Page 80 of Love Spell

“What?”Noah squinted at him, holding Caleb’s grinning face.

“This is a year of abundance.”

“This is a perfect year.”

“Now you’re talking.”Laughing, Caleb leaned into the kiss.

They got away with it by sheer scarcity, staying clear of town or hiding inside, never forgetting to be careful at school, where they were buddies like any other teenage buddies.The bullying aimed at both was suspicious but mostly generalised.

They got away with it, at least, until that winter.Until the night that the only three senior boys at the local school saw them through the snow on the trail to Noah’s tin house.The Shack, as Noah and his father referred to it, the latter with affection.Smoke drifted from the chimney, lights on, Noah’s father home from the bar early.So they’d not been able to go in.They’d slunk off along the trail for a final good night, kissing and giggling at their own eagerness yet unwillingness to undress even to the point of removing gloves.

“We could still go in,” Caleb whispered.“Your dad doesn’t care if we’re in your room.I’m over all the time.”

“If he’s already home, it means he’s not drunk.We don’t need him hanging around.Go home.”A long kiss, holding onto each other.“But I’ll see you at the junction in the morning.”

They were going out on the snowmobiles, assuming Caleb’s was in working order.Sometimes it was, sometimes it had bits detached for improvements.

“Come over to my place first,” Caleb said.“Breakfast.”

“Only if you’ll make pancakes.”

“I promise.”

Their final goodbye was prolonged and silent, Noah having to stop Caleb from opening their parkas.Caleb, despite struggling every winter to cope with the cold, also wouldn’t take it seriously.It was only -28°F that night, dangerous for exposed skin, but nothing too bad.Once it got to -50°F your spit would freeze before it hit the ground.Caleb had yet to live through a winter like that, though he eagerly claimed to want to perform this trick.

Laughing, Noah had to shove him away from zippers.“Keep your gloves on, you goof.Run home.You’re shivering.”

Caleb saluted and set off, Noah, still laughing after him, turned up the path where the outside light reached him through new-falling snow.

Noah had no more time to watch Caleb off or take in the dance of light as a noise to his left made him spin around, thinking a moose was charging from the trees.This was almost too far north for moose, but they did stray this far and they were terrifying, far more dangerous and unpredictable than bears or anything else that roamed the Alaskan wilderness besides humans.A bull moose could weigh almost as much as a small car and move seemingly as fast.

In the next second, Noah smelled beer fumes and felt the blow to his knees blast out of nowhere.He hit the snow with a stifled yelp, instinct from so much secrecy keeping him quiet when he should have been yelling for his dad, fifty yards away in the warm shack.

“Who the fuck was that?”Trevor Feldman loomed over Noah in the dark.

Noah scrambled to get up, bogged down by layers, panting with the pain in his knee.He only had to reach the door — not engage.

“Brant, get the other one,” Trevor barked.“And we’ll have caught two fags for the price of one tonight.”

Noah tackled Brant around the shins, slamming him face-first into a drift at the side of the walkway.

“Hey!”

“You son of a bitch!”

“You’ll pay for that, asshole!”

Everything started happening so fast, Noah had no idea who was who among the three, or how far they dragged him away.Still, it never crossed his mind to shout while he was within shouting range.If he’d yelled, his father may or may not have heard, may or may not have come out, but Caleb would have heard and he’d have turned around.

Noah kept his teeth clenched while they dragged him through the stunted forest and snow, out of all sight of town lights, trying to land a few blows of his own in the dark while they pinned his arms.

“You like seeing other guys naked, faggot?”

Even as they kicked him over and over, Noah trying to protect his head while his ribs broke and his nose fountained blood, he was more scared for the loss of his parka and gloves and hat and boots than for his bones.They didn’t really strip him.They didn’t need to.Losing just a parka could be enough to kill a person out here if he was disoriented or blind or too slow on the uptake at reaching a heat source.

Noah was all three by the time they left, laughing and throwing snow at him, their jeering voices slurring with the pickled jubilation of their own accomplishment.

He couldn’t think through the pain, couldn’t catch a breath, like being trapped in lava, the broken bones crushing in at him, from eye socket to hand to ribs folded like a smashed egg, to the ankle that they’d violently twisted while forcing his boot off.

---