And the Autumn Moon Is Bright
by Scotty
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"I feel like a jerk, spying on Trace like this."
"Especially since he's your best friend."
JC's voice dripped with sarcasm and Justin stopped short.
"Damn, girl. What do I have to do, buy a burial plot with our names on it? It's just an expression. Now can we can stop talking? This is what I wanted you to see."
The path through the trees had gotten suddenly narrow and Justin ducked as a branch blocked his view. Just ahead a bridge loomed in the darkness and he stopped, putting a hand out to keep JC from going any farther.
"That's it. Over there."
He pointed at a cobblestone trestle, but JC's eyes had already followed the path down the hill to where it vanished underneath the old bridge.
"He goes down there?"
"Yeah. I followed him this far a couple times. At first I thought he was coming out here to smoke. He's been trying to quit and I've really been on him about it."
Justin inched farther down the trail and stopped again.
"Then I thought maybe he was setting something up for me. You know, a surprise. We used to have a fort like this when we were kids, out behind his house, kind of hidden away. But my birthday came and went--nothing happened."
Justin turned his head suddenly and looked back at JC.
"Is your hand on my ass?
JC hesitated. "Yeah. I think so."
"You think so. Don't you know?"
"Well, it's dark out here."
Justin's voice was a mixture of amusement and concern.
"Trace is missing and you're copping a feel? Jesus, JC."
JC shrugged. Then he edged past Justin and stood on the brink, looking down the hill. When he started to move again, Justin grabbed his jacket and pulled him back.
"Wait. It's not a good night."
JC rolled his eyes.
"Like there's a good night for stuff like this? C'mon."
JC started down the slope, but Justin would have no part of it.
"I'm serious. If this is as weird as I think it is, then we have to do things right from the start, so we don't screw it up. I'm not all that superstitious, but I do know that there are special days for stuff like this. We have to wait."
JC set his jaw.
"You're just stalling, Timberlake. The deal was that I come out here with you. Then you have to ante up. The longer your part of it takes, the longer I have to wait for mine."
JC made a quick movement and Justin jumped. It was suddenly much darker than it had been even a moment before, and all he could see was the swipe of something white very close to his waist.
"Quit fooling around. I'll hold up my end of the deal, but first things first." Justin took a deep breath. "Okay. It's not the best time for it, but we're already here, so let's go."
They stood shoulder to shoulder for another minute, then started down the hill. At the first pile of wet leaves, they both slipped, sliding the rest of the way like snowboarders who had lost control. At the bottom of the ravine, they struggled to their feet. From where they stood now, the bridge looked looked a lot smaller than it had from the top of the hill, almost as if it had sunk into the marshy ground. JC cocked his head, looking as far as he could into the cavern underneath.
"You're sure he goes in there." His voice was noticeably strained.
Justin nodded.
"That's where I lose sight of him."
Justin lifted his flashlight. It was a pinprick in the dark yawning space.
"We should probably stay close to wall, to keep our bearings." He played the light down the mossy abutment until it reached the ground.
"Wait." JC's voice was a raw whisper. He moved to Justin's side, then guided his arm until the tiny pool of light found a stack of clothes, neatly folded against the wall. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Justin moved closer, kneeling next to a pile of clothes so meticulously positioned that it could have been on display at The Gap.
"They could be his. I don't know. I don't recognize the shirt."
As Justin stood up again, there was a loud snap, like an arcing electrical charge. Then a second later, something fluttered, just beyond the beam of light.
"I'm gone." JC's voice had come from halfway up the hill.
Justin took one more look at the pile of clothes, then he sprinted to catch up with him.
When they reached the end of the gravel drive, JC let out a harsh laugh.
"We need to renegotiate your end of things. If we're going back down there, I'm going to need more than a blow job."
"Shut up, man. This is serious."
Justin slid behind the wheel and started the car. JC stared back down the dark path.
"I don't get it. Why would he strip down like that?" JC looked back at Justin. "Maybe there's a lake back there or something."
"You think he's swimming? At this time of year?"
"Then what the hell is he doing down there?"
Justin shook his head. Their breath had fogged the windows and he was slumped forward, trying to make the most of a small corona of clear glass. At the intersection, he rolled through a four-way stop.
"Good call." JC had sounded almost child-like. "Don't stop. Not for anything."
Justin laughed. "I never saw the sign."
"Either way. Just keep going." JC looked sheepishly at Justin, then back at the road again. "Maybe it's a cult or something? You know, an initiation thing. Trace is seeing somebody new, right? Maybe she got him involved in something."
Justin shook his head.
"No. Besides, he's not that into her. If she was doing weird shit, he would just walk away."
At the next intersection, neon light from a small cluster of buildings turned night into day. Justin pulled into the first parking lot and turned off the car.
"I should just back off. Let him do whatever it is he's doing in peace."
JC nodded. "I guess. He's not really hurting anybody.
"As far as we know."
Justin turned off the lights, but JC made no move to get out.
"What the hell does that mean?"
For the first time since they had run from the bridge, Justin met JC's questioning glance with one of his own.
"It means, what if he is?"
~
There was a Cracker Barrel Restaurant in every town on the interstate, but JC had never noticed this one before. It was almost as if it had appeared out of nowhere. He looked around warily then slid into the booth across from Justin.
"Okay, now you're freaking me out. Trace gets naked and goes down in the bushes a couple nights a month. It's not for sex and it's sure as hell not for cigarettes. Is he still going to work?"
Justin sniffed.
"On and off."
"Wait, you've been all over hell for the past couple months. How do you even know about it?"
"That's probably the only reason I do know about it. I started getting calls from people at Rast, for the go ahead on stuff that Trace usually handles. He wasn't picking up his phone, wasn't coming by the office, so they started calling me. When I got back into town, I never said anything about it, but I started paying attention. It was just like I said. He misses a couple days every month like clockwork."
JC raised a warning hand. The waitress who had taken their order set two mugs of root beer on the table. When she was out of range again, JC spoke.
"So you've known about this since January. What else aren't you telling me?"
"I think he's a werewolf."
JC spit soda back into his glass.
"A what?"
"Don't make a scene, man. It's not a joke."
The waitress made another pass and Justin lowered his voice.
"It all fits. A couple days a month, he disappears. The rest of the time, he's the same guy he always was. I feel like shit about it. It probably happened last fall when he made that swing through Eastern Europe, shopping vendors for the line. I should have gone with him."
JC put a hand on Justin's arm.
"Wait, wait. You think Ayala is a werewolf. Like werewolf werewolf?"
Justin shrugged nonchalantly, an act so out of place that JC felt the hair on his neck stand on end. He looked past Justin to the familiar logo on the wall. Then he took a long, slow sip before speaking again.
"I'm sorry, man. That whole thing down by the bridge was weird, but this? This is crazy."
"Nevermind." Justin pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and put it on the table. "Forget I ever said anything."
He was at the front door before JC could stop him. At the car, he stopped and looked up at a bloodshot moon, full to the brim.
"It's not like that, you know. The bit about the full moon. It doesn't have anything to do with it. But the clothes we found tonight? That's part of the legend. The disappearing is part of it too. They know when it's going to happen, can feel it, so they go away."
JC swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.
"You're not kidding."
Justin shook his head slowly.
As they climbed into the car, the image of Trace Ayala, slowly changing into something not quite human, gave JC goose bumps.
"So what do we do now?"
Justin's voice was as still and cold as the night air.
"We go under the bridge and get him."
-::-
JC would have done it for free, helped Justin figure out why Trace had suddenly dropped off the face of the earth, but the offer of a few days in Justin's new studio certainly sweetened the deal.
Hunting werewolves, however, was a little out of his league.
By noon, he had made a short list of contacts, people who might help without needing too much information. Lance had hung up laughing. There was nothing in Louisiana lore that had anything to do with bridges. And when people disappeared in the bayou, it was because an alligator had had its way with them. The call to Joey had gone straight to voice mail. JC had done his best not to insinuate that anything strange was going on.
There had been a few off-color jokes and a random call-back from one of Lance's groupies. Then JC had stumbled onto a web site that looked legit.
As legit as it could get when shapeshifting was involved.
By late afternoon, it was clear that Trace Ayala had done more than take a walk on the wild side. If what Justin said was true, Trace had actually become a werewolf, but not because he'd traveled to a Romanian castle or been bitten by a wolf. The answer was a lot less complicated, but even more bizarre. Sometime in the last twelve months, he had simply gone shopping, probably on Melrose, and had bought or bartered for a strip of leather that looked like it had some miles on it. He might have wanted it for the line, something to copy. At some point, he must have tried it on himself. Not long after, he would have started losing time, usually nights, all of them in a row.
When Justin arrived at 7:00 pm, JC handed him a picture. Justin rolled his eyes.
"You think he's a troll?"
"No, Chris thinks it's a troll. He found it on some web site and wanted to make sure I saw it."
Justin shook his head and dropped the picture by the computer.
"Okay, I did some reading myself last night. In the literature, it says--"
JC snorted loudly.
"In the literature? What are you talking about, Justin? This isn't some junior high history project. We're not building a diorama with a paper wolf on top of it!"
Justin sank into a chair and steepled his fingers on his chest.
"So you do think I'm right."
JC pulled a sheaf of pages from the printer and dropped them in Justin's lap. He talked while Justin skimmed the first page.
"I don't know, but suppose you are. Suppose he bought something that was cursed. What happens now?"
Justin flipped to the last page.
"It says here that calling a werewolf by their Christian name, after they've shifted, breaks the spell. So I guess we track him down, call him out, and change him back."
"I wonder if that would work on Cameron."
Justin stood up, a pinched look on his face. JC was quick to apologize.
"C'mon, man. I'm sorry. Just trying to lighten things up, you know, before we get completely carried away. What have we got besides werewolf? How about that chick he's hanging out with, that one from Reba. Have you ever talked to her?"
Justin screwed up his face and JC started laughing.
"Not A-list enough for you? You're a serious snob, man. So we're going back out there?"
Justin nodded and started for the door.
JC grabbed a bandana and followed him out. By the time they reached the car, he had tied the scarf into a knot and stuffed it in his back pocket. Justin pointed at the red hanky and raised a brow.
"What's that all about?"
"I saw it on the internet. Wards off evil."
Justin looked at him for a long minute.
"Now you're freaking me out."
"I'm freaking myself out." JC adjusted his seat belt then stared out the window at the fading light. "I don't know what's worse. Finding out that Ayala is a werewolf or thinking about him running around naked with that stupid wolfbelt on. No more weird shit. We'll go down there one more time. If nothing happens, that's it. Ayala can be the fucking chupacabra for all I care."
Justin nodded.
"Okay. But if the clothes are there again, I say we take them. You know, just in case."
He had just reached the driver's side of the car when his cell phone made them both jump.
Justin stared at the screen, frozen.
"It's him."
The phone rang a few more times. Then it finally went quiet. For a minute, neither of them spoke.
Then suddenly JC narrowed his eyes.
"Wait. Was that ringtone Tupac?"
Justin rolled his eyes.
"Don't start with me, JC."
"You said I was Tupac. You gave it to him instead?"
Justin glared across the hood of the car.
"It's a ring tone, JC. Not a wedding ring. Now, shut up and get in the car."
~
When Justin turned left on Cosby Highway and kept driving, JC let out a plaintive cry.
"C'mon man. I thought we were going to eat and then talk things over."
"We are. I just want to see. If the clothes are still there, then it's not what we think. Or--." His voice trailed off.
"Or what?"
"Or it is what we think, but it's not him. It another - - - "
JC shook his head.
"Look, Justin. He just called so he must be in his human form." He wiggled his fingers in the air and made a spooky sound. "Why don't you just call him back and ask him what's going on?"
Justin's hands tightened on the steering wheel. His voice was serious, almost somber.
"I just want to look. If you want to wait in the car, that's fine, but I need to go down there."
The gravel road that led into the woods appeared and Justin parked in exactly the same spot as he had the night before. When he killed the engine, JC opened his door.
"Fucking studio better have a sauna in it. And sushi. I want sushi brought in fresh, everyday."
Even in the waning light, the bridge had been easy to find, so close to the road now that it seemed to have moved a football field or more.
There were no strange sounds this time either, no shadows shifting in the darkness.
And there was no pile of clothes.
They stood side by side for a long moment, staring at the empty spot on the ground.
"It could be a coincidence." The tremor in JC's voice betrayed him.
"But it's not."
"This is nuts."
"I know."
JC nudged Justin almost imperceptibly.
"Can we go now?"
Justin bobbed his head, then turned back up the hill. They were almost to the car when he spoke again.
"Are you afraid?"
JC stopped suddenly, taking hold of Justin's arm.
"What kind of question is that, am I afraid? Should I be?"
Justin looked past him to the woods.
"Well, you and Trace never did get along."
The noise that came from JC was a cross between a squeak and a burp. Justin chirped the car door and slid behind the wheel, laughing.
"You're so easy, man."
JC pulled his door open and lunged across the seat. Justin fought him off, laughing until he was almost out of breath. He had been ready to give up when JC suddenly stopped, his voice full of dread.
"What was that?"
"What?"
They both listened, craning for any stray sounds.
"I thought I heard-- ."
Justin cut him off, unwilling to hear what he was going to say.
"No more fooling around. Let's just get out of here."
He slammed the car into gear, spinning gravel high into the air. As they fishtailed onto the road, Justin forced himself to check the rearview mirror.
The clearing was empty.
~
The Cracker Barrel Restaurant was in exactly the same place as it had been the night before, just past the four-way stop. The hostess had again smiled sweetly, before slowly walking away.
JC picked up the menu. "It's bloodshot."
Justin waited for him to finish his thought. When he didn't go on, Justin flicked the back of his menu.
"What are you talking about?"
"The moon. It's a bloodshot moon, not bloody."
Justin stared at him blankly.
"That song you were singing, on the way in. Tom Waits."
"I was singing?"
When JC bobbed his head, Justin shrugged.
"I know you think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I swear. My first thought really was to just ask Trace about it, but there was no way to do it without coming off like a dick. So he disappears a couple times a month. Business is good. In fact, it's fucking great. He's worked hard. He has a right to a couple days off here and there. So he doesn't tell anybody. He's twenty-six years old. He doesn't have to check in."
Justin took a long slow sip of water.
"It's my fault. I made the mistake of following him. Now what do I say? Hey dude. Good to see you. How are things at the bridge?"
JC started to laugh, but Justin looked so miserable that he stopped himself.
"I don't think you're crazy, Justin, but maybe you should just give him the benefit of the doubt, see what ---."
JC stopped mid-sentence. Justin had slid out of the booth and was staring through the window at the parking lot. His whole demeanor had changed.
He was actually smiling.
"You're right! We should give him the benefit of the doubt-- check things out before we start talking crazy. But we better go now, before it gets dark."
JC zipped his jacket and shook his head.
"Before it gets dark? Nice benefit of the doubt."
At the door, Justin tossed him the keys. When JC protested, Justin put up his hand.
"Just drive."
~
The street in front of the duplex that Trace Ayala called home was dark. Still JC had driven by twice before finding a place to park where they wouldn't be seen. There was only one light on, but Justin was certain that Trace was there.
"He keeps the street side pretty dark. Besides, the message he left said he'd be home all night."
"You could still just go in, you know, talk to him? Then I could sit here and eat in peace."
Justin looked over at JC, suddenly aware of the wrapper in his hand.
"Hey! Watch it! You're getting grease all over the steering wheel."
JC was quick to argue.
"Give me a break. I haven't eaten all day, thanks to you."
He snatched at the bag of fries in Justin's lap. Justin pushed his hand away, laughing.
"Quit grabbing my junk. And quit your whining. You said you'd help."
A sudden ray of light cut across the windshield and Justin slumped low in the seat.
"Get down!"
The garage door had opened slowly. A blue Mercedes drifted onto the street, rebounding softly off the curb like a bumper car. A second later, it rolled forward as if in slow motion.
As it reached the crest of the hill, Justin started barking orders.
"Okay, go! No! Don't go!"
JC had already floored it and the tires smoked as he hit the brakes.
Justin shifted in his seat, looking back over his shoulder.
"He's gone."
JC's response was immediate.
"No shit, Sherlock."
"No. I mean, we should look for the wolfbelt or whatever it is while he's gone. The place is small. It won't take long to check it out."
JC hesitated.
"You have a key?"
Justin pointed at the ring dangling from the ignition.
JC looked left, then right, then left again like a small child about to cross a busy street.
"What if he comes back? Don't we need garlic or something?"
Justin started to laugh.
"We're not trying to kill him. Besides, he's using a cell phone and driving a car. I think we're safe, at least for tonight."
A flood of headlights suddenly washed over them and the dark sedan slowed to a stop right next to the car. JC lowered his window as Trace Ayala stared back at him, his eyes a lazy, unfocused gaze.
JC stammered a quick greeting, then he looked at Justin, panic in his eyes. A handful of very weird things had happened in the last twenty-four hours, but at that moment, the only weird thing was him driving Justin's car, with Justin still in it.
Without missing a beat, Justin jumped out of the car and walked around the front of the idling SUV. As he came to the far side of the Mercedes, he tried to get JC's attention without giving too much away.
"See. I told you he was here, man. Be careful with my ride."
He tapped on the roof of the car and waved JC away.
JC nodded back. Then, as casually as he could, he smiled at Trace and pulled away, leaving Justin to spin whatever tale he could tell. Driving Justin's pride and joy? That would be one for the ages.
~
JC had spent the morning in his own studio, lining up the tracks he would lay down once the Night of the Living Dead was over. It was late afternoon when Justin finally called.
"I hated lying to him like that."
"Well, at least you're consistent. Did you find the strap?"
"You mean the belt?"
"Belt, strap, whatever. Is he Wolfman Jack or not? I'm ready to get in the studio."
When Justin didn't answer, JC walked over to the computer, opened a folder on the desktop, and started reading aloud.
"The belt was often made from the skin of a man who'd been hanged. It was crafted with magick symbols engraved into the leather and was sometimes adorned with human tongues."
"Did you have to find the absolutely worst description ever?"
JC tapped loudly on the mouthpiece of the phone.
"Earth to Justin. Your friend is a werewolf. Can we get back to business now?"
"Okay, okay. He was there so I couldn't go through everything in his place, but he never really unpacks, so I dug through his suitcase. There was nothing but the usual stash of porn and a couple boxes of Ambien."
"Then are we done skulking around?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean 'what do I mean'? What's left, waiting until he's got the wolf suit on and tracking him down?"
"I guess."
"You're serious."
"I followed him before, but not all the way. Okay. Wait."
JC heard pages turning.
"Here it is. Wow. It's tonight."
"What is?"
"According to this almanac, there's a full moon tonight."
"I thought you said that didn't have anything to do with it."
"Yeah, I know, but there's no use taking any chances. If the full moon is part of it, then he'll definitely go out tonight."
JC took a deep breath. "Fucker's probably got the belt on already."
"Okay. Here's the plan. We go down to the bridge and wait for him. Beat him to the punch."
"Are you nuts?!" The squeal in JC's voice reached new heights. "We suck at following him. And I'm not particularly crazy about the idea of him following us."
"We're not going to track him. We're just going to get there first. When he starts to change, I'll call out his name--it'll be over in a heartbeat."
"Yeah, if he doesn't ripped our throats out first."
Justin laughed a little nervously.
"Wear your stupid bandana if you're still worried about it."
"You should wear one too. Stuff it in your back pocket, left side."
"There's a side?"
"Just tie a knot in it and put it where I said to put it. And one more thing, if that fucker starts growling and baring his teeth, you better jump in and save my ass. I'll be so pissed if he kills me."
JC stared at the computer screen. There were still five or six windows open and he started clicking out of them one at a time. The last was the open folder he had just been reading from. It was called How To Become a Werewolf.
JC shook his head. Then out of habit, he scrolled to the bottom of the page, ready to close the window when he noticed a link after the last entry.
Return to Creatures of the Night.
JC stared at it for a minute and then swore under his breath. In the last forty-eight hours, he'd learned enough about things that go bump in the night to hold him for the rest of his life, but if Ayala had any game at all, it would probably come from something like this. JC stared at the link for another minute, then he cut and pasted it into his browser.
When he hit return, a flood of images filled the monitor. He slid the cursor over the first blurry photo and clicked again.
When the next window opened, the image was much clearer. And oddly familiar.
JC clicked on it again, filling the screen.
The picture was not of a man warding off some hideous creature of the night. In fact, it wasn't a man at all. It was a woman. With a candle. A woman he had definitely seen before, that every high school kid in America had seen before: Lady Macbeth.
JC checked the heading at the top of the page. He wasn't on a werewolf site anymore or some random page in the Skeptic's Dictionary. He was at the Journal of the American Medical Association, in the middle of scholarly report.
On sleepwalking.
JC stared at the page in disbelief. He skimmed the article quickly. Then he laughed out loud.
It made perfect sense. Everything he'd ever heard about sleepwalking would fit the werewolf scenario too.
He highlighted a passage.
. . . eating, dressing, even driving cars has also been recorded as taking place while the subjects are technically asleep. The victims eyes may have a glazed or empty appearance and if questioned, the subject will be slow to answer or be unresponsive.
JC thought of the darkened house, the slow moving car.
He scrolled down farther, looking for something that might send him back to the Netherworld. Instead he found a very real silver bullet.
In a state of incomplete arousal, Ambien users may sleepwalk, putting themselves and those who interact with them, at risk, a side effect reported in at least 1,000 patients since 2003.
JC sat back in his chair and began rocking slowly. An hour ago he'd been genuinely frightened, afraid that he and Justin might be facing something so completely foreign that it might cost them their lives. Now that it was over, that he knew the danger had passed, he was oddly depressed. Solving the Case of the Disappearing Designer from the safety of his own home wasn't half as much fun as running through the bushes with Justin in the middle of the night.
JC closed out the site and shut down the computer without bothering to save the link.
He was being selfish and he knew it. Justin had been worried sick. Now JC had worked it out, found a rational explanation that had nothing to do with werewolves or curses or belts made of human skin. But solving the mystery also meant that JC wouldn't be seeing all that much of Justin anymore. It had been a very long time since Justin had needed him, since they'd had a reason to do anything together really, let alone share a secret that no one else could know.
JC swore softly.
Talking about Trace Ayala 24/7 had been a royal pain in the ass, but being with Justin had been anything but.
JC stared past the computer to the phone.
If he was as good a friend as he pretended to be, he would call Justin this very minute and tell him what he'd found, end of story.
Or if he was sort of a good friend, he could wait, tell him tomorrow, and they could have one, last grand adventure.
JC sat perfectly still, waiting for the guilt to hit. When it didn't, he bolted for the door.
Tomorrow he would show Justin exactly what he'd found.
Tonight he could still be a hero.
-::-
The moss-covered bridge was somewhere off in the darkness.
Justin tested one flashlight, then the other. Then he tossed one to JC.
"My uncle used to say that the greatest sin of all is changing a good plan. So we stick to it. No matter what."
JC felt a tiny pang of guilt. He still wanted to play it out, be brave in the face of certain danger, but he didn't want to make a fool of himself doing it. Or to make one of Justin either, the same Justin who had gamely shown up with a knotted, yellow bandana stuffed in his back pocket. He swallowed hard.
"You sure you want to do this?"
Justin laughed.
"I've seen Trace naked. I can handle it."
JC made a loud, gagging sound, then headed for the twin pines that marked the gravel path.
The bridge had just come into view when Justin stopped suddenly and crouched down. JC lost his footing and grabbed at a branch, but it was too late. He fell onto Justin's back. For a minute, Justin was able to maintain his balance; then gravity took over and they folded together like a pair of lawn chairs. JC ended up in a pile of wet leaves, but not before making a three point turn over Justin's outstretched hand.
He was still trying to decide if Justin had grabbed his dick on purpose when Justin started to laugh.
"If you wanted to be on top so bad, you could have put the fucking hanky in your other pocket. I would have figured it out sooner or later."
JC tried for indignant, but landed closer to amused.
"Fuck you."
Justin struggled to stand up.
"You're so full of shit, Chasez."
JC brushed the last of the leaves off his pants.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Justin shook his flashlight until the light came back on and then pointed it at JC.
"The bandana? Warding off evil?"
JC blocked the light with his hand.
"That's what it said."
Justin smiled smugly. "Really. What else did it say?"
JC picked up his own flashlight and faced Justin squarely.
"That Ayala isn't a werewolf."
Justin bobbed his head.
"I know. He's been walking in his sleep."
JC turned back quickly.
"What the hell?"
"What the hell yourself! How long have you known?"
JC kicked at the pile of leaves.
"A couple hours."
Justin shook his head. "When were you planning to tell me?"
JC lifted his chin defiantly.
"What about you? You let me come out here, act like a tool."
Justin laughed.
"So what's the deal?"
JC shrugged. "He needs to lay off the sleeping pills. They're fucking with his head."
Justin laughed.
"No shit. I got up to use the head last night and he was gone again, so I went down to the garage to check it out and sure enough, the door was open. But he didn't get very far. Halfway down the block, I found the car idling against the curb. He was still behind the wheel, eyes wide open but out like a light."
"You should have left him there. Let the cops find his incomplete arousal."
"Something you obviously have no problem with."
"Fuck you. So, was he naked?"
Justin shook his head.
"No. That must be something he does once he gets where he's going."
"So is he coming here tonight?"
Justin shrugged. "I have no idea."
JC flipped the flashlight in his hand playfully, suddenly light-hearted.
"So what are we doing here then?"
Justin looked toward the bridge, then back at JC.
"I don't know. Freezing our asses off? You want to go?"
JC nodded slowly then did a quick pivot that looked too familiar not to bring a smile. Justin waited for him to turn away. Then he repeated the same move from memory and followed him up the hill.
JC's voice carried well in the darkness. "I thought you hated that part."
Justin flashed his light down the trail, but JC had already crested the hill.
He was still smiling as Justin approached the car.
"So what do you want to do now? I cleared my calendar tonight. You owe me."
Justin chirped the lock on the door and walked around the front of the car.
"I don't know. I hadn't thought past you grabbing my ass in the dark." He winked then slid behind the wheel. "We could head over to Cracker Barrel. Grab something to eat. We need to renegotiate our deal anyway."
JC rolled his eyes.
"I knew you'd back out on me. What'd you do, give my studio time to Ayala?"
"No. I just figured we might wanna work out some other form of payment."
Justin waved his yellow hanky in the air as JC pretended to struggle with his seat belt.
"Just start the car."
JC settled into the seat and looked straight ahead. Justin wiped deliberately at the steam on the window.
"We could go back under the bridge. Wait for Trace to show up and get naked." Justin smiled coyly then draped the bandana across his own lap. "Or we could just sit here for a while and see what happens."
He looked over at JC and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively until JC buried his face in his sleeve.
A second later, Justin put the car in gear and gunned it, making the gravel fly one last time.
And just beyond the trees, the moon, now bloodshot and full to the brim, hung high in the night sky.
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