Full Moon Frenzy

Trapp

Did you just send me the link to your anal sunning appointment?

Another text buzzed at his wrist, perfectly in his line of sight as he gripped the tray with white knuckles.

This might come as a shock, but I’m not interested in Vitamin D blasting my perineum

The goblin laughed, moving back to her table as he twinkled, a perfectly choreographed ballet to which he knew all the steps.

Especially if you’ve got your ankles behind your head in the next room

The texts from his brother moved across the miniature screen like a theater marquee, making him roll his eyes before he was accosted once more.

“Trapp, what do we have to do to get you on the dunk tank? I’ve got a twenty with your name on it.”

Another beaming smile, the laugh that accompanied it as bright as the twinkle in his eyes as he paused once more, grinning down. The sheep-faced woman who owned the coffeeshop snapped the aforementioned bill between pinched fingers, waggling her brows at him.

“Xenna, are you trying to give one of these old folks a heart attack? Don’t do that to me. I’m on an EMS rotation for the rest of the month. I’ll be dripping wet and giving CPR.”

“Why would they?! No one said you had to take your clothes off,” she laughed. “But if you wanted to . . . this is a fundraiser, right? Show a little skin for a good cause. Send next year’s grads on the best trip of their lives.”

Trapp laughed again, continuing with his tray. “Mhm. I’m telling Reg.”

The sheepwoman continued to laugh as he pushed through the crowd, keeping his smile in place as his name was called out twice more from different directions.

The office manager at the community center, a lifeguard from the pool.

He winked at the troll from the Food Gryphon and kicked a soccer ball in his path without letting his tray tip.

“I didn’t think the fire department handled lemonade duty,” a passing kitsune tittered, her arms stacked with cups.

“They do when the boosters are making it,” he answered gaily, right on cue.

If life were a movie, Trapp Hemming had found himself cast as the star of a PG-rated small-town parable, one about local heroes and the value of community, and he never missed a line.

Around them, Cambric Creek had abandoned all pretense of moderation.

The school boosters had somehow transformed the central three blocks of Main Street into something that felt less like a fundraiser and more like a county fair.

A good thing, as there was nothing the community loved more than the opportunity to eat slightly overpriced food that had been cooked in the back of a truck, as they wandered around outdoors.

Banners emblazoned with the faces of each graduating senior hung from the lampposts — banners he’d hung himself, as Wick, a laid-back werebear, slowly drove him in a cherry picker around the square.

The flower beds circling the gazebo were planted in the school colors, streamers fluttered between storefronts, shop windows were streaked with temporary paint in maroon and green and gold messages of community pride wishing the new graduates luck.

Trapp wasn’t sure if the level of service to optics was commendable or insane. Either way, it fit the script.

The park in the center of town was full of tents and concessions for the annual Senior Send-off fundraiser event, hosted by the current graduating class as a parting gift to the following year’s class to pay for their senior trip.

Food trucks ringed the block, and the air smelled of spun sugar and charcoal smoke.

Barricades had been erected at either end of the central lot, blocking through traffic.

All around the expanse of green, carnival-style games were operated by each branch of the town hall, with elected municipal leaders handing out darts to throw at balloons and ping-pong balls to toss into bowls of rubber ducks.

The firehouse was running the dunk tank, and so far, he’d managed to go the entire day without mounting the platform.

The evening carried the warmth of late spring, but the heat of summer was still weeks away, and the light breeze made the thought of being dropped into the hose-filled tank especially unappealing.

No time to get wet, I’ve got my hands full.

Arriving at last at the tent where half of the firehouse crowded, he slid the unspilled tray of glasses to the picnic table’s surface, barely straightening before hands shot out, emptying the tray with an almost comical speed.

One of the hands belonged to a grey-skinned troll, a brand-new EMT in the department and his ride-along partner for the month.

Trapp’s eyes narrowed.

“Oleg, what are you doing sitting on your ass? You’ve been here for what? Two weeks? Sitting requires at least a two-year commitment. See if Grannock needs a break from that dunk tank.”

The troll sputtered, but none of the other members of Cambric Creek’s Fire and Rescue came to his aid. Trapp raised an eyebrow, biting back a satisfied grin when the troll pushed to his feet, trudging off in the direction of the firehouse’s contribution to the cause with slumped shoulders.

“You learned that look from your mom,” one of his older compatriots laughed, an ogre who was of an age with Trapp’s parents. The whole table turned, watching as Oleg took his place on the tank’s stand with a mournful expression.

“Maybe so,” Trapp agreed, snorting when the very first ball thrown by one of the waiting children found its target, dropping the new EMT unceremoniously into the tank of water. The whole tent cheered, hooting in laughter.

Trapp lingered only a moment before turning back to return the tray. Keeping busy was also something he’d learned from his mother. Keep your hands full, keep moving, always have a task.

He picked up the coffee run each day he was on house duty, did the grocery shopping, did the cooking, oversaw the pre-school bike rodeo every spring, volunteered to work every community event that required emergency services on premises, and conducted the safety inspections of the businesses around town.

It kept him from the house duties he preferred to avoid, like laundry and vehicle maintenance, kept him favorably in the public eye — useful, when his name set him apart all on its own.

His grandfather had spent more than twenty-five years as mayor and then another fifteen behaving as though his retirement was a bureaucratic misunderstanding.

His oldest brother, Jackson, occupied the mayoral office now, and the ease of his election suggested that City Hall had been a Hemming family property all along, one they had magnanimously loaned out for a short stint.

His father possessed no official title whatsoever, never had, yet somehow Jack Hemming exercised more influence than any elected office had ever provided or likely ever would.

The remaining Hemming sons still in town had distributed themselves strategically throughout the ecosystem of Cambric Creek like a particularly handsome invasive species.

His brother Owen sat on the board of commissioners.

Grayson had become the face of the fight against the human-run health industry.

His own position in the firehouse might not come with as much prestige as the seats his siblings held, but it had something City Hall and the Werewolf Defense League could never provide — inherent likeability.

Trapp was the most visible member of his family by default.

Monitoring capacity at the Makers Mart, jovially accepting cups of hot chocolate at high school sporting events as he sat near the ambulance, doing the firehouse grocery shopping at the Food Gryphon.

Everyone knew him. Everyone liked him. He was a social creature by nature and had no problem being the Hemming everyone regarded fondly. This was a role he felt born to play.

Go looksmaxx on your own like a big boy. I’m busy workmaxxing

Invite Owen. That seems more like his sort of thing

Try not to get skin cancer on your ass hole, asshole

“Hemming! Are you going back for more?” Magruh shook his empty cup, sucking on the straw for good measure, making it clear that he expected the answer to be yes.

The smile he gave the chief wasn’t the same as the twinkling smile he gave older women and young mothers; was not the same as the genteel grin he reserved for business owners and members of the city council.

The corner of his mouth pulled up — cocky, affable, agreeable.

Top billing, surrounded by his adoring co-stars.

“Sure thing, Chief.”

Keep busy. Keep moving. Keep smiling. A system that had served him well for years.

As soon as the crowd swallowed him up once more, Trapp pulled out his phone. There were no notifications on the screen, despite the push to his watch.

What the fuck are you going on about?

He tapped out the message quickly, not scrolling up the conversation until he’d already hit send.

He had inadvertently sent Grayson a link, not one he even recognized, unintentionally shared.

Trapp groaned. He’d been having issues with his phone for the last two weeks since it had gone tumbling to the pavement outside the firehouse.

He’d had the cracked screen replaced, but the internal problems persisted.

I didn’t mean to send that, I think it was an ad I was scrolling past

this fucking phone is trash

I don’t have time for a taint tan

That seems more YOUR speed if we’re being honest

He would need to reboot his phone to see what messages he’d missed for the last however many hours.

That’s what happened just a few days prior.

He was at home, blissfully unaware that he was being texted by his co-workers and called by the chief, attempting to wrangle him back to the firehouse .

. . but his phone had never buzzed, the notifications not appearing until much later.

Three bouncing dots stayed his thumb, waiting for Grayson’s response before powering down and restarting.

Sure

Whatever you need to tell yourself, champ