Cemetery Blues

By Layla Dorine

Five years ago, Ethan Rayne's life was on the right track. In college, a member of the football team, on his way to a degree, with a boyfriend he cared for deeply and a bright future ahead of him, it was a far cry from the place he'd grown up, and the life he'd led in that dismal, falling down house.

Then tragedy struck the person closest to him, his little sister, and despair, grief, and self-loathing led him to throw everything he'd worked for away. Bitter, struggling to get through his days while drowning his nights in alcohol, Ethan has been on the fast track to self-destruction ever since they lay his sister's body in the ground. Personally, he's alright with that; feels he more than deserves to end up in a hole right beside her, and truth be told, is doing his damndest to end up there.

Enter Byron Walters. Slamming into the stumbling drunk shambling up the block should have been a momentary disruption of his night, only the drunk turned out to be Ethan Rayne, former college football teammate, but more than that, the man who'd broken Byron's heart when he'd slipped away after a night of passion, never to be heard from again.

By all accounts, Byron should hate him, has hated him for years. Only as the truth is revealed, and Ethan's reason for abandoning everything and everyone becomes clear, Byron can't help but want to help him. As Byron comes to realize the burden Ethan is carrying, he also comes to discover just how much love he still has for the other man. Can he help Ethan save himself, or will he allow his former teammate to drag them both down a path of no return?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Desolate Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223423690

Layla Dorine

LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, traveling, and visiting museums and haunted places.   Layla got hooked on writing as a child and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.

Book preview

Wasted. Ethan was pretty sure he was way over the limit. Not like he planned to drive; he’d never risk wrecking his baby that way. Getting home was going to be a bitch though. His eyes were heavy, and it was only thanks to the crumbling brick of an old convenience store that he was still on his feet and shambling along. All the lights were starting to blur together, twisting and bending too. The aged neon of the beer sign flashed an odd off blue against the cracked window and he cocked his head, trying to read the few letters that still glowed. P P S  U  IBB N made absolutely no sense to his whisky sloshed brain so he stumbled on, gripping the iron grating over the door to steady himself before he wandered on past.

Was he going in the right direction? Confused, he whipped his head around, hoping to get his bearings, but all that did was make him dizzier than he already was. He reached the corner of the building and pressed his head to the cold, rough bricks, closed his eyes and felt everything slipping sideways even as he dug his nails into the walls, trying to hold himself up. One nail bent back, he supposed that might hurt in the morning, at the moment, he couldn’t care less as long as he stayed on his feet. Which way was home again?

Sucking in a deep breath, he let it out with a ragged cough. The night air carried the fetid stink of spilled coolant and stale exhaust with just the hint of rotting garbage. Oh yeah, the dumpsters were around this side, and the sticky-sweet stench of rot drifted his way with every gust of wind.

Lifting his head from the stone, eyes heavy-lidded as he struggled to focus, he swayed, shaking as he clung to the rough bricks. Blurry headlights were still much to bright, and he closed his eyes with a groan, remaining that way until he’d figured they’d passed him. His arms trembled and his mind fogged out, heading to that soft, fluffy place where nothing mattered. He was so tired, he’d been tired before the bar and the whiskey had only muddled his head more, leaving him weighted with the sort of heavy lethargy that only a hundred proof could bring. Good, that meant there would be no nightmares and he wouldn’t wake to the echo of his own screams and tears drying on his cheeks.

Maybe he should just sleep there the night, in the glass beneath the half-busted sign that still proudly proclaimed open 24 hours. Wouldn’t be the first time someone had slept there, might as well be him tonight. He was slowly letting gravity take hold when a voice, slurred and mean, accompanied the shoe that kicked him in the leg.

Whatchu think you’re doin’! This ma corner. Git, damn you! Git on outta ‘ere! Git!

The man might as well have been shooing a mangy dog for all her cared about Ethan’s comfort. The foot came again, hard leather connecting with his shin. He blinked into the craggy old face of a wino, the man’s snow white hair sticking up in several directions. The old man waved a brown paper bottle, rotten wine breath making Ethan wretch. Perhaps he’d find another corner, or maybe autopilot would kick in and his feet would find their own way home.

Giggling at the thought, he steadied himself and with a mock salute to the wino, shambled on. The space between buildings was harder to navigate. Reaching out to nothing, he imagined he looked like a tightrope walker in an old-time circus film, wobbling high above an awed and worried crowd. Maybe if he had a balancing stick he wouldn’t fall over. As it was, he wove an unsteady path down the cracked sidewalk, tripping where a root had buckled the pavement.

With a jolt that sent him first spinning, then sprawling, he collided with something solid enough it almost knocked him out. Head down, he waited for the world to stop whirling, hair hanging lank and stringy in his eyes.

When was the last time he’d washed it?

The thought almost made him laugh. Funny how he only seemed to care about himself in a moment of disaster. Not like he’d remember in the morning. Not like he’d bother if he did.

Hey buddy, you could at least say excuse me.

The voice was angry, rough, and seemed to be coming from somewhere directly above him, but for all his efforts, he couldn’t make his throat work to respond.

Hey!

The voice was angrier now, harsher and closer to invading his space with an explosion of rage. He flinched when the hand dropped onto his shoulder and gave him a brutal shake. Clenching his jaw, he fought to swallow down the bile rising to the back of his throat, trying to trigger the urge to vomit. The hand and voice persisted, and with significant effort he raised his head.

Rayne?!

The sharp change in the voice, shock mingling with disbelief, left him blinking and batting at his hair so he could peer blearily at the hulking form.

"Holy shit, it is you!"

With way more speed than was necessary, Ethan found himself yanked to his feet, making the universe shift and slide sideways, his stomach lurching as it did. He gagged, and grasped blindly for something to hang on to. A firm hand enveloped him, anchoring him, giving him something to focus on as he struggled to get his bearings, a losing effort, really.

You’re wasted.

Disappointment colored the words. Ethan wished he could feel bad, but he was so used to disappointing everyone that it just didn’t hurt the way it used to.

Efforts to steady him were futile. His back hit bricks, a wall, the building again, maybe, everything had blended together into a fuzzy haze. He started to sink back down to the cool concrete. Firm hands yanked him back upright and still he teetered, groaned.

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to let you walk home?

Me. Ethan rasped. Maybe not such a good plan.

No shit, came the sarcastic response.

Great, just great, even complete strangers thought he was an idiot. Only, oh yeah, he wasn’t a stranger, the guy knew his name, sorta. He hadn’t been called Rayne since football.

Who are you? Ethan carefully enunciated.

The guy about to save you from a public intox charge, came the reply, even as Ethan felt his arm being jerked over a broad shoulder. Giving little thought to where he was being taken, Ethan focused on getting one foot in front of the other without getting them tangled up. Stumbling, he would have fallen if not for the man gripping him tight around the waist.

Don’t make me carry you, the man grunted as Ethan swayed and nearly collided with a lamppost, or at least, that’s what the shadow-shape resembled.

Ethan groaned, at this point, he didn’t care if the guy had to carry him, he just wanted to close his eyes and drift away.

Fuck! He heard the guy growl, then he felt himself being lifted with a harsh grunt and a ton more obscenities.

Shit, you’ve been working out or something. What the hell have they been feeding you since I saw you last?

Ethan would have loved to get an answer to his earlier question about who the fuck the guy was, then maybe he’d know how long it had been since they’d last seen one another. But he was just too damn tired to form anymore words. The last thing he remembered was pressing a sloppy kiss to a sweaty neck before passing out.

///

Byron Walters grunted beneath the dead weight of the man he carried, unable to believe it was Ethan Rayne he was cradling in his arms. Five years ago they’d been part of the Grayville University football team together, building towards a winning season for the second year. There had even been Bowl hopes, the closer and closer they got to the end of the season. Then one day Rayne was just…. gone. No word to the coach, no word to any of his teammates, no word to Byron who’d been his closest friend…and more. Or at least, he’d thought they’d had more. Rayne hadn’t even cleaned out his dorm room, school officials had, boxing everything up and sending them god knows where. No one would ever tell him, confidentiality and all. For a while he’d held out hopes of a letter, hell, even a postcard would have been nice, but as the school year came to a close, he’d quickly realized Rayne was gone for good.

Now it seemed like fate had remedy that. Fortunately, it was only a half a block to his apartment, ground floor as luck would have it because he hadn’t been kidding when he’d said Rayne had gained weight, the guy had to weigh at least a two hundred pounds of solid muscle and it wasn’t gym muscle either. It felt like the kind one only got from hard, honest labor, all corded tendons and sleek, supple definition. Not like Rayne had been a small guy when Ethan had known him, just that he’d still been more boy then man.

Now…Byron grunted as he paused to kick the door closed behind him, torn between taking Rayne to his room or dumping him on the couch. In the end, dumping him on the couch won out, because there were too many unspoken words between them. Too much anger and hurt feelings too, at least on his part.

Rayne let out a low groan and Ethan paused, his hand on the light switch on his way out of the room. With a shake of his head, he fetched a bottle of water and a bottle of aspirin, and set them down on the coffee table where Rayne was sure to see them when he woke up.

Pausing there a moment, he stared down at the five o’clock shadow that added a hint of roughness to a face he recalled always being clean shaven. He remembered the feel of it beneath his fingertips when he’d lain there stroking along Ethan’s jawline in the darkness of his dorm room, the only safe place for their trysts since he had a single