Born to Be Wylde by Jan Irving

like a gentle net around his skin, feel how that made him different, changed inside. The last time he’d been truly loved had been when his grandpa was alive.
    But it was because of Ken he had to do this, lose himself again.
He thought of the bruising on Ken’s face and body and, despite the way he was standing up, how restless he still was in his sleep. Ken was an orderly man, like his row of neat pots drying before he glazed them.
Wylde knew that he would never be someone neat, orderly, who fit in. He hoped Ken could make room for him in his bed. If he did not, Wylde would sleep outside on the pine needles until Ken was ready.
K EN stiffened with shock.
    As if he were a dark genie who had been raised by Ken’s thoughts, Deputy Marty Gimble was leaning against Ken’s official SUV, waiting for him, a high-powered rifle cradled in his arms.
    Heart thudding in his throat, Ken stared at the man who he was sure had beaten him, intended to kill him, leave him in an anonymous grave somewhere. The friend and coworker who had been stalking and killing people on this stretch of road for over ten years if Ken was right.
    “I got a call from Alice at dispatch that you’d found something, Ken,” Marty said in a calm voice. “So I had to come out here, make sure you had backup.”
    So they would play it that way? Swallowing thickly, aware that the other man could shoot him at any time, Ken headed up the slope from the ditch. Anger burned in his blood when he thought of how scared he’d been, of how much he’d hurt…. He’d trusted this man. When he’d first taken the job, he’d deferred to him. Frankly he’d secondguessed himself about his theory of a stalker because Marty had laughed it off.
    “I might have found something,” Ken said noncommittally.
“I know I haven’t been the most supportive of your wild ideas about a killer on this stretch of road.” Marty shrugged, pushing back his thinning brown hair. “But it was my territory, you know? Seemed like you were a hot newbie cop burning to prove yourself.”
Ken came up beside Marty, feeling a weird sense of dislocation as he talked to both his friend and would-be killer. He leaned against the SUV, giving Marty a mild look. “I really am not burning to prove myself,” he said. “I would rather make pots all day, and one day I hope to be able to do that.”
“I’m sorry about your studio, Ken,” Marty said.
Shit. He sounded like he meant it.
He took a deep breath and gave a curt nod. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He remembered Wylde’s burned hands. The roof collapsing, shattered shards of pots he’d made in Japan that he’d planned never to sell. But mostly he remembered Wylde rescuing whatever he could.
“Have you considered it could be your lifestyle behind the attacks on you?” Marty went on. “It’s a pretty common motivation, and you haven’t exactly been discreet.”
Ken frowned, thrown. “My lifestyle?”
“You’re a gay man.”
Ken’s jaw ticked.
“Come on, don’t be like that, Ken! I mean, even the pottery was a little….” Marty widened his eyes. “It’s not exactly what most cops do in their spare time.”
Ken’s face was impassive as he prodded quietly, “Why are you really out here, Mart?”
Marty blinked, as if he hadn’t expected Ken to ignore the red flag of his gay-harassment theory. Maybe he’d thought Ken would be defensive about it. Fuck that. He’d grown up reading yaoi. He’d never pushed his orientation, but his parents hadn’t needed to be told.
“I decided you were right all along about some shady character haunting this road,” Marty surprised him by admitting. “Happy now?”
“Why the gun?” Marty had it pointing toward the cracked asphalt, but Ken sensed a buried eagerness in his fellow deputy, as if he couldn’t wait to use it.
“I’m going hunting and figured you’d want in.” Marty smiled at Ken’s confused look. “There’s a vagrant around, long black hair, blue eyes, lives in a