Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Lance
My text message to Alana letting her know about the change to the situation resulted in her sending back a frowny face and saying to keep it professional.
Me: When am I not professional?
Alana: grrrrrr
Me: Will you be mad at me if I buy you a gift?
Alana: Pressie!
The book about dinosaurs is already in my Amazon cart. I throw an extra copy in for Nessie because, clearly, they both need to brush up on their prehistoric animals.
The first night goes completely uneventfully. Boring.
Yep, not thinking about the way she looked with her wet hair and tank top slightly askew. Nope.
Around 2 a.m., Champ wakes and uses the bathroom. He doesn’t notice me and heads back into his room.
Day two is the same. My sandy eyes burn as I drop them both at school and work respectively before heading back home. Showers are stupid, sleep is good. I like sleep.
Kicking off my shoes, I’m about to flop on my bed face first, but Midge is curled up on my pillow. “Move.”
The cat lifts her head, yawns, and goes back to sleep. She’s ten pounds. I can move her if I want to. Instead, I use my arm as a pillow and tell my cell phone to wake me in a few hours.
The alarm goes off, and I’m trapped. Pinned. Paralyzed. No sleep paralysis demon haunting me. No, this is worse. It’s the fucking stubby-legged, squished-face cat of my roommate. It’s sleeping on my chest. I have two thoughts at once.
1) Why, in the two years we’ve had this dumbass cat, has it chosen today to sleep on me?
2) I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN!
The cat chose me.
ME!
All these years I thought she didn’t like me.
Carefully, I reach for my phone and snap a picture, sending it to Alana as proof. I don’t think the cat even lies on her like this.
Alana: You’re warm and not twitching in your sleep like you normally do. That’s why she’s with you.
Alana: At least you’re getting some pussy near your mouth today.
Well, that was completely uncalled for.
She’s not wrong. But still, I don’t need to be called out on it either. I trudge into the kitchen and make a protein shake—I drink it to survive not because it tastes good. The mail and other papers are scattered on the kitchen table. I thumb through the Pennysaver and some company trying to get me to switch my auto insurance. They addressed it to the wrong person.
Amid the mess and snail mail spam, there are two bills. One I recognize instantly because Alana’s been paying her assistant Macie’s tuition for years. The other one is the electric bill, but my phone buzzes with an alert.
Photos of Honey Badger at a fashion show in Paris fill my feed. The press raves about how great she looks, but I see the weariness in her eyes. There are more pictures—a Paris nightclub, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Louvre. Damn, I kinda wanted to do that.
An email from Pine Valley pops up on my screen. I am officially invited to Family Day. Gooey pride swirls around my face and lands on my cheeks. And suddenly, I’m not missing the red-carpet lifestyle at all.
The days and evenings fall into a routine of dropping the family off at school, going to sleep, picking up the kids, and ignoring the way Nessie looks at me every time I pick her up from work, or how it makes me feel.
Werewolf and Champ seem to be getting along. Maria draws me a picture of some sort of animal which may or may not have the correct number of limbs.
Back at the apartment, Nessie makes dinner, obviously struggling with the proper amount of food. “It’s been the two of us for so long. I don’t know. Do you eat a whole box of pasta on your own?”
“Boxed pasta. What would your mother say?” I clutch invisible pearls.
She waves a wooden spoon at me. “And you will never say anything to her about it. As far as she knows, it’s fresh pasta or nothing in my house. Got it? Now, how much do you eat?”
I walk behind her. She stiffens as I shake the box a few times, spilling out a reasonable amount of carbs. Do I make her nervous? Shit. That’s what I’m supposed to be protecting her from. Job fail.
Champ has his head between his hands and lets out a moan. “What’s wrong, Champ?”
He motions with his nose to the paper in front of him. “We have to do a wax museum.”
Huh? I glance over to Nessie, who also gives me a shrug. She has no idea what it is either.
“You have to wear a costume and read a whole monologue. People walk around to your station and say, ‘boop,’ and you have to come alive and act like whatever famous person you are.”
His mother squeaks excitedly. “That sounds so fun.”
It sounds like a fucking nightmare.
Again, he groans. “It gets worse. Stage one: We perform in our class. Stage two: Each class votes for the top five, and they rotate through the third grade classrooms. Stage three: All the teachers select the top ten kids to present in front of the whole school and at the Family Welcoming Showcase.”
Nope. Definitely a nightmare. I really don’t know how Honey Badger does it. People stare at you, judging you. There are a million things that could go wrong and so few exits from a stage.
The pasta starts to bubble over, and I adjust the temperature while Nessie picks up the paper. “The title of the assignment is Next to Greatness, what the hell is this?”
Champ throws his hands up again. “That’s the worst part. Do I get to be Abe Lincoln or Babe Ruth? No! I’m some guy who SAW the Gettysburg Address. Instead of being Batman, I’m freaking Alfred.”
I had the kid’s back until he started giving Alfred shit. “Um, Alfred Pennyworth was a spy and a badass before he became Bruce Wayne’s caregiver.”
Nessie checks on the pasta. I guess she didn’t trust me enough to watch water boil. “Maybe it’s a way of keeping the rich kids humble. Like, obviously, they’re all nepo babies, so it makes sense they’ll eventually fall into power. Maybe this is a chance for them to experience what it’s like to be one of the common folks.”
“To be in the crowd during history instead of the one making it.” The idea hits me. “Oh! You could be one of Khutulun’s suitors.”
They both blink at me confused, like I’m the one who’s obsessed with Bigfoot and creates imaginary animals like mermadillos. I bring up her bio on my phone. “Khutulun was a Mongolian princess. And the Mongols were awesome warriors. In fact, she was Genghis Khan’s great-granddaughter.” Not much of a brag since he used to rape every woman he saw to spread his genes around, but still. “Anyway, her dad told her she had to get married, and she said she would only marry a man who would beat her in battle. But if he wanted her hand, he needed to bring one hundred horses. If he won, she would marry him. If she won, she kept the horses, and he left in disgrace. But here’s the thing: she was a total badass wrestler and fighter. Long story short…she ended up with ten thousand horses.”
Nessie tucks her hair behind her ear before turning away and opening the fridge. “A fighter who didn’t do what her father wanted and made the empire stronger with the most powerful weapon on earth at the time. Yeah, I like her.”
“Everyone likes her,” I add and turn back to Champ, whose frown might swallow his whole face. “What’s wrong?”
He looks at me like I’m the dumbest man alive. The way only kids can gut you and leave your insides on the floor while they draw mustaches on your face in your own blood. “You want me, the new kid, to stand in front of a bunch of rich kids and pretend to be a guy who got beaten up by a girl?”
Hmmm…
But his mother comes in with a rescue. “So, you don’t want to be a Mongol warrior who was rich enough to own one hundred horses, with the social standing high enough to even be in the same room as a princess. A fighter whose only loss was to a warrior so good we’re still talking about her 800 years later. What? Are you afraid these new kids will see that you have taste in such high-quality women that you can see the benefits in an honorable defeat?”
He looks at me for support, realizing he stepped into something neither one of us was expecting. I shoot him with finger guns. “Plus, you’ll get to dress like a Mongol warrior with those cool hats and fuzzy pants. Comfort and extra layers of armor.”
“I’m sure Nonna has some fabric we can use.” She moves the pasta off the stove and drains the water, the steam rising from the sink creating a smokey mist around her. For a second, she’s a warrior herself in her kitchen.
Looking in the cabinet, she pulls out three plates. But she lingers for a long moment, continuing to stare at the one remaining plate. She jumps a little when I clear my throat. “Only one of us can eat breakfast tomorrow,” she says.’
“Or I can wash the plates while you’re sleeping. Like your own personal cleaning elf.” I take the plates from her and start serving the food while she stares at me like I am completely insane. I’ve been getting that look a lot from this family.
A few hours later, I sit on the left side of the couch while Nessie sits on the other. Her lips tighten, and she has a far off look in her eyes. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She shakes herself back to reality and resumes her normal smile. “Do you want to watch anything? Have you caught up on The Knights of the Night ?”
“I don’t watch it, but my roommate does.”
“Roommate? No girlfriend?” She snickers and pulls a throw pillow across her chest.
I shake my head no. “The job doesn’t leave a lot of time for a personal life.”
I never thought of how it would appear when she moved in. Alana needed some place to stay, and I had an extra room. We’ve been together ever since. Maybe it’s finally time for us to claim our own space. It seems weird to be in my thirties and still sharing a bathroom with a woman I’m not sleeping with. But really, I don’t think she can handle being alone.
“As I was saying, my roommate watches. I’ve seen a few scenes here and there. And of course, there are all the memes I sort of understand and laugh at like I’m completely in the know.”
The couch sinks as she reaches for the remote. “Why don’t you search the place for ninjas while I set it up? We’ll go in chronological order, not the order of release.”
It’s not a bad idea. It’s been about an hour since my last check. I’m not this paranoid around Honey Badger. I don’t know why I’m so concerned about Nessie.
By the time I’m done checking the rooms and the outside cameras for anything suspicious, she’s got the show going. Five minutes in, there’s a battle where someone is choking his enemy with his own intestines. Twenty minutes in, there’s a cute fuzzy pet thing that lies on the lap of the queen and shoots daggers out of its butt. By the time the credits roll, I’m hooked.
Crap. Now I have to tell Alana she’s right.
Nessie yawns. “I’m off to bed.” She stands and stretches, arching her back.
My fingers flex against my own willpower. “I’ll be here.”
“Night, Lance.”
“Night, Izzy.”