The Terror Gaze: Book 2 of The Mortal Guard Series

Chapter 23 - Nick: If Only There Were A Happy Ending

Chapter 23 - Nick: "If Only There Was A Happy Ending"

Four days after the events in the sewers . . .

Nick had been laying in bed, curled into a ball on his side when there was a knock at the door. His tail was curled and his arms were folded on the mattress with its soft heather gray sheets. He lifted his head at the sound, groaning.

The hyena yawned and stretched, traveling out of the room to the front door. As usual, when he opened it, Richard was standing there. He couldn't help but grin. "Always fashionably early."

Richard was dressed in dark blue pajamas provided by the Mortal Guard. The soft pants and long-sleeved shirt looked great on the older raccoon. "The word you're looking for is 'lovingly'. Lovingly early."

Nick rolled his eyes, stepping to the side. Richard came in and his boyfriend shut the door. "How are you?"

Richard grinned, looking around at all the furniture that was scattered about the space. Nick had begun collecting rare vinyl now that he had the money for it. There were all sorts of artists there that Richard had never heard of.

Of course, the crown jewel was the portable record player itself. The light blue Victory player was a battery-powered device that wouldn't need to be plugged in to work. Richard still remembered when they went to the mortal realm to track it down and how happy the hyena was when he finally had it—he blabbed about it the entire way home.

Now, he smiled. "The others probably won't be here for a bit. How about you put a record that I haven't heard yet?" The mammal felt slightly excited as now that his lover was showing him all sorts of new music, he was discovering a small passion for music. Or maybe the way Nick talked about it was just so beautiful and alluring, it made it hard to resist.

Nick's bushy tail swished and he skipped over to his stack of recently acquired vinyl, flipping through the stack. "Hm . . . ."

"So how have you been holding up after everything?" Richard tried, slipping his shoes and socks off and moving to the creme-colored couch, lounging on his back.

"You know," Nick shrugged. "Thinking a lot. Going to Trauma has been helping. Iwai is really excited about me unlocking Tälmodighed."

"I heard," the raccoon chuckled, watching him interestedly. His eyes moved down his mane, down his white PJs, and to his butt, which he couldn't help but feel looked good. Of course, he wasn't ready to go all the way, but his hyena was a very fine animal.

"Have I shown you Parnold Almer yet?" he wondered.

Richard shook his head. "Does not sound familiar."

The other animal took out the vinyl sleeve from the pile. He pulled out the record from the white inner sleeve and put the vinyl sleeve on top of the stack. The licorice pizza was clear with yellow splatter and Nick held it up to show it off to Richard proudly. "This is their album I Thought You Wanted to Talk."

"It looks very cool," the raccoon admitted, and he meant it. The different types of vinyl Nick showed him were neat.

"Yeah, they had a glow-in-the-dark variant but I didn't even bother."

"Why? Too expensive?"

Nick smirked as he opened the light blue record case after switching it on, gently lining up the hole in the middle of the record with the spindle. He carefully moved the needle over the edge of the spinning record and pinched the cueing lever, very cautiously lowering the tonearm until the stylus was gliding along the surface of the vinyl. There was a light crackle.

The sweet music began with a drum fill and a guitar lick.

Turning back to Richard, he came over. "Nah, any vinyl owner knows glow records sounds like shit. It's because the material they use to make the record glow is a granulated powder that is added to the PVC, so when the stylus hits it, it creates a lotta noise."