Lucas
Even alcohol had limits. I was paying for my own the next morning. A headache pounded behind my eyes, urging me to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep. But lowering of inhibitions, slowed reaction times, and poorer motor functions,thosewere the typical effects of intoxication.
Alcohol did not, say, cause hallucinations. A man appearing out of thin air—a man identified as anangel… Chase’s face shifting and changing… the fox shifter.
The fox shifter!
I bolted upright, oh god, before groaning and slowly lowering back down as my stomach rolled against a wave of nausea.
I still remembered the fox shifter. The sudden revelation about what happened the night of my accident was still real and vivid the next morning. Now that I remembered, there was no forgetting it again.
After a night full of scares, surprising revelations, and supernatural visitors, surely Chase and I would be able to ignore any regrettable advances made in the heat of the moment and under the influence.
I found Chase setting up breakfast in his living room. The food came from brown paper bags with logos for a nearby breakfast eatery that delivered.
"Do you like regular cream cheese?" Chase held up a small tub of to-go smear.
“Regular’s fine,” I answered, holding out my hand.
Chase set the container down and started grabbing others, apparently not requiring audience participation. “There’s plain, veggie, blueberry, strawberry...”
“Plain is—"
"And because there’s blueberry and strawberry cream cheese, it just seemed logical to get blueberry and strawberry bagels to really complete the illusion of eating healthy fruit for breakfast. There are little pieces of fruitinthe bagels, so it’s more fruit than… than no fruit.”
Food might be too ambitious, so I grabbed a clear cup with orange liquid inside. Orange juice wasperfectafter too much alcohol.
If only it could help with the embarrassment.
Chase’s sudden motor mouth meant he clearly felt uncomfortable about what happened last night. I threw myself at the kind sexy stranger who rescued me, and he turned me down. Yes, I’d been drinking but so had he. There would have been no problem there, even if we regretted it in the morning.
Instead the problem was me.Can you blame him?I hadn’t acted remotely sane, attractive, or competent last night. No wonder he wasn’t interested. Which meant I was stuck blaming and cursing myself for being so dumb. And drunk. And stupid.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” he asked.
“Yes,” I lied.
We’d briefly discussed two options last night after the angelic visitor. Him bringing me homeorto his department to file an official police report. What was I getting myself into?
Being in a serious motor vehicle accident with an unknown shifter was essentially a hit and run. Shifters were supposed to report incidents like this through the proper supernatural channels to help any injured parties and in case of exposure.
An investigation might provide answers. The car accident still played a major part in my life months later. Closure escaped me. Maybe this would allow me to move on.
After an especially fast shower to avoid dwelling on the scent of Chase’s body wash and shampoo filling the bathroom and consuming me, he found a change of clothes to fit me, and we travelled to downtown Ashvale. We arrived at one of the taller buildings built for businesses and modern convenience.
No squad cars were parked out front, nobody in uniform strolled by, and the inside offered an impersonal lobby with marbled tiles and a coffee cart in one corner. A directory listed different office numbers for businesses like dentists, lawyers, insurance agents.
No listing titled ‘supernatural police’ existed. No hint of anything otherworldly at all.
"We have the top half of the building unofficially,” Chase explained. “Blending in isn’t really standard procedure for our human counterparts but we operate under the radar.”
“Of course. That makes sense. But it’s all so… normal.”
Chase led me to an elevator bank and ushered us both inside. He reached out to press the button, shielding his hand from the rest of the people as it shifted into a claw.
“Thank you,” I said. “I was starting to think anything supernatural was a dream.”
Chase was the only one close enough to hear me whisper the word ‘supernatural,’ yet a man passing by the elevators about five feet away turned his head, eyes flashing golden for a second before he kept walking.
