Page 5 of Leave Me
After an incident in a war zone where my phone was taken and social media searched, I deleted all apps with any connection to people I knew back home. It was safer. Still, I looked up Fowler’s posts online with his custom motorcycle business and new friends.
So maybe his thirst traps were bookmarked in a private folder… I dare anyone to resist his thick arms and sexy tattoos, freshly shaved and sweaty from a workout.
The man was sickeningly hot, but he wasn’t the only one who frequented the gym. In school, I’d been bullied for being a chubby nerd. They weren’t wrong, and I didn’t have to change, but exercising helped me feel more like the man I wanted to be. Probably the same as it did for a trans man like Fowler.
My attendance at my ten-year high school reunion was partially to show the bullies that I couldn’t be messed with anymore. How wrong they were about me. That I was a self-confident, successful gay man.
But the real pull was the sliver of hope that my childhood best friend and teen crush would attend. His father’s death changed the likelihood of Fowler showing up, but I wasn’t sure if it was more or less likely I’d see him this week.
One thing about being a cleaner, my mom always knew the gossip, because people talked as if she weren’t there. So she would know, one way or another.
“Do you think King will come home for his father’s funeral?” I asked, not needing to clarify who I meant. My mom knew about my crush after I spent a summer crying over Fowler leaving, though she didn’t approve of his father as the pack alpha.
“Well, I didn’t think so, since it has been ten years,” Mom hedged, and I noticed she was actively ironing my jacket while I’d been lost inthe past. This time, I stayed silent and let her finish. “But Channing insisted he would. Can you believe she’s eighteen now?”
Shaking my head at her question, I had temporarily lost the ability to speak.
King was coming back to Blue Lake.
Chapter three
Fowler
Leaving the gas station at the southern entrance to my hometown, the restored 1946Indian Chiefrumbled between my jean-clad thighs as I made my way onto Main Street. I passed Blue Lake Primary School and the pizza place we all called The Firehouse, the lake a deep cerulean on my left. The actual firehouse was called The Lodge, and it had a sign in front announcing the population of Blue Lake at two thousand three hundred forty-four. Just like Channing had said.
Almost everything looked the same as it did ten years ago, though the boat repair place and coffee shop right on the marina were new. My sister had told me when old friends had opened Shipshape and Perk Café, but seeing them in person was different.
What I was waiting to see the most came up fast at the end of Wolf Creek Road. I paused longer than necessary at the stop sign, taking in my dad’s old shop, Motorvated. He wanted me to take over, and I had gone to college to become even better at fixing and restoring motorcycles… but I couldn’t process the possibility.
Turning right on the road—paved instead of the dusty gravel I remembered—I easily made my way up the hill. People thought the road was named for the creek on my family’s property, but both the road and creek were named for the secret we’d been keeping for centuries.
We were wolf shifters.
Before I could dwell on how my inner wolf was whining to break free and go for a run, since I hadn’t let it out since the last time I was in Blue Lake, the pack house appeared around the bend at the end of the pavement. The narrow paths to continue further on the property looked like they were flattened as well, including the walkway to the front door, where my mom had grown flowers around cobblestones.
Cutting my engine, I leaned my bike on the kickstand and took off my helmet, right before a shrill sound assaulted my ears.
Running out of the front door, where I saw a ramp had been built down one side of the stairs, was my baby sister. Except she wasn’t a little girl anymore. White-blonde hair was braided down her back, and she was dressed like Daisy Duke in a plaid crop top and cut-off shorts, and I only caught a flash of her blue eyes before she nearly tackled me to the ground.
Squeezing her tight, I saw Gramps wheel out after her. Merle King looked visibly older, the creases in his face deeper, and his hair gone all white, but I was glad to see a smile on his face. I hadn’t only run away from my dad when I left town; I’d left the responsibility of caring for Channing and Gramps, too.
Channing punched me in the arm, and I let her go to rub the spot. She was stronger than she looked. “Ow, sis.”
“Hush,” she chided, dusting off my shoulder and touching me all over like she was making sure I was real.
“You saw me last year in the city,” I reminded her. We’d kept in touch by text and video chat, but she’d also come to visit me in San Francisco once she got her license.
“Sure, but that was in December. And you’re really here.” Channing bit her lip and gave a delicate sniff, letting me know I should have come sooner.
“Is that my grandson?” Our grandpa interjected, and Chan stepped aside so I could see him clearly.
Calling me his grandson was new, but Chan told me he would be accepting. Hearing it in person was surreal.
“Hi, Gramps.” I held out my hand for him to shake, not sure how to go about hugging him after so long. “Good to see you’re doing well.”
He took my offering in both of his weathered hands, squeezing and giving me a watery smirk. “Never thought I’d see the day you came home again. You’ve made an old man happy, Fowler.”
Too choked up over Gramps using my chosen name, I didn’t know how to respond, but Channing wasn’t above coughing, “Told you so,” while she unclipped the travel bag attached to the saddlebags.
