“Manny, wake up, you’re
having a bad dream.” Hamlin gathered his lover into his arms to still him.
It took Manny a moment to
realize where he was. Then he sighed in relief as the nightmare dissipated.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s alright. It’s about
time for us to get up anyway. I have a dog to walk, and you’ve got things to do
too.”
After a glance at the clock,
Manny frowned. “It’s that late already? Shit. Why are you still here?”
“Excuse me? I live here now
in case you’ve forgotten. Okay, so it’s only been for one day, but still—“
“My bad. Damn, I’m loosing
it, I swear.”
Hamlin kissed the nape of
Manny’s neck, and then when Manny turned in his arms, he planted one on his
mouth before saying, “You’re stressed, not loosing it.”
“The stress you took care of
earlier this morning.” Manny smiled as he returned the kiss.
“Just the physical, not the
mental. I wish to hell you knew which one of them—“
“I don’t even know if it was
one of them. I could be barking up the wrong tree. And speaking of barking,
there’s a puppy that’ll be doing that or worse if we don’t get moving.”
“Our lives are ruled by a
dog,” Hamlin grumbled as he sat up and got out of bed.
“Could be worse, it could be
a gryphon. Come to think about it, it is.”
Hamlin shot him a puzzled
look as he headed to the bathroom. “Gryphon?”
“Oh, yeah, something I
forgot to mention,” Manny said as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Mijn
commandant here in the city is a gryphon. And my other one is a Witte Wieven.”
He laughed at the look on Hamlin’s face. “I’ll explain later.”
“You better,” Hamlin growled
as he closed the bathroom door.
An hour later, Hamlin was
looking at Manny in disbelief as they rode the subway downtown to the Village.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Very. All commandants are
shape-shifting mythical creatures.” He stopped when he realized the woman next
to him had heard him. “And that’s the idea behind the book,” he continued as if
that’s what he and Hamlin had been talking about.
Hamlin caught on
immediately. “Do it right and it could be a best seller. Supernatural stuff is
popular now.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, me
and my agent.”
“Well you’re not going to
have an agent if we miss our stop and you miss your appointment,” Hamlin said
pointedly as they approached their station.
“True.” Manny jumped to his
feet, quickly followed by Hamlin. “Thanks,” he said softly, his words almost
overwhelmed by the screech of the train coming to a stop.
“Any time, mijn liefde.”
Manny grinned. “You’re
learning my language.”
“Two words are hardly learning,”
Hamlin retorted as they stepped onto the platform.
“But it’s a start.”
No comments:
Post a Comment