears.”

  The words were serious, far more serious than expected, and for a split second, Matt felt a whisper of future Gavin fall over him, maturity evident in his puberty-deepened voice. He shivered, suddenly chilled.

  The feeling passed and Matt dropped his arm, snorting. “That’s rich, coming from you.” He sat up on an elbow, eyebrow cocked. “You really prepared to go traipsing through those dark, dark woods alone at night, hotshot?”

  Gavin frowned. “Not gonna be alone, am I? I’ll be with you.” But his eyes fell to his lap where he rubbed at a spot of dried mud on his knee.

  Matt sighed again. God damnit, he thought. “Fine. Fine.” He flopped back down. “I’m not fucking holding your hand though, DeLuca. I have a reputation to mainta—” His words were cut off by a mouthful of feather pillow.

  Present

  Gavin jolted awake when his phone rang. He blinked, disoriented, before he remembered that he had fallen asleep in his parents’ house. He snatched the phone from the nightstand and answered.

  “DeLuca.” His voice was rough with sleep and he rubbed at his dry mouth. He was alert in an instant, a side effect from years of on-the-job conditioning.

  “Gavin?”

  Gavin’s heart stopped, then pounded hard, clogging his throat as he sat up in bed. “Matt?” The phone was silent and he glanced down at it to make sure the call hadn’t dropped, that he wasn’t dreaming. “Are you there?”

  “Can you come get me?” Matt’s voice was low, quiet and Gavin had to strain to hear him.

  “Where are you?” Gavin was already out of the bed, pulling on his jeans, phone tucked under his chin.

  “In front of the hospital. I—” Matt paused, but didn’t finish the thought.

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t move.”

  Gavin took the time to
jot his mom a thank you note, leaving it on the table by the front door before he left, locking the house up tight behind him.

  His mind raced as he drove across town, too jittery for the radio, fingers tapping a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel. He scanned the circular drive of the hospital’s main entrance, and then he spotted him, seated on a bench near an ashtray disguised as a potted tree.

  Matt stood when Gavin stopped the Jeep next to the bench. Gavin leaned over to unlock the passenger door, quiet as Matt slid into the seat, his lean body cutting an achingly familiar silhouette against the window. He noted the way the car was suddenly filled, Matt’s presence dancing along his skin. Matt wouldn’t meet his eyes, staring, instead, at the stark white building in front of them.

  Gavin studied him in the soft lights of the dashboard. He hadn’t been in the same room as Matt in nearly five years, yet somehow in the space of a single day he had found himself within inches of the man. Twice. To be honest, his heart wasn’t equipped for it, and he willed it to slow. When he cleared his throat self-consciously, Matt flinched.