Chapter 22 Whitney
Whitney
Finding a job really sucks.
It’s even worse when everyone you know keeps offering you one. I mean, Leonid means well, though any job I would take in Russia would be a joke. Xolotl may speak nine thousand languages, but I speak exactly one. I don’t count my lousy Spanish, now that I’ve let that go.
But Izzy’s fiancé isn’t the only one offering pity-jobs.
Aunt Helen and Uncle David have been offering me a new job every week since Christmas Eve. Steve offered me a job helping him break horses, and Amanda Saddler tried to hire me to manage their resort. I swear, if I get one more pity offer, I might go all Xolotl and murder someone.
Meanwhile, my super hot boyfriend, who’s even hotter now that he got his hair cut, lucks into the perfect job within two weeks of retiring from his last. I guess that’s why they tell college kids to work over the summers. Everyone wants experience.
Though I doubt Helen or David would appreciate Xolotl’s past experience, even if his last job is the reason he speaks so many languages.
He’s also been letting them know when he has an inkling some of their business contacts may not be long for this world.
Helen’s taken to calling him ‘Whitney’s little psychic,’ but I think she knows something’s up.
“You’re nervous,” Xolotl says. “I can tell.”
“How?” I stop in the middle of my room, a pair of socks clutched against my chest. “I’m not nervous.”
“You’ve carried that same pair of socks from your drawers to your bed three times.”
“Shut up,” I say.
He tilts his head. “Don’t be nervous.”
“I—” He’s told me three times that any money he earns is my money, but saying it doesn’t make it so. “You know I can’t take your money.”
“You take your mom and dad’s money,” he says. “How’s that different?”
“It just is,” I say. “It’s not like we’re married.”
Xolotl stands. “You said you didn’t want to get married until after Izzy does. You said it would be stealing her thunder.”
I shrug.
I’m a woman.
I say things that are stupid sometimes. But I did say that, so I can’t very well contradict it. “Listen, this interview just really matters.”
“Can I ask something?” He looks nervous for some reason. He’s not going to propose right now, watching me pack to leave, right? That would be so lame.
“I guess.”
“If you’re wearing those high heels to the interview, why do you need socks at all?”
I blink. “Right.” I carry the socks back to my chest of drawers. “Are you sure you can portal me over for the interview?”
Xolotl nods. “No problem. I don’t have any translations to do until later this afternoon.”
“Okay, well, thanks. That saves me a lot on a plane ticket, which this stupid company did not offer to comp.”
“Comp?”
“Compensate me for,” I say. “Pay me back.”
He frowns. “That’s not a good sign.”
Before I can say anything else, Gabe bursts through my closed door. “Dude, remember our deal? We can do it tonight.”
“Thanks for knocking, loser,” I say.
Gabe sighs heavily. “Sorry, whatever. But seriously, I saw it on the schedule. And I borrowed that thing we need from that friend I told you had one.”
Xolotl doesn’t look confused at all, which is really annoying.
I drop my hand on my hip. “What’s going on?”
“Why are you packing a bag?” Gabe shoves my backpack a few inches forward on my bed. “Isn’t Mister Incredible taking you via air-drop to the interview and picking you up later?”
I sigh. “Yeah, but you never know.”
“You never know what, exactly?”
“California’s barely recovering from the earth-splitting and the coup,” Xolotl says. “I told her to pack a bag for emergencies, which apparently includes socks.”
“If something goes wrong, do you think I can run in these?” I hold up the gorgeous Louboutin heels Xolotl “made” for me. “Not at all. It’s game over. So.” I walk back for the socks.
“Well, I need to hitch a ride. While you go to your interview, Xolotl and I have some unfinished business.” He bobs his head, his eyes wide. “Right?”
“Sure,” Xolotl says.
No matter how hard I push, Gabe won’t tell me what’s going on, and it feels unfair to press Xolotl to betray my brother’s confidence. I only ask one thing, as he prepares to take me to Anaheim, California. “Is it legal?”
Xolotl frowns.
“If you don’t know that, is it dangerous?”
He shakes his head. “It’s safe.”
I sigh. “Fine.”
“We’ll also be very close to you, where you’re doing your interview,” Gabe volunteers. “Stop worrying about it. It’s between me and your boyfriend.”
I can’t help worrying, though, and it sort of distracts me during the interview, which goes badly. I’m literally talking to the third person in the lineup when the boss walks in and makes a ‘finger across the throat’ sign that I clearly wasn’t meant to see.
Or, oh no, what if she literally just didn’t care whether I saw it?
Was my interview that bad? They walk me to the front of the office after that, and my four-hour interview’s over in an hour flat.
How embarrassing. The only good news is that, thanks to my bond, I’m able to call a cab and follow the tug of our bond to wherever Xolotl’s doing whatever he’s doing with Gabe.
I groan out loud when it leads me to the Santa Anita racetrack.
I should’ve known. No one in the world has been more obsessed with horse shifters than Gabe. In fact, he was the one who read and read and re-read the journals left to Amanda Saddler. He’s never had a chance to ride a horse shifter, but he’s heard all the stories.
The very first one, Aleksandr, won the Grand National with his now-wife. The next one who shifted, Grigoriy, won some kind of show-jumping thing. Then Adriana’s husband, Alexei Romanov, of the Romanovs, won some kind of flat race.
Or actually, maybe he lost, but he lost to another shifter. I’m a little fuzzy on the details. But all the horse shifters have one thing in common—they’re way faster than any real horse. And I know Gabe’s been chomping at the figurative bit to ride one.
And win money.
More than anyone I know, Gabe has this insatiable belief that he was destined for something great, that his good luck is just around the corner.
He enters the lottery religiously. He enters raffles.
And he’s always talking about when he will meet a shifter, or save the world, in that order, preferably.
He has not an ounce of shifter blood in him, but for some reason, he still prays that he’ll be able to turn into a horse.
Of course he made some deal with Xolotl to race today.
I do what any good girlfriend would do, and I buy a ticket. Gabe must’ve gotten false papers from Leonid. We get all our fake documentation from him, since he literally runs a government. It’s a snap for him to get us the documents we need, and then we can just say that the horse is Russian.
In spite of myself, I get more and more excited as their race draws closer.
I’m pretty sure they entered the stakes race, because one of the horses is named The Death God.
It’s a little too on the nose to be a coincidence.
It’s just a basic listed stake, since Xolotl has done exactly nothing before now.
I do wonder where Gabe got the money for the entry fee.
And then I remember his college fund.
Surely he wouldn’t. . .but it’s Gabe. And he’s going to be riding a horse-shifter. Of course he’d gamble everything he has. He probably bet anything he had left on himself as well—to win.
I’m not gonna lie—as they line up, Gabe’s an obvious anomaly in the line of tiny jockeys.
He looks like an elephant lined up next to cows.
Xolotl’s just as stunning in his horse form as I recall, but he looks out of place, too.
The other horses are thoroughbreds, and to enter, Xolotl would need thoroughbred papers, but he’s clearly not a thoroughbred.
He looks like a beefy warmblood or an athletic draft, right down to the feathers around his hooves.
Hopefully he doesn’t move like one.
When the buzzer sounds, the horses leap forward, but Gabe and Xolotl seem to be having some sort of misunderstanding. They take off late, and as I watch, I can’t help laughing.
Loudly.
The people next to me are actually irritated and shush me repeatedly.
But I can’t help it.
I cannot stop laughing.
Gabe put all his money into this, I’m sure, and he’s losing.
Stupendously. When all’s said and done, they come in dead last by a wide margin.
Literally, the other horses almost lap them.
Of course I run down to meet them, shoving and jamming my way through, and pushing past a door marked “owners and riders only,” so that I can laugh right in Gabe’s face.
His very red, very agitated face.
I can’t stop laughing. “How could you both suck so badly?”
“He’s really heavy.” Xolotl shrugs. “And I never said I was fast.”
I’m laughing again. I can’t seem to stop.
“I just put all my money into this,” Gabe says, sputtering. “You think it’s funny?”
“It’s the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life,” I say.
“Well, I’m glad someone finds it funny, because when Mom and Dad find out, they’re going to kill me.” Gabe looks like he might cry.
I wipe the tears off my cheeks, and I straighten. “Okay, it’s fine, though. You know we can always get money when we need it.”
“How?” Xolotl asks. “You said we can’t knock over ATMs anymore.”
I can’t help my hard eye roll. “Dude, Gabe. You’re so stupid. You know he has all the powers Leonid has.”
Gabe frowns. “And?”
“And that includes Aleksandr’s powers.” I lift my eyebrows. “Plus.” I lower my voice. “He can teleport us. Aleks was stuck flying from place to place, and that meant he had to declare things.”
“I still don’t follow,” Gabe says.
I whip out my phone and search up the list of the world’s biggest diamond mines. I swivel it around, and I show Xolotl. “This is the Jwaneng mine in Botswana. It made almost twelve million carats of diamonds in 2023 for DeBeers and the government there. I vote we go on a field trip. You up for it?”
Xolotl smiles. “I am.”