GENRE: Gay Paranormal Romance
LENGTH: 32,349 words
RATING:

Six friends:

Tyler, the oldest at 26, is a waiter, a bit of a playboy, and a cynic.

Neil, 21, is the newest and youngest member of the group. He's innocent, almost naive, a college junior, and has a crush on Tyler.

Jake is 25, the tacit leader of the group. He works at a big-box store.

Dave, Jake's life partner, is also 25, who works at his father's hardware store.

Pete, 22, is straight and a college senior studying communications.

Bart, Pete's roommate at the university, is also straight and 22. He's studying accounting.

When the six young men decide to spend spring break exploring Bone Isle, reputedly a pirate hideout in the 1800s, they have no idea what's in store for them. They soon find out it's not all fun and games.

EXCERPT:

Leaving their shirts, shoes, and socks in the cabin, Jake and Dave got their sleeping bags and took off, having decided to sleep in the shelter of the outcropping of rocks farther down the beach.

"Alone at last," Jake said, laying out his sleeping bag next to Dave's. "For a second there I thought Neil was planning on getting everyone else to join us."

Dave chuckled as he finished undressing. "He was, until Tyler shushed him."

"At least he got the message," Jake said as he stripped and they settled on the sleeping bags. "Have you noticed that Tyler stopped being such an SOB toward him today?"

Rolling on his side, Dave put a finger over Jake's lips, muttering "Why are we talking about them when there are better things we could be doing?" Then, he kissed him.

From there, things progressed as they knew they would. Eventually, they came with muted cries of release as they didn't want to telegraph what they'd been doing. Not that their friends didn't know of course, but still. When they could move and speak again, they took a quick dip in the ocean to wash up and then cuddled together, sharing a few kisses.

Jake quickly fell asleep. Dave was almost there as well when he thought he heard something moving a few yards away where the trees met the beach. Cautiously, he lifted his head to look. There was nothing there that he could see but he still had the creepy feeling they were being watched. He put one hand over Jake's mouth, put his lips close to Jake's ear, and said, "There's something out there."

Jake jerked awake, aware enough to say, very softly, "An animal?" when Dave moved his hand. "Or one of the guys sneaking up on us, thinking they can scare us to death?"

"I don't know." Dave shivered. "It felt ... does it make sense to say malicious? Creepy? Besides which, we haven't seen any animals since we got here and I don't think any of the guys would do that. I hope."

"Doesn't mean animals aren’t out there and avoiding us." Jake sat up and looked around. "Was it in the forest?"

"Yeah. I heard it move but couldn't see it. All I can say is, it sounded bigger than a squirrel or chipmunk."

"The ghost of a pirate, afraid we'll find where he buried his treasure." Jake's words were teasing. His expression said otherwise. "Maybe we should go back to the boat. It's possible someone else is on the island, maybe docked farther up the coast north of us. They might be taking a late night stroll and ..." He shrugged.

"Possible, I guess, but I'd still rather be on the boat than out here, just in case there's more than one of them and they're looking for trouble."

Jake agreed, so they quickly picked up their clothes and sleeping bags and hightailed it back to the boat.

"Thought you were going to sleep on the beach," Tyler said, getting a gasp of surprise from Dave when he climbed onto the deck. "Sorry, I couldn't sleep so I came out here to watch the stars."

"You didn't happen to see anything, or anyone, did you?" Jake asked him.

"No." Tyler frowned. "Like a person?"

"We don't know," Dave replied before telling him what had happened.

"I suppose it could have been another guy who decided to do some treasure hunting, too," Tyler said when he finished. "Too bad he didn't show himself. I think, in the morning, we'll take the long way around the island to get to the stream. That way we can see if there is another boat docked along the coast."

"I sort of hope there is," Jake said. "I'd be much happier knowing it was a person and not a large animal or ..." He chuckled. "A pirate's ghost."

Tyler nodded, smiling briefly at the ghost comment. "Me, too." He suggested that Jake and Dave shouldn't say anything to the others about the mysterious whatever that Dave had sensed. "We don't want to scare them, especially after finding the pile of bones up the canyon," was his reasoning.