by Ellen Mint
Easing myself closer, I had to straddle his right leg with mine. Don’t think about that or anything else that might brush against you. Just focus on driving.
Where was I even going?
“In five hundred feet, take the exit ramp.”
Well, thanks for that answer, universe. I have about ten thousand more.
Easing into it, with my body half splayed out across the car, I followed his phone’s instructions to wherever we were heading. And somewhere out there was a tentacle not-terminator with orders to kill me and my research.
This is why I don’t date!
I didn’t look up until the chirpy phone told me, “You have arrived at your destination on the left.” My fingers fell numb from squeezing the life out of the steering wheel. Knocking them against the lever, I put the car into park and slipped back to what was supposed to be the passenger seat.
It’d felt like hours passed while the small car climbed through the winding back roads of a mountain pass, but had only been twenty minutes. My heart bounded about like a rabbit on coffee as I stared up at a massive house that could double as a ski lodge. A log facade formed the main half of the house while red brick made up the other top floor to the right.
What were we doing here? He needed to get to a hospital not some retreat in the woods!
I reached for the ignition, about to restart the car and worm my way to the emergency room when warm fingers grabbed my wrist. Panic sent me leaping up and accidentally stomping down on his foot beside mine.
“You need help,” I whispered as if Nolan had no idea he was injured. A wriggly smile twisted about his lips as his pale face turned to me. I needed help. Bounty hunters, and tentacle monsters, and other grand delusions certain to point to serious brain damage. Away from the lab, it all felt like a bad dream caused by a gas leak. But I couldn’t escape the pain knotted around my throat from metal fingers or the stench of ethanol clinging to my dress. If it was a delusion, it wasn’t giving up without a fight.
“Take me inside,” my injured hero said, releasing my hand. “Please.”
“But a doctor…”
“Isn’t necessary. I can finish healing in my bathroom.”
So this was his house? Holy hell, where did he get the money? I fumbled to find the passenger side handle while Nolan shoved open his car door and slithered to his legs. When the harsh dome light kicked on, my eyes pivoted to the ripped open shoulder. That weird metal vibrator fell silent ten miles back and lay on the ground as if its job was finished. Whatever it did worked miracles. The bleeding stopped and I’d swear the ball and socket joint poking out below the muscle vanished. His skin was still ripped clear off the entire side of his shoulder, which would require grafts. I’d watched enough surgery documentaries to know that.
But Nolan didn’t seem to care as he eased around the car on shaky legs. Shit. I needed to help him. Rushing into the night, cold burst across my foot and I realized in the commotion I lost one of my heels. My gait clip-clopped as I gained and lost an inch with each step.
Not caring, I wrapped my hands around the man who took a ray gun blast for me. His head swiveled over to me and the pained smile softened while I stared deep into his starry eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered like I didn’t owe him my life.
I had to pin both arms around his waist to gain any leverage. He didn’t look big, but he must have been hiding a lot of muscle under there for how I had to strain. Together, we limped for the door, when a warm palm slipped along my waist. Fingers settled upon my hip while the wide heel rested right at the small of my back.
Here I was, in a full-on dress and singular heel, half embraced by a man. But instead of walking through an art garden, I was helping him limp to his house after we were attacked by a bounty hunter from…elsewhere. None of this made any sense.
At the porch, which looked like it was ripped straight from an old fashioned period piece about Davy Crockett, Nolan turned to a panel by the door. He yanked a small door open to reveal a single hole into which he shoved his finger. A flinch crossed his face and the entire house shimmered as the front door fell open.
“Welcome to my home base,” Nolan said like he was giving me a tour. As we crossed the threshold, lights sprung up across the mountain mansion and my breath spurted free.
A great chandelier of crystals hung suspended above a room big enough to host the entire lab. Sleek, modern furniture finished off the giant sitting room. No electronics were visible, only chairs and couches clustered around a giant fireplace that I realized was already kicking out flame. Did he leave it on before going to work?
“Through here,” he said, jerking his head away from the cozy but also formidable living room and toward the stairs. How was I going to get him up all of those?
One step at a time, Trini.
I laughed to myself at the stupid aphorism, which caused Nolan to turn to me. “Just…surprised at how huge this place is. It must have cost a fortune.”
And here I’d assumed he joined the military to finance college. No chance of that if he was sitting on this kind of collateral. I had a cousin enlist at eighteen out of high school. They’d promised him things he’d never see now.
“Ah!” Nolan cried at the first stretch.
“This is stupid. I should call an ambulance. They can get here quick and take you a hospital—”
“No! Please. It’s not safe for them. For us, if I were to…it’s not wise.”
I stared harder at the man that I’d known for half a year. Two arms, though one was badly damaged, two legs, blood, a heartbeat. Human. Yet he knew what that thing was. Didn’t even bat an eye when tentacles sprouted from a man’s head. Was he one of them?
The warmth of his body told me no. The give of his waist where I struggled to keep him upright said he couldn’t be a robot. And yet…
“For the doctors or for you?” I whispered even while helping Nolan further up the stairs.
His comforting smile faded, and he faced the climb instead of me. “For both. I promise I will explain.”
“You better,” was all I could think to say. And if he didn’t, what would I do? Threaten him with a pen?
Nolan fell silent aside from groans of pain as we continued to climb up to the second floor. The view of the staircase opened almost completely upon the great living room, giving me a glimpse of not only the fireplace but a giant rug of brown fur, and a grand piano. Any other night and I’d have been hyperventilating from the vast differences in wealth between us and my delusion I had that he could be interested in me. But after the aliens, and tentacles, and vibrating muscle knit machines it only burned in the back of my brain.
“This way,” Nolan finally spoke, pulling both of us down more expensive real estate. Okay, maybe I wasn’t fully over the major wealth he sat on.
He hooked his free hand around a door jamb and pulled himself in. Once again, the lights rose of their own accord. Sensors? I tried to peer around for the telltale black lens, but couldn’t see anything.
The bathroom was all tile. One door to the East remained open, revealing where the double sink and toilet hid. They probably talked, and played music, and cleaned themselves. This room was like a Roman bath. Mosaics of the gods and monsters of the constellation lay upon not only the ceiling above them but on the floor as well. They were blue and white marbled together to give the colors to the room. Where a star was placed it looked like real gold was poured into the etching.
This was stupid rich and I…
A sound of fabric slapping to the floor caused me to look up. Pristine skin save a single mole glistened at me. I traced the muscles folding and caressing each other below the flushed and perfect skin. Nolan turned, revealing the musculature of a bodybuilder clinging to his science nerd frame. His bicep flexed as he gripped to the wall, drawing me in. I trailed the vein bulging out as it traveled a winding path from his finger, his wrist, across the rolling hills of his bicep, and up the arm.
Light brown freckles dotted along the undamaged
shoulder, causing me to frown. Would he lose them all on the other side now? That wasn’t fair!
My mind churned so much with what Dr. Metal Tentacle took from him that I missed the sound of a zipper coming undone. No, I didn’t realize what he’d intended until my eyes traipsed down his back and found a dimple pair right above his ass.
Shit! Don’t look. You shouldn’t look.
Strong, bubbly glutes curled against the nearly flat sides of his ass to complete his gym god body. And the thighs were something else too.
“Trini?”
Oh, crap. He caught me looking!
Nolan turned his chin to glance over his shoulder. As those star-swept eyes fell upon me, I wanted to melt away. “Could you give me a moment?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said, prepared to slip out of the bathroom and let him do whatever he needed. So I caught the silhouette of his naked body? No different than those nude athletes of the world exhibits they put on. He was being coy, keeping his privates…private.
As I reached for the door exit handle, confused why it was closed, Nolan said, “There’s pie in the kitchen.”
My gaze whipped up from the floor in surprise, and he turned to give me the full-on frontal monty. Holy shit! Leaping for the door, my cheeks on fire and stomach about to burst, I scrambled to escape just as a bright light erupted behind me. But I couldn’t focus on that newest strange occurrence as my legs shook and I kept tapping my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
Well. One thing was certain. Nolan Smith, whatever else he may be, was one hundred percent human.
CHAPTER FIVE
THAT’S A LOT of pie.
Even in this mega-kitchen with butcher block counters and those sinks that didn’t have any handles because they ran on sensors, it looked like a lot of pie. Two hid under tea towels as if he just yanked them clean out of the oven, then dashed back to the lab to check on something.
And save some hapless fool in the process.
Curious, I picked up the edge of a towel and came face to face with a pumpkin pie four months too late for Thanksgiving. Beside it rested a red fruit one cooling on a wire rack. I couldn’t make out what filled a middle pie, the crust too thick, but I noticed the familiar tricky pecan in the mix.
Why was he this into pie?
Maybe that was how he made his riches? He came from one of the biggest families in baked goods. Then he used the money to investigate outer space, discovered aliens were real, and invented super-smart houses to try and combat them!
I absently ran a hand over the back of my head. No bruise, no swelling, no sign of a concussion. But I had to be suffering some form of brain trauma. Pain seared up my throat and this delusion I kept running from was lodged in my heart.
Alien bounty hunters—real.
One trying to murder me—also real.
Imagine the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. How did they power their ships? It’s impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. Or was it? Did the squid robot people discover a trick to break one of the fundamental laws of physics? Was it a simple matter of overcoming the dark mistress that was quantum entanglement? Everyone loved to talk about the possibility of vibrating one atom here and linking it to another across the world at the same time. But to actually turn that into not only communications but a means of travel—
A noise erupted and I sprang off my bare feet into the air. Oh, God! It found me. They were coming to finish the job and...
I frowned as the sound repeated itself from the depths of my dress’ pocket. It’s your phone, idiot. Still, my heart wouldn’t cease racing faster than an electron in the Hadron collider.
A picture of the Femi Lab mocked me as I twice failed to put in my passcode. I knew the numbers, but my fingers shook so hard it was as if I wore mittens instead. Calm down. Deep breaths.
I never actually took a deep breath when I thought that, just kept repeating the phrase endlessly in my head. A text from Ava sat unread and angry at me. I could always tell what mood it was without even reading it. Maybe it was a twin/triplet sense?
Where the F are you?
Ava must’ve reached beyond angry if she was willing to break out the stand-in curse word.
Called twice and it got dropped. What’s up with your date?
Oh no, she thought I was still on a date with…with a man that turned out to have tentacles for bones. Numb, I stared down at the dress I’d once thought cute. A splash stain had warped the color to a dried out pink that hadn’t faded in the past hour of our escape. Probably from the ethanol, or maybe whatever splattered off of the melting face of one ex-Dr. Andersonn.
And why was a stupid dress all I cared about at that moment? Beyond the fact it was something concrete and a problem I could wrap my mind around. Space bounty hunters, tentacle people, potential ships capable of faster than light travel? That was going to take a night or two.
At least I could tell Ava I was all right.
I punched in a message three times.
There was no date. Delete delete delete.
Things got complicated. I held down the delete button.
Aliens are real! Call NASA! She’d probably send Diego after me with that one.
Sighing, I put in the only explanation I could.
I’m fine.
Curt and factual, more or less. I drifted a finger near the mass of bruises dotting my throat and my frown deepened.
I pressed send, but a processing hourglass rose. It kept tipping back and forth until abandoning the attempt. In the meantime, another text came from my sister still worried and threatening to, sure enough, send in our brother to rescue me.
Frowning, I pushed harder on the button. Send. I’m okay! Get through!
“The Wi-Fi in this place sucks,” I muttered to myself.
“I can explain that.”
Fuck. I slapped my phone to the counter and spun around to stare entranced at Nolan’s chest as naked as before. But this time it glowed from a sheen of water droplets lucky enough to cling to him. He walked closer to me, so his lower half was no longer eclipsed by the counter. My cheeks burst red and I stared at the floor. Not that it mattered, the image of his full-frontal would be burned into my pre-frontal cortex until the aliens cut my brain out.
“No pie?” he asked, pausing before his multitude of baked offerings.
The dulcet tone of his voice caused my eyes to dart up…and find he wore a pair of gray sweatpants suckered to his legs. Whew. I mean, more or less. Why did I care if he walked around naked in his mountain palace?
I felt those starry eyes beaming through me and I stared in slack-jawed confusion as he pulled a paring knife out of the drawer and began to hack into his pumpkin. A million questions burst inside of me at once. Why does your Wi-Fi only half work? Are aliens really real or just a delusion brought on by a carbon monoxide leak? How do you know how to stop a tentacle monster inside a robot? What’s with all the pie?
But as my eyes skirted across the ropey muscles in his neck and down the splash of freckles, the multitude of questions honed down to one. “Holy fuck, your shoulder!”
Nolan gave a curious look to the body part in question just as I wrapped my hands around it. I couldn’t believe it, the wound was gone. No scar. Not even a hint of redness. It was as if nothing happened. Did I imagine that too?
Guilt and shame gurgled inside of me and I tried to slink back when I realized my hands remained clamped to his shoulder. His muscular, hot skin with the adorable sprinkling of freckles.
“It is healed,” he said. “Now, would you like some pie?”
“No,” I muttered, slinking back. Bundling my hands behind my back so they’d do no more damage, I glanced along the food. My stomach rumbled but in a pathetic roll of exhaustion instead of hunger. I’d watched a man’s eyeballs pop apart and spew tentacles earlier tonight. I may never eat again. “But a glass of water…?” I said and pointed at my throat as if that required an explanation.
“Oh, yes. Forgive me,” he sa
id. I expected him to tug open one of the two hundred cabinet doors and pull down a crystal goblet. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his sweat pants. Which drew my eyes to follow as his rummaging fist cupped around his thigh and right near…
You’re staring again, Trini.
He’s definitely a shower, though. God, I couldn’t imagine if that was a grower.
A glint of something silver drew me to look up from my fifth shame spiral when his fingers brushed against the nape of my neck. Fear caused me to jerk back, my heart pounding.
“It’s okay,” Nolan whispered softly as if approaching a rabid animal caught in a yogurt cup. “This,” he twisted yet another small metal cylinder around, “will help.”
I just had a man try to crush the life out of me with his bare hands. Now another touched near my neck, swearing he wanted to help. All I wanted to do was scream and curl up into a ball.
“May I help?” he asked, passing the tech piece back and forth in front of me as if I had nothing to be afraid of.
Biting my lip so hard I nearly yelped, I nodded. His fingers flexed tighter around the nape of my neck, and I screwed my eyes tight. 3.1415…
“All done,” Nolan said.
What? I tapped along my neck, then reared back from the foolish move. But no pain burst from where earlier deep bruises had been. “How did you…? How’re you healing these things?”
His head tipped to the side as he slipped the magical cure-all back into his pocket. Nolan turned to his waiting pie as if that was it. “You promised you’d explain. About Dr. Andersonn. About my research. About all of this.”
“You’re right. I suppose I should start with what you knew as Dr. Andersonn.”
“Was there ever a Dr. Andersonn? Did he…? He murdered the real one and wore the skin?”