Mandarin Orange: Sweet and Sour
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Mandarin Orange: Sweet and Sour
COLOR BOX
An imprint of Torquere Press Publishers
PO Box 2545
Round Rock, TX 78680
Copyright 2011 by TC Blue
Cover illustration by Alessia Brio
Published with permission
ISBN: 978-1-61040-191-3
All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Torquere Press. Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680.
First Torquere Press Printing: March 2011
Printed in the USA
“Dedicated with thanks to Brenda and Katie. It’s largely thanks to you that this book was finished… and that I had such a blast in San Francisco! You ladies rock!”
Chapter One
It was raining on the day Riley Abrams felt his world change. Though raining might not have been a strong enough word, and Riley definitely knew from words. He used them frequently, and if many of them were comprised of four letters and frowned upon in polite company, well, that was fine. He didn’t really do polite company much, choosing to spend his time at the gym and at work, with a decent smattering of hours with his friends thrown in there for good measure.
Balance, Riley. That’s what’s important in this world. Work hard, definitely, but always make time to live your life. There’s no point in working if you don’t have a chance to enjoy what it gets you, right?
His uncle, Peter, had been saying those words, or some variation thereof, for all Riley’s life, and Peter would know. At just-turned-fifty-and-never-mention-that-in-public, Peter had never been shy about his own happiness. Riley’s father, on the other hand, thought Peter put far too much weight upon personal pleasure, and while Dad wasn’t exactly thrilled that Riley had chosen to take Peter’s words to heart rather than Dad’s, well... it wasn’t that big of a deal.
It was made even less of one by the fact that Riley wasn’t counting on getting lucky the way his uncle had done. Amazing what one little innovation in hair-care that had originally involved a stick, a piece of comb, a zipper, and three rubber bands could become, but that had happened more than twenty years earlier and for Riley’s uncle, as opposed to Riley’s father. Riley thought his dad might be a little bit jealous of Peter’s easy success, but he would never say so out loud. He was barely willing to say so in the privacy of his own mind.
None of which changed the fact that it was Saturday. The day had started out very warm and unusually humid, and only gotten more so, according to the Weather Channel. Riley didn’t know personally, but that was what they’d said when he’d woken up at ten thirty, and he’d decided it was likely to become too hot to go to the gym. By one o’clock in the afternoon, Riley was glad of his choice. He was already sweating enough, even in the dubious breeze created by the fan he’d stuck in the window, that even the idea of lifting weights had him feeling nauseated.
Then the clouds rolled in, dark and thick and looking more like heavy, near-black smoke, and Riley only noticed them when he realized he was squinting in his living room, the room lit only by the glow of his television screen. The infomercial for Peter’s latest incarnation of the original
Hair Master
flashed, Riley having somehow missed the storm warning scrolling until just then, though maybe he’d been dozing in the stifling heat and hadn’t known it. He knew the infomercials for Peter’s products pretty much by heart, so it was possible.
“As seen on TV is fucking right,” Riley muttered, even as he pushed to his feet, leaving the couch behind. “Holy shit,” he added, this time speaking to the one and only plant he owned and somehow hadn’t managed to kill yet. “I’ll bet this is gonna be one huge-ass fucking blow-up. Cool.” He opened the French doors that led onto his balcony and sighed happily at the whipping wind, hearing its susurrus finally, now that the television was a good ten feet away. “Very cool.”
Five minutes later, Riley was outside, comfortable in his thin cotton tank shirt and cut-off cotton pajama pants. He had an open bottle of beer sitting on the small table by the railing of his deeply-eaved wraparound balcony for his apartment on the second floor of the quaint Victorian house. He leaned back in his chair and smiled, waiting for the first splatters of rain to start.
Drops fell slowly at first, and cool enough that Riley thought he could hear the pavement in front of the house hiss and spit a little as each particle of water struck. There might even have been steam, though Riley was fairly sure that was his imagination rather than anything truly likely. Then the rain fell harder, faster, and wasn’t just rain anymore.
A deluge, a torrent, drenching Hartford with violent urgency. Yeah, four-letter words weren’t the only ones Riley knew, though he tended not to advertise that. The point, as far as Riley was concerned right then and there, was that it was fucking awesome. Nature exploding in all -- part of, anyway -- its fury. The only thing missing was...
Loud and deep, so rough and rumbling that Riley felt it building in his bones long before he recognized the first touch of sound, the thunder shook him down to the bone. Shook his hand enough that he almost spilled his beer. “Alcohol abuse, you fuckers,” he called out to the sky, amused by the notion that there might be storm gods around to hear him and saddened by the knowledge that there
were
no gods anymore, if there had ever been. But whatever. Riley would be fucked if he’d let that rob him of enjoying what was shaping up into a hell of a tempest.
The lightning flash came nearly three seconds later. Riley knew. He’d been counting. The flash came and it lit up the world, it seemed like, leaving jagged slashes of dark-against-bright on Riley’s retinas for a moment, and he loved it. It was primal and strong as fuck. Powerful and undeniable, and it made him feel small. Just being there, on his balcony, watching the fearsome, uncontrolled force of the storm building more by the second, drinking his beer while little needles of rain struck at his feet and calves whenever the wind shifted right...? Oh, Riley felt like a man. Not a child hiding from that primal fury, but a man who braved it, admired it. Not enough to leave the shelter of his observation point, of course. He was a man, not a moron.
It was definitely cool. Right up to the point where another sound slipped in -- a different kind of rumble that Riley didn’t notice until more thunder broke and faded out.
This wasn’t a rumble that seemed to build in his chest. It wasn’t actually connected to the storm at all. Instead, it was higher pitched yet still low, and somehow Riley thought it would be smooth, if not for the odd, felt-more-than-heard whine buried beneath the surface. It seemed to... he didn’t know what, really, because it wasn’t a stutter, but it was rough. Like muffled barking, maybe -- mechanical rather than organic. Try as he might, Riley couldn’t pin it down. Not direction or even the manner of beast, what with nature raging just inches away.
He stood, leaning out into the driving rain, his beer left behind, abandoned on the table. Water pounded at him, soaking him through in moments and running down his back to his waistband before continuing, trailing a cool path along the back of his leg. Head bowed, letting most of the rain drip from wet strings of hair, Riley stared hard through pearl-gray sheets of angry cloud-spill, eyes raking misty haze and dark gray air, until... there.
It was dim. Almost invisible, with the storm slaking its fury on Hartford with such determination. Still, it was there. Pale and watery --
because hello, it’s fucking raining down fucking buckets, right?
-- and getting closer. One single, simple gleam, like a dying moon moving unsteadily. It was accompanied by the rumbling whine that seemed to rise and fall, and Riley found himself leaning farther over the railing, his eyes narrowing more and more in an effort to focus, to make out what he was seeing. Then the pale, wandering moon came closer, veered toward the house, and lightning flashed again, harsh and whiter than white.
“Oh, shit!” It hurt his eyes this time, rather than just flashing a negative image onto his vision, and even at that, Riley counted himself lucky. Whoever was driving the motorcycle -- because that’s what the lightning had shown the shaky moon and whining rumble to be -- must have caught even more of that painful spike, likely because the strike hadn’t vanished into the ether the way the last ones had done. It had hit... something. Riley didn’t know what. Whatever it had been, though, the person riding the motorcycle had been surprised by it. Enough so that the bike was careening -- slowly, but still -- up the driveway, headed straight for Riley’s car.
“Oh, shit,” Riley said again, more yelp than shout, but that was fine. Fuck if it wasn’t. What was a little bit less fine was that he had to go out into the full anger of the storm, with lightning bolts that apparently didn’t have anything against hitting things in Riley’s neighborhood.
He was across the living room, out the door, and halfway down the steps to the first floor by the time he thought about that part, though, and when he shoved open the front door of the house and stood on the porch, he groaned. The motorcycle, complete with some weird-ass trailer thing, had fulfilled the promise of its earlier direction, its front wheel jammed fully into the back wheel well of Riley’s old Bronco.
Ordinarily, Riley would have given a shit about that, but another rumbling, drumming roll of thunder sounded and the driver of the motorcycle had apparently been thrown, because there was a helmeted body on the ground a few feet from the joined vehicles. There would be more lightning in a second or two, damn it, and Riley figured he’d never forgive himself if he let the downed rider get killed.
“Fucking fuck,” he muttered as he leaped from the porch and ran toward the person lying on the ground. Then “Fucking
fuck
!” when he got closer and heard a soft, low howling coming from the back of the strange little trailer attached to the bike. Now it wasn’t just the rider. Riley had some sort of dog to worry about, too.
“Fucking fuck.”
***
Should have stopped at that hotel.
The thought played through Kelly’s mind for about the fiftieth time since he’d decided not to do just that.
I should have stopped and bought a meal or something, even if I couldn’t afford to stay there without using credit.
Of course, he probably wouldn’t have been allowed inside for lunch at the Hotel Durmont in downtown Hartford, either, judging by the look of the place. The hotel itself was all columns and fancy windows, with a doorman and a valet. There was not only a clearly fancy restaurant, but a so-called pub attached to the place that was almost as fancy as its parent business. Kelly suspected that the pub was overpriced, as well, just from the looks of things. He doubted that any of the three would let him inside with a dog, no matter how violent the storm.
It was his own fault for not listening to the weather report, but he’d been so close that morning. Only four hours away from his new place, really, and Goobs had distracted him by nearly breaking free while Kelly was trying to get him into the travel crate. Not that Kelly could blame the poor dog.
He
wouldn’t have wanted to spend hours locked up in a plastic cube, either; especially with the exhaust fumes and road dust.
The fumes weren’t that bad, really. Not enough to cause Goobs more than a bit of discomfort, according to the vet back in San Francisco. Even so, Kelly had been taking the trip slowly, stopping every couple hours at rest areas to let Goobs out to do his business and have some water -- that was important, considering how much hotter it had gotten the farther east they went. Kelly still felt horrible for trying to make the last leg in one long haul. Then the storm.
God, the storm. It had come on so suddenly. One minute, it had been
too
bright and sunny, and the next, black sky. Only ten minutes later, the thunder and lightning started, accompanied by a heavy rain Kelly hadn’t anticipated. But he’d been so close. So damned close when it all started. Close enough that he’d figured he could tough it out until he got to Calderon Drive, and now...?
Well, now I’ve crashed my bike into someone’s car, my dog is pitching a fit, and I’m about to drown in my own helmet from the rain. God, I think the wrong one of us is named ‘Goober.’
And what an ignominious end. Drowning on land because he’d been too impatient to stop, then startled by lightning striking the tree he’d passed.
Kelly just knew his kid brother, Robin, would laugh like a maniac on hearing how Kelly had died. After an appropriate amount of mourning, of course, because Robin would definitely mourn. So would Kelly’s sister, Amanda, but Mandy would never laugh over it, not even after the first shock wore off. That was more of a guy thing, anyway.