Chapter Twenty-Two

Hot Dog Hooligans

Rafe

"You threw an egg at him?" I asked Nev in disbelief the next morning on the phone.

He'd just finished telling me about his encounter with Ewen after he'd left my place last night, and I had no idea what to make of any of it.

"It just happened, man. I saw the eggs. I couldn't stop myself," Nev said. "I was mad."

Despite how unsettled I felt after hearing about their conversation, I snorted, an affectionate smile twisting my mouth. "Thanks for defending my honour."

"Anytime, bro." Nev hesitated. "Rafe, I really am sorry for basically telling him it was your first time with a guy. I didn't realise he didn't already know. I mean… I figured that was why we were so pissed at him for leaving so quickly afterward," he added uncertainly.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, but I frowned down at my coffee cup as I stirred creamer into it. "Don't worry, man. Seriously. I don't get why he… I mean, surely he knew already. It's not like I've ever hooked up with a guy before—brought one home. I think he was just… bullshitting you because he knows he's been a dick. And he wants everyone to like him."

Nev was quiet for a few moments, before he said, "It really seemed like he didn't know, Rafe."

I snorted, dumping my spoon in the sink. "Nah. He had to have known. He's just… doing damage control now, for some reason. Can't stand the fact that I'm not fawning over him or something. I don't know."

"So you didn't actually tell him?" Nev asked hesitantly. "That it was your first time? Or that you only recently realised you were into guys?"

"Um, I…" I rubbed my neck, shifting uncomfortably. "I mean… no, I guess I haven't explicitly told him either of those things. Like, I haven't said the actual words ."

Nev sighed. "Rafe."

"It was implied!" I blurted, my face heating again. "I mean, surely it was really fucking obvious the other night that I'd never done that before?"

"Not necessarily. Maybe you're just a natural dick wrangler."

"A natural—" I stopped and flushed even hotter, letting out an awkward laugh. "Uh, no, dude. I was really nervous. And then when it got, uh, more involved , I was just…"

I trailed off in embarrassment, my face on fire.

"You were just what?" Nev asked, sounding intrigued.

I cleared my throat, struggling to think of what to say without humiliating myself. Desperate. Needy. Writhing around on top of him like I was the slutty cowboy.

"Overcome," I said after a long pause, then cringed. "I mean overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed. It was just… a lot."

Mind-blowing. Life-altering. It had felt like my head was going to explode. And then he'd literally removed his own head to drink down our cum at the same time.

I let out a shaky breath, anxiously spinning my cup on the counter and spilling coffee everywhere. Grabbing a paper towel, I cleared my throat again.

"Anyway," I said, trying to make my voice firm. "He's still a turd."

"I mean, yes, he's definitely still a turd for ‘coming and going,' so to speak, but…" Nev hesitated. "Now that we've realised he didn't know the significance of the—"

"Hey, woah, hold on." I frowned as I mopped up the spilled coffee. "We don't know that for certain. I still think he was lying to save face. He's only ever seen me date women before, so why would he think I've also been hooking up with guys this whole time?"

"You're a relationship guy, Rafe. Not a hookup guy," Nev said patiently. "It's not like you've ever had a lot of people spend the night at your place. He probably just assumed you've happened to only date women since he's lived next door."

My frown deepened as I dumped the soiled paper towel in the trash.

"Plus… I mean…" Now Nev sounded a little hesitant. "You did try to kiss him. And told him you'd been humping your mattress over him. If you never actually mentioned the fact that you only recently realised you're queer, I… kind of understand why he didn't come to that conclusion himself."

I pursed my lips. What Nev was saying made sense, but I didn't fucking like it.

I wanted to stay angry, damn it.

"Traitor," I muttered.

"I'm just—" Nev sighed. "I'm just trying to look at the facts here. You started watching him suck his own D at night. You got off to it. You then told him both those things and tried to kiss him. If a dude did that to me, my first thought would not be, ‘This is all brand new to him.'"

I clenched my jaw, despising how rational Nev was being, then blurted, "Whatever. He's still a d-bag for taking off before his dick had even finished going down."

"Oh yeah, he absolutely is," Nev agreed. "But we've established that he's a fuckboy. It's obviously his MO. The hit it and quit it. The pump and dump."

"I get it," I grumbled.

"The fuck and chuck. Breed and bail."

I choked on a breath. "Breed?"

"My point is, I don't think it was personal. It's just what he does."

My shoulders sagged as I ran my finger along the counter. "Yeah." Mouth twisting, I hoarsely admitted, "I feel so stupid."

"You're not," Nev said firmly. "He kissed you. It progressed from there. These things happen."

"But I knew he was a fuckboy."

"It's easy to get caught up in the moment and not consider things like that."

"I guess," I muttered sullenly.

"And… I mean, if it's any consolation… he seemed really determined to find out why you've been avoiding him, bro."

My mouth twisted again as I turned to lean back against the counter. Automatically, I glanced out the kitchen window at the fence separating my yard from Ewen's. It was Thursday morning, which meant I didn't have to go into work until later. But I wondered if Ewen was already there, rehearsing for the show.

Eventually, I just grunted.

"Sooo…" Nev continued, "maybe he isn't viewing what happened as a one-time-thing. Maybe he's hoping for more."

My belly clenched with something I didn't want to examine too deeply. I managed a weak scoff. "He's the one who left straight after."

"Well, maybe he… Maybe his fuckboy muscle memory kicked in, and he just found his legs carrying him outside even though he actually wanted to stay."

I rolled my eyes. "Dude."

"We don't know how dullahans work!" Nev protested. "They're rare. Maybe sometimes they work more like… reanimated corpses. Just going through familiar motions without conscious thought."

My face screwed up. "Dude," I repeated. "Please don't call someone I've hooked up with a reanimated corpse."

"Okay, yeah, that was pretty offensive to all parties involved," Nev relented. "I'm just…"

"Clutching at straws?" I offered dryly. "For some unknown reason."

"I just don't want this whole thing to have been a really shitty experience for you."

I sighed. "I know. And it wasn't. Really. I, uh, enjoyed it. The… sex part of it. At the time. So… that's something."

"Okay." Nev still sounded worried. "I've just got to work, so I have to go in a sec."

"'Kay." I straightened and turned to grab my coffee.

"What are you going to do if he knocks on your door? Or tries to talk to you at work?"

My belly fluttered with intense nerves. "Ignore him."

"How are you going to do that… professionally?" Nev asked doubtfully.

I pursed my lips. "He'll be busy today because of the show later. So will I. And I… I'm pretty sure he'll give up, anyway. He doesn't care that much. He's just butthurt because I'm not salivating over him or whatever. He'll move on to someone else soon."

"Mm." Nev didn't sound convinced.

"Seriously." I managed a wry smile, but I wasn't all that amused. "Fuckboy muscle memory, remember?"

He sighed. "Yeah. Fuckboy muscle memory."

I was full of anxious energy when I got off the phone to Nev. There were still several hours before I had to be at work, and as I stood in my kitchen, fidgeting restlessly, I considered going in early just so I had a distraction. But if Ewen was there, I didn't want to spend any more time in the building than necessary. Just in case. At least here I could lock the door. There, I was exposed. Vulnerable.

Making a decision, I abandoned my undrunk coffee and went upstairs to change into workout clothes. A few minutes later, I was walking at a brisk pace on the treadmill in my garage, starting to get warmed up while I scrolled to the latest episode of the Super Effing Creepy podcast on my phone.

I hit play and dropped it into the cupholder, then increased the treadmill's speed to an easy jog. Some of the tension melted from my frame instantly. It had been a while since I'd bothered to run, and I knew I'd feel calmer and more relaxed by the end of it.

After the podcast's opening theme music had played, one of the hosts, a faun called Edgar, started speaking. "Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Super Effing Creepy , the number one podcast for supernatural true crime aficionados. Thanks for joining us, ghouls and gargoyles. Meryl, how are you doing this week?" he asked his co-host, Meryl the banshee.

"Yeah, I'm great, but oh my gosh, Ed, you're not gonna guess what my cat did the other day—"

I grabbed my phone to skip ahead ten minutes, like I always did. I wasn't interested in the preamble of the two of them chatting about their lives until they got to the good part.

"…want to go first this week?" Edgar was saying when I hit play again.

"Yeah, I'm really excited for this one," Meryl replied. "Okay, so you know a while back I talked about the Bratwurst Bandits?"

Edgar huffed in amusement. "Oh yeah, yep, the, uh… those two little guys who carried out a string of robberies in the nineties?"

"That's the one. So I was thinking about them again last week—I mean, not surprising. It was such a weird case, and they were never caught. And I ended up falling down a rabbit hole online and discovering that"—she paused for dramatic effect—"they may have popped up again a decade later."

"Ooh. I'm intrigued."

"Uh-huh. So my case this week, Ed, is about the notorious duo who tormented residents in the Midwest in the early noughties. I'm going to be talking about the Hot Dog Hooligans."

Ed huffed. "Sensing a theme here."

Meryl chuckled. "Right? If they didn't want people to connect the dots, maybe they should've picked a non-sausage-related name this time."

"And you say they were in the Midwest this time? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the New York area their playground before?"

"That's right, and I'll be talking a little more about that toward the end. Seems like they were making their way across the country…"

"Oooh," Ed said again with a little laugh. "Okay, awesome. Great. I'm ready."

"Okay, cool. Okay, um… well first, I'll quickly recap what we know about the Bratwurst Bandits—"

"And to anyone listening who hasn't heard that episode yet, we strongly urge you to go back and give it a listen," Edgar interjected smoothly. "It's a great one."

"Oh yeah, it's a wild case. Their little stripy robber outfits?" Meryl cracked up. "It still tickles me thinking about these two little gremlin, goblin, whatever-they-are dudes breaking into dojos to steal competition trophies and stuff. But , Ed," she added excitedly. "That's not what they did this time."

"Oh no?"

"Nope. This time, they were all about heads."

"Oh damn. That's a lot darker."

"Not people's heads," Meryl clarified. "They've never been linked to any truly violent crimes like murder. But basically, across several small towns in the Midwest in the early noughties, someone started sawing the heads off statues, cutting them out of posters…"

Edgar chuckled. "So they went from armed robbery to the milder crime of vandalism, but with significantly more sinister undertones. Got it. You could call that…"

" Super effing creepy !" they said together, then laughed.

"Oh man, I love us," Meryl sighed, still chuckling.

"I love us too," Edgar replied. "Okay, sorry, I'll stop interrupting. Go on."

"So these heads would turn up in the following days with wigs on and terrible make-up drawn on them, that kind of stuff. Plus they'd always have a, uh… certain phallus-like appendage graffitied on them, just like the Bratwurst Bandits. Except this one was always drawn in a hot dog bun."

"Oh wow. No subtlety there. Is it wrong that I'm suddenly craving a hot dog?" Edgar joked.

"My boyfriend and I actually went out to get beer and bratwursts after the other episode." Meryl chuckled. "Oh shoot. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. I still need to recap the story of the Bratwurst Bandits…"

As I listened to her briefly go over what she'd covered last time, I found myself frowning a little. I could've sworn the Bratwurst Bandits sounded familiar, even though I'd never heard of them prior to the previous podcast. But something about them was just sending a signal to my brain, a weird kind of recognition sparking.

By the time the podcast came to an end forty minutes later—after Edgar had followed Meryl's story about the Hot Dog Hooligans with the case of a notorious incubus sex cult leader from 1970s California—I was worn out and dripping with sweat.

I slowed the treadmill to a walk to cool down, wiping my forehead with my arm. Grabbing my bottle from the cupholder, I gulped down some water as I tried to calm my heart rate. The air was chilly in the garage, making the sweat soaking my T-shirt cool quickly.

As I turned off the treadmill, my gaze caught on something directly in front, tucked on the shelves next to the chest freezer. A plain black plastic bag.

My gut bottomed out when I remembered what was in it.