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“Is that what Morris told you, that I didn’t want to marry him?” I asked, turning away to walk toward my car. “Because that’s bullshit. I asked him to marry me a year ago.I asked.”
She stumbled a little at that, staring at me, then latched onto my arm, following me across the parking lot. A ride. That was why she’d showed up. She wanted a ride home because she was smashed and couldn’t drive herself. “Nuh uh. Morris said you didn’t want a serious relationship and David did.”
I stopped dead, and she almost fell forward thanks to momentum and drunkenness. “And it never occurred to you that Morris and David are cat-stealing liars?”
Catching herself, she turned to me and rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, Lucas. You never wanted a cat.”
It was true. I hadn’t wanted Donna. But we’d gotten her anyway, because Morris had wanted a cat, and to prove that I was capable of “being long-term.” His words, not mine, because he’d so loved to twist the knife about how I couldn’t seem to find a job in the field of my degree. And the ginger queen and I had bonded, while she and Morris had not.
“I’d say to ask Morris who fed her and cleaned her teeth and took her to the vet, but he’s a fucking liar, so I’m sure he’d say it was him. And you’d believe him, because you want to. So what’s the point of this conversation? You came to tell me my asshole ex is now married to the asshole he cheated on me with, and they’re both very happy with their stolen cat. Congrats, job done. Now I’m going home, goodbye.”
I walked briskly past her, shoving myself into the front seat of my car and locking the doors behind me.
She came up to the driver’s side window and knocked on it, whining. “Lucas, don’t be pissy. Get over it, move on. Morris wasn’t right for you. We all knew it.”
Well I wish they’d told me.
I turned the key and... nothing. Or, okay, something—the sound of a dying moose, maybe. The engine cranking, trying to turn over, and just not managing it.
Katie started to giggle, slumped against the side of my car. “Looks like you’re walking too, sweet cheeks.”
And you know what? Fine. Fucking fine.
I pushed the car door back open and climbed out, snatching the bottle of Jack from her as I did. “You’ve had enough, I think.”
My turn.
If I was walking four miles home in the middle of October in the mountains, I deserved a little liquid company.
It was a celebration, right? My ex got married.
I took the first swig as I started stomping my feet across the asphalt.
Three miles later... okay, no, maybe it wasn’t actually three miles later. Or maybe I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line and I’d been walking way farther. Who knew? I’d been distracted, kicking a rock along in front of me. And, you know, finishing half a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I was still carrying the empty bottle along, because there weren’t any convenient trash cans on the side of the road. I looked up for the first time in a while, trying to figure out where the hell I was.
On the left side of the road, trees. On the right side of the road... also trees. And past them, a mansion. Fuck, I’d walked all the way out of town, into the surrounding area of rich people’s ski chalets or whatever they called them.
A car drove by, its high-beam headlights temporarily blinding me, and I stood there for a moment, blinking at the spots left burned into my retinas.
Then the blue spots turned red and gold and purple, and I wondered if I’d somehow managed to give myself alcohol poisoning on half a bottle. Ithadbeen a lot of booze, and on an empty stomach. I didn’t usually drink much at all, since finishing school, so maybe I was hallucinating.
That was about when my whole body went weightless.
For a second, I thought I was falling and screamed. The bottle slipped from my lax fingers and I heard the smash of it against the rocky shoulder of the road beneath me as my whole body lifted above the ground, like I was in a fucking magic stage show.
I blinked at the bright lights coalescing before my eyes, and that was when gravity reasserted itself, and I fell. I cringed, pulling my head up and shoulders in, bracing for my head to smash on the rocks just like the empty bottle of booze, but instead, I landed softly in... someone’s steady arms?
I opened my eyes, blinking again and again, trying to clear them, because this could not be right.
Standing over me, holding me against his enormous chest, was a giant blue man.
No, not man. With dusky blue skin and deep black hair that was so shiny it looked somehowsharp, that was definitely not a man. Those bright blue eyes, with no whites at all, could only be one thing. Alien.
His arms were huge and cradled me with ease, like I was a little kid, and my weight was nothing at all.
I opened my mouth like a fish, repeatedly, but couldn’t make words come out. Instead, my whole body went slack, my head falling back and vision going dark.
