32. Look who’s in the dark now
32
LOOK WHO’S IN THE DARK NOW
Micah
“Movie’s ready!” I called from the couch. It had taken me far too long to get the app set up for us to watch the premiere of the space movie Archer had been waiting for, but I finally got it.
Archer had been hinting about it for the past three days and he came home to see me cussing at the stupid screen over a passcode not working—one I’d just created at that.
“Yes!” he squealed. “Let me pop some corn.”
I got off the couch and went to the kitchen to help.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Let me grab it.” I pushed the cereal box out of the way on top of the fridge and pulled the bag out. “Here.” Archer’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“Just… that’s not real popcorn.” He scrunched up his nose. “Do you have pretzels?”
I did not.
“It’s not the cheap stuff.” I promised. “It’s just natural and a different color.”
“No pretzels?” He stuck out his bottom lip. I wanted to nibble it.
“It’s going on the list.” I kissed his lips and then went to the junk drawer to grab a pen. I made lists on my phone but often resorted to the familiar pad and pen. “Pretzels are officially on there. And what brand popcorn did you want me to get?”
“The kind in a jar.”
“Like the kind people used to make before…” He nodded. “And on the list it goes. Anything else while I’m here?” It would change twenty times before the night was over. His eating habits were like that lately .
Because he was carrying our babe.
Mine
I closed my eyes and savored the words of my unicorn. I still didn’t fully grasp the hows and whys of it all, but I didn’t need to. I just needed to make it right with him. He’d been there with me always and I had no idea. How could I?
We didn’t have beasts. That’s the way it was. Except we did or at least I did.
Yes. Ours. Mate. Babe. Omega ours.
We still hadn’t got more than single words but I could sense him now and it was everything. And the runs we took—I finally understood why the others looked at runs the way they did.
In so many ways it was like I was living for the first time.
“Your unicorn chatty?” Archer wrapped his arms around me as I put a hand to my ear.
“How’d you know?”
“I remember when I first started to shift—I’m so happy for you.” He stood on his tip toes and kissed my cheek. “I still want popcorn though.”
“I can go to the store.” I pressed a small kiss on his forehead. “Then we can snuggle on the couch and watch aliens.”
“No snuggling.” Archer rolled his eyes. “You’ll distract me.”
“Fair enough. I’ll be right back.” One more kiss and I was out the door. There was a small grocer a couple blocks away and I figured that was the best bet over the convenience store that was only a block in the other direction. I loved microwave popcorn but if my sexy pregnant omega wanted kernels in a jar, I was going to get it for him.
The store wasn’t busy at all and I grabbed the popcorn and a few other things he had texted me that I remembered from when I was a kid. My grandfather used to get the kind of popcorn in the tin pans and cook it on the grill. It was meant to cook on a stovetop and that resulted in a couple of pretty unsuccessful batches when he burnt a hole in the bottom.
I looked at memories like that in an entirely different way now. I wanted to give them to our child. Give them things to look back on with love.
My phone started to ring about half way home, announcing Archer which was my oh so clever ringtone.
“Think of something else?” It would be easy enough to go back.
“No. The power went out.”
“Oh. I’ll be home in a few. Maybe it will be on by then.” At least it wasn’t winter.
“It won’t be,” he sighed. “You know how electricity is included in our rent?”
I did not like the sound of where this was going.
“Yes?” Please don’t let him be saying what I thought he was saying.
“Turns out it’s only included if your landlord isn’t too busy banging a stranger to pay the fucking bill.” Archer was livid. I didn’t blame him. I was too .
“I’ll drop this stuff at our place and go talk to him.” Yell at him. Same difference.
When I got home, I jogged up the stairs to put the food in our place, grateful there was only one pint of ice cream. The last thing we should be doing was opening the fridge.
“Grab a spoon. I have something that needs eating first.” I teased as I set the bag on the counter and fished out the ice cream. “Your favorite, right?”
“Coconut, chocolate, and almonds!” I was taking that as confirmation of my awesome picking things out at the grocery store skills. “‘I’ll be right back.”
“I’m coming with you.” He already had the pint open and the spoon inside.
“Stay and eat the ice cream.” I needed to try and fix the mess.
“It’s dark.” Crap. He was scared or at a minimum nervous and I didn’t even see it, letting my anger at Daire take all of my focus. Maybe it was being in an old house that made him nervous.
“Let’s go yell at him then.”
We didn’t need to. We were one of the last to the yell at Daire party. And they all had a right to be pissed off. He had our rent and therefore he should have had the money to pay the power company.
“If you weren’t too busy with that magical fucking cock in your ass, you’d have remembered.” Neil was livid and I doubted it was only about the power. He didn’t trust Daire’s new guy at all and this gave him something else to hate him for.
Had it been someone else, I’d have thought he was jealous, but Neil saw layers of slime on people others often missed. I had a feeling it had to do with when he was in professional sports. There was a whole lot of fake ass BS and user-ish people there from what I understood.
“It’s being paid as soon as they open in the morning. I promise. It was an automatic payment and it failed.” And instantly I understood what happened. When all the identity shit went down he forgot about his autopays. That didn’t excuse his actions, but it gave me some relief that he hadn’t dug this place further into the hole I helped bail him out of.
“Guys.” I spoke louder than I needed to and their heads all snapped in my direction. “This sucks, but autopay paired with identity theft…” I could see the dots start to connect.
“Why don’t we all go out and grab pizza or something instead of sitting in the dark?” It was pitch black now. “And maybe we can make popcorn on the grill.”
Ivor chuckled at that like I was completely clueless as to how popcorn worked.
“I could eat.” Archer leaned in next to me, shoveling another spoon of ice cream into his mouth. This was so much better than when everything made him sick.
I still kicked myself for my part in that. Had we been mated from the beginning, he’d never have gotten so sick .
“I want crab puffs if I'm going to be bribed by food.” Neil sounded much calmer and I was glad. Daire considered him one of his best friends and when tensions rose between the two of them, it really affected him.
“I’m here for the pizza,” Ivor said. He looked like crap. He’d been working from home after whatever tiff he had with Ryder and I hadn’t gotten a decent view of him until now, under the emergency light. His eyes were sunken in and filled with such sadness.
“I want fresh rolls.” Archer dug in for some more ice cream. The container was already half gone.
Provide. My unicorn was proud as a peacock at that.
Yes, we did.
“If everyone’s giving orders, I want tacos.” Daire pointed to the stairs. “Everyone on the roof. I’ll order all the things and we can wait up there so we at least have the streetlights to see by.”
“I’ll chip in.” I told him, worried about how much was in his bank account.
Lightning lit up the hallway followed by a crack two Mississippis away.
“Or you can all come in.” We chose the latter and ordered enough food for a week. If you wanted it, we had it coming.
“I have candles.” Neil popped up. “I’ll be back.”
I tried not to think too hard on why he had a huge array of candles when he returned with them, but I was fairly confident we were breaking all kinds of fire codes.
The rain slapped against the window sills, the wind picking up. Even if Daire had followed through with the payment, we’d probably have still ended up in the dark. The storm was bad.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Must be Ryder.” Daire stood up and wove his way through the maze of takeaway bags and candles.
Of course it was Ryder. Martin and his son were on vacation. I almost forgot that.
Ivor froze up across from us.
“Hey, Ivor.” Ryder said weakly.
“You staying or am I?” Ivor snapped back.
Fucking Kellan. This whatever it was had Kellan’s name all over it. Why couldn’t he just disappear already… take a job across the country or something.
“You are.” Ryder turned on his heel and walked right out.
None of us said a word. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t put us smack dab in the middle of this mess. They needed to work it out on their own.
“This reminds me of Harmony Marie.” Neil clapped his hands then rubbed them together. “Is anyone here scared of ghosts?”
“I’d rather not run into one.” Archer reached for a fresh roll.
“Harmony isn’t here,” Neil reassured him. “She lived in the house where I grew up and is still there.”
We all listened intently as he regaled us with the story of unrequited love, a quilt, and a chicken. Only Neil could make all those elements work. We laughed in spots, went silent in others, and Archer crawled into my arms and onto my lap when it got a bit scary. It was exactly what we needed.
Once Neil started, there was no stopping us. Daire told about the weird things that happened in one of his parents’ homes, including the feeling of someone sitting on the edge of your bed while you slept. Ivor talked about the old church in his town that still rang its bell even though the bell had long since been removed. And Archer made up a silly tale of zombie fish seeking revenge on a fisherman. And then there was me who told the adventures of a shifter with no beast who finally found his one and only to live happily ever after.
I made up the last part because it was the ending I wanted and screw it; I was the story teller. I could have it end any way I wanted to.
If only my gut wasn’t telling me not to get my hopes up too high.