Chapter Fifteen
Hidden between stacks of dusty books and deserted tables, Pip found Alex standing by a book cart, returning books to their proper places on the shelf. Alex had landed a summer job at the library. Pip had no idea how he’d pulled it off, but he figured Alex’s charm had gone a long way toward getting him one of the cushiest summer jobs Beaumont had to offer.
“Can we talk?” Pip asked, leaning on the book cart. After taking up Alex on his good advice to go back to the woods and find the man who left the gifts, Pip was as guilty as the next teenager of neglecting friends due to first love.
Alex raised an eyebrow. “I don't see you for two weeks. You text me just the scantiest details about your new boyfriend. And now you want to talk, when I'm at work?”
“Yeah. Can we?” Biting his bottom lip, Pip felt guilty that he'd not met up with Alex sooner. He'd just sent brief vague messages about being busy and seeing a guy. He would've, if he'd had time. With no point in looking for work because of his impending move, he'd spent as much time as possible with the Hunter, leaving little time for anything else.
“Only if you keep your voice down,” Alex replied. “This is a library, after all, Pip. Talking isn’t exactly encouraged.”
Pip rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’ll keep my voice down.”
Alex picked out a couple of the books and appeared to study the covers intently. All for show, Pip suspected. “You’ll also accept that I get to shush you if I feel like you’re getting out of hand.”
“Alex, really?” By the looks of it, Alex was sorting through old bodice-ripper romances. Pip wrinkled his nose and moved his elbows, so they were a little bit farther away from the books.
“Shh.” Alex winked, replacing the books on the cart, exactly where he’d gotten them from. “You’re in my domain now, Pip. My place of employment, my rules.”
“You really are something else.”
“That’s what makes me, me.” Alex picked up the next book and hummed softly as he scanned the shelf, looking for its place. “So, what do you want to talk about so badly that you needed to track me down at work?”
“There’s a lot going on. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning, and then stop once you get to the end.” Alex fitted the book into its place on the shelf. “Ramble in the middle if you need to. I don’t think anyone would blame you for that.”
Pip scratched the back of his head. “You know the stories your grandma told you?”
“Yes.”
“They’re real.”
Alex snorted. Pip locked eyes with him, and the playful grin on Alex’s face faded. “Oh,” Alex said. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah. I…um…the guardian of the forest, with the antlers? He's the guy I've been seeing.”
“Yeah?”
“He was courting me. And now we’re sleeping together.”
Alex slapped his hands over his mouth and laughed through his nose. “No.”
“Yes.” Pip crossed his arms. “It isn't funny, you know. It’s serious.” Pip sighed.
“I just get a kick out of thinking you’re shacking up with some antler-tree-man.” Alex dropped his hands, but his grin remained. “Is he good?”
“Alex!”
“Shh.” Alex held a finger to his lips, eyes sparkling with mischief. “This is a library, remember? Inside voices.”
“Shush yourself, Alex. This is a library, remember? No questions about my sex life.” Pip pinched the bridge of his nose. He should've known Alex would pull something like this—but then again, it was a relief not to be caught up in his own head so much. He was very much overthinking things.
“Okay, okay, so you don’t need to tell me how good your supernatural lover is. I’ll let it slide. What’s gotten you so riled up that you need to talk to me? I think that’s the most important issue at hand.”
“Aunt Lauren and Uncle Joe are selling the house and moving to Riverside.”
“And?” Alex made a circular gesture with his hand, urging Pip to continue.
“And the Hunter can only manifest in the weak spots between dimensions. I don’t think Riverside is one of them, and it’s a four-hour drive one way. It’s not like I’ll be able to get back to see him regularly, especially since Aunt Lauren and Uncle Joe want to send me to college.”
“So the plot thickens.” Alex picked up the next book to be shelved. “You know, you could do a long-distance relationship. Plenty of people do them.”
“I don’t think the Hunter has a phone,” Pip said dryly.
“You can get him one. Or, you know, you can come back whenever you’re able. He’s immortal, right? I’m sure it isn't like time means very much to him.”
It wasn’t so easy. The masked disappointment on the Hunter’s face broke his heart. It wasn’t the look of a creature to whom time meant nothing. Pip knew their separation would hurt the Hunter. Although he wasn’t an emotional entity, he had obviously felt a great deal of pain while they were apart.
“It isn't about time,” Pip attempted to explain. “It’s… There’s this bond between us.”
“Like soulmates?” Alex grinned. He held up a book cover. A historical romance, by the look of the lovers on the cover.
“Like soulmates, yes. In another life, he put a mark on my soul, and now we’re connected. It doesn’t feel right unless we’re close. I’ve spent my whole life with this feeling—kind of like I’m incomplete—and when I’m with him, it goes away. It feels like I’ve come home.”
Alex set the book down at the end of the shelf and leaned toward Pip. “That forest god works fast. You think you could ask him if he has any friends who are into plucky blonds? I’d even consider going brunette again, if you think that’s going to get me a god between the sheets.”
Pip huffed. “I’m serious.”
Alex straightened up tall. “Seriously, why don’t you stay in Beaumont? I mean, I know your aunt and uncle are moving, but it doesn’t mean you need to go, too. You’re eighteen. You can do what you want, since you’re an adult and they can’t make you go.”
Pip shook his head. “No. I don’t have a job, and I wouldn’t be able to get an apartment. Time’s too short for me to get my life together. They’re moving at the end of the month. How can I stay behind when I don’t have a place of my own or any kind of employment?”
“So I guess you need to decide what’s more important to you, don’t you?” Alex asked. “Is it more important that you keep your family together, so they don’t worry about you, or is it more important that you stay with your new lover?”
“Old lover.”
“Same thing.” Alex waved a hand. “Whoever he is, you’ve got a decision to make. What is your heart telling you? If he’s what you want, you’ll find a way. And he might even help you. Have you asked him?”
Before Pip could give it too much thought, a woman approached the book cart. Both Pip and Alex turned to look at her. Kind brown eyes studied them, almost motherly in their affection. A wool shawl was draped over her shoulders—strange since the already-warm temperature was set to rise—and her long, simple dress swept the floor. With gray hair pinned to the back of her head, she appeared understated but regal.
“Hello.” Her voice quivered as a sign of her age.
Pip couldn’t put an exact number on her age, not even confident enough to place her within a decade. As a random guess, he decided she might be in her seventies.
“Do one of you young men work here?”
“That would be me, ma’am,” Alex said. “What can I help you with?”
But the woman’s eyes weren’t on Alex, even when he addressed her. They were on Pip. She pushed her lips together and approached, laying a wizened hand on the book cart as she came closer.
Pip was standing near the bookshelves, which meant he had no place to go as she closed the distance between them. Her eyes narrowed with curiosity.
“My, oh my,” she murmured. Her eyes locked on Pip’s. “I didn’t think I’d see the day.”
“I’m sorry?” Pip asked, trying to keep his tone of voice as divorced from fear as possible. It wasn’t that he was afraid of what the woman might do to him, but since the strange goings-on with Megs the other day, Pip remained on guard, alert for trouble.
“What a fortunate young man you are,” she said fondly. “I hope you understand what an honor it is.”
Pip parted his lips, but he had nothing to say. The woman shook her head slowly. She reached out and cupped the side of Pip’s face, eyes locked on his still.
“Your mark,” she added.
“I…” Pip mumbled. “Thanks.”
“After all this time.” She tutted, then took her hand from his face. “I never thought I’d see it. What a miracle it is, this universe we live in. Don’t you agree?”
Pip cast a wary look to Alex, who was watching the conversation with interest. He leaned forward on both elbows, one eyebrow quirked.
“Well,” the woman said when Pip didn’t reply, “that’s all right, I suppose. You’re young. You have the rest of time to figure out what a gift the universe is.”
“Um…thank you,” Pip said again. The woman meant him no harm, but the confrontation left him feeling uneasy. Would every being related to the weak point between dimensions recognize him?
What if he moved away?
Pip figured there would be fewer other-worldly entities the farther away he traveled from a weak spot, but it occurred to him that he had no idea how many other weak spots there were. If his soul originated in South America, then surely there was more than one. How many more precisely, he didn’t know. He didn’t know a great deal about it at all.
“This is what I'm looking for.” The woman took one of the books from Alex’s cart and tucked it under her arm. “What flawless timing. Thank you for helping me find the book, and thank you for renewing my faith in true love.” She winked. “Take care, boys.”
As the woman disappeared behind one of the nearby bookshelves, Alex shook his head slowly. “All right. So. What I learned from that encounter is either you’re desperate enough to prove your story that you hired an actress to drive the point home, or you’re actually telling the truth, and this isn’t some convoluted prank.”
“It isn't a prank.” Pip sighed. “I don’t know how I’d make this up.”
Alex nodded. “I suppose so. It looks like we’ve got quite the situation on our hands.” He frowned. “I mean, not that my advice from before doesn’t still hold up. It does. All this boils down to is, you’ve got a choice to make, and you’ve got to decide what’s most important to you.”
“But how do you decide something like that?” Pip asked. “I feel like I’m being pulled apart in six different directions, and I don’t know how to get my bearings. How do I decide what’s right and what’s wrong? The things I’m feeling don’t even register at the same level. It’s my family versus the man I think I’m destined to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Or, the easy path is what people expect of you, and the difficult path is the one they don’t,” Alex said. “The things that are easy right out the gate probably aren’t worth doing. Whereas the difficult thing, you’ve got to figure out how to make it happen.”
Pip sighed in exasperation, and Alex lifted a finger to silence him. “But, and this is a pretty big but—I think there’s one thing on our side that few other people in your situation have.”
“What is it?” Pip asked. He looked at Alex, half expecting a poorly timed joke.
“Age.”
“Age?” Pip frowned. “That’s… that’s kind of the issue here, actually. If I were older and on my own, I wouldn’t need to worry so much about upsetting Aunt Lauren and Uncle Joe. Right now, I’m still too dependent on them to think they won’t worry about me if I tell them I’m going to live as a hermit in the woods.”
“Nope.” Alex shook his head. “Not the angle I’m going for, sorry. What I mean is, who cares what choice you make, really? Think about it. You’re eighteen. Your soul might be eternal, but it doesn’t mean your current body is, right?”
“Um. Right?” Pip still wasn’t sure what Alex was getting at.
“So, make the choice you’re going to make. Whatever it is, do it with confidence. You’re young. We’re new to this whole adulting thing. The good thing about being new?” Alex winked. “You’re bound to make mistakes. It’s expected. So go out there and make your mistakes, Pip. Fuck it up. We’re young—if we mess up, we can just start over.”
All of the pieces clicked. Pip grinned. “You’re a little bit the best, you know that?”
“Eh.” Alex slotted another book back onto the shelf, a mischievous smirk curling the corners of his lips. “If you want to go ahead and tell that to all of your lover’s friends, sure. Otherwise, nah. I’m just a normal guy who happens to have some good advice to dispense from time to time.” His grin grew. “The rest of the time, I’m just as busy making mistakes as you are.”
Pip moved as if to leave and Let Alex get on with his work.
“Hold on. Tell me more about this old love of your life. Surely I should get a few details. Like does he wear the antlers in bed.”
Pip's mouth fell open and he quickly snapped it shut. He knew Alex well enough to expect at least one question like that. “No. He wears nothing in bed. No antlers, no furry pajama pants, no nothing. That's all I'm giving you right now.”
“We'll talk when I'm not at work. Right? I want to know where you go with him and if he's this important to you, I want to meet him.”
“Sure thing. And shall I call you mom?” Pip took a step away from Alex.
“Hardly, babe. I want to find out if he got any single friends. Male and gay, obviously.”