Chapter 19
DECODING CAGEY BARTENDERS AND OTHER COSMIC MYSTERIES
My rideshare app said ten minutes, but it felt like an hour.
I waited outside Crescent, arms folded tight, glancing over my shoulder every few seconds. I couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling.
Amelia hadn’t answered my text about leaving. She’d see it eventually, probably once she came up for air from Emerick. Whenever that was.
Sky hadn’t come out, either. He hadn’t chased after me. I told myself that was a good thing.
My buzz was gone, effectively doused by the reminder of everything wrong with my life right now. All I felt now was tired and cold.
The storm had moved on, but the air was still damp, and the sidewalks slick and gleaming orange beneath the streetlights. Nearby, a knot of clubgoers vaped and chain-smoked, their breath clouds forming a chemical fog.
I shivered harder.
Then, finally…salvation. A dark red sedan pulled up, dashboard sign glowing. I half-jogged to the passenger door and climbed in, flashing the driver a muted smile. After confirming my address, he pulled away, and I slumped against the seat, watching One Willow blur past the windows.
The heater hummed, but the chill inside me didn’t budge.
Something about Sky Acosta was not sitting right.
We’d danced tonight. The object of my fantasies had finally noticed me, flirted with me, touched me, held me. It should’ve been great. Like, birthday-wish, mall-fountain-coin level great.
So why did I feel so…gross about it?
I knew why. It was the timing.
Why now? Why the sudden interest? Why all the questions?
“I think you’d be surprised at how…open-minded I am, Raven.”
Right. Not much was going to surprise me after all this. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find my worst fears were true and Sky’s entire performance had been strategic.
I wanted to believe running into him the night of my car accident had been a coincidence.
Technically, it was plausible. One Willow wasn’t that big, and there weren’t many roads leading out of town.
Maybe he hated highways. Maybe long drives on back roads while brooding to weird synth playlists were his thing.
But then there was everything else.
The repeated questions about the crash. The pressure. The way he didn’t buy my deflections. Tonight, he’d pushed harder about the university, too. He’d said he was just worried, but I’d seen the look in his eyes. He wasn’t just concerned.
He was digging.
And then there was the fact that he’d shown up at Crescent in the first place. Which, sure, maybe not completely weird. It was one of the only decent clubs in town. But I’d never seen him there before. Not once. And Amelia and I had been going there for years. If Sky had shown up, I’d have noticed.
My gut sank deeper.
Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence.
Maybe…he’d followed me.
The thought slid through me like a glacier. I rubbed my arms beneath the thin dress, trying to erase it. It was ridiculous. Sky wasn’t a stalker. Right?
…Right?
How much did I actually know about Sky Acosta? As much as anybody at Oasis. Which wasn’t saying much.
One thing was obvious: he was looking for something. Answers.
But what smarted—the worst part of all this by far—was the manipulation.
He had to know I had a crush on him. Of course he did. I’d been pining after him like a lovesick idiot for six months. Anyone with a pair of eyes and two working brain cells could tell. I turned tomato red every time he said my name. Or, rather, a variation of it. He must’ve noticed.
Which begged the question: what if he saw an opportunity to use it? Maybe that smile, that damned dimple, the way he moved when he danced…maybe it wasn’t about me. It was about access. A way to get what he wanted.
The thought made my insides wither with mortification, even as righteous anger flushed my cheeks. God, I was an idiot. I’d really thought I’d caught his attention. I should’ve known better.
The memory of his thighs against mine, the strength of his arms flickered unwelcome across my mind. I shoved it down. No more. I wasn’t wasting another second daydreaming about him.
Resolve stiffened my spine, and I glared out the windshield. He’d picked the wrong girl to manipulate. I might’ve been infatuated, but I wasn’t a fool. And I definitely wasn’t a pushover.
Time to get my head on straight about Sky.
The rideshare driver slowed down Cherry Street and rolled to a stop at the intersection. I exhaled, slow and steady. Good riddance. I had more important things to worry about, like finding real answers.
It was time to find out why Sky was so obsessed with my car wreck. With the school. With Kelly’s not-so-crazy theories.
With aliens.
Was he secretly a blog-lurking ET fanatic? Maybe he ran one of those forums I’d doom-scrolled the other night and was trying to piece things together, same as me.
There’d been something in his eyes tonight, though. Complicated emotion. Almost like he was holding something back.
I imagined confronting him. Telling him everything. The idea made me grimace. Maybe I’d misread the whole thing, but until I knew his angle, I wasn’t blurting out a damn thing.
He was going to tell me what he knew. Not the other way around.
The car pulled up outside Bob’s, and I climbed out after a muttered thanks. I paused at the curb, digging in my clutch for my key. My marked palm caught the porch light, the design shimmering faintly.
My stomach flipped. I curled my fingers into a fist. What would Sky say about that? Probably launch into twenty more questions.
A cold breeze tickled the back of my neck, and I looked around. My skin prickled. The quiet around me wasn’t right. Too heavy. Too still.
I turned in place. The oak tree in Bob’s front yard creaked, bare limbs rattling. Across the street, the asphalt gleamed beneath the broken streetlight, the yard beyond shrouded in shadow.
It was late. Most of the windows on the block were dark. Curtains drawn tight. Even the stars were tucked behind a heavy quilt of lingering clouds.
I hesitated. There it was again—that nagging I’m-missing-something feeling.
I started for the porch. My boots scuffed across the sidewalk, too loud in the silence. At the door, I paused and looked back, scanning the house across the street.
There.
Something moved. A slinking shape, a liquid shadow pulling away from the rest of the dark beneath the trees.
Heart in my throat, I squinted, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
But nothing else moved. No one stepped out. No robots from outer space. No tall, suspiciously present bartender with too-perfect cheekbones.
Just wind and shadows and silence.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness. I’d seen something. Unless I hadn’t, and this week had turned me into a full-blown paranoid mess.
Who could blame me? There were aliens, real aliens, walking around. Smashing things. Trying to smash people.
Was I ever going to feel normal again?
Probably not. But for now…there was nothing out there but shadows and stars.
I forced a shaky breath and turned back to my apartment entrance, fumbling the key. I shoved it home with more force than necessary. Inside, I slammed the door shut and turned both locks, deadbolt and all.
This wasn’t sustainable. I was going to lose my mind if I didn’t get control of my nerves soon. The night out with Amelia had been a nice dose of normalcy while it lasted, but it was time to face real life again. The whole, weird mess that it’d become.
I flipped the stairwell switch. Warm light spilled over the small landing, chasing off the shadows. I kicked off my boots and climbed.
And maybe, just maybe…it was time to confront Sky Acosta, too.