by Theda Black
His father liked the fact that Xander had the good sense to tackle his wife first, Seth realized. It helped him move again. “Sorry to drop in without warning.” He stepped inside and kissed his mom.
His parents led the way from the spacious foyer into the living room. The floors of the house were dark, shining walnut, the ceilings high.
Heavy furniture decorated the living room in warm, matching shades. Seth’s mother sat at the end of the couch opposite the screened fireplace. “You told us you weren’t coming home.” The words were unemotional, almost flat.
“I know, Mom.” Seth breathed in, striving for calm. “Do you feel like having company for a day or two?”
Norma blinked, taken off-guard. “Company? You’re not company.” The idea of her son being company seemed to bring her back to herself. It was like watching an iceberg thaw at high speed. “You look tired.”
Seth smiled at her, relieved. “We really are.”
“Seth, take Xander to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Do you have bags?” David directed the last to Xander.
Xander nodded and stood. “In the car.”
Seth followed him back outside. The sun was too bright, and dammit, he had a miserable crick in his neck from sleeping in the car.
“So how do you think it’s going?” Xander fished in his pocket and pulled out the car keys.
“I hate how I froze up. It hit me like a ton of bricks—it was all on the line.” Seth spread his arms wide. “But you! You are an awesome, stupendous, incredible, amazing boyfriend. You handled my parents like a pro.”
“Yeah?” Xander's eyes shone. “Had to step up, I guess.”
Seth grimaced. “Somebody did. I was shook.”
Xander unlocked the Chevelle’s trunk, face alight. “No problem.”
Seth leaned forward and dropped a kiss on his mouth. “I don’t know why I let Mom get to me.” He picked up his gym bag of clothes.
Xander shrugged and grabbed his suitcase and backpack. “She’s your mom.”
Back in the house, Seth led the way upstairs to his bedroom. A queen-size bed sat beneath the outer wall of gray stone, a tall window above. The other walls were white and mostly blank.
“Looks kind of empty.” Xander examined the room.
“I cleaned out the high school shit a long time ago. Never got around to doing anything else with it.” Seth tossed his bag onto the floor and left the room, leading Xander down the hallway.
This is a hell of a house,” Xander said. “My boyfriend’s rich, looks like.”
“Not rich, but not poor either. I told you my dad’s a developer.”
“You didn’t tell me he was good at it.”
“He’s good at it.” Seth opened the door to the room where Xander was to stay. It had the same outer wall of stone and a full-sized bed with thick wooden posts. An expensive-looking area rug covered half the room.
Xander set his luggage down. “Now what?” He yawned.
“Get some rest. I’ll come get you for dinner. You need anything?”
“A shower. I saw the bathroom in the hallway. Where are you going?” Xander pulled his shirt over his head.
“I’m gonna visit with the folks.”
“You need me to come with?”
Seth shook his head. “God, look at you. Why is it I always get to look but I can’t touch?”
“You can touch,” Xander said softly.
Seth swallowed. “I have to go.”
Xander’s face turned serious. “Soon, then.”
Seth couldn’t resist, reaching out and pulling Xander close, brushing his hand up Xander’s back and over taut, smooth skin.
Xander’s eyes widened, watching Seth. Neither of them spoke. His mouth hovered over Seth’s. He kissed him lightly, then slow and thorough. A rumbled groan escaped his throat.
The sound ignited an immense, desperate hunger that threatened to bring Seth to his knees.
“If you have to go, go,” Xander said, voice thick. He knew, somehow. Aside from Seth's rising hard-on, which was no doubt hard not to notice.
Seth stared at him, heart galloping out of control, unable to register what the words meant. Xander turned away, breathing hard.
Seth left. In his room, he threw off his clothes and strode into the connected bathroom, shoving the shower door open. The water was cool but no relief. He jacked off, his orgasm short and brutal and pointless.
After shoving his fingers through his wet hair and dressing, he took the stairs. The rich smell of coffee hit him before he reached the bottom step.
The kitchen was large, white and minimalist, the brightness of the room relieved only by gray accents and massive appliances. His parents waited for him at the table. Seth poured a cup of coffee and joined them.
Almost before he sat down, the questions came, gentle and persistent. How long had Seth known Xander; how long had they been together? Was he absolutely sure this was what he wanted to do?
Seth wasn’t sure how to answer that last one, or even what it meant. “It’s not what I want, Mom. It’s what I am.” He heard himself getting louder. He was tired, and tired of trying to get through to her after all these years.
Seth glanced at his dad, then looked again. His usual reticence was gone, his expression apologetic. It brought Seth’s temper under control.
“I love you, but you have to accept who I am, who I’ve been telling you I am since I was fifteen.” Seth took a deep breath. “Can you, or should we leave?”
His mother bit her lip, staring down at her hands. There was a fine tremor in them he’d never noticed. “I suppose I…had different ideas for you. It’s not what I expected. I’ll adjust, Seth.” She looked up. “But I know how people can be. They’re prejudiced and ugly, and they do ugly things.”
She was afraid for him. Seth's anger melted. How many times had he himself been wary of others, or hid his orientation when he felt threatened? “I know, Mom, but I can’t change that, and you can’t protect me. I can take care of myself.”
She gave a bare nod. Her eyes searched his face. “You’re happy?”
Seth gave her what she needed; what he needed her to know. He shoved aside his exhaustion, showing everything he felt about Xander on his face.
His mother smiled, and it only trembled a little.
Seth knocked on Xander’s door at dinnertime, quietly opening the door when there was no answer. He was still asleep, face relaxed and peaceful in the lowering light of the window above.
It hit Seth then, in a way he’d never understood before, that Xander hadn’t slept, hadn’t rested for a single moment without a voice in his head disrupting his peace and his sanity. And no one had understood or helped, not even Seth.
But he'd helped at the end, finally. When it came down to believing Xander or losing him.
He sank down on the chair by the bed, thinking of the eyes of the god peering from Xander’s face. It should have scared him, but the beast, the thing was gone, and it wasn’t coming back.
23
THEY LASTED THREE days at the Mayfair household–which, if you asked Seth, was equivalent to being dealt a royal flush in the first hand of a poker game. Highly, highly improbable.
Before they left, Seth called and made a reservation. A modest little cabin at Nolton Lake was theirs for the next three days, after which they’d have to head back to the dorm.
Seth’s mother kissed him when they left the next morning, surprising them all when she gestured for Xander and gave him a hug.
Seth knew he was grinning like a dumb ass. He didn’t care. The look on Xander’s face, the way he leaned down and hugged her so carefully, was pure gold.
Nolton Lake was as far south as they could go without driving more than a day. They wanted to swim, and they didn’t want to waste the last days of their break. They bought supplies and food on the drive down, packing the food into a huge ice chest Seth borrowed from his parents.
The sun was setting when Xander pulled the Chevelle into the driveway
of the rental. The cabin was tiny and charmingly rustic, surrounded by thick woods. A deck in front was braced on short stilts rising from an incline, which continued down to the lake. The small, sloping yard was equipped with Adirondack chairs and a fire pit ringed by river rocks.
Seth located the hidden key to the rental and unlocked the door. After unpacking the Chevelle and stocking the refrigerator, they grabbed a couple of beers and stepped out onto the deck.
The cabin sat above a small cove, beyond which the lake widened, reflecting the dusky blue sky and orange-lit clouds. The dark silhouettes of trees surrounded the lake.
Both of them dropped into chairs on either side of a small, round table. Xander sighed and twisted the top off his beer, taking a long swig. “It’s gorgeous out here. This is good.” He smiled at Seth and added softly, “You’re good.”
It caught Seth off guard. “Aw, shucks.”
“No, listen. For once we will be serious,” Xander proclaimed. He held up a hand. “You have to hear this, and I have to say it. You kept that bastard from getting me, Seth.”
Seth leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “We did it together.”
“You don’t want to make a big deal of this, but too bad. You know where I’d be right now if it weren’t for you? Doing awful shit to the people around me, with no control over any of it.”
“You know where I’d be right now if it weren’t for you? At my folks’ house. On spring break. Sad, very sad.”
Xander shook his head impatiently. “You could have gotten hurt. You risked yourself for me, and I won’t forget it.”
“First of all, you wouldn’t be doing any of that stuff. It’d be him. Second, that didn’t happen. He’s gone,” Seth said.
“You were incredible, Seth. You had this crazy, absolute faith that we’d win.”
“I couldn’t let him have you, that’s all.” Seth took a drink of beer.
“That’s all,” Xander said, disbelieving. “You’re just…” he smiled again, deep grooves curving his cheeks. “…awesome, stupendous, incredible—“
“That one you said already.” Seth was pretty sure he was blushing.
“—and amazing.”
Seth thought a moment. “Glad you understand that.”
Xander shook his head, still smiling. “I do.”
They looked out towards the lake. It grew darker by the second, blue shadows creeping close. Katydids and crickets called loudly from the trees.
Seth changed the subject. It was a huge relief. “I forgot to tell you this, but Simon told me the Mayfairs used to live in Twin Wolves.”
“Your family lived in Twin Wolves?”
“You’re repeating me. You caught up yet?”
Xander rolled his eyes.
“He said the town chased the family out.”
“Why?”
“Because our family is, to quote Simon, ‘immune from gods and demons.’ We disrupted their pagan worship, maybe. Anyway, before we left to come here I asked Dad about it. It turns out Simon was right—as a young man, my grandfather and his family lived way up in the mountains in an isolated town. That’s all Dad knew. He said his father didn’t talk about it. Dad didn’t even know the town was still in existence.”
Xander whistled. “Twin Wolves?”
Seth nodded.
“Well, shit. That kind of blows my mind, wondering how you and I…what…” Xander gestured between them, speechless.
“Yeah. What does it mean? Are we…” It was Seth’s turn to search for words. He shrugged. “I don’t know what we are.”
“What if we hadn’t gone to the same college? What if you hadn’t changed dorm rooms? What if what if what if…? It’s crazy.”
“That way lies madness.” Seth stood. “You want a sandwich?”
Xander shrugged absently, staring out at the lake. “Immune to gods and demons, huh.”
“I guess.”
“Do you have an aluminum plate in your brain protecting you from microwave signals sent from the gods?”
Seth sighed. “I just want a sandwich. Are you coming inside?”
“Soon. Maybe you’re a wizard or something.”
“Bullshit.” Seth stepped inside.
“Super hero?” Xander shouted.
Seth stuck his head outside again. “Nailed it. Get your ass in here.”
Seth opened his eyes, awakening in the loft. There wasn’t much to it—a bed, two tiny nightstands and a chest of drawers. He blinked at Xander, sleeping peacefully on the other side of the bed.
They’d gone to bed sometime after midnight, by unspoken agreement waiting, not touching each other the way they wanted. Not at the end of a long day, tired of being on the road. They fell asleep immediately and were out for—Seth scrabbled for his phone and squinted at it—ten hours.
It was a king-size mattress, really comfortable, but there was too much space between them. Seth started to move closer, then changed his mind. No matter how long Xander wanted to sleep, Seth didn’t plan to wake him. Real sleep was still new and wondrous.
He climbed out of the bed, rummaging in the chest of drawers and pulling on swim trunks and a T-shirt, trying to keep quiet. The stairs creaked a little as he climbed down to the living room. It didn’t seem to disturb Xander.
Seth put coffee on in the kitchen and waited, impatient for the gurgling pot to finish. It smelled delicious. He poured a cup and took it out onto the deck.
Birds called from the woods, the sound magnified in the clear air. Seth sipped his coffee, relaxing. A breeze played over his arms and lifted his hair.
He heard the soft strumming of a guitar when he came back inside. Seth poured coffee for Xander and climbed up the stairs again.
Xander sat on his side of the made-up bed, drowsy-eyed, guitar in hand. He looked up at Seth. “I’m getting rusty.”
“Sounds fine to me.” Seth handed over the coffee. “How’d you sleep?”
Xander took a drink. “Amazing is how I slept, though I kind of feel like somebody clocked me one. This is what you normals live like?”
“What do I know? I’m not normal, I’m a demon deflector.”
“Ah,” Xander said, agreeing.
“So, I've been wanting to ask something.” Seth dropped onto the bed.
“So, ask.”
“When you left the dorm, I thought...maybe you weren't coming back. Were you?”
“I hadn't planned on anything, either way. I figured if Pan won and took me over, he wouldn't come back. Why would he? There's the whole wide world to fuck up.” Xander shrugged. He propped the guitar against the wall and stood, stretching. He was dressed in a pair of Seth's swim trunks and a thin white shirt. “I guess we’re going swimming.”
“Yup.”
“Did you eat?”
“No. You want to?”
“Not yet. Wonder how cold the water is?”
“You wimp. Only way to find out is to get down there.” Seth made for the stairs, scrambling, Xander right behind.
They ran barefooted down a dirt path to the water, brushing past overhanging bushes and branches. The sun blazed overhead, the sky a brilliant blue. The hum from a motorboat sounded somewhere out on the lake.
The path opened, trees falling back a few yards from the shore. Seth and Xander were alone in the cove, the other side of the lake distant, curving out of sight. Sunshine sparkled over the water.
Xander flung off his shirt and ran in, diving when the water reached his thighs. He came up from beneath the surface, water streaming, slinging his hair away from his face.
Seth stopped on the shore, watching. “So, how is it?”
Xander turned back, splashing a giant arc of lake water at him.
Seth grinned. He took his shirt off and walked in, taking his time, mud squishing between his toes. “Fuck, it’s cold.”
Xander swam, then slogged toward him, glowering. “Wimp, you said?” Water ran in rivulets off him, the sun glinting on wet skin.
