The Wolf at Bay (Big Bad Wolf)

by Charlie Adhara

  Dean pulled out the first aid kit they kept on board and started rifling through it.

  “That’s why I want to find out more about Hardwick. Maybe I could talk to them. Point them in another direction. Are you listening to me?”

  “It’s not crazy,” Dean said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Hardwick. And Mom.” Dean turned back to face Cooper, running a hand through his hair. “They were together.”

  “What?”

  “Mom and Mr. Hardwick—or Alex, I guess—they were having an affair, okay?”

  “What?” Cooper repeated, then shook his head. “I mean, that’s not—why do you think that?”

  “I know it, Coop. I knew it then. I saw them together.”

  He realized he was still shaking his head and stopped. “Does Dad know?”

  “Yeah, we’ve talked about it.”

  “You’ve—” For some reason this felt more like a betrayal than anything else. “Was anyone ever going to tell me?”

  “Why? You were way too young when it happened. And then after she—after everything, what was the point? It had nothing to do with you, it was her private life. It had nothing to do with me either, I just happened to find out. I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Right.” Cooper felt a bit dazed and detached, like he was hearing the plot of a play and not the twenty-five-year-old secrets of people he thought he knew as well as himself. Of his own mother. “When did this happen? How long did it go on?”

  “I don’t know the details.” Dean paused, then continued with feeling, “But do you see why maybe it sucks for you to keep asking Dad about Hardwick and if they were fishing buddies or not?”

  Cooper winced. “Right. I—sorry.” He looked out the cabin window. Ed had somehow gotten Park standing—or swaying, anyway—and appeared to be trying to coax him toward the boat’s edge. “I just, I thought her and Dad were...you know.”

  What exactly? It had always confused him, why his mother had been with his father. They seemed so different. The sort of people you couldn’t even imagine interacting well on an elevator ride together, never mind a marriage. And yet they’d stayed married through a lot. Two kids, drawn-out illness, and the subsequent loads of debt. Ed had even stopped speaking to his own parents when they’d disapproved of Rachel’s Judaism and their decision to raise Cooper and Dean as practicing.

  The only way Cooper had been able to explain it was love. That seemed incredibly naïve now. How much can a child really know about their parents’ internal life?

  “He’s always saying how he was married to his high school sweetheart and living his dream life at my age. You’d think maybe this might have come up at some point.”

  “You know he just says that stuff because he’s worried about you.”

  Cooper snorted.

  “He does! You’ve always been a loner and now he thinks you’re isolating yourself even more.”

  “Jesus, Dean,” he muttered. How did this go from discussing his mother’s lover to a critique of his own social life? “I’m not isolating myself. I—I see people.” Sort of. “I’m not—”

  He shook his head, not even sure what to say. Lonely? Alone? The two weren’t even necessarily interchangeable. And they weren’t necessarily true.

  ...not recently, anyway. “I’m fine.”

  Dean moved to stand by him and looked out at the deck. “You never talk about seeing anyone, dating anyone. You’ve never brought anyone home...before.”

  Cooper stiffened and looked at Dean, but his brother didn’t look back. “Yeah, well, like I said, I’m fine.”

  “Good.” Dean nodded. “So. Is it serious?”

  “Is what serious?” Cooper said.

  Dean jerked his head toward Park, now gripping the boat’s edge like his life depended on it while Ed was pointing out at the bay and yammering away like everything was fine.

  Cooper felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but he forced a laugh. “You tell me, Dean. Dad insisted on tearing Mom’s gazebo down for reasons he mysteriously can’t remember, uncovered the murdered corpse of his wife’s lover, and is now the FBI’s lead suspect. Yeah, I’d say things are getting pretty serious around here—”

  Dean cut him off. “You know that’s not what I meant. You and Oliver. Is it serious?”

  Cooper’s heart jumped into his throat and his mouth went dry. For a moment he couldn’t speak. He was completely frozen. He knew his eyes were wide, but his brain couldn’t seem to remember how to narrow them without closing the lids entirely. So he just stared.

  A thousand responses flew through his head. We just work together. I don’t know what you’re talking about. He could say any of them and he was pretty sure Dean wouldn’t push it. That wasn’t Dean’s style. But it didn’t feel right. Like bad karma, especially after the unusual openness of last night, as if lying about being nothing more than work colleagues might make it true.

  Alternatively, Yes, I’m serious about him. In fact, I think I’m close to falling in love with him felt equally perilous.

  “I don’t know,” Cooper said, honestly. The words came out not sounding like his voice.

  Dean looked at him, gaze searching. “But you’re serious about him.”

  Cooper nodded. A swift jerking of his neck so quick he wasn’t sure if he’d really done it or imagined it, but Dean nodded back slowly, as if satisfied. “Good. I like him. Not that you need my approval. But he’s a good guy. Not much of a fisherman, mind you, but still...a catch. Heh, get it?”

  Dean elbowed him in the arm and Cooper stiffened, not sure what was happening. He couldn’t bring himself to even roll his eyes, never mind elbow back. He couldn’t believe they were talking about this.

  The silence stretched between them, and Dean shuffled his feet as if preparing to walk away. “Well, uh, anyway.”

  Cooper wasn’t ready. He hadn’t been prepared to have this conversation, but was even less so for it to be over. It felt like one of those rare, important moments that couldn’t be recreated. If he didn’t say what he needed to say now he wasn’t sure he would get the chance again.

  “Wait. How did you know?”

  “When you first got here, you moved around each other like a fighting couple. Never touching but always super aware of each other’s space. Sophe noticed it first. Have to be a couple first to be a fighting couple, I guess.” He grinned. “Plus, you look at him like you left a winning lottery ticket in his ass.”

  “Jesus. I mean, how did you know about me?”

  Dean wrinkled his nose, which Cooper recognized from when they were kids and Dean was embarrassed about something. “I, uh, do you remember Jeff Nichols?”

  Cooper blinked at the unexpected blast from the past. Reedy, unsociable, death-metal-obsessed Jeff Nichols had been his AP Bio partner sophomore year. They weren’t friends. Jeff could barely keep up a conversation, was more interested in trolling bands’ message boards online, and gave off perpetually angry vibes. They had nothing in common.

  Well, one thing. Jeff had been figuring out his sexuality at the time, too, and while they’d been working on a bio project together Jeff would come over and they’d do some other biological experimenting.

  “Oh fuck,” Cooper said. “You didn’t...”

  “Yup,” Dean said a little too cheerfully, nose still twitching a bit. “I guess this was a recurring theme for me back then, going places I shouldn’t have and getting an eyeful. Well, I didn’t see anything, really. Just one day I busted into your room and you both looked all, you know, sweaty and guilty and scrambling away from each other. Plus, as good-looking as I am, I don’t usually induce instant boners as soon as I walk in.”

  “Oh god.” Cooper covered his face with his hand and resisted wailing at the ceiling full Charlie Brown–style. There was nothing but gentle amusement in Dean’s voice, but
Cooper couldn’t help but feel fifteen all over again. In other words, painfully self-conscious. Memories of he and Jeff jacking each other off under their gym shorts, too awkward and unsure to even take their dicks out, flooded his brain.

  “Jeff fucking Nichols,” Cooper groaned into his hands.

  “Yeah. I gotta say, your taste in boyfriends has significantly improved. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t say that. Fifteen is tough for everyone. Even Jeff Nichols could be hot shit now.”

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend,” Cooper said indignantly. “Just...ugh. Why didn’t you say something?”

  Dean shook his head. “Uh, never mind Jeff, do you remember you? Teenage Cooper was always on edge. Nervy and angry and shit. I was legitimately worried your head would explode if I caught you off guard. Besides, I thought you’d tell me when you wanted to. Granted, I’ve been waiting for almost twenty years. And now you brought your boyfriend here and I thought, shit, maybe he knows that I know and I’m hurting him by not talking about it. Maybe that’s why he never wants to come home, because he thinks I’m not cool with him being...gay? Bi?”

  Cooper’s throat felt tight. He wasn’t sure he could respond to that. He hadn’t known Dean had known, obviously, but the exhaustion and resentment that came from keeping parts of himself a secret and off limits was a big reason for the distance that had grown between them.

  He realized Dean had asked him a question. “Gay,” he said, voice hitching just a little. “I’m gay.”

  It was decidedly anticlimactic after all that. But he wanted to say it anyway and make this his coming out memory with his brother, not sophomore year boners and ball sweat with Jeff Nichols. Cooper shuddered.

  Dean clapped him on the shoulder and then, startlingly, pulled him into a quick hug. “Cool,” was all he said. But he held Cooper tightly for a just a beat longer than expected, and when Dean let him go he looked a little red in the face but happy, too.

  Cooper needed a moment to clear his head. He looked back out the window. Ed had maneuvered a rod into Park’s hands and was trying to position his fingers into a relaxed grip.

  “Dad likes him, too, you know.”

  “You’re not going to tell me Dad knows I’m gay now, are you?”

  “No. I doubt he’d think that of you.”

  Cooper blew out a puff of air. That hurt. “You mean because it’s so shameful?”

  Dean’s eyes widened. “No! God, no, that’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean then?”

  “You know Dad. He’s not great at imagining there’s anything about his kids that he didn’t put there himself.”

  That rang more true than Cooper wanted to admit. There were many times he’d felt like he was just another of Ed’s DIY projects, built from scratch. Maybe a lot of parents acted that way, but Cooper also felt like he did not come out the same as the picture on the box, and to this day Ed was holding out hope for an exchange.

  Dean added hesitantly, “That’s why he’s so hard on you. He doesn’t understand you. And he doesn’t understand why he doesn’t understand. It’s not fair but—” He shrugged. “If there’s something about you he didn’t intentionally teach you himself, you might have to give him a hint, you know?”

  Cooper huffed. “He didn’t teach me anything. What?” Dean was smiling at him skeptically. “I’m nothing like him. I’m a huge disappointment, as he keeps reminding me.”

  “You’re way more like him than I am.”

  “I am not! Take that back.”

  Dean shrugged. “Whatever you want to tell yourself. But I still think you should talk to him about this. You could go out there right now. You know I’d have your back. Your boyfriend would have—well, he’d be at your feet, from the looks of him, but still.”

  Cooper absorbed that for a moment, imagining it. “Yeah. I don’t think this is a good time. What with the murder and all.” Not to mention the fact that Park wasn’t even his boyfriend.

  Dean sighed. “Okay. I support you, whatever you choose, but...” He trailed off.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “No, what?”

  “Are you going to come back?” Dean blurted.

  Cooper frowned at him.

  “I mean, I see you less than once a year now.” Dean scratched at his head uncomfortably. “Sometimes I think, soon I’m not even going to see him that often. I don’t want you to disappear because you think you can’t, you know, come out to Dad, or whatever.”

  Cooper fidgeted. “I’m not disappearing.”

  “But you don’t like coming here because of that, right?”

  “It’s not just that,” he said quickly. “It’s complicated.”

  Dean narrowed his eyes. “Complicated like how the BSI actually investigates especially violent crime?”

  Cooper crossed his arms not sure what to say and immediately on the defensive. “Dean...”

  He’d never felt more tempted to tell anyone about what he did. He felt close to his brother in a way he hadn’t since...shit, who knows when. Maybe since they were kids after Mom had died and Dean would let Cooper crawl into his bed downstairs and cry where their dad couldn’t hear him. Even that quickly felt like he was burdening his brother rather than bonding with him and he’d stopped sneaking in soon afterwards, learning instead to push all those feelings away.

  He didn’t want to lose this newfound closeness. For one wild moment he even wondered if Dean’s was exactly the outside opinion he needed. His brother was in law enforcement. He’d understand the dynamics of what he was going through and might even have a suggestion on whether to stick it out. But Cooper wasn’t sure how he could explain any of it without telling Dean about wolves, and he couldn’t do that. He just couldn’t.

  The silence turned awkward and Dean’s expression shifted slightly to hurt. “Right, you can’t tell me. It’s top secret, right?”

  “I—” Cooper shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Look, never mind. I’m sorry I brought it up. It’s just—” Dean shifted in place. His dark eyes, so like their mother’s, looked pained, frustrated. “Dad wasn’t the only one worried to see those scars, you know.”

  “That’s nothing.”

  “Nothing,” Dean said flatly. “You swear?”

  Cooper opened and closed his mouth. “I’m fine.” Somewhere there had to be a record kept of the number of times he said that while only half meaning it. “I swear,” he added, looking his brother in the eye.

  Dean exhaled, clearly relieved, and Cooper felt he’d made the right decision. Park wouldn’t approve, but what was telling his family absolutely everything supposed to accomplish, exactly? The very worst days of his injury, when he was only able to keep down liquids and was too weak to stand, had long passed, and Cooper had gotten through them fine and completely on his own. He needed Dean worrying about him now, months after the fact, even less than he wanted Park’s B12 supplements surreptitiously showing up on his kitchen counter.

  “I just wanted to make sure you’re comfortable being here and not secretly dying because”—Dean groaned—“ugh this is way more heart-to-heart than I’d prepared for, but I was thinking you could be my best man. That is, if you’re not busy with all those people you’re seeing and violent crime you’re solving.”

  Cooper choked. “You’re really laying it all out today, huh?”

  “Well, I never see you. I’ve got to fit all this shit in when I can. So?”

  “I thought you’d want one of your friends like Stephen or whatever.” He hedged feeling a bit like a trapped animal. This was...unexpected.

  “I do want one of my friends. You.” Dean eyed him critically, and Cooper was sure he could pick up on plenty of childhood tells himself. “Look, if it’s not your thing, no worries. Just say so.”

  “No, it’s my thing. It can be my th
ing.” Cooper nodded finally. “I’d be honored. And uh, thanks. I think?”

  Dean snorted. “Good. I love the enthusiasm. So that’s at least one day I’m going to see you. And Oliver, too? I wasn’t kidding about inviting him yesterday.”

  Cooper’s face felt hot. “I don’t know. That’s a while away.”

  “Only a few months.” Dean’s thick eyebrows scrunched down in confusion, and he leaned in. “Are you saying you guys won’t make it that long?”

  “I think,” Cooper said slowly, staring out at the deck, “Park might not even make it back to land at this rate.”

  Dean smiled, then held up a small tube of Dramamine pills. “Look what I found in between all the touchy-feely shit.”

  Outside Park had finally given up, dropped the rod to the deck, and was heaving over the side of the boat. Next to him Ed kept slapping his back.

  “Hmm, better late than never?” Dean said doubtfully.

  For Park and the pills? No. There was nothing to be done now.

  But for everything else? Cooper thought maybe this time, yeah. It was okay.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Cooper said, pushing Park’s plate of pancakes toward him. “So you’re not a boat person. Now we know. Eat something.”

  “Isn’t that my line?”

  Cooper dutifully forked a bit of egg into his mouth. Around them the sounds of the diner at early morning clinked and hummed, though it was still too early for any real crowd. Fishermen were still out on the water and non-fisherman were still in bed.

  He felt relaxed, seeing no one he recognized and no one who recognized him. More than that he felt...happy. He still wasn’t sure what to think about Dean’s revelation about their mother and Mr. Hardwick, but the rest of it had been, well, good. He still had the strange thrill of adrenaline in his blood. He’d come out to his brother and it had gone well. And then Dean had asked him to be his best man, which was nerve-racking—there’d be bachelor party planning to do, and obviously he’d have to be in Jagger Valley more than just that one day—but it was also sort of exciting.