7. Chapter 7
Chapter 7
JASON
T he worst day had been followed by the worst surprise dinner guest.
At least Ricky was here, but because Whitmore was too, Ricky couldn’t tell me anything he’d learned from the scientist team. Going from Ronald McDickhole to Agent Asshole was not my idea of a successful first day of official adult life. Only it wasn’t really the first day of anything, but just another day in limbo.
“This chicken is amazing, Mrs. Bosco. And homemade Caesar dressing?”
“My own recipe,” Mom beamed. “Eat up! I always make plenty with the way this one was growing up.”
It was one of my favorite meals—perfectly seasoned, seared chicken, with sides of risotto and Caesar salad. I liked it almost as much cold for lunch the next day—not that we’d have any leftovers now.
“You really didn’t need to invite me to stay for dinner,” Whitmore said.
No, she didn’t .
“I appreciate it though, as it gives us more time to chat without me disrupting your plans.” Whitmore side-eyed me as he said that, reserving his real smile for Mom.
You’re disrupting plenty ! I wanted to shout, but I’d promised Mom I would try to play nice. That didn’t mean I’d downright lie or act like I wanted him here. “I get that you need to check on me. Really, I get it. I’m an anomaly! But can you maybe not mack on my mom while you’re here?”
“Jason!” Mom chuckled and shook her head at me, more mildly annoyed than upset, since I had lessened the venom in my tone compared to what I wanted to use.
Meanwhile, Whitmore was a wall of stoicism. “I can assure you, Mr. Bosco, I have no such intentions. I am only trying to be polite and respectful to my host.”
“Sure ya are.”
He wore another casual Bond look with a navy sweater and long jacket, but since we were eating, this time, he’d removed said jacket and rolled up his sleeves to show off really nice forearms. I wasn’t generally into the ripped muscly type, but the Idris Elba look was everyone’s type, and it really irked me that he was so hot.
The intensity of Whitmore’s eyes on me made me squirm in my seat.
“I don’t believe we have much in common,” Whitmore continued, “which is why it is so difficult for us to see eye to eye. We do, however, have one thing in common. Your mother is a lovely woman but not my type.” He went back to his food.
Oh .
I exchanged a surprised look with Ricky, who sat at my left, while Mom sat at my right, and Whitmore sat across from me. This dude was a sexy secret agent and gay? Fuck my life. Although I guessed that was better than him trying to flirt with my mom.
“He really is a very sweet boy, Agent Whitmore,” Mom said. “It’s just been a lot for him. You must understand that.”
“I do. And I appreciate his candor. It means he isn’t a liar. I imagine keeping his secret for more than half a year was one of the most difficult things he’s ever done.” Whitmore looked at me again and that intensity turned sympathetic. “But please, Jason, see where I’m coming from too.”
Hearing him use my given name for the first time only made me more anxious.
“Do you know why all the monster tester towns are small?” Whitmore asked.
“I thought it was a lottery.”
“It is, but only smaller towns are considered. The tester towns are small to better keep unrest and possible protests more easily contained. Acceptance takes time. Gradual growth, gradual branching out, is how we beat some—not all, never all—of the people who would sooner see all monsters sent back through the portals and locked out of our world for good. Unknowns do not help that cause. Especially when citizens of this town have been going missing.”
“What?” Mom and I both gaped.
Citizens plural ?
Another glance at Ricky said he’d known too. He gave a little hinting eyebrow raise to let me know it had come up with his scientists today. I wanted to get him alone so badly to hear his side of it.
“People have gone missing?” Mom pressed.
“You may have heard about the first case,” Whitmore said, “reported missing in your local paper some weeks back. June Mulligan.”
“June,” Mom said with a somber nod. “Of course. We all assumed she finally left her lout of a husband. You think it was something else? And more have gone missing since?”
“Unfortunately, yes. There have been several more occurrences that we have done our best to keep out of the papers until we can be sure of the cause. We can’t be certain of similarities or connections, but in several cases, the last place the missing person was known to be going was into the woods behind your house.”
Shit .
I didn’t want Mom to worry. I didn’t want to see the look of nausea that filled her face.
I glared at Whitmore. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with—”
“Your father was reportedly in those woods when he disappeared, correct?”
“You don’t get to ask that—”
“Jason. It’s okay,” Mom said. “I’ve always believed that something, I don’t know what, but something strange must have happened to take Bo away from us. I’ve never liked Jason going in there, but we’d never heard of similar disappearances. If whatever happened to Bo is happening again, I want to be of help.”
I wanted that too. I just wished Mom didn’t have to be part of it and look so sad remembering Dad.
We’d all stopped eating. Despite being pissed about Whitmore’s presence, I’d still mostly cleaned my plate. I didn’t think I could finish what was left on it now.
“When looking into your son, we also researched Boris Bosco,” Whitmore explained. “He grew up in one of the larger cities nearby, lost his parents in a car crash, no siblings, and moved to Elder Ridge after high school. He mostly kept to himself, working odd jobs for a while, until around the time that you, Mrs. Bosco, came home from college and first began some initial temp work in town. You met him then, while he was starting his landscaping business.
“The business was quite successful. Eventually, Boris was doing landscaping work for most of the town. We also discovered that he had plans for those woods behind your house.”
“That’s right,” Mom said, her eyes going a little distant and her smile somber. “Our border is about halfway into the woods. The rest is state owned. Bo hoped to one day acquire the rest or work out a deal with the state to turn the woods into an actual park or wildlife preserve. He started the research, even some of the initial paperwork, but never got to finish it.”
I reached to take Mom’s hand on the tabletop.
She focused on me, trying to smile wider. “He had that natural green thumb. Animals loved him. People loved him. Just like you, honey.”
“I don’t know about the people part sometimes.”
Mom laughed.
“I know this isn’t an easy topic for you, Mrs. Bosco,” Whitmore said, “but given the connecting element of those woods, anything you can tell me about the day your husband disappeared would be helpful.”
I squeezed Mom’s hand as I glared at Whitmore. “There must be a record of her missing person’s report to the police.”
“And I have read it, but just like with your reports, Jason, I need to hear this from her.”
“It’s all right.” Mom reached over with her other hand to pat mine. She maintained that overlap of our hands as she spoke. “The truth is, I can’t say much. In many ways, it was a normal Saturday. I was in the house doing usual weekend chores. Bo was outside, doing gardening work, weeding, things like that. Jason was with him. He was always more of a Daddy’s boy. Any time I’d peek outside or crane my ears to listen for how they were doing, I’d hear Jason giggling or see Bo chasing Jason around with the hose.”
She snickered, reminiscent for a moment, before all traces of her smile fell.
“I was downstairs when I heard a roll of thunder. I went up to make sure Bo brought Jason inside. Playing in the rain was one thing but storms made me nervous. When I got to the sliding glass doors, I couldn’t see either of them outside anymore. The sky was getting dark very quickly. Ominous. The type that usually meant a weather advisory, which was correct, because as soon as I got down the steps, I heard the sirens go off. Then a shrill scream from Jason.
“I hadn’t spotted him because he was inside the line of trees on the deer path. He wasn’t quite a year old, but he’d been starting to walk. He was sitting there, right in the dirt, as it began to rain. I couldn’t see any sign of Bo. I wanted to go into the woods to look for him, but I couldn’t leave Jason alone, and I didn’t want to bring him with me with the storm coming. I had to go back inside and wait. But Bo never came back.” She sniffled and wiped at her face before any tears could start to fall.
My eyes felt hot too, and as soon as Mom put her hand back over mine, I put my other hand over hers, completing the stack. “I wish I could remember what happened, Mom.”
“You were so young, honey. Most people’s first memories are from two or three or later, not ten months.”
“I don’t care. I wish I remembered. I barely remember his face unless I look at pictures.”
Ricky’s hand slid onto my thigh under the table. I looked at him and it wasn’t until I saw his sweet smile and fond eyes that I realized tears were slipping down my cheeks too.
“ Fuck , sorry.” I had to pull my hands from Mom’s to wipe at them. “I mean fudge! Sorry.”
Mom chuckled. Hearing that helped. It always helped if I could make her laugh.
Whitmore reached for Mom’s hands to replace mine, and it really annoyed me… how much I appreciated it.
“Thank you for recounting that for me,” he said. “Any detail, anything else that might come to you, could be of help.”
“You really think these recent disappearances could be related to what happened to my husband?” Mom asked.
“We don’t know, but we are looking into it, and if we discover anything concrete that might finally give you answers and peace of mind, I will share it with you.”
It annoyed me how much I appreciated that too.
Could we really, after all these years, find out what happened to Dad?
“I don’t know how many people believed me that he just vanished,” Mom said, “that something must have happened to him. But I know he wouldn’t have left, not like June, who’d talked about leaving her husband for years. Bo and I were happy. So happy. If you’d seen him with Jason that day, you’d never believe he could leave us.”
“I don’t doubt that’s true, Mrs. Bosco. Now, why don’t you take it easy for a few minutes, while the boys and I help clear some of this away.” Whitmore stood, bussing his plate and the serving dish with the risotto. The look he passed to me and Ricky made me certain the request wasn’t only for Mom’s sake.
We each grabbed our plates and something else from the table and followed Whitmore into the kitchen. After sorting the dishes and casting a quick glance back at Mom to see her seemingly in her own world, Whitmore turned to us with his voice hushed.
“Go ahead, Mr. Ruas. I’m sure there are things you learned today that you were planning on sharing with Mr. Bosco.”
“Back to Mr. Bosco , is it?” I crossed my arms.
Irking Whitmore as much as he irked me helped a little. “ Ricky ,” he corrected, “go ahead and tell Jason what you were going to share with him.”
“You already know,” Ricky said. “Because of course you do. You’ve been in contact with Zinnia and Beck. Well, thanks for not telling Sandy about the portal.”
Whitmore nodded.
It hadn’t dawned on me that Whitmore would know everything the scientists did.
“Okay—”
“Wait,” I stopped Ricky and looked at Whitmore. “Just, um, seconding that thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Whitmore said.
“Okay,” Ricky started again, “here’s what they told me.”
He recapped everything he’d learned, and by the end, I felt like my favorite meal might revisit me in the wrong direction.
Five people had gone missing, if you counted the one we’d heard scream, and it was likely the portal was the cause, sucking people into it.
“But it’s so deep in the woods,” I said. “If that’s what happened to my dad, why would he have gone in there without me? Unless…”
“Unless?” Whitmore pressed.
“Unless the thing that attacked me got him too. If it came from the monster realm, what if it was here back then? What if it took my dad?”
“I imagine you cannot say that for certain?”
“No, I don’t remember anything from that day. Just… my mom crying a lot after.”
I did believe Whitmore’s sympathy was genuine, which made him slightly less annoying to have around. “If it is the same or connected in any way, the real question is why now?” he asked. “The official portal being operational could be part of it, but have there been other disappearances we don’t know about? Are these accidents or purposeful by whatever attacked you? If yes, what triggered the portal a year ago? What triggered it twenty years ago?”
“I can’t answer any of those questions,” I griped.
“That’s why we need to study it,” Ricky said.
“Wait, what?” I gaped at him. “I know that’s what we’d guessed, but you can’t be around that thing if it’s responsible for multiple people going missing.”
“There’s a guard now.” Ricky shrugged.
“ One guard?”
“I… think so?”
“No. There has to be at least two people. All the time. And… fuck , I do not want you in those woods!”
“I know.” Ricky took hold of my hands. “But we have to figure this out, or more people will be in danger.”
“Yeah, you .”
“Jason, it’s my job. It’s what I want to do. And if I can help figure out what happened to your dad…”
“Fine, but, like, you promise me that team is going to have every safeguard in place, like, a million safeguards.”
“Everything we can think of. I’ll make sure of it.”
I hated this, especially getting misty eyed for the second time in front of Agent… Not That Big of an Asshole. “Are you going to tell people to stay out of the woods?” I asked him.
“Of course. But not the reason,” Whitmore said. “We can’t afford to cause a panic, so the official report will be that a wild wolf has been spotted in those woods, and until it is caught, we encourage people to steer clear.” He made a move like he was going to go back to Mom, but I tore my hands from Ricky to stop him.
“One other thing. I wasn’t sure, I’m still not sure, but when we were in the woods yesterday, I thought… maybe I sensed something. It was faint and I might have only been paranoid, but it could be what attacked me. That thing could for real still be in there, whatever it was, whatever it wants, and it was fast.”
Whitmore nodded. “Thank you for cooperating.”
“I’m still not letting the fish people poke and prod me.”
“Fair enough.” He started to walk toward Mom again but glanced back. “Oh, and yesterday, I don’t recall seeing your location change to being in the woods.”
“No? You look at that spy app constantly?”
“Not even I can do that, Jason.”
“We weren’t in there for long. Guess you must have missed it.”
Whether Whitmore believed me or not, he didn’t press the issue.
A wrap at my door drew my attention up. It was Ricky, fresh from brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed. He was wearing flannel sleep pants and the T-shirt I’d gotten him the year he got me my Shawn Mendes album. The shirt was blue with a design like an element from the periodic table, only the atomic symbol read Wtf, and underneath it said:
THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE!
That got a smile out of me, which I hadn’t been able to muster for hours. It was just a T-shirt, but Ricky looked so good in it. Better because it was something from me.
It was late now, Mom had gone up to bed already, and I’d been chatting through the Monster Match app, waiting for Ricky to come back downstairs. I hadn’t actually said, “Come to my room after,” but we hadn’t said goodnight yet.
I didn’t have any new messages from Cael, but his spider friend, Teracht, had been messaging me. His username was not creative.
Teracht: Jason, what do humans enjoy receiving as Birth Day gifts?
brOmance2021: this for your boy?
Teracht: Yes, for Caleb.
brOmance2021: how soon?
Teracht: It is less than two months away.
brOmance2021: that’s forever from now! u got time
Teracht: I do not wish to be caught unprepared. My species does not give gifts. If we did, it would probably be a nutrient-rich snack wrapped in silk, but that does not seem appropriate.
brOmance2021: dude what are you even talking about? isnt your webbing so strong he wouldn't be able to open a gift wrapped in it anyway? think less perishable too
Teracht: My webbing can be whatever strength I desire, but I think I understand. I have heard that homemade gifts can be appreciated between human mates. Would that be sufficient?
brOmance2021: perfect! make him something out of your webbing he can hang as artwork. something that reminds you of ‘love’ or when youre together or wtv
Teracht: Such as a heart? Or a phallus perhaps?
brOmance2021: stick with the heart
I had just sent that last message when Ricky knocked. I glanced down again and saw that, thankfully, Teracht had responded with:
Teracht: Understood.
He and Cael could be so weird sometimes. Extra formal and, well, alien? Also hilarious! And it made me feel better about my ‘alien’ status whenever I talked to them. Whatever I was, I couldn’t possibly be weirder than them, right?
I set my phone aside and sat up, crossing my legs, as Ricky came in. I was in a T-shirt too, just a ratty old football one from high school and my own loose sleep pants. One of my records was playing. Not the Mendes one but this indie band called Gold Necklace who I’d first misread as Pearl Necklace but ended up loving them anyway when I bought their vinyl. Their sort of jazz fusion sound, with only my lamp on beside the bed, made the atmosphere almost romantic.
Ricky sauntering toward me, both of us in sleep clothes, in the dim light, two floors below anyone being able to hear us, made it romantic too.
Or just hot.
“I know this was only our first full day here,” Ricky said, climbing onto the bed to sit mirroring me, “but it feels like we keep getting interrupted to have any alone time. It doesn’t help that the mood keeps getting killed by sad things from the past or freaky things happening around us. Or a government agent showing up who you so clearly think is hot.”
“I just… wait, are you jealous?”
“Maybe.” Ricky glanced at his lap.
Oh, he was too cute. “It just drives me crazy that someone so infuriating is also hot, and apparently gay. But you being jealous is so much hotter than Whitmore could ever be to me. I promise I'll focus on the being infuriated with him part.”
“Thank you. Though maybe shoot for neutral with him so you don't piss him off.”
“I’ll try,” I agreed. “It doesn’t feel like the mood is too killed right now. Feels kinda perfect. And it’s not so late that we need to go right to bed. Do we?” I rocked up onto my knees and started to crawl toward him. Alone time sounded way better than dwelling on any past or present freakiness.
Ricky giggled as I closed in on him and opened his crossed legs once I was close enough for a kiss. I just wanted to sink into him. To pull him close, suck his tongue, feel his skin. But as soon as things started to get heated, and my hand touched the warmth of his belly under his shirt, I felt my claws extend.
“ Fuck .” I pulled up, not letting myself touch him anymore. “Why can’t I do this?”
Ricky tried to pull me back, but I was too frustrated and moved to the other side of the bed again to lean against the headboard. “You’re just overthinking it,” he said. “You start to change and get all in your head about hurting me.”
“Because I do.”
“A little scratch—”
“Dude—”
“ Hey . Listen to me.” Ricky leaned forward. “A scratch, even if it’s little to me, worries you. I get that. So, maybe we need to take our practice a different route.”
“What do you mean?”
Ricky returned to leaning back, propped against the footboard, but he didn’t recross his legs. He outstretched them. Spread them. And slid a hand into his waistband.
“What are you doing?” I asked, though I could see what he was doing, even if I couldn’t see everything. Watching his hand, clearly gripping himself and stroking beneath the fabric, was drool-inducingly hot. It was almost hotter that I couldn’t see skin—though I really wanted to see skin.
“You do it too,” Ricky said, voice already getting hoarse. He wasn’t going for broke, pumping fast and furious, just stroking slow and purposefully. His eyes kept flicking from mine to my very interested cock, tenting my sleep pants. “Look at me, Jason. Watch . But you can’t touch me, only yourself. That way, if you change, you only have to worry about nicking your own skin.”
Fuck , that was hornier than I thought he’d suggest. Look but don’t touch? Really? I was pretty sure I was going to go full wolf at first jerk, but it did ease my mind to only have to worry about me.
I mimicked Ricky with my hand down my pants. I had a bubble of silky wetness at my tip already and shuddered when I swiped it up my length. The claws came back instantly, but I willed them away. I could will them away, and even if I failed, it didn’t matter. Ricky was safe.
And fucking gorgeous with his cheeks flushed and eyes hooded as he watched me.
“You know…” I started rolling my hips in time to my strokes. “I still haven’t gotten to see your tat . But since you’ve seen mine…” I slid my sleep pants down to my knees.
Ricky’s lips parted. He hadn’t seen me hard. And while I was a little of a shower, I was definitely more of a grower. He hesitated, eyes moving back and forth between my face and dick again. He slowed his strokes, and then must have thought fuck it , because he shoved his pants down too.
He was perfect. Long and with the kind of thickness I couldn’t wait to wrap my lips around. Dark too with an undercurrent of rosiness from the rush of blood, like smooth cherry wood.
Heh. This wood was better than anything in the forest. Ricky’s thickening tip, veins pulsing, all leading to his tuft of dark hair like a mini fro to match his unbound curls—when they were unbound, which I would totally tease him about once we weren’t watching each other jerk it.
Not that I could call this jerking it. This was a show . This was porn with a budget, when the lighting and music is on point, and the dudes are so clearly into it. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss the tip of his dick, lap up his precome, and share it with him between our lips. I had never wanted anyone else this much. Of course I hadn’t. Because only with Ricky did I know that, come morning, with no more scent of sex left on us, he’d still want to be with me just as I was.
“Ah-ahh!” Ricky’s hips stuttered as he came up his stomach and between his pecs, barely missing the hike of his T-shirt.
I was close too. Close enough that I tore my shirt off completely. I kicked my pants away with it, totally bare, no shield of bunched up clothing to hide behind. Ricky could see all of me, and I dropped my legs wider to really let him see me, to watch the speed of my hand bringing me closer and closer, without claws forming or more than the barest added point to my teeth.
I was doing it.
“I want to come inside you so badly,” I said.
The way Ricky’s eyes darkened and he bit his lower lip, told me he was close to saying, “ Do it .”
I came. And shit, what a release, full of three-and-a-half years’ worth of pent-up frustrations, wanting to touch Ricky and to be touched, and we still technically hadn’t gotten to that yet.
Yet .
I launched forward, not giving a shit if I dripped come everywhere, and landed between Rick’s thighs to lick the release off his chest.
“Jason!” He laughed, dropping his head back with a thud, and a few unruly curls loosened from his bun.
I licked and licked until he was completely clean and swallowed it all down. It didn’t taste like come to me but that earthy, musky goodness I loved about Ricky’s smell.
Not everyone liked to taste themselves, much as I wanted to claim Ricky’s lips in a kiss, so I waited, hovering close enough for him to know what I wanted, and let him make the call.
He kissed me with such force, I almost rocked backward.
More. I wanted more. I wanted to open Ricky up. I wanted my mouth on his cock, but I could feel the stir of the monster in me, now that it was Ricky beneath my touch. I had done so well. Really well. But we had to take this slow.
That didn’t mean we stopped making out or grinding for a long while. We both got maybe a little—okay, a lot—hard again, but it was too late for a round two. And with the way I’d ended up holding Ricky against me, he definitely couldn’t sleep in that shirt anymore, ’cause it was covered in come.
“Sorry,” I said, once we’d calmed enough to get our second boners to go down, and he’d tossed his shirt off toward my laundry pile. He shivered now that our sweat was cooling, so I handed him my shirt that remained un-come-ified. I ran hot enough that I didn’t need to sleep in one. Seeing Ricky in my high school football T was even sexier than seeing him in the shirt I’d bought for him.
“That was not anything to apologize for,” Ricky said.
“I didn’t think so, but I still wanted to be polite.”
He snickered as we slipped back into our sleep pants. Having taken off one shirt and put on another meant more of Ricky’s hair had come out of his bun. It was making it very difficult for me to not burst out laughing.
“What?” He blinked at me.
“Nothing. You just kind of look like an uneven chia pet right now.”
“ Dick .” He shoved me, and I couldn’t help giving in to the laughter. Ricky laughed too, but when he pursed his lips, I knew he was a little upset, especially when he started trying to tuck the wild curls back in.
“Hey, dude.” I grabbed Ricky’s hands and reached around the back of his head to find the tie holding his hair bound.
“Wait, what are you—”
“Of course I’m gonna laugh,” I said, pulling the tie free. I almost expected a BOING sound effect with how his hair sprang outward and up. “But only ’cause it looks so different slicked back versus wild. It’s sexy all fro-ed out.”
“It is not . I look like a Muppet.”
That made me laugh harder, because yeah, well, a little, but it wasn’t funny the more I saw how much it really seemed to bother him. “Wait, um, am I being a dick? Don’t answer that. I know I’m a dick. But, like, Freshman year, when I laughed the first time I saw your hair like this, did it make you self-conscious?”
Ricky snatched the hair tie away from me. “Have you ever seen me in public with my hair like this?”
I grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the tie, but gently, slowly, and waited for Ricky’s eyes to meet mine. “I am the biggest dick in the world. You’re my best friend, and I only ever teased you as hard as I did because you’re my best friend. It surprised me, so I laughed. I’m probably always going to laugh. You get some serious height with it like this.”
“Uck.”
“ But … you could sport the fro look every day, and I’d still think you were the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Especially when your glasses get crooked.” I fixed them for him, since the tousle had made them fall down his nose. “And when your lips part like that…”
Fuck , I was gonna get hard again. I had to reign it in, but at least Ricky wasn’t shying from looking at me anymore.
I took the tie and wrapped it around his wrist. “Wanna sleep here tonight? If you wake me up early enough, we could give each other a really good morning.”
Ricky laughed. “I guess we could do that. Because I am looking forward to it being your hands on me next time.”
“Hell yeah.”
“But apparently fifty ‘I will not be a dick’ repetitions were not enough. Keep working on it.” He kissed me.
Then he tried to tie his hair back to go upstairs to use the bathroom again, but I was, like, “Dude, Mom is asleep, and you’re adorable. Leave the hair.”
He did.
Once we were ready to settle in, snuggling with Ricky under the covers beside me was almost as awesome as what we’d done on top of them. I plugged in our phones and made sure he set his alarm. I thought maybe my phone lit up with a notification, but it was probably just Teracht again. I could get back to him tomorrow.
That was the plan anyway, but I didn’t remember to check the app in the morning, not after me and Ricky grinded our way to such a good one, and my claws only came out a little.
What I missed seeing on the app was that I had finally matched with a monster.