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And then he was gone.
Her mood immediately changed. The lightness inside her was gone, along with the warmth and the tingly afterglow of him pampering her. Staring at the closed door, she felt a little lost and unsure of what to do next.
Forcing herself into action, she got dressed and checked her work email. Her mind raced the entire time, thinking of their conversation this morning and how he’d seemed intent on telling her something but never followed through.
Her stomach rumbled loudly at two p.m. and having nothing else to ease the ache in her chest, she bundled up against the rain and walked to the pub for a late lunch. The after-work rush hadn’t started yet, and there was only a handful of other customers inside.
Belinda was furiously scrubbing the bar. She stopped when she saw Kimber, her normally sassy, hard demeanor, crumbling. Her voice shook, and she looked unusually pale. “Oh, you get your ass over here. We need to talk.”
Alarmed, Kimber went behind the bar at Belinda’s urging and into the connected back room. After peeking out the doorway to see if anyone had approached the bar, Belinda wrung a towel between her hands and twisted it nervously around her fingers.
“I saw him. I swear to all the gods I ain’t making it up.”
Goosebumps raised on Kimber’s arms. “What are you talking about?”
Belinda moved closer, her voice a terrified whisper. “Ethan. I saw what he really is. I didn’t mean to… he was just standing in the back and if I’d blinked, I never would have seen…”
Kimber’s chest constricted. She couldn’t breathe. “Belinda–”
She fisted the front of Kimber’s denim jacket. “He’s fucking purple! And his hair are long twists that hang down his back. I swear on my mum’s grave, he was human once second and something else the next. Jesus Christ, Kimber.Ethan is an alien!”
Chapter Seventeen
Kimber
No.No,no,no.This wasn’t happening to her again.
Kimber pressed a hand to her temple, not sure what to do or say. Belinda was obviously mistaken because,come on. Ethan was not an alien!
“Ethan left,” she blurted. “He had to help his father with something.”
“He fucking vanished, is what he did!” Belinda covered her mouth with a hand and looked like she might lose her mind. “He wasn’t expecting me to be standing there. Didn’t even see me, I don’t think. It was like watching static television. Human, not human, human, not human and then poof! He was just… he was gone into thin air!”
The nausea came back in a burning flood. Kimber pressed a hand to her middle and tried to think. “I think Dingle is getting to you, Belinda. All the stories and things.”
“I know what I fucking saw!”
Kimber sliced a hand in the air. “No! You don’t! It’s impossible.” She lowered her voice so people in the bar didn’t overhear. “It’s not possible. Aliens aren’t real.”
This. Was. Not. Happening. Memories of her father rushed her, but she dodged them and pushed them back. This was insanity, and she would not entertain this bullshit. “I have to go.”
“Wait!” Belinda grabbed her arm. “Tristan is gone, too. Do you think he’s one of them? I always thought there was something weird about that one.”
Brushing off the woman’s grip, Kimber rounded the bar and hurried out. Rain pelted her in the face as she stormed back to the hotel, but as she got closer, she knew she couldn’t go inside. Her body pulsed with anxiety. Trying to deal with it inside her small hotel room would only make it worse. Diverting instead to a small coffee shop, she found a quiet table in the back and sunk into the chair.
Ethan.
Belinda had known him longer. Wouldn’t she have noticed something strange about him before now? God, he was just a man! A regular human man… right? Oh, this was ridiculous. Now Dingle was getting toher.
She ordered a coffee and a croissant and picked at the bread while watching the rain fall outside. In her mind’s eye, she remembered the flash of red and blue lights coming from a police officer’s car parked in her driveway. She’d peeked out the window as an officer escorted her father off the porch and put him into the car. Another drunk and disorderly charge. Another moment she had to duck beneath the bed and hide so they didn’t find her and send her to a foster home.
She was old enough to take care of herself by the time her father started drinking heavily and getting into fights all the time. His lips got loose as the whiskey flowed, and talking about being abducted was his go-to topic when he drank. It never ended well. He’d spend a night or two in jail, make bail, rinse, and repeat. It was just another terrible thing the aliens caused.
And now everyone in Dingle was losing their damn minds. All of this over little green men that no one could prove existed!
A ringing sound from the background became louder and louder. Realizing it was her phone, she grabbed it while taking a sip of cold coffee. Oh, shit! It was her boss. She’d completely forgotten to call him.
“Hello, sir.”
