Page 6 of Hummingbird and Kraken

Too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right ones.

So he retreated into fiction, his mind filled with bold heroes, eternal loves, daring adventures, and tight friendships. All of the things that his life lacked.

When he’d left, he’d packed his crates of books and DVDs first, his limited art supplies second, and his makeup and clothing third. Food and a couple of mementoes had been an afterthought.

Which reminded him that he really did need to get to somewhere with internet and an ATM to figure out what was going on with their joint bank accounts. He’d started out their relationship with some savings, then quit his job when Mike said he’d take care of him.

It had seemed like a dream at the time, and of course, that’s exactly what it turned out to be.

But for all that Declan liked the idea of being taken care of like a pampered pet and making a happy home, he knew that he had a lot of marketable skills and could stand on his own two feet. Losing the fantasy of being cared for was the part that really sucked the most.

Since most of his books were still in a car in some other town, he decided that looking through his belongings was only going to pull him down. He might as well take a walk. He grabbed one of his sketchbooks in case he felt inspired. It had been a long time since he felt inspired.

He touched up his makeup and pulled on the purple sweatshirt over his ad hoc t-shirt dress. He probably looked silly with the length of blue cotton hanging below his short-cropped hoodie, but he wasn’t giving up Geir’s shirt until he absolutely had to.

Outside, the air was sweet and fresh. It made filling his lungs an experience of connection and appreciation.

Yeah, his life was in total shambles, but it had been before and he always had his books to come back to. They never let him down.

Right now, he was going to appreciate being where he was and consider it an adventure. He’d made a delicious lunch, met a hot, brooding man, and now he got to experience a rapidly expanding dream of living in a little cabin in the woods.

He let the rushing sound of the trees wash over him, not paying much attention to where he was going. For better or for worse, he was trampling down the undergrowth as he walked, and it looked like his path would still be pretty clear when he wanted to turn back. If he were in a movie, he would sure make a shitty spy.

He spotted a glimpse of something ahead that seemed to sparkle and moved toward it. He lost it for a moment as the trees thickened, and then he realized what it was. The lake. He certainly hadn’t gone looking for it, but now that it was there…

He wasn’t going to go in it. Even though he loved to swim, he respected Geir enough to listen to his “it’s forbidden” warning.

But he did wonder what had made Geir so nervous about it. Declan could come up with hundreds of possibilities, and he went through them in his head as he wandered vaguely closer to the water. Spy lab, cannabis farm, hidden spaceship, gold mine, motorcycle club, artist workshop… there were just so many good ones. He considered a puppy mill, but he didn’t think Geir would hurt animals like that.

He also went through the practical options, too. Quicksand, dangerous animals, a place where someone he loved had drowned, sinkholes. Though were sinkholes different from quicksand? He thought they were.

Declan pulled himself up along a steep incline, and when he got to the top he realized he was much closer to the lake that he’d realized. In fact, he could see Geir, standing at the end of a little dock, absolutely naked.

Oh, hell yeah. Skinny dipping? There was no way he was missing out on that one. It wasn’t like he could even see Geir’s front. Just his muscular legs and well-formed ass. That little dimple at the base of his spine, and his muscular shoulders that sported a tattoo that he couldn’t quite make out. He definitely wanted to know more about that tattoo.

Maybe tomorrow he could casually bring up skinny dipping, suggest he’d like to try it, and see where that led. Cold water would definitely be worth it for naked Geir.

In a perfect, shallow swan dive, Geir entered the water. Declan watched as he came up a few yards out, and then submerged again. He came up a bit farther away, then did a few lazy crawl strokes, more playing around than trying to get somewhere as far as Declan could tell.

Then he dove back down.

And didn’t come back up.

Declan almost stopped breathing himself.

Geir really wasn’t coming back up.

A flash of color stretched out across the surface of the lake where Geir had gone under. But it slithered back into the water. Was there some debris down there? Was he trapped?

Declan took off down the hill, dropping his sketchbook without a thought and wrenching his hoodie off as he went. He’d been a lifeguard in high school, and his training kicked into gear.

Seconds counted, but if he was weighed down too much by loose, soggy clothing or inflexible shoes, he could get trapped himself or lack the strength to pull Geir back. As soon as he hit the dock, he simultaneously pulled his shirt over his head and kicked off his shoes. He shimmied out of his pants, knowing that he was wasting time. He’d already worked out that he needed them off to preserve the stuff in his pockets, which he might need if he took Geir to the hospital. And it would give him the most flexibility.

Then he was in the chilly water, pulling hard toward the place where he’d last seen Geir.

He cursed how murky the water was, even though it was probably pretty clear for a lake. He was used to swimming pools, though, where you could see straight down to the pale blue bottom.

Another shimmery flash of pinks and greens caught his eye and he moved toward it. Hopefully this was what had Geir stuck.