Three days passed while the
trio took advantage of their enforced leisure. During the afternoons, while
Addie still slept, the men swam or lay on the pristine beach soaking up the
sun. They talked in a casual way about nothing in particular, each one avoiding anything
to do with their lives or what might happen once the three of them returned to
New Orleans.
Shan was quite aware that
the younger man looked on him as more than just a casual acquaintance, or at
least that he wanted there to be more between them. But that was not something
that would happen. Every time he looked at Race he thought of Lav and vowed
that never again would he open himself to someone and chance the agony of
loosing them. In his world, with who he was and what he did, the risk of that
happening was enormous. Better to live alone with his memories.
Addie joined them when she
woke, usually just as the sun was going down. At her age she was able to
tolerate it and savored the bit of daylight allowed to her. Then the trio would
spend their time exploring Shan’s part of the island. Each time they did Shan
shifted so that he could run, loving the freedom it gave him, while Race had
watched in wonder.
“He’s beautiful,” he’d
whispered when it happened again on the third night.
“That he is,” Addie agreed,
“although I think he’d prefer handsome.”
“He’s that too. It almost
makes me wish I was a Were. There’s something magical about being so at one
with the earth and life. Something a human could never experience.”
“Very poetic, and very true
I suspect. There are advantages to being non-human as you so politely put it. That’s
one of them.”
“But there are disadvantages
too, like you not being able to be out during the day,” he replied, nodding.
“There’s always good and bad
to everything, Race. You just have to make the best of the bad and embrace the
good the way Shan is at this moment.”
“I know,” he said, leaning
back against one of the trees while they waited for Shan to return. “Every time
I got really bummed about how my life was, I’d think of the fact I was my own
person with nothing to tie me to anyone. No one other than me expected more
than I could give. And if I wished, well sort of anyway, I could go wherever I
wanted to, and do whatever I wanted to, and no one would be hurt.” He grinned.
“Well, no one but me that is, if I did something totally stupid.”
“You weren’t lonely, living
like that?”
“Sure, sometimes. But the
alternatives were worse than the loneliness. I couldn’t, wouldn’t go back home. Not to people who hated me. Living in a shelter wasn’t an option. Not when I’d
know about anyone I happened to literally bump into. I got jobs sometimes so
I’d have money, but as I told Shan they didn’t last long because of the whole
touch thing.”
“You let us touch you,” she
pointed out.
“Because I know you’re good
people and I trust you.”
“And we’re the first ones
since you left home?”
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
Race is deep. I really love this!
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