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All those small details were almost more unsettling than the bigger picture. Instead of things—not to mention my boyfriend—just vanishing overnight, they’d been gone for awhile.
I leaned against the kitchen island, struggling to absorb all of this and not have a complete panic attack. I wasn’t prone to them, but I defied anyone not to short circuit in the face of…this.
Okay. Okay. This was… Whatever it was, it was happening. Before I did anything, I needed to pull myself together, take a few deep breaths, and figure out a plan.
A plan. Right. Because I could totally make a plan when my entire world waswrong.
Breathe, Owen. One thing at a time. Just breathe.
I closed my eyes and did exactly that for at least a solid minute. So long that when I opened them again, I half-expected my world to have snapped back to normal. Or to find myself still lying in darkness in my bed, waiting for my alarm to go off and tell me I needed to get ready for work.
Work. Oh fuck.
Renewed panic had me nearly hyperventilating. I couldn’t go to work right now. Not like this. Not until I had a handle on… I don’t know.Something?
I strode back into my bedroom and snatched my phone off the nightstand, ready to call in sick.
I paused, though, when my lockscreen came up. Where was that picture of Matteo and me from New Year’s?
Of course it was gone. Every shred of evidence that he’d ever been here was gone, so why not there, too?
Had someone, like, figured out time travel, gone back six years, and given one of us a flat tire on the way to that party where we’d met?
My chest tightened just thinking about that. Life without Matteo… Life without ever evenmeetinghim… That was too much.
I shook myself and cleared my throat. Then I went to my contacts, pulled up my boss, and sent the call. For a second, I was sure it wouldn’t go through. That I’d get some message that the number was out of service, and I’d find out the credit union no longer existed or that I didn’t work there anymore.
But no, I made it right to my boss’s desk, and though I wasn’t overly fond of her, I was relieved to hear a familiar voice.
“Thank you for calling Gryphon Credit Union; this is Ruth. How may I help you?”
“Hi, it’s Owen,” I said. “Listen, uh… I need to call out for a couple of days.” That probably wouldn’t be long enough, but I had to start somewhere.
On the other end, Ruth sighed in that familiar way. “I’m short-staffed. Are you sure you can’t make it in? Not even for a half shift?”
“I wish I could, but there’s a family emergency that I really need to—”
“All right, all right. Fine. Just keep me posted.”
“I will. Thanks.”
We ended the call, and I was a little bit relieved. This didn’t solve a damn thing in my fucked-up world, but at least I didn’t have to go to work right in the middle of it.
Now. With that out of the way…
I put my phone on the nightstand, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at the floor. I took some more slow, deep breaths as I tried—tried—to stay calm and piece together what had happened and what was happening.
Last night was clear as day in my mind. Matteo had come home from a conference. He’d been too tired to fool around, but that was fine. I’d just been happy to have him back after a long week apart. We’d fallen asleep and…
And here I was.
Alone. With no trace of Matteo. With no sign that he’d ever been here at all.
I hadn’t run afoul of the fae, had I? I mean, I’d had to decline a business loan for one last month, and he’d been livid over it, but that wasn’t usually enough to warrant trickster fuckery. After all, it had been the credit union’s policies, not my decision. My hands had been tied, and I was pretty sure he’d understood that on some level.
Still. A pissed-off fae—especially one who was insulted—could be as irrational and impulsive as a pissed-off human. One of those humans had slashed a colleague’s tires over a foreclosure, so was it really out of the realm of possibility that an angry fae had done something to screw with my life? Or my mind? Or both?
I wiped a shaky hand over my face and exhaled. Was this magic? Some kind of revenge? A brain tumor?
