Epilogue
A year and a half later
“So,” Max said, sipping an iced coffee and leaning against a U-Haul. “When do we drive down Rodeo Drive in a convertible and then go on a shopping spree?”
Sloane, coming out of her building across the sidewalk from him, rolled her eyes.
“I also need to go to the Chinese Theatre and get my picture taken with my hands in Clark Gable’s handprints. And then go on one of those double-decker-bus tours to the homes of the stars.”
“You’re way too late for all that,” Sloane said, coming up to him and putting a hand on his waist. He was way too calm and collected for having just driven ten hours in a moving van, even if it was a small moving van. “You’re not allowed to do touristy shit if you live here.”
“I haven’t updated my address yet,” he said, giving her a kiss.
“You taste like coffee.”
“Weird.” He took another drink through the straw, never breaking eye contact.
“I should make you rent a convertible, drive to Beverly Hills, and go shopping,” she said. “You’d complain for days. How was the drive?”
“It’s been worse,” he admitted, shrugging. “But the REPENT sign was up, so we’ve got an easy moving day ahead of us.”
“Ooh, a good sign.” On the 5 somewhere north of Kettleman City, parked in the fields alongside the road, sometimes there was a box truck with REPENT! painted on the side. If the truck was there, it was good luck.
“And I got you a present.”
“Is it a truck-stop rattlesnake?”
“Sorry, no.”
Sloane sighed, tragically. “You keep promising me a pet.”
“I keep trying! But no. Your present’s from Santa Nella.”
“Please tell me it isn’t pea soup.”
“It isn’t pea soup. I know how you feel about pea soup, even if you’re wrong and it’s the perfect food for a long drive.
” Six months ago, Max had finally talked her into stopping at Pea Soup Andersen’s, a famous pea soup restaurant, for lunch when she drove up to Sacramento.
Sloane hadn’t had strong opinions on pea soup before going there, but the visit had changed that: She didn’t like it at all.
“I’m dying of suspense if it’s not a snake or soup,” Sloane said. “What’s left?”
With a flourish, Max pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to her: a fridge magnet with the Pea Soup Andersen’s logo on it.
“Housewarming present. For our new fridge,” he explained. “I know you’ve got fond memories.”
Sloane ran her thumb over the magnet, featuring two cartoon men around a bowl of peas. It read Pea Soup Andersen’s underneath, and it was the same art and logo featured on the many, many billboards up and down the 5. Over the past year and a half, she’d practically memorized them.
“I like everything except the soup,” she pointed out. “I like the idea of an iconic pea-soup restaurant. I love a good billboard campaign.”
“That’s why I brought you a magnet and not soup,” he said. “Also because soup wouldn’t stick to a fridge very well, and I wanted something to commemorate the last year.”
They did get lucky, because the next day was foggy and cloudy and every so often it would half-heartedly drizzle for a few minutes, which Sloane said counted as rain.
It made everything smell like pavement and petrichor and meant no one got too sunburned or too sweaty, which was the best possible weather they could have hoped for.
It still sucked, but Sloane knew that no amount of roadside REPENT! signs could have changed that. Moving always sucked, but at the end of it the new apartment had her couch and his bookshelf and his coffee table and her rug in the same room, and it all looked pretty good together.
“Sloane,” Ronnie was saying accusatorily. “You never told me you were from the cryptid capital of America.”
“Self-proclaimed,” Sloane said, quickly. “There’s not an official Most Cryptids prize.”
“It’s got the most cryptid sightings per capita,” Max said, a slice of pizza in one hand and a beer in the other. “Even more than Point Pleasant, West Virginia.”
This impressive fact was met with silence. “That’s where Mothman lives,” Sloane finally said, sighing. “Allegedly.”
They were sitting on the floor of the living room, eating pizza and drinking beer, because there was stuff stacked on the couch and no one had enough energy to move it.
Ronnie and Leo had come to help because they were good friends and didn’t mind getting paid in pizza and beer, and also because Sloane had helped each of them move in the past year, so they owed her.
“Wait, Mothman lives somewhere?” asked Leo. “He doesn’t just…go wherever?”
“He’s a person. Of course he lives somewhere,” said Ronnie. “He’s not one of those aliens that can blip from plane to plane.”
“Those what?”
Sloane tilted her head against the stack of boxes behind her and closed her eyes.
She was full of pizza and slightly buzzed from the beer, and she had a very busy week ahead of her, but for now she was listening to her friends grill her boyfriend about nonexistent monsters, and it was nice.
Probably it was more than just nice, but she didn’t have the brainpower to come up with a better word.
“Do you never watch the History Channel?” Ronnie laughed. “They built the pyramids!”
“Oh my god,” said Sloane. She didn’t open her eyes.
“Okay, just because I think there’s a good chance Bigfoot exists doesn’t mean I think there were ancient aliens,” Max said. “That’s bullshit.”
“Does Mothman have a house?” Leo said. “A cave? A treehouse? What does he sleep on?”
Sloane opened her eyes to see Leo and Ronnie both expectantly watching Max, who shrugged. “I’m not a Mothman expert,” he said, and Leo sighed dramatically.
“Sloane, send him back,” he said. “He doesn’t even know where Mothman sleeps.”
“Nah,” Sloane said, and reached out one bare foot to poke Max’s calf, the most effort she could make after moving day. “I’ll keep him.”
An hour later, Sloane opened the third box labeled Bedroom and finally, finally, found pillows. She had been starting to worry that they were buried somewhere behind a wall of other boxes in the living room and they’d have to improvise for the night.
“The REPENT sign comes through again,” she said, turning and holding them up to face Max, who was wrestling a fitted sheet onto their mattress.
“Thank you, REPENT sign,” he said, and rubbed his face. “Is that everything?”
“No, but it’s good enough for now.”
“Amen to that,” he said, and she tossed him a pillow.
“Happy first night in Los Angeles,” Sloane said a few minutes later, when they were both in bed. “I’d welcome you properly, but I’m afraid I’d fall asleep in the middle.”
“I’m insulted,” Max said, lying on his side with his face half-squashed in the pillow. His eyes were closed. “I’m moving back right now.”
Sloane scoffed. “You’re not even getting out of bed.”
“Fine,” Max said. “You got me. I’ll stay.” He groped for a second under the blanket, then took her hand and lifted it to his lips, all without opening his eyes. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” Sloane said, kissed his knuckles, and drifted off to sleep.
The End
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