Lay Me Down (MxM)

New LMD Full-Chapter Peek: "Owen"

Hi humans, 

here's a full-chapter sneak-peek from some of what I'm working on behind the scenes as I deep-edit Lay Me Down. As I have explained in the past, there will be new content you guys won't be familiar with in addition to familiar, favorite chapters and scenes just made way better in the new version. I hope you enjoy this little bite of things to come, plus a little look at how Jae is 'on the job'. I hope to hear your thoughts below. 

Best, Quill

Jae

"You tryna go to jail for public indecency? Come on, man!" My eyes were still adjusting to the darkness of the purple slide.

"Yeah," Adam joined in. "It's a misdemeanor! You already got a record, don't make this harder than it has to be."

We were fighting for our lives to keep straight faces.

"I see you!" the voice echoed.

I heard the "whoosh" of something being flung down the slide, and suddenly got hit by a sodden diaper. It squished against my knee.

He can't scare me, I've changed more diapers than I can count!

"And it's off," I chuckled, plucking it up by the tabs.

Adam shook his head. "Got us a shifty streaker, Jae. Tough case."

I smiled and walked to the nearest trashcan to toss it, but behind the smile, my heart was hurting. It was a mixture of anger and sadness. This is the second time I've been called out here this month. I'm not even sure what the fuck DCFS did, if anything, because it's obvious that nothing changed for this poor kid.

Without warning, Owen finally flew down the slide. I only barely caught a glimpse of his nakey toddler butt before he'd wiggled himself back up the slide again; kid's a houdini.

"Put that thing away, dude!" I exhaled a laugh and strode back over to the playset; checked my watch.

Been about 10 minutes since I got here; Marco's handling mom.

I tried to hide how I felt, really tried my best for Owen–he was only two–and I knew he must've begun to sense something was terribly off... in any case, the kid didn't need to see it in the looks on our faces, too. He needed to see some kind of positivity, and calmness.

Realistically speaking, pretending to be "fine" was a challenge in its own right, because the longer I thought about the situation, the more pissed I became. Why? Because Owen had been so close to not being found safe and sound. It was only thanks to the Good Samaritans that discovered him that little Owen was, for one, still here and hadn't eloped further. Two, safe, let alone alive. And three, that they notified us so we could try and help him... again.

Because, yeah, here our little dude was found, yet again, wandering around on his own and playing at the playset. Thankfully, like last time, he'd come across someone who meant well, and stayed with him till we arrived. Circumstances could have turned out far worse had he run into the wrong kind of person out here on his own, and the thought of that made me sick to my stomach.

My jaw feathered as I remembered the whole incident–at least the first one. See, when I came out here that afternoon he was completely naked, and what's worse, crossed the damn street and almost got hit by a Chevy Four-Door. This had all been reported to us by a bicyclist, the guy who found him first. He had been on his usual route home from his morning ride and clocked a, "butt-naked toddler streaking" through heavy traffic, then watched in horror as the vehicle missed him by less than a foot. The man ran out into traffic to get him, and the horrified driver had swerved just in time–thank fuck they weren't dicking around on their phone or some shit, and they too had stayed to give a statement along with the bicyclist.