22. Piper
22
PIPER
I know it’s probably a bad idea, but I follow Ant back to the group, and he introduces me to everyone.
Maisie Hill, his sister, is nice. No one is sure if they are actually blood related, but they’ve decided to embrace the family culture anyway. Her wife, Janelle, offers me a sandwich from their supplies. Their kids, Monty and Helen, are tiny, sweet, and so cute that it borders on annoying the crap out of me. They say ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘nice to meet you’ in near unison, but don’t bother pretending to actually be interested in me. They take snacks from their mothers and then race back to the jungle gym.
Ant plays with his niblings, chasing them around, holding them above his head so they can spread their wings and catch the wind. The kids are covered in a light brown fuzz. Maisie explains the fur will get darker as they age and they will be able to fly when their wings mature.
Watching them interact has my ovaries twinging. I’ve always wanted kids of my own. Or I always thought I would want kids of my own, eventually. Watching him now confirms to my brain I’d be happy even if they were tiny adorable moth creatures that look nothing like me.
Not that I am going to raise any kind of child with Ant.
“You came here to see Pontius?” Janelle interrupts my staring.
“I just had a question about our work.” I laugh, trying to disguise my real motivation. “He visited you two in Canada?”
“He stayed with us for the holidays.” Janelle lounges on a bench beside me. She looks tired, but the kind of satisfied exhaustion that comes with being a new mom.
“All of the holidays?” I specify.
“Just from early November until the new year,” Maisie confirms everything I’ve been told.
“Maisie doesn’t have a family. It was nice to watch them connect and talk about their shared experiences,” Janelle adds.
“I’m sure that was nice.” I feel myself smiling.
“It really meant a lot to Maisie, to have family. That’s part of why we jumped at the chance to adopt. It probably wouldn’t have happened for us if Pontius wasn’t involved.” In one hand, Janelle holds a stuffed doll, and in the other, a small, but very important, rock she was given for safekeeping by the littlest mothling. “He’s a really solid man. Are you two seeing each other?”
I ignore the question and decide to change the topic. “How did you two meet?”
“Mutual friends introduced us,” the Mothwoman steps into the conversation.
“Maisie came into my workplace every day for dinner for a month before she got the guts to actually ask me on a date.”
Maisie gives a sheepish smile. “I was a bit obsessed.”
“What did you do? Follow her home? Steal all her underwear?” I laugh.
The two women exchange a knowing glance.
“Something like that,” Maisie mutters sheepishly.
My eyes widen.
“Maisie! Janelle!” Ant’s voice is raised with some concern, followed by a toddler’s scream, across the playground.
When I look up, Ant is using his long arms to keep the toddlers, who are invested in having an all-out-brawl, separate. He holds Helen in the air, by the back of her neck scruff, as she flutters her tiny wings ineffectively. Monty is attempting to scale Ant’s leg with an impressively loud, but still adorable, growl.
“A little help, please.” Ant laughs as the mothlings gnash their teeth, desperately trying to bite each other.
“Coming!” Janelle and Maisie race to him, to scold and console each of the twins in turn.
Ant returns to my side, sinking onto the bench beside me. He’s still beaming, despite sighing like the most exhausted person alive.
“They seem really nice,” I say quietly.
He nods enthusiastically, watching with bright eyes while the moms wrangle their children. “I’m glad to have found someone I can call family.”
My treacherous heart does a somersault.
“I get it,” I say without meaning to. “My family are some of the most important people in my life.”
He turns to me and smiles, his hands folded in his lap. I fight the urge to reach over and squeeze one. He’s so sweet. What harm has he really done? Following me around like a lovesick puppy?
Crap. What is wrong with me?
I steel my emotions, smushing them back down deep where they belong. I am angry at him.
“We need to talk about you leaving Cryptech.” I try to school my features.
“Nothing to say.” His voice is firm, but his wings shift behind him, betraying his nervousness.
“You can’t do this, Ant. You can’t just drop your whole life—the thing you care most about—not because of me.”
“You’re wrong.” He shakes his head. “It’s not the thing I care most about. Not even close.”
I catch his eye and he looks away, toward his sister and her family. I bite my lip. “I’m not going to let you turn me into the bad guy in this situation.”
“Who said you were the bad guy?”
“I don’t want you wrecking your career, blaming me for things you didn’t do or opportunities that you lost.” I’m not letting a guy do that to me again.
“I don’t blame you for anything,” he says.
I don’t let his reasonable tone stop me. I had a whole car ride to prepare this speech. Even if it isn’t going the way I expected.
“If you left the company because of me then you shouldn’t have.” I feel my words failing. “If Cryptech only bought Penpoint because you were obsessed with me, then I want to break our contract.”
“Piper. No.” His voice is so quiet that I can barely hear him. “It had nothing to do with that. You’ve done incredible work”
I roll my eyes.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me.” His voice is serious as he turns his full attention toward me, but he’s giving me that adorable smile that makes my stomach queasy. “We were already interested in your company. You were on our radar before I ever met you. You’ve done amazing work. We wanted to be a part of that,” Ant explains. “And then I met you, and I ruined everything. I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Just couldn’t stop yourself from fucking me?” I snark, trying desperately to stay mad at him.
He shakes his head. “I thought I was giving you what you wanted. Even that night you said?—”
“I know what I said,” I snap, without any real malice in my voice. “I know what I said I wanted.”
“I thought it was everything I’d be able to give you,” he says tentatively. “I never imagined you’d want to be with me for more than one night. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was stupid. Following my natural instincts.”
“Your instincts are to be a creep?”I shove my glasses up my nose.
“Yes.” He sighs like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. “I just wanted to keep you safe. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t follow someone around like that without telling them. Humans don’t stalk the ones we love.”
“I know,” he says.
“You scared me.”
“I know,” he repeats. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just needed to learn as much about you as I could, to convince you to like me.”
“Well, I did like you.” I squirm, but I can’t stop the nervous laugh in my throat. “How much of that personality was fake?”
“None of it.” His hands shift in his lap, clenching and unclenching. “I really felt like I could be myself around you.”
Crap. He sounds so sincere.
“You really enjoy all that stuff? Movies, video games, and Brendan Fraser in The Mummy ?”
“I’d be a fool not to enjoy Brendan Fraser.” He smiles. Adorable.
“You weren’t lying about any of it?”
“Everything I told you was true. All of my past, my interests. All of that was real. It was just the little things. Your favorite foods. The way you take your coffee. The type of candy you like at the movies.” He stops talking, seeming to realize what he’s admitting. “I thought it would make you like me.”
Crap. I actually believe him. He’s a stalker, but he’s been honest about it. I don’t think he’d lie to me now. Would he? Am I being an idiot? Colin barely remembered that I hated olives on pizza.
“And you really didn’t know?” I clarify. “That Loch was offering to sign a contract with Penpoint?”
“I didn’t know.” Ant says. “Sacha didn’t understand the situation either. He never would have agreed. The Bigfoot is completely furious about the whole thing.“
I snort half a laugh. “That much has become obvious. You are all just blaming the Lake Monster?”
“Yes,” he grumbles. “You asked me to stay away, Piper. I’ve been attempting that, to the best of my abilities.”
I pause. I don’t know if I’ve had a man actually listen to me before. “You know you’re famous? I’ve admired your work for a long time.”
“Really?”
“I never knew what you looked like. No one on the internet does. What’s that about?”
He shakes his head. “People seem to respond more positively before they know what I look like.”
“But parties, conferences, speaking engagements, corporate announcements…Magnes and Sacha are photographed all the time.”
“Those events are loud and crowded. Full of noise and smells and bright lights. I can barely handle going to a bar. That’s why I bought Moonshine and the Artemis.”
“You own the movie theater too?” I groan. “Of course you do. You seem to have a hand in everything cool in this city.”
“Only part of the theater.” He shrugs. “And a couple other establishments. I wanted there to be places that people like me could go and…feel like they belong.”
“You should have just told me all of that. That really would have made me like you,” I admit. Sweet. He is sweet and kind and using his money to make sure there are good, inclusive activities in the community.
“It’s not all my doing. Cryptech wouldn’t be where it is today without Sacha and Ness taking the lead in public spaces. I wouldn’t be anything without them. I owe them so much.”
I smile softly at that.
Crap. I can’t let him do this to me—win me over with a couple quiet words.
“I’m sorry I called you a freak that day that we were fighting,” I say quickly. “I feel really bad about it.”
“It’s okay.” His wings flutter before he speaks again. “I wonder if you could forgive me too? For all of the stupid things I did.”
“It would be nice if I could, especially if we are going to live in the same city, and work in the same field,” I admit. “It’d be better if I weren’t worrying all the time. I was looking forward to meeting Pontius Pleasant, who's supposed to be the most talented programmer in the city. It would have been an incredible opportunity to work with you.”
“You could still work with me,” he suggests.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head.
“What can I do to make you feel comfortable? Whatever it is, I will do it. Quit my job. Leave the country. Again…” he rushes through the ideas very seriously. For some reason, that makes me laugh, because he did leave the country to get away from me.
“Don’t do that.” I manage to stop laughing. “You shouldn’t uproot your whole life just for me. I don’t want that.”
His shoulders relax, and his antennae raise. Cute. He’s cute. I hate how cute he is.
I take a deep breath. The concept of forgiving him feels much more possible today. Letting him into my life seems preferable to never seeing him again. He's so easy to talk to, and despite my better judgment, I really like him.
“What if we tried to be friends?”
“Just friends?” I ask, slightly surprised. Right, that’s the logical thing. Not date him. Not walk back to his place and fuck until I think I might go blind. Be his friend. Take it slow.
“Or even just colleagues? If that’s better for you? Polite acquaintances?” He continues, clearly misreading the expression on my face.
“No,” I interrupt him with a laugh, to stop him from lowering the relationship status any further. “Friends is good. But you have to level the playing field. You know so much about me. You have to share things with me. And not just the cute stuff, the embarrassing stuff, and the weird stuff.”
“I can do that. I will do that.” His wings flutter and his voice gets quiet. “But, you already know more about me than almost anyone else.”
“Yeah, well! I want to know it all. Okay? I want to be able to blackmail you if I have to. I need to know your embarrassing childhood crushes, what makes you cry, what kind of fanfics you read, all of it. Okay?”
“Tails,” he announces.
“What?” I ask confused.
“Tails, Sonics’ little fox sidekick. He’s probably my most embarrassing childhood crush.”
I don’t even bother trying to hold back my laugh. “That’s a really good one.”
“He could fly.” Ant smiles.
“What else?” I ask.
“Well, I can tell you about meeting my sister?” There’s a bright smile on his face that makes me want to hug him. Touch him.
“Yeah. Okay.” I grin.
Crap. I gotta find a way to fix my broken brain. My phone lights up with a text. It’s Bailey, saying she’s sorry, and offering to buy me an apology drink, yet again.
Maybe I do need to try something new? Get out of my comfort zone and meet people. Maybe one of those cryptid bars she mentioned, might help me move on.