Page 1 of The One Month Boyfriend (Wildwood Society)

Silas

It’s late afternoon,the first Friday of August, and I’m making a vow.

I, Silas Flynn, hereby vow to always ask about stairs before agreeing to lift anything heavy. I vow to say no to things once in a while. I vow to use any of a plethora of excuses—busy at work, existing plans, bad back—next time Javier needs help moving his sculpture collection.

Right now I could be anywhere, doing anything, but I’m sweating myself to death in a downtown parking lot, trying to get a seven-foot-tall Mothman up a set of narrow concrete steps.

“Higher,” Gideon grunts from below. “I don’t want to—”

Clang. Mothman’s flank hits the metal banister and something falls off.

“Fuck,” Gideon swears under his breath as I switch my grip, managing to get it about two inches higher. “Hope he didn’t need that part.”

“He can come get it himself,” I mutter. “Okay, I think we need to tilt—yeah.”

The two of us haul Mothman up the stairs, one precarious step at a time. It’s like moving a couch, only the couch has sharp edges you can’t see, pokes you every time you move the wrong way, and is three times as heavy as any couch has ever been. By the time I get to the top step I’m sweating even harder, Gideon’s swearing under his breath nonstop, and my back feels like I’ll regret this tomorrow.

And the door’s shut. The wooden stopper we’d stuck in there is gone, so I balance the statue on one hand and one knee, pray, and turn the knob.

It’s locked.

I swear and re-balance Mothman. Something sharp digs into my thigh, and three steps below Gideon makes a noise of weary-yet-inevitable irritation, shifting his stance.

I skip knocking and pound on the door with the side of my fist as hard as I can, the dull thud swallowed by the humid August air.

“Hey!” I shout, already out of breath. “Javi, where the—where are you?”

It’s fucking heroic, but I don’t scream curse words in the middle of a family-friendly event. Gideon makes up for it by muttering a few more.

There’s no response. I wait about five seconds, then pound again, because this thing is heavy and if no one answers this door soon, it’ll be broken.

“That fucking idiot slacker,” Gideon growls. “The fuck did he go?”

Swearing is pretty much Gideon’s love language.

“Probably found the snack table and forgot he was having an art show,” I say between my teeth, then take a deep breath. “HEY, SOMEONE COME OPEN THE DOOR!”

“I swear to God, if he shows up with a bag of fucking Doritos in one hand—”

“This is the fire door!” a voice shouts from the other side of the door. “Go around!”

My blood pressure spikes. I swear to God I can feel my veins constricting at the voice on the other side of the door, the very last person I want to deal with while carrying this son of a bitch and sweating my balls off.

“No!” I shout back, Mothman slipping a little against a slick palm. “We’ve got one of the sculptures for—”

“If I open it, I’ll set off the—”

“It’s fine!” I roar. “Just open it!”

“What the fuck,” growls Gideon from below.

“IT’S A FIRE DOOR,” she shouts back, enunciating each word at top volume as though I’m a mentally deficient sea cucumber. “IF I OPEN IT, THE ALARMS WILL—”

“FUCK THE ALARMS!” I shout back, forgetting not to swear because Kat Fucking Nakamura sends me from zero to ten in half a second. “OPEN THE DAMN DOOR BEFORE WE DROP THIS THING AND—”

The door shoves open and hits me in the shoulder.

“Shit, sorry,” Javier’s already saying as I swear, Mothman wobbling dangerously. “Sorry, I got hung up with Linda, she wanted to make sure she’d spelled my name right on the plaque and next thing I know she’s telling me how excited everyone is to meet your girlfriend tomorrow and asking whether I think it’ll be a spring wedding.”