Running Wild

you.”
Not really. Ri hadn’t done a great caretaking job. He veered back to the subject at hand. “I’m not saying driving is my favorite means of travel. But it’s doable.”
After a time of silence, Seamus said out of the blue, “I should warn you.”
Ri tried to dampen his alarm, wondering what the warning could possibly be.
“My parents, well, my mother, can be a bit nosy.” Not sure what that meant, Ri cocked his head. Nosy about what? “Okay.”
“Don’t mind her. She means well. She tries a bit too hard, to compensate for the fact she’s not quite comfortable that I’m gay, you know? I figure by the time I’m fifty, she’ll be used to it.” Seamus offered a wry smile. “My dad’s fine though. Less talkative too.”
Ri nodded wisely, since he was supposed to be making something of this description. Then he ventured, “Haven’t you always been gay?”
Seamus snorted. “Well, yeah. But I didn’t tell my parents until I was nineteen, right before we first met as a matter of fact.” He glanced at Ri. “What was Zachariah’s reaction to your being gay?”
“I was what I was.” Ri shrugged. “He was a lot more concerned about us being horse shifters.” Grandfather had been worried about impetuous Zach’s romantic proclivities, not Ri’s, and for good reason, given how Zach’s first love had played out.
“So…does shifter blood run in the family?”
“Yep. My other grandfather, who died young. Got himself shot.”
“God.”
“Going in to a herd of horses and making them wild and crazy will do that. Farmer came out with a gun and killed the so-called wild stallion. Shot him in the head.”
The concern in Seamus’s eyes increased.
“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on doing the same.” Ri sometimes wondered if Zach had gone that route. Though his grandfather had worked hard to reinforce the idea that horse shifters and horses were entirely separate beings. Had tried to keep them away from horses as if to avoid their other grandfather’s fate.
“And your parents?”
He didn’t want to talk about them. They’d left a strange hole in him— sometimes he thought bigger than Zach and Grandfather—despite their being the people he’d come to despise.
“That’s all right,” Seamus said quietly.
Ri cleared his throat. “They didn’t treat Zach and me all that well. So Grandfather came over one day and took us away. When they came to get us, he pulled a shotgun on them.” He paused. “They never came back.”
That bothered him the most. Their effort to retrieve their children had been so halfhearted. He could have dealt with them being misguided in their idea to keep Zach and him as horses more than children, but that they just up and left them… They must have been relieved when his grandfather took over the childcare duties.
“I don’t know where they are now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Ri shrugged, and in the silence that followed, he smiled a little. When Seamus noticed, he said, “I don’t remember talking so much to someone before. About myself.”
“That’s what you get for kidnapping me yesterday.”
“I rescued you.”
“We’ll see.” Seamus’s tone was amused, he wasn’t pissed off. He clearly intended to show Ri the error of his ways, in terms of his thinking. Ri could have mustered the energy to be offended, but it wasn’t in him. Besides, Seamus didn’t think Ri was stupid for his way of thinking, he just thought he was wrong.
Exactly what Ri thought of Seamus.
It was midday when they drove up to his parents’ house, so it was likely his mother would be home—she worked part-time—and his father wouldn’t. As Seamus opened the door, Ri behind him, he called out, “Mom?”
She appeared from the kitchen, a pleased expression on her face—at hearing Seamus’s voice, he knew. When she saw Ri, that was replaced by puzzlement. Not disapproval, he told himself. He was too sensitive when it came to her and her approval, and he was a little ashamed of it at his age.
“Mom, hi. I thought we’d drop by. This is my friend Ri.”
“Hello, Ri.” She went into hostess mode, shaking his hand while managing a brief assessment of his clothes which, Seamus realized, were a bit ragged and out of date. He’d had other things on his mind. “Are you a neighbor of Seamus’s?”
Ri had to think a moment before he answered, “Yes.”
“Mom,” said Seamus. “Pete dropped by yesterday.” Had it only been yesterday?
Her face brightened. “Did he? Such