Alluring Passion: A MM Contemporary Bundle Read online

  “Who are you?” the kid finally demanded. His voice shook.

  Angel held up his hands and wiggles his fingers. “I’ve come to haunt you! Woooo!”

  The color darkened from pink to red. “You’re the asshole who scared me last night?”

  “I am,” Angel said.

  As angry as he was, the kid also looked hopelessly baffled. “Do you want me to call the cops on you?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  And now the kid looked nervous. He glanced around as if searching for some sort of weapon before realizing that he was holding a shovel. A perfect weapon. His hand tightened around it visibly, knuckles going white.

  I really don’t feel like getting another concussion today.

  “Hold it,” Angel said. He held up one hand and watched as the kid flinched, almost unbalancing and falling off that big piece of machinery he was holding onto. “I can explain. Give me a chance to do that, at least.”

  “You threw rocks at me! And chased me!”

  Angel shrugged. It was only one rock, and the chasing had been fun. No harm done, right? “Hear me out.”

  The kid just shook his head. “Fine. But first, what’s your name?”

  “You think I’m stupid?” Angel laughed. “I’m not telling you all of it. Call me Angel.”

  The kid grimaced. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Well, Angel, I’m Chance. And you have one chance to explain to me really damn fast why I shouldn’t call the cops right now.”

  Angel raised one eyebrow. “Unless you replaced it overnight, the very first reason is that you broke your phone last night when you dropped it. Don’t think I didn’t see that. You want another reason?”

  Chance’s shoulders slumped, but he still held tight to his shovel. “Yes.”

  Angel spread his arms. “I’m a musician. A backpacker, too. I earn my keep with nothing but my guitar. I was coming down the highway with someone last night but they got a call. Some family emergency. Couldn’t take me all the way where they were going to, you know how it goes. So I got out and stumbled across this…” He looked around.

  This piece of shit dump.

  “…pretty little town. And I wandered through those trees. Didn’t know there was a graveyard on this side of them. I was going to leave and find a hotel for the night but then I saw you out here, working away. You looked so peaceful.”

  So peaceful and almost sweet, cleaning off headstones with his tongue stuck out to one side and his unruly hair flopping down across his forehead. Chance needed a haircut. His head was nothing but a mass of cowlicks all trying to do their own thing, but in the moonlight it made him seem like some thorn-headed fairy of the night. There was no way a man couldn’t get closer to that. And the closer he got, the more Angel had noticed things about Chance as he worked. The easy dexterity of his legs as he crouched and stood again, the length of his thin arms and the tenderness with which he did his job.

  There had been a story there. Stories made the best songs. You had to collect them when you came across them, storing them for use at a later time.

  “I wanted to know what your story was.”

  Chance just shook his head, looking as disbelieving as a guy possibly could. “You thought I looked peaceful, and you wanted to talk to me, but yet you tried to scare the shit out of me?”

  Angel felt some color of his own rise up in his face. “Yeah, well, life isn’t like a story all the time. Sometimes life is messy.”

  “If messy means running at someone and scaring the shit out of them, I guess so.” Chance sighed. “I don’t understand you and I think you’re screwing with me again. I don’t care if you’re a musician or a ghost, some of us have real work to do. So, go do whatever it is you career hitchhikers do and leave me alone or I really will call the cops.”

  Angel opened his mouth, aiming to push his luck, but the look he saw on Chance’s face told him he’d pushed it far enough. He just shrugged instead. “Fine. I won’t hear your story. I guess you prefer the company of ghosts, huh?”

  No answer, and he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to get one. Shrugging once more, he turned on his heel and strode away. A glance thrown back over his shoulder told him that Chance had gone back to work. He stood obscured up to his waist inside the cart, a shovel in his hands as he tossed angry clods of dirt back onto the grave.

  Angel ducked behind the nearest grave that was tall enough to obscure him, hunkering down and peering around the edge to watch. The clumps of earth landed with precision on the top of the patch of earth where the grave was, even though Chance was hardly looking at what he was doing.

  He’s done this a lot.

  If he wanted to actually get out of here, he needed to move now but he stayed for just a bit longer to admire the man as he worked. For someone so scrawny, he had quite a muscular back, which rippled with every move he made.

  Chance looked up suddenly, snapping his head around.

  Angel drew back in the cover behind the headstone, making himself as small as he could and pressing into the shadow. His heart beat wildly with exhilaration at this game, one where he himself was the only player. That didn’t matter. What mattered was he felt alive, vibrant. His entire body tingled as he waited to be discovered.

  He counted the passing of seconds using his doubled heartbeat. One minute went by, and then two. As the third minute trod on past on heavy feet, he dared to peek out again. Chance was back at work but now he was clearly bothered by the fact that Angel once again seemed to have disappeared. His smooth, measured movements were discordant and jerky, the rhythm of his body interrupted. Angel was almost sad to see it go but at least now the spell was broken.

  Slowly, he worked his way from hiding place to hiding place, always making sure that the ever-observant Chance didn’t see him. Part of him still wanted to linger, to look at the names on the graves to see if there were any stories that might be found here, but he knew anything he might come across would pale in comparison to the tale of a geeky young man at peace in his sorrowful work.

  And dammit, that was a story he was going to find out one way or another. He was a bit low on money, which meant there was no better place to hang around than here. He probably couldn’t stay too long, since these small town people didn’t trust strangers, and especially not strangers like him, but he didn’t think he would need to stick around for very long. Chance was going to be a challenge, but not that much of a challenge.

  And Angel liked a challenge.

  He found himself whistling as he strode down the street, bits and pieces of the favorite songs he had composed over the years. As of yet, no one else who was out and about spared him a second glance but they would soon enough. Part of that was going to be his fault, however. He knew that. One garnered a lot less attention when they didn’t seek it out, but that was no way for a musician to live. A musician needed attention, needed eyes on him. Any attention at all was good, as they said in the show business.

  Humming now, he ducked into the nearest gas station and came out again a few minutes later with a liter of soda and a bag of snacks and convenience food, enough to satisfy his high metabolism. The extra weight and exertion felt good on his arm, reminding him of the weight of his guitar. The day was warm on his back, the light strong but not painful. It was a good day for playing outside, letting his fingers dance on their own without any particular song in mind. He called it playing with the wind, and it usually ended up with a couple dollars tossed his way. Every bit counted at this point.

  Further down the main road, he turned off a side road and headed into the town’s only hotel. A shabby little building, the receptionist at the front desk was a heavyset smoker with tobacco-stained teeth and jovial eyes that belied everything else about her.

  Another story. Stories everywhere. How were people ever bored when there was so much going on around them? How had the world managed to shut in on itself like this, to the point where people only paid attention to t
hemselves?

  It was a sad fate, Angel thought.

  Heading down to his room, which was one of only five, he slid his key in the lock and stepped inside. Grabbing what he wanted to eat immediately and shoving the rest of his food in the mini fridge, he went over to the bed and sat down near his guitar in its case. An open notebook also lay on the bed, pencil still where he dropped it last night while composing his next song. Exhaustion hit him quickly, as it usually did when the excitement was over. He lived on it, thrived on it. What else was there in the world but sleeping and making the most of life when you were awake, no matter what it took?

  Unwrapping a bean burrito, Angel set a can of soda down on the nightstand and then climbed up on the mattress to get back to work. So far all he had was a jumble of notes and a few fragmented phrases, in no particular order. That was okay, as creativity worked best when it felt messy.

  As he worked, testing out the lyrics in a muttered singsong, plucking muted notes on his muffled guitar, he still couldn’t help but to think of Chance.

  And only in the solitude of the hotel room did he dare to admit that he’d acted like an idiot.

  Chapter 4

  “Some nice work you did out there on that plot yesterday.”

  Chance glanced up, blinking at Rocky as they labored in the powerful sunshine. The old man held a chart, speaking around a pen cap stuck in his teeth. His ancient hands moved painfully, recording down the measurements as Chance calculated them and marked them on the fresh grass. Another day, another death. This time, the dead was an obese resident of the local nursing home. Her grave had to take up two whole plots to ensure that no others nearby would be compromised in the future.

  “Thanks.” Chance dropped down his yardstick on the grass and picked up the nearby hand shovel, using it to carve a line through the hard earth. “I wanted to make up for doing a shitty job before.”

  That was partly the truth, partly a lie. Meeting that Angel kid disturbed him so much that he’d spent far too much time out here, focusing on every single detail far longer than he normally did. The precise lay of the sod on top of the fresh grave, blending seamlessly with the surrounding grass, was a result of distraction and not intentional attention to detail.

  Telling Rocky about the encounter wouldn’t be wise, especially because there was so much about it that he just didn’t understand. How did a proud-chinned, defiant-eyed deviant musician simply appear out of nowhere, claim he had done stupid and childish things as a result of his so-called profession, and then disappear again?

  It really was like a ghost. He knew that Angel wasn’t. He had seen the beaded sweat on Angel’s tanned cheeks from the intense sunlight, had heard the faint swishing of his clothes as he gesticulated around. A ghost didn’t have those things. A ghost didn’t have anything. Angel was a real man.

  And a real pain. A nuisance and a distraction, both things that Rocky had no time or patience for.

  No, best to just be silent on the matter.

  “Still, you look kinda peakish today. More’n usual.”

  “Just things going on,” Chance replied shortly. Then, he caught himself. “Sorry. I guess that was a bit blunt.”

  Instead of sounding reproachful, Rocky instead just chuckled. “Blunt is good. I’m too old to go beating around bushes anymore. What’s on your mind?”

  So, instead of talking about that weirdo Angel, Chance turned his thoughts to the other constant bothers in his life. “Normal stuff. Bills. Rent. If I’m going to work in a cemetery for the rest of my life.”

  And now Rocky sounded offended. “What’s wrong with that?”

  God, I’m stupid. My brain is so full of fog.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “No, I’m just screwing with you. I get it. This ain’t the life for everyone.” A soft breeze blew past them, both pausing in their work to turn their faces towards the wind. Chance felt some of his sweat dry on his skin, forming a salty crust. “We’ve worked together so long but I still don’t know much about you, kid.”

  “I’m a regular enigma,” Chance replied dryly. He moved off a few feet to measure out the next side of the grave, and read off the amount. Pen scratched across paper, shaky and jumping. “It’s just that there isn’t much to tell.”

  “What would you rather be doing? College?”

  Chance made a face. Why did people simply assume that skinny guys who read books were always brilliant? The fact that he had to wear glasses sometimes, for reading no less, only seemed to add to that preconceived notion that people carried around. Thing was, he hated school. He hated regulated learning. He hated sitting in a stuffy room with twenty other people, all of them being hand fed the same information whether or not it was going to be valuable to them in the future. He didn’t fit in. He wasn’t smart enough to be nerdy, and he wasn’t interested in comics or movies enough to hang around with the geeks.

  He was a nobody. Reading was something he picked up as an escape. A cheap escape. Way cheaper than alcohol. Antique stores were only too happy to let novels go for a quarter, to let him take an extra home for free just to get it out of there.

  “I’m not sure,” was all he said aloud. “I’m not sure what I want to do. I thought I might be a teacher, when I was younger.”

  “A noble job.”

  Chance snorted. “Except I hate kids.”

  Rocky let out a short bark of laughter. “It’s different when they’re your own.”

  “That’s what people always say.”

  “That’s because it’s true.”

  Something entered into the old man’s voice, something wistful and aching. Chance glanced up at him and saw that Rocky had turned away, as if facing a wind that wasn’t there. Now, for the first time, he realized that he also didn’t know much about the man he’d been working with. Sure, he knew his sense of humor, and had his personality figured out, and his favorite brand of cigarettes, but that wasn’t the same as knowing a person. Did Rocky have kids? A wife?

  After a moment, Rocky seemed to pull himself together and continued. Chance pretended not to notice that he sounded even a little hoarser than usual. “You have to want a kid in the first place, but it’s different when they’re yours. You love them from the very start. Even on the days you don’t like ‘em, you still love ‘em.”

  “Damn, Rocky.” Chance smiled. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said.”

  “Ha! Don’t get used to it! After this, I’m going to get drunk. You should join me.”

  Chance’s heart gave a small, warm glow. “Really?”

  “Why not?” Rocky shrugged and grinned. “I’ll even buy the first round. I hope you’re cheap.”

  I’m so cheap that the last time I had something to drink was that graduation party and that was years ago.

  Still, no reason to admit that he wasn’t a drinker. He didn’t want Rocky to know he was gay and a pansy. It would be good for him. For both of them, since it seemed like the old man had something he wanted to drown in booze. Best to do that in company, right?

  He had no idea.

  The rest of the day passed in companionable silence, as the days usually did. Every now and again, words were exchanged between them but it mostly had to do with work or to tease. Rocky operated the backhoe with Chance watching, and then the old man performed small cleaning tasks as Chance ducked down into the grave to carve out sharp, smooth lines manually. After that, they lined the walls with concrete to keep them from collapsing and then covered the whole thing with a weighted tarp.

  Chance hurried over with four small triangular signs, patting them into the earth on all four sides of the empty plot as a warning to anyone who might visit the graveyard that the ground here was unstable. Then, aside from cleaning the equipment and placing everything back in its proper places, the work was done.

  Six p.m. neared as they finished. Rocky read the time out loud with a glance at his watch. “Bar’s probably going to be crowded when we get there.”

  Shrugging like he
didn’t care, even though it made his stomach churn with nervousness, Chance said, “I guess we’d better get going then, huh?”

  “I guess so. Where you feel like tonight?”

  Shit. Quickly, he blurted out the first name he could think of. “How about Bullpen?”

  “Four bars in Astoria and you choose Bullpen?”

  That was the only one he could remember the name of.

  However, Rocky just grinned. “I like your spunk. Let’s go.”

  Uh oh. My spunk?

  That really didn’t bode well, now did it? Nevertheless, he was committed to this venture and so he followed Rocky over to the parking lot and then followed him across town to the bar. The moment it came into view, Chance’s heart sank and his stomach twisted even tighter with nerves. Not only was the tiny parking lot of the bar absolutely packed, cars and trucks lined all up and down the length of the street. There were motorcycles in the mix as well, cluttered around the base of the vandalized sign. Graffiti covered the pole all the way up, almost obscuring the bar’s name entirely.

  The bar itself didn’t look much better, with cracks on the windows and rotting steps that led up to a door that hung loose on battered hinges.

  Rocky grinned as he shoved his way through the door of the bar. Chance pinned a weak smile to his face, looking around as his eyes adjusted to the blinding light.

  Oh, hell no. This was not the place for him.

  The layout was rather unimaginative, with a bar up near the front and tables and booths beyond. In that way, Chance felt a moment of familiarity. Every show, every book, possessed a bar that looked exactly like this.

  The difference was in the details.

  The patrons were all clearly farmers, or sons of farmers, dirty and filling the bar with a reek of animals; either that, or they were the hollow men who couldn’t hold down a single job for long and who lived in delinquent housing. Chance even recognized some of them, since he lived in the same general area as the bad part of town.