Chapter 16
TWINK
Over the next couple of weeks, Daddy and I became particularly datey.
He spent most nights at my place, and in the mornings I went to the bookstore and he worked on the Kaylog.
He would still visit me at the café, now staying through my break so we could have lunch together.
Then later in the evening, we would regroup for even more time together, exploring each other’s bodies.
For times when we weren’t together, I got him a cheap phone on my plan, and while he hadn’t acclimated to texting and reading, I could call him on my break or when he was on some errand or another—I didn’t really understand all the things that went into fixing an alien spaceship, despite his attempts at explaining it to me.
During these weeks, I learned a lot about Daddy: He preferred peanut butter on his waffles over syrup, something I mentioned was an option one morning to spice things up.
He became obsessed with gelato, frozen yogurt, and ice cream, and we would make frequent stops at one of the shops near the park before taking one of our lengthy walks.
He didn’t enjoy the sound of dogs barking, which he earned more than his share of; it even became kind of cute after a while.
I enjoyed gradually discovering more about him, and though whenever he got out his tentacle and we’d play, part of me wanted him to take me fully, I was satisfied enough when he would shoot that load across me, which I learned I needed to put towels down to manage.
On Thursday, I was working in the café—the ever-absent Monika was still employed here, for reasons I’ll never understand.
Eric was reading one of his comics while I was busy putting together a large order, when he said, “Someone’s in a good mood.”
“Huh?”
“You’re humming pop songs, so I take it you’re less miserable in the café.”
He wasn’t wrong. Since I started this stuff with Daddy, I’d found fewer reasons to complain about the job, and I actually didn’t really mind it as much anymore.
“I think I’m getting pretty good at this.”
Eric winced. “Then why have you pumped half the chocolate into that cup?”
Oh fuck. “Well, I was doing fairly well.”
I chucked the cup and started over when Eric said, “Is it safe to say a certain Daddy is responsible for these good moods?”
The corners of my lips pushed into my cheeks. “Maybe…” I sang.
“You guys are a cute couple, but maybe a little too cute.”
“What is too cute?”
“Like it makes me want to vomit when I see you out together.”
“You see us out? You never say hi.”
“You’re all smiley and in a good mood. I liked it better when you were miserable. You know what they say about misery loving company.”
At my glare, he smirked. He could be sardonic, but he wasn’t a total ass, even if he liked to pretend otherwise.
“I’ll say hi if I see you guys out again,” he said like a kid who’d gotten into trouble with their teacher.
As if on cue, the door opened. I half expected it to be Daddy, though Eric was early for his break today, but instead… “Roger?”
“I go by Powerbottom now,” he insisted, approaching the bar.
Daddy had initially started calling him Roger whenever he’d see him, but this was something Roger wasn’t having, preferring the nickname, which wasn’t really surprising.
He wore a broad grin, looking as happy as I felt as he settled on a stool at the bar, beside Eric. “How are my two favorite people?”
Eric lowered his comic book. “Please tell me you’re not dating someone too.”
“What? No.”
“Then why do you have that big-ass grin on your face?”
“Just something I’ve been into recently.”
Eric raised his comic back up. “I feel like you’re baiting me to ask, so I’m gonna leave you hanging because you’re gonna tell me anyway.”
“Eric, can’t you be a little fun?”
“Then what would we need you for?”
“Behave, you two,” I said, passing the customer his now properly made mocha. “But Eric does have a point. You’re in an awfully lively mood. And aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Finished early, and now I have some other things to look into.”
“I’m not taking the bait,” Eric said, turning the page of his comic, and really, I was surprised he’d been able to read while we were chatting.
“That’s fine because I wasn’t gonna tell you anyway,” Roger said. “It’s official, top-secret business.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “I feel that’s somehow supposed to make me more intrigued.”
“And you’re not gonna tell your best friend about this?” I pressed.
“I was coming to tell you, but…”
Roger eyed Eric, who said, “Okay, I’m getting up. Let me know when you’re finished with your little secret meeting.”
Roger glanced over his shoulder, as though waiting for Eric to be out of earshot before he shared anything, which really couldn’t have been that big of a deal.
I started cleaning the counter. “If this is another guy you met on Sniffies—”
“What? No.” He bunched up his face. “Nothing to do with guys. You know that podcast I listen to?”
“The one about violent serial killers?”
“The other one. About aliens.”
I was emptying the coffee grinder into the trash as he said it, and I was so shocked that I missed the trash can altogether, essentially dumping grounds onto the floor. Fuck.
Why the hell was Roger suddenly bringing up aliens? Not that that was weird for Roger. He’d always been into aliens and conspiracy theories. No, I was being paranoid because of Daddy.
“Dude, you made a mess,” Roger said, oblivious that my fumble was triggered by what he’d said.
“Podcast…?” I prompted, bringing his attention back to what I really wanted to hear about.
“So, a bunch of guys have this astronomy club that gets together in the park to stargaze, and they posted this video recently…” He pulled up a TikTok video showing a ball of fire falling from the sky. A burst of light exploded from it before it descended and was lost to sight amid some mid-rises.
That was the area where Daddy’s ship crashed. Holy fuck. Someone had it on video? That couldn’t be that bad, though. Not like there’d be a way for them to figure out where it was based on that video. Right?
“A meteor maybe?” I asked, hoping to get him off the scent.
“Have you ever seen a meteor burst with light while it was falling?”
“I don’t watch a lot of meteors, Roger.”
“They don’t do that,” he insisted. “This is a UFO, and that was by the Spire condos, near the club.”
“Okay, so a weird thing caught on video. Why is that so interesting? I’m sure there are videos like this all over the world.”
He didn’t seem convinced. “Maybe, but then someone broke into the Halloween costume store over on Ponny and Way just a couple days later.”
I hadn’t heard about this, but it made tension knot up in me. I didn’t like that he had something else to connect this video with. Had Daddy broken into the costume store? It wasn’t something he’d mentioned.
“Oh, really?” I said, keeping it short so I wouldn’t accidentally reveal anything.
Roger seemed frustrated I wasn’t as into this as he was, but I was stressed as fuck that somehow that was gonna tie back to Daddy.
“Okay, Mr. Skeptical, keep watching…”
I sighed, hitting Play again, and the video switched over to what looked like security-camera footage.
I recognized the inside of the gas station a few blocks from my place.
A woman with long hair and wearing a floral-patterned dress entered the store, her gait unsteady, like maybe she was drunk or feeling unwell.
But as she moved closer to the camera, it became clear there was a lot more off about her.
A mask covered her face, like the kind you’d find in a Halloween store, maybe, but creepily, it was made to resemble a distorted human face.
The dress draped over her oddly, like it was trying to accommodate something strangely shaped and much larger than expected beneath it.
She reached out to the cashier, her hands covered in gloves—those big ones you use to scrub down the kitchen.
There seemed to be some discussion before she turned and started for the door.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said, mostly because it couldn’t have been Daddy.
I considered that it could have been how he looked when he first arrived. But didn’t he say he’d come right to the club after he arrived? Was this another alien? No, surely it’d be too big of a coincidence for another alien to arrive around the same time as Daddy.
“Well, it could be—”
“Keep watching,” Roger insisted.
Fuck, there was more?
I hit Play again, nervous that Daddy’s an alien and I’m scared this will lead back to him was written all over my face.
As the masked woman headed for the door, something slipped out of the bottom of her dress—a tentacle!
It was different from Daddy’s, which I’d become much more familiar with the more we messed around.
But while Daddy’s was smooth and a light pink color, this had rigid edges and was darker, maybe even black.
Could this be an appendage he hadn’t shown me yet?
“Well, that’s definitely strange,” was as much as I was willing to tell my friend, whose brows creased.
“This person has a fucking tail, and it’s just strange?”
“It might not be a tail,” I said, faster than I probably should have, earning another look from Roger.
I really need to shut the fuck up before I say something really stupid.
“That’s a fucking tail, Charlie, on someone who’s clearly wearing a disguise from a costume shop, which was robbed right after this UFO crashed in town.”
“You don’t know that a UFO crashed in town.” Even as I said the words, I realized how defensive I sounded. It reminded me of Mom asking if I might be attracted to boys and me saying, “You don’t know that I’m attracted to boys.” I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying anything even stupider.
“That’s a fucking alien,” Roger snapped, like he couldn’t bear for me to stand there being so naive when it was right in my face.
He wasn’t all that quiet about it either, so we earned a few looks from the patrons—and now that I was noticing, there were actually quite a few people in the café today.
If I hadn’t been so concerned about Daddy being caught by a bunch of online alien sleuths, I might’ve appreciated that more people were coming to the café when I was on duty.
I couldn’t dwell on that, though. I had to think quickly. “It’s weird, that’s for sure. It’s probably AI.”
“The guys who run the pod are all techy and catch that stuff all the time. It’s not AI.”
“It’s a person in a costume. That tail could be a part of it.”
“They don’t sell anything like that at that store,” he pointed out.
I wish I could come up with excuses faster than he could refute them.
“It doesn’t even matter, really, does it?”
“If there’s an alien running around Harmony Springs?”
A few more gazes turned our way.
“Roger…I don’t know. Does it really matter?”
“We’ll see. I signed up to work with the pod’s team to investigate.”
My chest tightened. “The pod’s team? What does that mean?”
“We’re going alien hunting.”
“Alien hunting? What does that entail?”
The thought of a bunch of nerds hunting my Daddy stressed me out.
“There were a few sightings in this part of town the other night, things that blew up on Reddit threads. The sightings are at night, so we think that’s when the alien is active, so we’ll be going there then.”
“What part of town?”
“Suddenly curious, are you?”
“No, I’m really not. So how about you let me get back to work? I’ve got coffee grounds on the floor to clean up.” As I spoke, I sent the video link to myself, then handed him his phone.
“Okay, I’ve gotta do some more research tonight,” he said. “Wanna meet up later for drinks?”
“I was gonna spend tonight with Daddy.”
Now I really had a reason—something I was nervous my good friend might catch on to, but he shrugged, maybe too busy investigating in his own mind. “Cool, cool. Have fun.”
I grabbed a rag, and as I squatted down, Roger leaned over the counter and said, “Hey, when did Daddy move to town? Wasn’t that around the time this thing was seen?”
“Um…”
“And then he only goes by the name Daddy…and calls people weird nicknames…” He raised a skeptical brow, though I knew him well enough to know he was joking.
“What? That’s ridiculous,” I spat out, hardly even thinking about how obvious I was being.
Roger winced. “Yes, it is. So why are you having a hernia over it?”
He’s right. Get it together, Twink…I mean, Charlie!
“Sorry, think I’m just ready to be on my break.”
“Mmmkay. Well, hit me up later. We need to hang at some point this week. Daddy doesn’t get to keep you all to himself.”
“Yeah, yeah, man,” I said. He wasn’t wrong. Since Daddy had come to town, I’d spent so much time with him that I was neglecting my best friend, which really, was probably why he was so engrossed in this UFO conspiracy stuff to begin with.