Oleander House: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 1

ultimately faced down.
Amy’s lifeless body in Andre’s arms. The feel of Bo writhing under him, Bo’s mouth open and hungry on his.
The tentative knock on the door was a welcome distraction from the memories that wouldn’t leave him alone. “Coming!” he called.
The last person he’d expected to see standing in the hallway was Bo. Sam blinked, surprise holding him frozen.
The corner of Bo’s mouth curved up in an uncertain half-smile. “Hi, Sam. Can I come in?”
Sam stood silently aside. Bo edged past him, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, with dark shadows underneath. Sam longed to hold him, stroke his hair and comfort him, but didn’t dare. One thing Sam had learned in the past month was that Bo preferred to grieve in private.
“So,” Sam said, finding his voice at last. “What’s up?”
Bo glanced out the window, licking his lips, and Sam abruptly realized that Bo was nervous. “We never really got a chance to talk much,” Bo said. “In Gautier, I mean. After.”
Oh. That. Sam swallowed, his nerves jangling. “No, we didn’t.” He gestured toward the battered twoseater sofa and mismatched recliner. “Sit down. You want a drink or something?”
“No thanks.” Bo perched uneasily on the edge of the sofa, fingers twisting absently together. “Look, Sam, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Nothing that started that way, Sam thought, could possibly be good. He sat in the recliner, which squealed in protest, and plastered what he hoped was a relaxed smile on his face. “What is it?”
Bo looked down at his lap. “You weren’t the first.”
Sam frowned. “First what?”
“The first man that I…” Bo cleared his throat. “You weren’t the first.”
Sam stared, shocked. He savagely suppressed his instinctive hurt and anger. Bo had something to say, and Sam was determined to listen calmly and without judgment. “Tell me.”
Bo drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was after I met Janine, but before we got married. We’d only been going out for a few months at that point, actually. She got a job in Chicago, working for a newspaper there. She’s a journalist, you know,” he added with a little smile. “Anyway. She broke up with me. She said there was no way we could sustain a long-distance relationship, and it was better this way.”
Bo fell silent, but Sam thought he could guess what was coming next. “Go on,” he urged. “I’m listening.”
Bo didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, his voice had dropped to a near whisper. “I was upset, but not so much because she’d left. More because I wasn’t as upset as I thought I should be, you know? I felt…I don’t even know. I missed her, but not the way I thought I should have.”
“What happened, Bo?” Sam asked gently.
“I met this guy in New Orleans,” Bo said in a voice full of misery. “I’d gone there for the weekend with some friends, and Cal and I met at the Voodoo museum. He worked there. We just, we got along so well, and I was lonely and confused because of what I did and didn’t feel about Janine leaving me, and one thing led to another, and we…” Bo closed his eyes tight, brows drawn together. “We never had sex. But the way he touched me…God, it was good. Better than anything with Janine ever was. I spent most of the weekend in his bed, and it was amazing. It turned my entire fucking life upside down.”
Sam thought back to the conversation he’d overheard between Bo and Amy, another lifetime ago, and a sudden flash of insight hit him. “Amy was there, wasn’t she? She was one of the friends you went to New Orleans with.”
Bo nodded. “She caught Cal and me kissing. You know how she is—” He stopped, voice breaking. “How she was. She didn’t leave me alone until I told her the whole story. She tried to tell me that it meant more than just satisfying some strange, one-time urge. She said I’d regret it if I tried to brush off what happened with Cal as an anomaly in my life.” Bo let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “She was right. I wish I could tell her that.”
Sam felt a pang of sympathy, recalling the first time he’d recognized the tingly feeling he got looking at other boys for what it was. When you’ve been brought up to believe that a boy should only feel that way for a girl, it was horribly confusing. He supposed the confusion and trauma of it didn’t lessen any with adulthood.
“You wanted to deny