The Lion’s Mail Order Menage

Chapter 2

“Yo!  What’s your plan, brother?  You just gonna sleep for the rest of your life?  I guess that’s one way to do things, but it sure as sh*t ain’t gonna get you far.  Am I right?”

Caleb groaned and rolled over in his bed, tossing a pillow over his head and holding it there as tightly as he could manage.  It didn’t make the noise of Tyler’s fist pounding on the front door any lighter, nor did it drown out the sound of his voice, but it definitely muffled it.  Every little bit helped, right?

Half asleep, all he could do was hope that Tyler would give up and go away.  It seemed reasonable, but that would mean Tyler was himself a reasonable man, which was simply not the case.  Tyler was many things, but nobody had ever accused him of having a good, solid head on his shoulders full of level headed ideas.

Still, it seemed like things had quieted down.  Maybe that was a good sign.  Maybe it was one of those days when Tyler was so busy that he just didn’t have the patience to wait on anyone, even his best friend Caleb.  One could hope, right? 

But a seriously loud banging noise, jarring enough that Caleb was sure his heart stopped for just a moment, made it clear that there was no such luck.  He had begun his shouting anew, enough energy to last him for a week straight if necessary.  Sh*t.  There was just no getting rid of this guy.

“Hey!  You better either be dead in there or in the middle of doing something really dirty, or else I’m going to beat the sh*t out of you once I get in there.  And don’t think I can’t.  You know how good I am at picking locks.  I’m the one who taught you, remember?”

And there it was.  When Tyler wanted something, he was going to get it one way or another.  Even if he had to lie, or break the law, whatever it took, he was going to do it and get his prize.  Caleb knew that better than anyone.  He had seen it enough to know.

“I’m coming.  Just hold on a minute, will you?  Jesus, you’re loud!”

Tyler’s laughter rang loud and clear through the heavy metal door and Caleb rolled his eyes, a small smile playing across his face in spite of himself.  He was a son of a bi*ch, but he was still his brother, going twenty-five years strong now. 

He stood up quickly, wrapped a sheet around himself and headed to the door as he wiped the sleep from his eyes.  He threw the door open and gave Tyler the finger, hoping he would see how annoyed he was to be awake at the moment.  If he recognized it, he didn’t seem to care.

“Hey fu*ker, what took you so long?  Don’t you hear me knocking?”

“I’m pretty sure the whole building hears you.”

“Well, that’s on you, Caleb.”

“On me?  How do you figure?”

“You should’ve opened the door sooner.  You know I’m not going to go anywhere.”

“I was just hoping.”

“Nah,” he said, wrapping one arm around his neck and ruffling his hair with a large fist, “never gonna happen.  You should just file that away as fact.”

“Duly noted.”

“You got anything to drink in this sh*thole?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, a beer maybe?”

”A beer?  In the morning?”

“Newsflash, dipsh*t, it isn’t morning anymore.  It’s noon.”

“Oh,” he said sarcastically, “forgive me.”

He padded to the fridge and opened it up, squinting against the light and scanning the contents.  There wasn’t a whole lot there, a true sign of a certified bachelor.  There were a couple of beers in there, none of which Tyler was going to approve of, but he was going to have to make do. 

Beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?  He grabbed the first can he could get his fingers around and tossed it in Tyler’s direction, waiting to hear his reaction.  When all he heard was the crisp cracking sound of the top popping, he knew that Tyler must be having a bad day.  It was only on the bad days when he was willing to drink a domestic. 

Caleb cracked his neck, not entirely sure he was prepared for one of Tyler’s moods.  He had been dealing with them for as long as he had been alive and most of the time he didn’t mind it.  Hell, most of the time he actually kind of enjoyed it.  He felt like the dog whisperer or some kind of famous lion tamer, the only one who could keep Tyler in check. 

Sure, they were both lion shifters, but only one of them was ever close to out of control.  Only one of them was wild, and it wasn’t Caleb.  At least it hadn’t been so far.  Sometimes, in his deepest dreams, he had glimpses of what it would be like to let the lion inside of him truly run free, but those dreams frightened him. 

He would never say it out loud, but being a shifter frightened him.  It seemed like something too big to exist with and so he attempted not to exist with it at all, but instead to dampen it down until it couldn’t influence him any more than necessary.  It couldn’t always be helped, as his dreams so cruelly reminded him, but he still did his best to fight the best fight.  Most days he won, too, and that’s why he was so able to watch after Caleb without tiring.  But days like this, days when he felt tired and weak, it seemed like just a little bit too much.

“What’s going on, brother?  And don’t tell me nothing, because I can see it all over your face.”

Son of a bi*ch.  That was the thing about best friends, especially ones you had known for your entire life, they could see the things about you that you didn’t necessarily want seen.

“It’s nothing, Tyler.  Honest to god, nothing is going on.”