Page 36 of Starved Until Sunset

That earned Demetrius a long, cool look. He turned away to hide his smile.

At the first grouping of potholes, Cody eased to a stop on the shoulder. Demetrius was glad to see his expression wasn’t quite as pinched and scrunched up as before.

“You want to shovel first or me?”

“I’ll do it. You’re already behind the wheel, and the seat is adjusted for your incredibly long legs.”

“You say it like that’s a bad thing.”

“Nope, not at all. I like your long legs.” Demetrius pushed the door open and said over his shoulder, “Especially when they’re wrapped around my hips as I pound you into the mattress.”

He smiled as he heard Cody say, “Jesus Christ,” before he shut the door.

It was slow going, but they made progress. They switched places a few times, and as Demetrius slowly rolled the truck along the road, he watched the last of the daylight leave the sky. Stars appeared, and off in the woods he heard a nightbird sing. He checked the sky for bats, but all was clear. Over the low rumble of the truck engine and the crunch of gravel under the big tires, he could hear Cody scraping up patching compound and cursing as he filled the potholes and patted the stuff down.

They finally came upon the other truck, parked on the opposite side of the road. The headlights threw out an apron of light, and the yellow flashing bar on top of the cab strobed against the trees to either side. Shadows shifted and danced between the trunks and high up in the branches, and Demetrius fought back a creeping sense of dread.

They were about twenty-five yards from Spiffy and Pete’s truck when a loud clang from the back of their vehicle made him jump and brought his attention back to the road. Moments later, Cody yanked open the passenger door and climbed up into the cab, slumping in the seat.

“We’re out of asphalt,” he grumbled.

“Guess that’s it then.”

Cody sat up and glared out the windshield. “Are they fucking parked?”

“Yeah. Been that way for a while.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Cody looked at Demetrius, his expression shifting from incredulous to angry and back again. He jerked a thumb in the direction they had come. “We’ve done at least four miles of patching. They did maybe one mile, and then parked to spark another blunt?”

“We don’t know that they, um, sparked another blunt.”

“Oh, yeah? Let’s find out.”

Cody shoved the door open and jumped down. Demetrius watched him stomp up the shoulder and let the truck idle along after. This was either going to be an epic Cody outburst or more bluster than substance. Demetrius’s gut was telling him epic Cody, which he hoped didn’t lead to both of them getting fired.

As he came even with Spiffy and Pete’s truck, Cody turned toward it and stepped into the road. The yellow flashing lights from both trucks alternated covering his front and back. It was almost mesmerizing to look at. But when Cody stopped in his tracks on the center yellow line to stare at the other truck, Demetrius blinked a few times and braked to a halt. He put the truck in park and leaned out the window.

“Everything all right?”

Cody looked at him, eyes wide. “You’d better come out here.”

Oh, fuck.

Demetrius climbed down from the cab and looked up and down the long, empty stretch of road before walking up beside Cody.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s on the door of their truck?”

Something dark and sinister was smeared across the door panel, practically obscuring the city logo. Whatever it was had run in long drips down the door and gathered in small puddles on the step beneath.

“Is that…?” Demetrius couldn’t make himself finish.

“Blood? Looks like it.”

Demetrius saw the fear and exhaustion and anger bundled together in Cody’s expression, and his heart broke a little for his husband.

“Let’s call Lucia,” Demetrius said.