by Nicole Hall
A crack in the uneven sidewalk grabbed Keely’s heel, and she lurched forward, dumping her box all over 3rd Avenue. She caught herself before hitting the ground, but her reflexes hadn’t saved the special coffee mug Charlotte had given her when Keely had gotten the job. Shards of the last year of her life littered the sidewalk, forcing other pedestrians to tread carefully through her mess.
Keely braced herself in the middle of the concrete and yanked the offending shoe off her foot. The heel dangled uselessly, held on by a thin strip of fabric. She’d splurged on those shoes because she’d thought her meeting with her boss today meant she was getting a promotion. Ha! Let that be a lesson for future splurges.
Her job was toast, her savings were anemic, rent was due, and her sexy new shoes were ruined. Anger and frustration blurred her vision. Keely pulled off the still intact stiletto and tossed both as hard as she could down the alley next to her. One clattered against a metal dumpster, but the other hit something soft with a thud that elicited a quiet curse.
Keely’s eyebrows shot up. The low, rough voice caused a weird little tingle to shiver its way down her spine. She’d most likely just pegged a homeless guy trying to get some sleep, but her Southern upbringing demanded she apologize. Her pathetic finances demanded she retrieve the shoes in the hopes that she could get them fixed.
She collected the rest of her office stuff from the sidewalk, set everything down carefully at the entrance to the alley, and pulled out her pepper spray. No New Yorker worth her salt went anywhere without pepper spray, and though Keely had only lived there six years, she tried her best to follow smart advice.
Like don’t go down shady, deserted alleys to investigate a possible maiming by shoe?
Keely told her inner voice to shut up. Barefoot and frazzled, she crept into the shadows cast by the red brick buildings lining the street. A large blue dumpster took up most of the alley. Almost taller than her, it smelled horrifically like rotting fish and oranges. After the first whiff, she tried to breathe shallowly through her mouth, but the smell lingered in the back of her throat.
The first shoe had landed at the base of the dumpster. Keely picked it up and tucked it under her free arm. The heel wouldn’t even make a reasonable weapon. Piles of cardboard boxes mostly blocked the rest of the alley, but a rustling noise behind them clued Keely in to the location of her other shoe.
She peered around the boxes, and a long, dark snout with a tuft of brownish-red hair on top popped up from the other side. Keely squealed and jumped back a step. The animal tilted its head at her and stepped out from behind the mess.
A llama. There was a llama in the alley. Was that what she’d hit with her shoe?
No one else appeared at her shriek, but she’d definitely heard a man’s voice. Keely leaned over and spotted her shoe near the llama’s feet. A few metal doors opened into the alley—could she have scared off the owner?
Keely lifted her hand and reached for the llama’s soft-looking nose. It didn’t move as she approached, and Keely searched for any kind of collar or tag that would identify it. Did they even make collars big enough for llamas? She took a step closer, and her foot landed in a slimy puddle before she could make contact with fur.
Her eyes closed for a second, and her head dropped. Of course. Of course. There were any number of disgusting options for what she’d just stepped in, and she had no intention of looking to see what it was. Llama or no, she’d hit her limit. The shoes could rot with the rest of her future.
Keely shook her head, pulled her shoulders back, and turned to walk the rest of the way home barefoot. Hopefully, it would scrape off whatever clung to her toes.
As an afterthought, she spoke over her shoulder. “Sorry, llama. Let your owner know I didn’t mean to assault him.”
Apology accepted.
Keely spun around again at the same male voice she’d heard before. The llama had come out past the boxes, but the alley remained empty of other people. Unless someone was hiding in the dumpster. The dingy metal sides reached up past her head, so she couldn’t look inside. Also, anyone willing to hide in that god-awful stench was clearly insane and not someone she wanted to mess with.
“Hello?” Perfect. She sounded exactly like a stupid heroine about to get murdered.
No one answered, but the llama came closer, stepping through the puddles in the alley on dainty feet. Not a word she ever thought she’d use to describe a llama, but it was a day for firsts as well as poor decisions. The animal had clean fur and seemed docile, but Keely didn’t feel like taking any more chances as it approached her. She backed away from the animal in favor of the open street.
Male laughter filled her mind. Not the alley. Not the street. Her mind.
Holy shit, the llama was telepathic. The laughter got louder, and Keely had the urge to kick the llama in the shins. Did llamas have shins?
Her eyes narrowed. There was a better-than-nothing chance that she’d finally snapped under the stress, but Keely suspected the weirdness happening right now had nothing to do with how crappy her life had suddenly become.
“You’re not really a llama, are you?”
Good guess. The llama—she needed something better to call him than that—stopped before forcing her out of the alley. As entertaining as this meeting has been, I need your help before you run away.
Keely placed her hand firmly on the trigger for the pepper spray and her weight on her toes just in case. She was no stranger to weirdness. Her brother and sister-in-law had an imp that they thought they kept secret, and her twin nephews definitely had magical tendencies. It hadn’t come from her side of the family though. All her relatives exemplified mundane and boring. At least, the ones she knew about. Her parents weren’t exactly forthcoming with family information.
The llama tilted his head. You have some experience with magical creatures, right?
The disconnect between the sexy voice drifting across her mind and the furry figure in front of her messed with her head. “No. You’d be my first. What do you need help with?”
He sighed. I need you to kiss me.
Keely winced. “That’s a little cliché, don’t you think?”
It wasn’t my idea.
A tinge of embarrassment came across with the words, and Keely wondered whose idea it had been. Then she decided it didn’t matter. As long as he didn’t try to bite her, it wouldn’t kill her to kiss a cute animal. Maybe the fairy tales were true and he’d turn into a handsome prince.
Keely leaned forward, but the llama jerked his head out of the way. The sense of embarrassment thickened.
Not…on my face.
She stared at him for a second, uncomprehending. “Where else would I…” Both eyebrows shot up. Nope. Hard nope. “I’m not kissing your ass. Good luck on your quest.”
Barefoot and completely done with the day, Keely turned, grabbed her box, and marched back into the flow of pedestrians.
Wait…
The loud voice echoed a bit, but she didn’t hear the sound of llama hooves behind her. Keely forced her mind back to her lost job and resolved to ignore any future telepathic llamas.
The rest of the trip home passed in a blessedly uneventful blur. Keely shook her head as she strode up the steps to the small row house she shared with her roommates. Three of them lived in two bedrooms, and they all shared a single bath. The lack of space sucked, but her roommates were nice. Not nice enough to let her live there rent-free, though.
For once, there wasn’t a cacophony of noise the second she opened the door. The place seemed bigger in the silence. She carried her box up the steps to the bedroom she shared with Dru. As usual, her roommate’s side of the space disappeared under clothes strewn about like confetti. Keely didn’t know how Dru lived her life that way. One big party.
With the box in her lap, Keely sighed and sank down on her bed. She didn’t even have time to start panicking before Samantha tapped on her door. Samantha—always Samantha, never Sam—was the alpha roommate; the one whose name actu
ally appeared on the lease. Perfectly made up, her hair in a sleek ponytail, Samantha towered over Keely, physically and emotionally.
She loved rules, as long as they were her rules, and woe to anyone who broke them. Despite the staid veneer, she’d be a vicious enemy to anyone who’d cause harm to her friends. And her frown made Keely search her mind for any infractions she may have inadvertently caused.
Samantha leaned against the doorframe without waiting for Keely to invite her in. “Why aren’t you at work?”
Keely lifted the box a couple of inches. “I got fired.”
“I thought you were expecting a promotion.”
“I was.” Keely let the box drop back onto her lap.
Samantha’s frown deepened, etching dark furrows into her forehead. “That’s problematic. I need to talk to you about your rooming situation.”
“I’ll be able to pay my rent.” Keely just didn’t know how quite yet.
“I’m not worried about that right now. Dru’s best friend is moving to New York.”
Sadness and exhaustion swept through Keely, as her shoulders fell a little farther. She liked Dru. The woman made a mean margarita. The prospect of losing a great roommate and a better friend hurt, but worse, she didn’t think she could afford a larger slice of the rent.
Samantha cleared her throat, and Keely realized she’d been staring down into her box, wallowing. She schooled her face and met Samantha’s hazel eyes.
“How long do we have before Dru leaves?”
The frown disappeared. “Oh, Dru isn’t leaving. She wants Nick to move in here.”
Keely sputtered. “Here? With us? Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She felt, appropriately, that she should consult me first. I have no problem with a man living here, but you’d all have to share this room. I was going to wait until you were both home tonight, but an opportunity presented itself.”
“Are you serious?”
Samantha’s brow furrowed. “Yes. Dru agreed to cover the cost of a bunk bed for them, but you’ll need to move some of your things to make space. Your rent will go down a small amount, which I guess is good timing considering your job.”
Keely stared at Samantha in horror. Four of them, one a dude, sharing one bathroom. They’d already maximized their room for storage. How were they supposed to fit all the stuff from another whole person?
“I’m moving out.” The words left Keely’s mouth before her brain had a chance to weigh-in.
Surprise flashed across Samantha’s face. “Since Nick is moving in, if that’s what you want, we can make it happen. You’re paid through the end of April, so you’ll have a couple of weeks to look for a new place.” She shook her head. “I don’t think now is the best time to make rash decisions, but you’re an adult so I’ll mind my own business.”
Keely released the breath she’d been holding. “Thanks, Samantha. You’re a fantastic landlord. I just need something new.”
“Dru will be sad, but I think Nick will help alleviate that.” Her lips tipped up in a half smile. “She’ll miss you. We both will.”
Panic threatened to overtake Keely. Samantha had a point, but this rash decision felt right. That didn’t stop her chest from getting tight. Keely smiled through the free fall, but judging by Samantha’s worried look, her eyes still appeared wild.
“It’s not like I’m leaving the planet. There’s more to New York than Manhattan.”
Samantha gasped. “Blasphemy. Bite your tongue, foul wench.”
Keely rolled her eyes, but gave her a real grin. “Take your bastardized Shakespeare elsewhere.”
“That’s better. Now that you don’t look like you’re going to chew through your own arm, I have work to finish up. Dinner at six, if you’re interested.”
Samantha pulled the door closed behind her, and Keely’s good mood evaporated. She’d have to decline dinner at six. Samantha and Dru always wanted to eat out, and her money had suddenly become a lot more precious. Peanut butter and jam would do.
Before then, Keely needed to get ahold of herself. Rash decisions hadn’t been her thing for a long time, and lately, she’d jumped from one to the next like stepping stones. If she’d learned anything from her disastrous last year of college, she needed to haul herself to a stop and let her common sense catch up.
A couple of deep breaths relaxed her shoulders and reminded Keely that the scented plug-in needed to be replaced. The smell leaned more toward burnt apple than summer bounty. She kept track of those things for Dru, and in exchange, Dru talked her into the occasional flamboyant color when Keely went too far with the beige.
They’d both have to learn to deal on their own now.
One foot in front of the other, a motto her mom said often when faced with hardship. A pang of homesickness threatened to knot her back up again, but she shrugged it off. Texas wasn’t the answer. She intended to follow through with her future plans even if they were slightly delayed, but the doubt planted years before choked out most of her optimism. What was the point in chasing a dream that made her miserable?
For a short moment, Keely gave in to despair and let the tears come. They flowed down her face in hot streaks until she angrily wiped them away. Enough. Tears had never helped her achieve her goals, and they wouldn’t now.
Keely set her jaw. She’d worked hard to build the life in New York she’d always wanted, and no amount of homelessness or poverty would stop her. She got shit done. Period. Which meant she’d better start with finding a new job. Landlords frowned on renting a place to someone without any income.
Her laptop sat on the side table she used for a nightstand, dresser, and desk, the only piece of furniture she owned besides her bed. Keely finally dropped the box onto the floor near her feet and took stock. Sweaty, dirty, morose, and potentially hallucinating magical llamas with butt fetishes.
Her emotions fluctuated wildly, so any decisions she made would be questionable at best. Better to take a break and come back to it with full power.
Keely took advantage of the uninterrupted bathroom time in the middle of the day. She stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out, then dressed in her favorite jeans and tee shirt. The one that said book nerd in big letters across the front. Her afternoon stretched before her, suddenly empty, and Keely needed some time in the sun. Maybe a walk to the park where she could obsess about how her future might be going down in flames.
She shoved a sack of stale bread in her bag and grabbed one of her secret ice cream bars from the back of the freezer. Keely hid them in a box of frozen okra, a trick she’d learned in her teen years when her brother repeatedly stole all the good popsicles. Why did they even put grape ones in there? No one wanted grape.
Keely ate the ice cream while standing at the window staring into their backyard. If not for Dru, it would probably be a jungle of weeds, but the wild greenery looked like something from a magazine. A fairy garden with a flagstone path running through the middle, though the path only led to a rickety table by the back fence. She remembered when Dru had come home with a stack of uneven, flat stones and refused to say where she got them.
A purloined flagstone path. It sounded like a cozy mystery that her former company would pretend to publish. Bitter thoughts fought for dominance, but Keely only wanted to feel sad for a bit. The job may have sucked, but it had been her dream once upon a time. A dream she’d almost had stolen from her and had fought desperately to keep.
Without the solid foundation Samantha and Dru provided at the beginning, she might have lost it anyway. The row house had been her home for more than a year, and now she’d chosen to leave that too. Compounding bad luck with bad decisions? Who could tell?
All her carefully laid plans were crumbling, and Keely didn’t know how to shore them up. The familiar panic at the thought of starting over again threatened to choke her. What if she wasn’t good enough? What if she chose poorly and ruined everything?
Keely shook her head and got a death grip on her runaway thoughts. She wasn
’t in college any more. She had choices and skills. She could do this.
Find a job. Find a place to live. Adjust her dreams. It didn’t sound hard, but it had taken Keely close to six months to find that first job. She had three weeks.
First, the park. Keely licked her fingers, grabbed the messenger bag she’d dropped on the counter, and turned away from Dru’s urban paradise. She’d take one day to think and mourn, then she’d get to work.
The front door slammed behind her, but for once Keely didn’t care about staying on Samantha’s good side. She pulled up short half-way down the steps when she noticed the large reddish-brown llama standing on the sidewalk outside their wrought iron fence. She looked around, but none of the other pedestrians paid him any mind. What were the chances there were two llamas wandering around the east side of Manhattan?
Two identical llamas?
Fancy meeting you here.
Keely dropped her head, pushing her fingers through her hair to let her palms rest at her temples. There was no mistaking that husky voice. The alley llama had followed her home.
My name is Seth.
She looked up, but kept her hands in her hair. “Why are you haunting me?”
I told you. I need your help.
“There’s something like one point five million people in Manhattan. Why not ask one of them?”
Seth didn’t answer, and it occurred to her that she was essentially talking aloud to herself. Luckily, most people were desensitized to crazy in New York. Keely lived on a fairly quiet street, but traffic started to pick up as the work day ended. A steady throng of people walked by, and exactly none of them noticed Seth, let alone her.
As she watched, a man in a blue suit walked right into Seth’s butt. The man bounced back and looked in confusion at the sidewalk in front of him. He glanced back and forth, then glared at her when she made eye contact.
“Sorry,” Keely called as he edged closer to the street and kept walking. She didn’t know why she’d apologized. Seth was the one blocking the sidewalk. For that matter, why hadn’t the guy just gone around the giant-ass llama in his way?