When Jamie Roma and Derek Lee find their blossoming love affair interrupted by dual invitations to a house party from a mysterious unnamed host, they think, Sounds like fun. The next thing they know they are caught up in a game of cat and mouse that quickly starts racking up a lot of dead mice. Yikes, they think. Not so fun.
Trapped inside a spooky old house in the middle of nowhere, with the body count rising among their fellow guests, they begin to wonder if they’ll escape with their lives. As a cataclysmic storm swoops in to batter the survivors, the horror mounts.
Oddly enough, even in the midst of murder and mayhem, Jamie and Derek’s love continues to thrive.
While the guest list thins, so does the list of suspects. Soon it’s only them and the killer.
And then the battle really begins.
John Inman has done it again! I've said it before and I'll say it again(and I'm sure it won't be the last time you'll hear me say it) the man knows how to bring danger, death, and destruction to the page and he manages to keep it fun and romantic too, its the whole package. Longtime friends have recently become friends with benefits who most likely both want more but haven't voiced it yet, receive invitations to a party in the woods from an unfamiliar name but decide to go because it sounds like a laugh, it's a stormy night in the middle of nowhere . . . what could go wrong? Practically everything.
So A Party to Murder sounds like a setup that has been done by many authors and Hollywood directors alike but John Inman makes it original with his own quirky blend of darkness, romance, mystery, and heat that keeps you on the edge of your seat. In a way it reads as a homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Dashiell Hammet's The Thin Man, and any number of 80s horror flicks. You've got a cast of characters that keep dwindling, a dark and trapped setting, and then there is Derek and Jamie who may not be Nick and Nora Charles but their banter and obvious devotion to each other couldn't help but remind me of the chemistry the Charles' share.
Obviously I won't speak to the mystery aspect other than Party may not have had me fooled all the way up until the reveal but it didn't matter. Just because I suspected the who, it was the why that kept me on pins and needles. Just because my guess ended up being the who, doesn't mean I wasn't left wondering "am I right?" and on more than one occasion I found myself "or could it be ??? making this even more disturbing?" so just because you think you know, you really never truly know when it comes to John Inman.
As for Jamie and Derek, the friends with benefits, I think we all know they both want to be more than friends with benefits but its whether or not they'll open up to each other that gives A Party to Murder the romantic element. Some might think its not very believable that two people can find time for love when their fellow party guests are dropping like mayflies but what better time to be honest with your heart than when facing possible death? Not knowing if you'll be walking away is the perfect time to be true to one's heart. I loved their oddities that make them a perfect pair.
Throw in a cast of characters who don't know each other, who don't know the invitation sender, who have never been to the property, and what you have is a story that will keep you hooked from beginning to end. John Inman knows how to set the scene to make the reader feel as if they too got a mystery invitation to the creepy mansion in the woods and why it is perfectly understandable that Jamie, Derek, and everyone else on the fateful guest list would accept such an invite. A Party to Murder is definitely a win-win for mystery lovers, quirky lovers, romance lovers, heck its a win-win for any lover of good storytelling.
RATING:
Chapter One
FROM THE passenger seat, Jamie Roma slipped a hand under the shirttail of the man driving the car. He chuckled to himself when the car swerved off the road, then lurched back onto the asphalt in a spray of gravel and mud.
Derek Lee growled through what Jamie considered to be the sexiest pair of lips he had ever seen in his life. “Jesus, if that hand had gone into my pants, we’d be dead now.”
“Dead but happy,” Jamie whispered back.
Derek made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. Mostly, Jamie figured, it was a groan. Jamie didn’t mind not getting a laugh at his feeble joke, because at the same time as he was groaning, Derek was also tucking his own hand under his shirt and stroking Jamie’s fingers.
They were motoring across the high desert thirty miles outside San Diego. Even had there been daylight, there would have been nothing to see but rolling hills, a bunch of boulders scattered around like spilled Legos, and about a gazillion clumps of sagebrush. As it was, they couldn’t even see that because darkness had fallen with a resounding thud about three hours back. And now not only was it night, it was a moonless and starless night, thanks to the rain clouds that had been forming overhead all day. If not for the Toyota’s headlights and the gleam of the GPS system on the dashboard, they would have been floundering through a sea of bottomless black shadow—blind, directionless, lost.
It was also lonely. They hadn’t seen another car for ages.
Jamie jumped, pointing through the windshield at a sudden twitch of movement up ahead on the side of the road. “Lookie! A coyote!”
No sooner had he cried out than the animal froze, every ounce of its attention trained on the approaching car. The coyote’s eyes were like teeny tiny flashlights, beaming straight back at them. The beast didn’t run; it didn’t cower; it simply stood there with its front feet on the road and its rear end in the bushes, waiting patiently for the car to speed past so it could go on about its business.
“It’s not afraid of us,” Jamie said.
“Why should it be?” Derek snorted. “It’s not the one that’s lost. And don’t say ‘Lookie.’ You sound like a three-year-old.”
Jamie slapped Derek’s arm at the exact moment he spun around in his seat to look behind them as the car zoomed past the coyote. For the briefest of moments, he spotted the creature flashing to life in the red glow of the car’s taillights. Then the animal melted into the receding darkness as if it had never been there at all. Jamie swung back around and replaced his hand on Derek’s bare belly.
He sighed.
“What’s with the sigh?” Derek asked.
“Nothing. Just happy.”
“You’re not getting romantic, are you?”
It was Jamie’s turn to snort. “I don’t get romantic. I’m just a guy who’s having fun driving along with his oldest friend in the world who happens to be an occasional trick.”
“Occasional as in every single night for the last two months.”
“Well, yeah.”
“After all these years of friendly abstinence together, we suddenly jump into bed and pork like bunny rabbits for eight solid weeks.”
“Pork like bunny rabbits. What a lovely expression. Rates right up there with fuck your balls off.”
“Oh hush. I wonder how it happened.”
“How what happened?”
“How we ended up in bed together that first night.”
Jamie gave Derek time to think about it while he enjoyed the sensation of exploring Derek’s tight little belly button with a fingertip. “Hormones, I guess,” Derek finally said. “Horny, humpy hormones.”
This time when Jamie groaned, it was a real one. “Yeah. And tequila. Lots and lots of tequila. My head still hurts.”
“How about your ass?”
“That too. But in a good way. And that’s from last night, not two months ago.”
They laughed, and Derek stroked Jamie’s hand again, making Jamie’s laugh ratchet down to a dreamy little smile. He couldn’t see it on his own face because he was too lazy to look in the visor mirror, but he knew it was there all the same. It was somewhat worrisome, too, that dreamy, contemplative smile he could feel twitching on his lips. My God, what if he was beginning to feel romantic about Derek? What would that do to their lifelong friendship?
“We met in fifth grade,” Jamie said, pondering out loud.
Derek cracked the window to get some air into the car. Either the night had grown warmer, or he was having a hot flash. He realized, of course, that Jamie’s roving fingers so close to his groin might have something to do with that. “I know. I was there. You tried to steal my milk. Hmm,” he hummed, sticking his nose through the crack, “smell that night air.”
Jamie rolled his own window down, letting in a blast of air that made his hair thrash around on top his head. He stuck his face through the opening, squinting into the night. “Smells like a monsoon coming!” he yelled into the empty countryside.
“They don’t have monsoons in California!” Derek bellowed. “And get back in here. You look like a Rottweiler hanging out a car door with his tongue flapping in the wind.”
Jamie dragged himself back inside. He was grinning like an idiot, hair going every which way. Batting his eyelashes, he leaned against his seat belt and laid his head on Derek’s shoulder. “Ooh, if I was a Rottweiler, we could do it doggy style.”
Derek laughed. “And break every law of nature there is. You’re impossible.”
A sudden flash of lightning sizzled across the sky in front of them, making them both jump. A moment later, fat raindrops began pelting the windshield. Derek switched on the wipers. Soon their comforting song filled the interior of the car. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. It was a pleasant sound, Jamie thought. With his head still snuggled against Derek’s shoulder, Jamie returned his hand to Derek’s bare belly. His fingers twiddled idly with the hair around Derek’s navel. Both men grew quiet as they watched the road in front of them darken with rain.
“Any idea where we are?” Jamie asked.
With his lips in Jamie’s hair, Derek gave a good-natured growl. “Oh ye of little faith. I know exactly where we are.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere north of Mexico and south of the Bering Strait.”
“Very funny.”
Derek tapped the GPS monitor on the dashboard. “Honestly. We’re right where we’re supposed to be. See? There should be a turnoff coming up soon, and a few miles after that, a bridge. We’ll cross the bridge and continue on down a gravel side road for fifteen miles or so, and that will lead us unveeringly toward the house we’re trying to find.”
“So you hope,” Jamie drawled.
To which Derek didn’t quibble. “Yes. So I hope.”
For the space of about fifteen seconds, the rain came down so hard that even the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. The sound was deafening. The downpour pummeled the car, almost stripping Jamie’s breath away. Being a Southern California boy, Jamie was more accustomed to drought. He didn’t like storms. When the rain eased up a little, his blood pressure dropped. He tried to relax. Through the streaming windshield, he could see the empty highway stretching out before them, disappearing into the rainy, wind-tossed distance. Derek tapped his index finger against the steering wheel. Clearly he was about to say something important. Which he finally did.
“I know we’ve been over this a dozen times, but I still don’t understand why we both received invitations to a house party from someone we don’t know.”
“From someone we assume we don’t know,” Jamie corrected. “Since the invitations weren’t signed, we really don’t know if we’re acquainted with the person who sent them or not. Personally, I think it’s some idiot friend of ours.”
“But we don’t know that for sure,” Derek pointed out. “And still, Jamie Roma, you putz, you insisted we come anyway.”
Jamie laughed. “Because it’s an adventure! It’s a lark. It’s mysterious. It’s a weekend house party in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles out of the city, cut off from the world, and being hosted by someone we may or may not know for reasons we haven’t got a clue about. Besides, at the bottom of the invitations they promised heart-stopping door prizes. Quote, unquote. Who could say no to heart-stopping door prizes?”
“Anybody with brains!” Derek snarled. “I’ve seen horror movies that start this way. While we’re tooling down this spookyass, rain-drenched highway heading straight into the maw of oblivion with thunder and lightning crashing and flashing all around us, I can imagine the opening credits of a really gory slasher movie unscrolling over our heads as we speak. Jamie and Derek on the Highway to Hell. Three for the Road with Jamie, Derek, and Leatherface. Queers on Elm Street.”
“That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there. Listen. Have I ever steered you wrong before?”
“Oh please, Jamie. When have you ever not steered me wrong? Remember that Mexican restaurant you wanted to try last week? The one where the cockroach crawled out of my taco?”
“You should have had a burrito.”
Derek ignored that. “I wonder how many guests there will be.”
“Like I care. Let’s just hope the booze doesn’t run out.” Jamie perked up. “Suppose there will be tequila?”
This time Derek’s groan came from the heart. “Oh God, I hope not. One shot of tequila and you end up with your legs in the air, toes pointed straight at the ceiling.”
“Why, thank you.”
Derek laughed. “No, thank you.”
Derek took their lives in his hands by leaning into the darkness and planting a kiss on Jamie’s eagerly expectant mouth. At the same time, their lives were further imperiled when Jamie’s fingers diddled their way south, burrowing under the buckle of Derek’s belt, which he cleverly unclasped with a flick of his thumb. Houdini couldn’t have done it better.
The car swerved again when Jamie wiggled out from under his shoulder harness and lowered his head to Derek’s lap. Rooting around with his nose like a hog hunting truffles, he unearthed exactly what he was searching for, and for the next three miles, not a word was spoken between the two.
The silence was finally broken when Derek stiffened all over and gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles went white. Far beyond his ability to do anything about it, his hips lurched upward and he emitted a delicious moan.
“That’s my boy,” Jamie mumbled, smiling. “Let it go. And try not to run us off a cliff when you do.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Derek gasped, once again lifting his ass off the seat until there was a good six inches of daylight showing beneath him—if there had been any daylight available on this miserably stormy night. While a brand-new onslaught of rain and wind pummeled the car and rocked it back and forth, he clutched a fistful of Jamie’s hair with the one free hand he dared take off the wheel.
For the next thirty seconds or so, Jamie Roma worked just as hard as the windshield wipers—trying desperately to stay ahead of the deluge.
FROM THE passenger seat, Jamie Roma slipped a hand under the shirttail of the man driving the car. He chuckled to himself when the car swerved off the road, then lurched back onto the asphalt in a spray of gravel and mud.
Derek Lee growled through what Jamie considered to be the sexiest pair of lips he had ever seen in his life. “Jesus, if that hand had gone into my pants, we’d be dead now.”
“Dead but happy,” Jamie whispered back.
Derek made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. Mostly, Jamie figured, it was a groan. Jamie didn’t mind not getting a laugh at his feeble joke, because at the same time as he was groaning, Derek was also tucking his own hand under his shirt and stroking Jamie’s fingers.
They were motoring across the high desert thirty miles outside San Diego. Even had there been daylight, there would have been nothing to see but rolling hills, a bunch of boulders scattered around like spilled Legos, and about a gazillion clumps of sagebrush. As it was, they couldn’t even see that because darkness had fallen with a resounding thud about three hours back. And now not only was it night, it was a moonless and starless night, thanks to the rain clouds that had been forming overhead all day. If not for the Toyota’s headlights and the gleam of the GPS system on the dashboard, they would have been floundering through a sea of bottomless black shadow—blind, directionless, lost.
It was also lonely. They hadn’t seen another car for ages.
Jamie jumped, pointing through the windshield at a sudden twitch of movement up ahead on the side of the road. “Lookie! A coyote!”
No sooner had he cried out than the animal froze, every ounce of its attention trained on the approaching car. The coyote’s eyes were like teeny tiny flashlights, beaming straight back at them. The beast didn’t run; it didn’t cower; it simply stood there with its front feet on the road and its rear end in the bushes, waiting patiently for the car to speed past so it could go on about its business.
“It’s not afraid of us,” Jamie said.
“Why should it be?” Derek snorted. “It’s not the one that’s lost. And don’t say ‘Lookie.’ You sound like a three-year-old.”
Jamie slapped Derek’s arm at the exact moment he spun around in his seat to look behind them as the car zoomed past the coyote. For the briefest of moments, he spotted the creature flashing to life in the red glow of the car’s taillights. Then the animal melted into the receding darkness as if it had never been there at all. Jamie swung back around and replaced his hand on Derek’s bare belly.
He sighed.
“What’s with the sigh?” Derek asked.
“Nothing. Just happy.”
“You’re not getting romantic, are you?”
It was Jamie’s turn to snort. “I don’t get romantic. I’m just a guy who’s having fun driving along with his oldest friend in the world who happens to be an occasional trick.”
“Occasional as in every single night for the last two months.”
“Well, yeah.”
“After all these years of friendly abstinence together, we suddenly jump into bed and pork like bunny rabbits for eight solid weeks.”
“Pork like bunny rabbits. What a lovely expression. Rates right up there with fuck your balls off.”
“Oh hush. I wonder how it happened.”
“How what happened?”
“How we ended up in bed together that first night.”
Jamie gave Derek time to think about it while he enjoyed the sensation of exploring Derek’s tight little belly button with a fingertip. “Hormones, I guess,” Derek finally said. “Horny, humpy hormones.”
This time when Jamie groaned, it was a real one. “Yeah. And tequila. Lots and lots of tequila. My head still hurts.”
“How about your ass?”
“That too. But in a good way. And that’s from last night, not two months ago.”
They laughed, and Derek stroked Jamie’s hand again, making Jamie’s laugh ratchet down to a dreamy little smile. He couldn’t see it on his own face because he was too lazy to look in the visor mirror, but he knew it was there all the same. It was somewhat worrisome, too, that dreamy, contemplative smile he could feel twitching on his lips. My God, what if he was beginning to feel romantic about Derek? What would that do to their lifelong friendship?
“We met in fifth grade,” Jamie said, pondering out loud.
Derek cracked the window to get some air into the car. Either the night had grown warmer, or he was having a hot flash. He realized, of course, that Jamie’s roving fingers so close to his groin might have something to do with that. “I know. I was there. You tried to steal my milk. Hmm,” he hummed, sticking his nose through the crack, “smell that night air.”
Jamie rolled his own window down, letting in a blast of air that made his hair thrash around on top his head. He stuck his face through the opening, squinting into the night. “Smells like a monsoon coming!” he yelled into the empty countryside.
“They don’t have monsoons in California!” Derek bellowed. “And get back in here. You look like a Rottweiler hanging out a car door with his tongue flapping in the wind.”
Jamie dragged himself back inside. He was grinning like an idiot, hair going every which way. Batting his eyelashes, he leaned against his seat belt and laid his head on Derek’s shoulder. “Ooh, if I was a Rottweiler, we could do it doggy style.”
Derek laughed. “And break every law of nature there is. You’re impossible.”
A sudden flash of lightning sizzled across the sky in front of them, making them both jump. A moment later, fat raindrops began pelting the windshield. Derek switched on the wipers. Soon their comforting song filled the interior of the car. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. It was a pleasant sound, Jamie thought. With his head still snuggled against Derek’s shoulder, Jamie returned his hand to Derek’s bare belly. His fingers twiddled idly with the hair around Derek’s navel. Both men grew quiet as they watched the road in front of them darken with rain.
“Any idea where we are?” Jamie asked.
With his lips in Jamie’s hair, Derek gave a good-natured growl. “Oh ye of little faith. I know exactly where we are.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere north of Mexico and south of the Bering Strait.”
“Very funny.”
Derek tapped the GPS monitor on the dashboard. “Honestly. We’re right where we’re supposed to be. See? There should be a turnoff coming up soon, and a few miles after that, a bridge. We’ll cross the bridge and continue on down a gravel side road for fifteen miles or so, and that will lead us unveeringly toward the house we’re trying to find.”
“So you hope,” Jamie drawled.
To which Derek didn’t quibble. “Yes. So I hope.”
For the space of about fifteen seconds, the rain came down so hard that even the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. The sound was deafening. The downpour pummeled the car, almost stripping Jamie’s breath away. Being a Southern California boy, Jamie was more accustomed to drought. He didn’t like storms. When the rain eased up a little, his blood pressure dropped. He tried to relax. Through the streaming windshield, he could see the empty highway stretching out before them, disappearing into the rainy, wind-tossed distance. Derek tapped his index finger against the steering wheel. Clearly he was about to say something important. Which he finally did.
“I know we’ve been over this a dozen times, but I still don’t understand why we both received invitations to a house party from someone we don’t know.”
“From someone we assume we don’t know,” Jamie corrected. “Since the invitations weren’t signed, we really don’t know if we’re acquainted with the person who sent them or not. Personally, I think it’s some idiot friend of ours.”
“But we don’t know that for sure,” Derek pointed out. “And still, Jamie Roma, you putz, you insisted we come anyway.”
Jamie laughed. “Because it’s an adventure! It’s a lark. It’s mysterious. It’s a weekend house party in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles out of the city, cut off from the world, and being hosted by someone we may or may not know for reasons we haven’t got a clue about. Besides, at the bottom of the invitations they promised heart-stopping door prizes. Quote, unquote. Who could say no to heart-stopping door prizes?”
“Anybody with brains!” Derek snarled. “I’ve seen horror movies that start this way. While we’re tooling down this spookyass, rain-drenched highway heading straight into the maw of oblivion with thunder and lightning crashing and flashing all around us, I can imagine the opening credits of a really gory slasher movie unscrolling over our heads as we speak. Jamie and Derek on the Highway to Hell. Three for the Road with Jamie, Derek, and Leatherface. Queers on Elm Street.”
“That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there. Listen. Have I ever steered you wrong before?”
“Oh please, Jamie. When have you ever not steered me wrong? Remember that Mexican restaurant you wanted to try last week? The one where the cockroach crawled out of my taco?”
“You should have had a burrito.”
Derek ignored that. “I wonder how many guests there will be.”
“Like I care. Let’s just hope the booze doesn’t run out.” Jamie perked up. “Suppose there will be tequila?”
This time Derek’s groan came from the heart. “Oh God, I hope not. One shot of tequila and you end up with your legs in the air, toes pointed straight at the ceiling.”
“Why, thank you.”
Derek laughed. “No, thank you.”
Derek took their lives in his hands by leaning into the darkness and planting a kiss on Jamie’s eagerly expectant mouth. At the same time, their lives were further imperiled when Jamie’s fingers diddled their way south, burrowing under the buckle of Derek’s belt, which he cleverly unclasped with a flick of his thumb. Houdini couldn’t have done it better.
The car swerved again when Jamie wiggled out from under his shoulder harness and lowered his head to Derek’s lap. Rooting around with his nose like a hog hunting truffles, he unearthed exactly what he was searching for, and for the next three miles, not a word was spoken between the two.
The silence was finally broken when Derek stiffened all over and gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles went white. Far beyond his ability to do anything about it, his hips lurched upward and he emitted a delicious moan.
“That’s my boy,” Jamie mumbled, smiling. “Let it go. And try not to run us off a cliff when you do.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Derek gasped, once again lifting his ass off the seat until there was a good six inches of daylight showing beneath him—if there had been any daylight available on this miserably stormy night. While a brand-new onslaught of rain and wind pummeled the car and rocked it back and forth, he clutched a fistful of Jamie’s hair with the one free hand he dared take off the wheel.
For the next thirty seconds or so, Jamie Roma worked just as hard as the windshield wipers—trying desperately to stay ahead of the deluge.
TEN MINUTES later, Derek’s clothes were once again buttoned, zipped, and properly tucked into place, thanks to a little help from Jamie, who proved to be equally adept at getting Derek dressed in the cramped front seat of the car as he was in getting him undressed. With his heart still thumping in his ears and feeling smugly self-satisfied now that Jamie had had his way with him, which was what Derek had hoped for all along, he repositioned himself comfortably behind the steering wheel and drove on through the pounding rain.
Beside him, Jamie—also licking his lips but for different reasons—leaned forward and squinted through the rainwater sluicing down the windshield. He instantly gave a whoop.
“There’s the turnoff!” he cried, grabbing the dashboard. “Right there. Don’t miss it. Turn! Turn!”
Derek jumped in response and banged his head on the roof of the car. Then he slammed on the brakes, all but strangling them both against their seat belts. The car jolted to a stop in a mudhole the size of Lake Tahoe. Outside, the rain had turned to hail. It clattered off the hood and pounded on the metal roof while Derek stared out, bug-eyed, at what lay ahead. He glanced at Jamie, and in the glow from the dash lights, saw the look of horror on Jamie’s face. He was pretty sure that same horror was plastered all over his own puss. And why wouldn’t it be? After all, the situation, the night, and especially the road ahead, looked far from promising. To say the least.
They both peered intently forward, studying the terrain.
What was labeled a county road that appeared perfectly respectable meandering its way across the map on the GPS monitor was in reality little more than two muddy ruts awash in the storm. Those ruts wove their way toward a wind-tossed wilderness of trees—some pine, some deciduous and bare. They were etched into stark relief by an occasional stab of lightning sizzling across the heavens above.
“Think this is where the Donner party got lost?” Derek mumbled under his breath.
“Don’t be silly. Just keep driving,” Jamie said. “What have we got to lose?”
“I shudder to think,” Derek answered, but he did as directed and drove on anyway.
The road was rent with washboards and potholes, and muddy water splashed all the way up to the door handles as they bumped and lunged their way along. If not for their seat belts, they would have had their brains bashed out on the roof of the car. The chassis of the vehicle squeaked and creaked beneath them, complaining every inch of the way, and Derek wondered if his poor old Toyota would survive the journey at all.
After several minutes of this, while rain and hail pelted them from above and gale-force winds jostled them from the side, Jamie leaned forward and, with his hot breath steaming the windshield in front of him, cried out, “There’s the bridge!”
Once again, Derek slammed on the brakes. This time the car slued sideways. It sloshed to a stop, still hanging on to the narrow roadway without sliding off into the bracken on either side.
Derek was just beginning to wonder if Jamie’s fingernails were leaving claw marks on his faux-leather dashboard when he decided to lean forward and study what lay ahead, hoping to come up with a game plan on how to proceed. With help from the headlights and an occasional explosion of lightning, he got a pretty good idea what they were up against, and it wasn’t encouraging.
Tucked in among the pine trees, the contraption that had the audacity to call itself a bridge squatted there in front of them in all its rustic splendor. In truth, it was merely a one-lane clapboard affair with no visible metal framework or overhead support beams and no railings on either side. Rickety, wooden, poorly constructed, the bridge looked like a death trap gleefully waiting for the next two gay boys to come along so it could snatch them into a premature and entirely unprepared-for afterlife.
“Is that thing safe?” Derek asked through squeaky, tight lips. “It doesn’t look safe. Do you think it’s safe?”
“Like I know,” Jamie all but snarled, clearly not optimistic.
In a momentary lull in the downpour, while the precipitation once again shifted from hail to rain—which in Derek’s opinion was a step in the right direction—he cocked his head to the side and breathed, “Listen!” For the space of half a dozen heartbeats they sat frozen in place, staring out the windshield. The air around them was alive with the sounds of the storm above their heads.
“If this rain keeps up,” Derek said, “it could cause a flash flood in the arroyo under the bridge.”
Jamie groaned. “Great. Could the water get high enough to wash the bridge away?”
“I don’t know.”
Jamie tried again. “Well, if we get across and the bridge is washed away behind us, is there a way for us to get back to where we started?”
“You mean back to the city?”
“Yeah. Back to the city.”
Derek punched a few buttons on the GPS monitor, scanning the maps that popped up, tracing the lines depicting roadways with a trembling fingertip.
Finally he said, “No. If we cross this bridge, there’s no way back, not on any sort of marked road at any rate.”
“And if we don’t cross the bridge, we’ll miss the party. Not to mention having driven all this way for nothing.”
“What are you doing?” Derek asked. “Weighing our lives against the possibility of free booze and door prizes?”
Jamie turned to him, his face suddenly lit with a familiar glimmer of mischief. It was his “it’s Saturday night, let’s get rowdy and raise hell, screw the consequences, I’ve got bail money” look. Derek knew it well.
“Well, yeah,” Jamie patiently explained. “What other criteria do you need?”
“I’m vaguely appalled by that devil-may-care light in your eyes,” Derek drawled. He tore his gaze from Jamie’s sexy grin and back to the bridge in front of them. “Almost as appalled as I am by the prospect of driving over that ricketyass bridge. Think the other guests got across already?”
Jamie thought about that for a minute. “Actually, we don’t even know if there are any other guests.”
“You’re right,” Derek agreed. “We don’t. What sort of idiots accept a party invitation in the middle of nowhere when they don’t know who sent the invitation or how many guests will be there when they arrive?”
“Idiots like us. I say we go for it. Cross the bridge.”
“What if it collapses?”
Jamie gave a dismissive wave at the structure in front of them. “Oh pshaw. It looks like it’s been standing for a couple of centuries already. What are the odds of it collapsing tonight at the exact moment we’re scurrying across?”
Derek chewed on the inside of his jaw. “I hate it when you say pshaw. It sounds so bucolic.”
“I’m a bucolic sort of guy.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a citified wimp! But you’re right. Statistically, if the bridge has withstood the elements this long, it should be safe enough for the next two minutes.”
“Exactly. And we definitely need to get where we’re going, because I could really use a drink right now. If this party is hosted by teetotalers, I’m going to be extremely upset. Cross the fucking bridge.”
“You’re crazy.”
Jamie shrugged. “So are you. Cross the bridge.”
“We should have packed our own booze.”
“You’re right, but it’s too late now. Oh wait, look up ahead. What’s that tucked in among the brambles and the blackberry bushes? Can it be? It is! It’s a liquor store!”
There was nothing ahead but trees and mud and rain. “You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?”
“Who me? Cross the bridge.”
Derek slipped the car into Drive. “If we die, thanks for the blowjob.”
“No, thank you,” Jamie innocently beamed, licking his lips.
And with both men holding their breath, Derek floored the car and sailed out across the bridge.
Still holding their breath a moment later, they came to a sloshing, jolting stop inside a foot-deep mudhole on the far side. They turned to peer through the rear window. In the red glow of taillights, the wooden structure gave a shudder, then seemed to settle.
“See,” Jamie said. “We’re fine.”
As if his words had conjured disaster out of thin air, there came a horrific grinding, tumbling, rushing noise that seemed to be churning its way up from the depths of the earth itself. A surge of dark water poured down the arroyo and dashed against the side of the bridge. With a heave upward amid a tiny explosion of splintered timbers, the bridge collapsed in upon itself and disappeared without a trace. One second it was there, the next it was gone, washed away in the churning flood below.
“Well, poop,” Jamie whispered in the sudden silence. His eyes, Derek noticed, were as big as dinner plates.
Less than eagerly, they turned back to study the muddy, rutted path ahead. The storm had sprinkled it with evergreen bows and pine cones ripped from the living trees. The trees themselves appeared beaten down and half stripped bare, their heads bowed in the gusting wind. Fighting to stand upright against the onslaught, they shook and thrashed on both sides of the road. Derek didn’t want to think about what might be lurking among the spookyass shadows between their battered trunks. He forced his attention dead ahead at the disappearing roadway weaving a winding narrow mud-holed path through the trees toward a stormy, uncertain distance.
“This had better be a damn good party,” Derek muttered.
Jamie grunted in agreement. Terse for Jamie, Derek thought, who usually blathered on endlessly about everything. With Jamie’s fingers tightening on his thigh, Derek tapped the accelerator enough to urge the car slowly forward into that nightmarish tunnel burrowing its way between the trees ahead. The car rocked and lurched as they sloshed and splashed and squelched along, sinking hubcap-deep into every rain-glutted pothole they passed.
Derek decided on the spot that the only enjoyable part of this miserable night was having Jamie at his side to suffer through it with him. Creeped out by the storm and the collapsing bridge and the wind and the spooky, shadowy trees, Derek was nevertheless vaguely astounded by how much he enjoyed having Jamie with him. After all, Jamie was just a friend, although there was no denying they had suddenly slipped into the realm of fuckbuddydom lately. So what did that mean exactly? Did it mean Jamie had suddenly become something more than a friend?
Dumb question.
Derek allowed a smile to play at the corners of his mouth as he drove down the miserable, bumpy cow path. He glanced down at Jamie’s hand still resting on his thigh, and his smile widened.
“Don’t worry,” he softly said. “We’ll be fine.”
Jamie didn’t speak, but his fingers tightened on Derek’s leg, and that was answer enough.
Turning his attention back to the road, Derek drove on through the storm. Comforted by Jamie’s touch, he hummed a quiet song deep in his throat to the rhythm of the whooshing wiper blades.
With hail still clattering across the roof of the car and the bridge now washed out behind them, he suddenly wondered what the heck he was humming about.
He also began to wonder—all kidding aside—if they’d really be fine at all.
John has been writing fiction for as long as he can remember. Born on a small farm in Indiana, he now resides in San Diego, California where he spends his time gardening, pampering his pets, hiking and biking the trails and canyons of San Diego, and of course, writing. He and his partner share a passion for theater, books, film, and the continuing fight for marriage equality. If you would like to know more about John, check out his website.
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