Quickly starting up my computer, I hacked into my old high school’s system and searched their records from my freshman year. When I found a digital copy of the year book, I searched for a Shane Caudwell, but none came up. Same happened for sophomore year, junior year, and senior year. Frustrated and confused I narrowed the search to his first name. I narrowed it down when I got rid of the people I knew he wasn’t. Finally I found many pictures of Shane through all four yearbooks. But he wasn’t under Shane Caudwell, it was Shane Muller. Why is his name different now?

His freshman picture didn’t even look like him except those eyes. His black hair long, but styled well for his young face. In his freshman year his activities included art club, chorus, and baseball.

Shane’s sophomore year, he looked more built but his hair was longer, but his eyes looked sad. The activities weren’t any different, but he was honor society. Junior year wasn’t much different except his hair was a little shorter than his freshman year. But again it looked like his bright green eyes and lost their sheen. Senior year you could tell that he had hit a growth spurt and had muscle, but looked hidden under his clothes. The sadness was worse in his eyes and I felt pain in my chest from how they had lost their sheen.  What made him so sad?

Looking at some of the random pictures that I had spent another few hours gathering from the internet and Facebook, I noticed that Shane was always surrounded by girls. They didn’t look like girlfriends though, looking closer I noticed that they were all showing a tight friendship.

Through my search I finally found a picture that had me frozen in place.

There smiling so bright with such warmth and love in his eyes was Shane but what had me frozen in my seat was the smaller man that he was holding against his chest. The guy was probably about five feet eleven inches. He was slim but still toned since they were both only in swim trunks on the beach. The guy had a dark blonde hair and bright blue eyes. His smile was warm as well as his back was against Shane’s chest.

With shaking fingers I pulled the next picture up from what must be a friend’s gallery and saw Shane kiss the guy so intimately that I felt pain in my chest. Who is this? Continuing through the results, I frowned when Shane Muller dropped off the face of the earth. I started a search for Shane Caudwell but paused mid keystroke.

“What am I doing?” I whispered to no one. “I’m invading his personal space.” But who was the blonde guy and where is he now? Pushing away from my computer I looked at my microwave clock and saw it was after midnight. Sighing I turned off the screens and went to bed. I pushed away the curiosity and just dealt with what I knew. Shane was definitely gay and apparently interested in me. Also he was interested in me during high school as well. He had a previous relationship.

Morning came early and like normal I had cereal and then took a shower to wash away the nightmares. I wondered about the nightmares again but when I thought of Shane the blonde man with blue eyes appeared in his arms and I cursed as I shoved the images away.

Shortly before noon my doorbell rang and I checked my security camera. Trevor smiled to the camera and held up a case of beer and a bag of what had to be his wife’s cooking.

“you going to let me in bro?” he said into the camera. With twitching lips I unlocked the door and opened it for him.

“Only if you tell me that is your wife’s Chili.” I said snatching said thermos bag from him and opening it to find a Crockpot with said chili.

“Only the best from the best.” He chuckled as he walked through and I shut the door behind him. As I sat the Crockpot on the counter and plugged it in Trevor spun a circle around the living room while whistling through his teeth. “Nice place man.”

“Thanks.”

“Where should I drop my bag?” he said showing the backpack he was wearing to me.

“Down the hall, first door on your right. Bathroom is second on right. My room and bathroom are the only door on left side.” I shrugged as I got dishes out for the chili.

When Trevor came back out he sat across from me at my small table. “Love your set up. Jealous of your shower and I’m saying that because I know what my wife and I could do in it.” He gave me a lopsided grin and I just shook my head at him.

“I can buy and install one for you and Lisa.” I insisted softly as I ate. Trevor just frowned at me which I was expecting.

“No. no offense to you, but I’m not letting you drown yourself in physical work in my home.” He slid a beer to me and I just fingered the tab while he opened and drank his.

“I ran into Shane at lunch yesterday.” I said as I popped the tab and took a sip. Looking up I saw that Trevor was waiting for me to continue.

“And?”

“And apparently we went to highschool together.” I paused again at the thought. “I knew everyone in school, down to their age. I was a football player, but I was also the only person that knew what to do to fix any computer problem in the school.”

“That’s a little surprising, not you not recognizing him, but the fact that you were basically in control of the electronic system of the school.” Trevor took a swig of beer again before I continued.

“He had a different last name.” I whispered as I continued an internal battle about that. Why did he change it? Was it the same last name as the blonde man from the picture?

“Shit happens. Maybe parents divorced and he took one name over another.” Trevor shrugged as he started to eat his bowl of chili. I stirred mine around before I took a bite. Distracted for a second I realized that she had put an extra shot of Tabasco sauce in it this time. I looked down at it, then up at Trevor and saw that he was watching me with twitching lips. I frowned at him.

“What did you do to it?” I growled. Lisa’s cooking was almost as mouth watering as Alison’s most days.

“Nothing. Lisa was right.” He started chuckling before I growled and he out right laughed. “Damn I owe her day at a spa resort.”

“What are you talking about and what the hell did you do to her chili?” I growled out.

“She did it. She bet me a poker night in the house and a spa trip for her, that you would be able to tell the slightest difference in her chili.” My anger simmered before I shook off the stupidity of the bet.

“You two bore too easily.” I grumbled as I started eating more of the chili. The Tabasco sauce actually made it better.

“Anyways back to your event.”

“Event?” I questioned as I sat up straight.

“Yes, it’s not a problem since you aren’t in pain. But I guess situation would be politer.”

“Shane isn’t a problem.” I mumbled through a bite of food before my eyes flickered to my computer screens. The urge to dig around to find out who the blonde guy was, was getting stronger with talking about Shane.

“What else did you find?” Trevor said gently as he got up and walked to the computer. He turned on my screens and saw what I had done last night. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Numbly I got up and stood behind my chair where Trevor had sat. I watched as he went through everything that I had found on an easy scan. I didn’t have what it took to make a deeper scan for both Shane Caudwell and Shane Muller.

“Wow. Never think I would say this but that guy is actually good looking.” Trevor said when he found the picture of the blonde man and Shane. “And that confirms what I had guessed.” He muttered when he found the later picture of them kissing in the fall. I looked away from the pictures and looked at the younger photos of Shane and tried to rack my memory of him, but still nothing came up. Why don’t I remember him? Trevor speaking brought me out of my mind.

“Are you going to do a deeper scan and search?” he asked gently.

“No. Whatever happened for him to change his name; he can tell me himself. I don’t want to invade him like that. Plus I don’t want to get into something I can’t get out of.” I said sternly before I walked over to the couch and flipped the TV onto a game.

Trevor joined me and we were silent while we watched the game. We talked briefly about his work and about Hawthorn, but our conversation was interrupted when my cell rang. Pausing the game I watched as Trevor went and observed my pool and backyard.

“Yes?” I said curtly.

“Hey Luke!” Alison said brightly.

“Alison.”

“Would you relax? What has you in a bind? I was just calling to check to see if you were still watching Molly this weekend since I have a twenty-four from Friday night into Saturday night.”

“Sorry Trevor is here and things are a little tense from what we talked about.”

“Trevor is there? Why?”

“He wanted to see the new place and he brought chili.”

“Was it good?”

“Lisa bet with him that I would notice a slight change in her recipe. She won.”

“Okay, now what has your panties in a pinch.” I growled to her through the phone. “Seriously Luke what has you pissed?”

“Shane had a different name in high school.” I really wanted to tell her about the other guy, but things were like it was when I could talk to her like I can with Trevor.

“That’s understandable. I didn’t remember him at all, but that was more or less because all guys were too scared to get near me because of you four. But I do remember some of my girl friends telling me about a senior who was the best friend for any girl, but I didn’t notice or search him out because of the teasing I got in school.”

“Aliso-“

“Hold on Luke I need to put you on speaker while I switch shirts. Go ahead and speak though.”

“Alison, you know I broke into the school’s records for the information, but it still bugs me that I can’t place him. I knew everyone in school even in the middle school for you.”

“Seriously? I knew you were a computer genius, but seriously? You couldn’t leave the poor innocent schools out of it?”

“No.”I paused when I heard shuffling around and I swore I heard Alison gasp, but ignored it when she went on.

“You didn’t do any other snooping did you?” she said sounding like our mother, scolding.

“Curiosity is a bitch.” I groaned. “I stopped after I found a lot of pictures of him and another guy.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Why do you need to know?” I growled.

“Cause I’m your sister and I love you?” she tried with the innocent voice. Trevor returning gave me an excuse to end the conversation.

“Trevor is back, Bye.” I snapped the phone shut and stood up.

“you have a nice place here Luke.”

“Thanks.”

“Love the jar for Molly.”

“thanks.” I said neutrally again.

“Look. Whatever happens between you and Shane, or whatever is his explanation for the name change and the blonde guy, remember to give him a moment to explain things. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

Sighing I nodded and helped him put the rest of the chili into storage containers before I clean the pot and he headed to the back deck again. He went for a walk through the woods of my property while I sat on a chair on the deck and thought about Shane again. For whatever reason, that man dominated my thoughts. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, or things that reminded me of his eyes. Like I told Alison, curiosity was a bitch. I wanted to know who the other guy was.