Shattered (Set In Stone 7)

Shattered (Set In Stone)
Megan Slayer
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2020 Megan Slayer

“A great night with great friends,” Eric said and held up his wine glass. He clinked glasses with his partner, Danny, then his friends Chris and Steve. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“I am, too.” Steve draped his free arm around Chris. “I never thought I’d be able to come back from the dead.”

“Neither did I.” Chris leaned into Steve. “I’d be lost without him.”

Eric sipped his wine. He wanted a love as big as Chris and Steve’s. Life, death, time… none of it managed to break them. That was what he wanted with his partner, Danny. He loved Danny with his entire heart, and had since they’d first met. They’d been together for nearly twenty years.

“I would be destroyed without Eric.” Danny finished his glass of wine. “He’s the only person who knows me better than I know myself. He cleans up after me and doesn’t complain about laundry.”

“I do complain about the hairs in the sink.” Eric elbowed Danny. “Every time you clip your moustache, you leave a mess.”

“It’s a gift.” Danny kissed him. “Sorry.”

“I thought we’d never have those conversations and arguments again,” Chris said. “I thought I’d lost Steve forever.”

Eric nodded. He remembered the day Steve died. He’d held Chris as he cried and tried to help him after the event. He’d spent time at the apartment when the gay cancer grew worse. His heart squeezed. He couldn’t imagine losing Danny to the cancer. Only gay men seemed to get the disease. The guys didn’t show symptoms right away, but when they did, they seemed to get worse quickly. He’d never forget the sound of Steve coughing as the pneumonia overtook him. Or the sight of Steve hacking up blood.

“I’m immortal.” Steve laughed. “Okay, maybe not, but I’m bitchin’.”

“You are.” Chris pressed a kiss to Steve’s neck.

“How?” Eric asked. “How were you able to come back?” He needed to know. In all of his religious studies, he’d never come across any situation where a being had come back from the dead, and Steve had certainly died. He’d seen him in the casket and watched him buried.

“Come on.” Danny elbowed him. “You don’t really think he came back? He never left.” He rolled his eyes. “It was a gigantic lie pulled on all of us. Bullshit.”

Chris tensed, and Steve placed his wine glass on the coffee table. “It wasn’t a lie,” Steve said. “It was Bob and the spell.”

“Sounds like a bad trip to me,” Danny said. He left the sofa and strode into the kitchen.

Eric rubbed his forehead. Danny didn’t want to discuss anything metaphysical, anything paranormal… none of it. He didn’t believe. The tips of Eric’s ears heated, and his skin itched. He hated when Danny got irritated in front of their friends. He loved Danny more than anything, but sometimes the guy wouldn’t listen.

“It wasn’t bullshit,” Steve said. He lowered his voice. “The cancer was real. You saw me cough up blood. You saw the sores. I didn’t make that up.”

“I know.” Eric sighed. He waited for Danny to duck into the bathroom. “But he doesn’t think you came back.”

“He wouldn’t believe Bob, either.” Chris leaned back in his seat. “I didn’t believe. I mean, I got a letter and couldn’t open it right away. It hurt too much to lose Steve and when I finally read the letter, I didn’t think it was real. I mean, Jesus. The letter seemed to be from Steve and telling me to go to a shop. Then I go there and there’s a robot that looks just like Steve. It was uncanny.”

“How did you know it was him?” Eric needed to know everything. The concept of reincarnation fascinated him.

“I just did.” Chris shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. He knew things someone reading about me wouldn’t know. He had the mole on his ribs, the scar on his hip… He knew where to touch me. As much as I wanted to think it was, as Danny said, bullshit, my heart knew better.”

“Is that how it all came together?” Eric asked.

“It’s a spell. By falling in love with me, like he’d been before, he broke the spell and allowed me to live again,” Steve said. “I don’t suggest going through the spell a bunch of times or trying to die to have it enacted, but it gave us the second chance we needed.”

“Cancer didn’t win.” Chris patted Steve’s thigh. “We did.”

“God.” Danny strode back into the room. “Too mushy and a load of crap. Spells don’t exist and neither does reincarnation.”

“You don’t mean you wouldn’t want to come back if you died?” Steve asked. “You wouldn’t want a second chance to be everything you’re not right now?”

“No because it’s not something that happens.” Danny sat beside him again. “People don’t come back, and robots don’t turn into people. This isn’t Pinocchio.”

Eric toyed with his wine glass. “Sorry.” Embarrassment threatened to swallow him whole. Danny didn’t open up often, especially if something scared him, and that left Eric to clean up the mess when Danny spoke his mind.

“We need to go. I’ve got work in the morning,” Danny said. “If I don’t show up at the gym, then the kids won’t have anyone to monitor their basketball games.”

Eric finished his wine, then stood. “Can I take these to the kitchen for you?” He scooped up his glass and Danny’s, then nodded to the adjacent room.

“Sure.” Chris stood. He rubbed his hands on his jeans legs, then followed Eric into the kitchen.

Eric rinsed the glasses in the sink. “Thanks for the conversation this evening. I enjoyed myself.”

“Welcome,” Chris said. “I know it seems farfetched and hard to believe. But if something happens to Danny or you and you want to come back, consider Start Me Up.”