Page 17

torture

. . .

rysak

Mr. Good Time: Hey, sweetiebird, in town next week. Up for a good time?

July 16, 5:18 a.m.

Mr. Good Time: sweetiebird?

July 17, 5:15 a.m.

Mr. Good Time: Remember, you never have to say yes. But communicating no is in the contract.

July 18, 5:20 a.m.

Mr. Good Time: I’m getting worried. You’ve never taken this long to answer. I don’t need a yes or no—just let me know you’re alright.

July 18, 7:27 a.m.

sweetiebird: I’m not sure how to ethically answer this within the parameters of our agreement. I’m in burnout, and that makes communication difficult. I’m sorry.

Mr. Good Time: Okay, I just looked up ASD burnout. Did something happen at work? Grad school? Home?

sweetiebird: Two out of three. My sister’s boyfriend moved into our apartment. She didn’t ask me first.

And she’s usually the one I talk to when I’m in burnout.

Mr. Good Time: Is her boyfriend a bad roommate?

July 18, 4:27 p.m.

sweetiebird: Not at all. He’s very nice, and he’s taken on a third of the rent.

He’s just… here. 24/7. And I’ve never had a roommate other than my sister.

Mr. Good Time: So lots of masking.

sweetiebird: Yes. I wish she asked me first, but I don’t know if I could’ve said no anyway. She helps me so much.

Mr. Good Time: What’s the other thing? You said two out of three. Grad school or work?

sweetiebird: Grad school.

My Assessment and Intervention prof told me I needed to redo my Behavioral Intervention Project because my Positive Reinforcement Incentive plan wasn’t financially feasible with as large a population as Barrington Prep.

And he’s right.

And he wants the edited version back to him by next Wednesday.

Mr. Good Time: That’s a lot to dump on you right before your final summer pre-college grading period.

sweetiebird: You’re right. So I guess it’s three out of three.

Mr. Good Time: Feeling overwhelmed?

sweetiebird: Yes.

Also, Netflix just cancelled another show I really liked.

Mr. Good Time: …

July 18, 5:27 p.m.

sweetiebird: Still there?

sweetiebird: Sorry. I know this is a lot of me-problem personal talk. That’s why I didn’t know how to answer your earlier messages.

July 18, 5:43 p.m.

Mr. Good Time: Okay. I couldn’t get our suite at the Tourmaline for a whole week, but they have a Waterfront View room available from today until next Thursday. It’s under our usual pseudonym.

I talked to them about using the same sheets as the suite, and I put restaurant credits on the reservation, so you don’t have to worry about that either.

Mr. Good Time: And here’s the KABU rideshare credit link to get you to and from school.

sweetiebird: …

Mr. Good Time: If you’re typing a long note about how that’s too much and I can’t do that, it’s already all paid for. So if you don’t accept my generosity, it’ll go to waste.

And this puts you under no obligation to scene with me on Thursday.

If you’re not ready to go back to your apartment and need to re-up for more time, just let me know by Wednesday so that you don’t have to change rooms.

sweetiebird: …

Mr. Good Time: [using my big D voice] Just say thank you, Sir.

sweetiebird: Thank you, Sir.

You have no idea how much your effort and consideration mean to me.

I know we’re not supposed to say stuff like this, but I…

sweetiebird: …

July 18, 5:48 p.m.

sweetiebird: I really value our relationship.

Thank you. Truly, thank you for making me feel not so alone.

Mr. Good Time: …

July 18, 6:02 p.m.

Mr. Good Time: I really value our relationship too. Text me when you’ve made it to the room.

this summer

There was a bear murder exemption on our secret law books: Lex Irae Ursinae , or as we call it in Bear Mountain, the Rage Pass.

Basically, if someone did something so heinous in their form—like, say, manhandling a male’s female—that it caused that male to bear out and murder you, you got what you deserved, and the bear that killed you couldn’t be prosecuted.

“Don’t worry, Mayor! I’ll take care of cleanup,” said Grady Bjornsson, the store manager.

He and a box boy in an orange vest came jogging out with a body bag—another item Barrington’s locations near bear towns tended to order in bulk.

But they were labeled XXXL industrial duffel bags to ease the minds of any humans who might happen to come across them at the Super Centre.

Speaking of which.

“Any humans witness that?” I asked him.

“Just yours,” he replied with the cheery Barrington’s grin and index finger salute featured in all their Come and get your smile campaigns.

But any relief I felt over not having to arrange for an NDA and a six-figure you saw nothing settlement was canceled out when Lark, still standing in my naked second maul’s arms, said:

“I’m not his. Please never refer to me with that possessive pronoun again.”

Grady’s friendly expression turned confused. “Oh, I just thought since the Red Outsider Twins are in the mayor’s maul…”

He trailed off when I gave him a subtle shake of my head, then reset with another cheery Barrington’s smile—this time aimed at Gideon.

“Hey there, Twin. Want some pants? On the house?”

Gideon did. And less than ten minutes and one body removal supervised by me later, he was outfitted in a pair of Maple Leaf Red sweats with BARRINGTON’S emblazoned in white block letters down one leg.

“Thanks, Grady.” I tossed him the keys to Twinkerbell. “Mind asking someone on the smaller side to drive Wade’s car back up to Bear Town and leave it outside my brother’s cave?”

“No problem, Mayor!” he answered, catching the key and tucking it into the red Barrington’s work apron he’d tied over his vest.

Which left us free to drive back together in the twins’ truck.

However, when I reached for the back door, Gideon caught me by the shoulder and pressed the truck’s key fob into my hand.

“You’re driving, Mr. Good Time,” he growled into my head.

I gritted my teeth. Apparently, Gideon—like Callum—had sideloaded my complete history with Lark while my shields were down. Most likely while I was supervising the Halloween-level remains removal of the biker he killed.

Speaking of things that had happened behind my back…

I decided to take advantage of the open line of communication to ask Callum, “How did you convince her to come back to the totem cave with us?”

“Told her we still wanted to put a baby in her, and she didn’t have to talk to you—or even look at you after we got back if she didn’t want to,” Callum answered over our maul bond, with more Hakuna Matata in his voice than the situation of having a mate who despised her first maul warranted.

I didn’t love Callum making promises I refused to let him keep. Or that both he and Gideon crowded into the back seat on either side of her, as if I were their rideshare driver.

A little over two years ago, they hadn’t known her and I’d been the one to send Lark a three-figure KABU credit while she was going through a hard time.

I really value our relationship.

That text from over two years ago lingered in my mind as I pulled the twins’ truck onto the two-lane road leading back to Bear Mountain.

Settling into the near hour-long drive, I thought about how I couldn’t stop myself from overstepping my own boundary line to take care of her.

How I thought she was maybe going to tell me she loved me when it took her nearly five minutes—which I spent staring at her gray typing dots—to respond.

My chest had filled with disappointment when she came back with I really value our relationship , even though we’d agreed to keep the NSA label after going exclusive.

But then, a new realization dawned about the one and only burnout episode she’d ever talked to me about.

It had probably been around the time of her diagnosis—the ovarian insufficiency issue that ultimately blew up the status quo of our relationship.

Now that she’d arrived in my world—the one I’d kept hidden from her—so many things were rewriting themselves in my head.

Callum never should have made her that promise. We had too much to re-unpack and reexamine.

I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see her sitting in the middle seat between the twins. Gideon had the metal muzzle balanced on the knee closest to hers, and his hand on her bare thigh. Callum held one of her hands between both of his in his lap.

Both their maul bite channels were wide open, and I’d never seen or felt Gideon so at peace.

It made my chest ache to see her with my maul brothers like this. It was everything I hadn’t dared to hope for during our three years of assignations.

Yet it felt like I was on the other side of a chasm from the three of them.

“Lark, let me?—”

Her incensed, hate-filled gaze snapped up to meet mine in the mirror, and both twins blasted “ Don’t!” into my head. In stereo.

“She doesn’t want to, and she shouldn’t have to talk to you,” Callum said out loud. “And we’re too tentative right now to let you fuck this up even further.”

“Just drive.” Gideon’s voice in my head was all steel and threat. “Or I’ll use those black ops skills you appreciate so much in a way I promise you’re not going to like. ”

The part about her not wanting to talk to me clawed me up more than the threat.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up, baby,” Gideon said to Lark, out loud this time, rubbing her bare thigh. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s okay.” Her hard gaze softened before she shifted it from the mirror back to Gideon. “I run when I’m overwhelmed too. I call it Fire Legs.”

A few messages into our initial exchange, I’d pointed out that she seemed to have a lot of empathy—more than the stereotype about people on the spectrum.

“*Men* on the spectrum. You’re monolithing,” she’d corrected in that direct way of hers. “In my case, pattern recognition paired with affective empathy and lots of memorized strategies for interpersonal relationships often comes off as heightened cognitive empathy—which I don’t have.”