She turned her back on him and bent down—and yes, he did, in fact, admire the view—to a knee-high box. Still groggy from sleep, Jack wondered if he might have fallen back asleep and was dreaming this strange home invasion. But he raised his eyes and instead saw a grinning Starla McMorrissey. “Good morning, Sunshine.”
“Starla!” One of his worst nightmares erupted. He stumbled back and reached for the door. He missed the edge because he was busy staring up into the rafters, over his shoulder to the loft, on top of the bookcases, searching for any sign of the little gremlins having made themselves at home. Lord knew after yesterday it had taken him some time to clean up the mess they made after they’d ‘cleaned up’ and now Starla was here, and if there was anyone he needed to shield from the Oddlings, it was Starla. “What are you— You can’t—”
“Lighten up, Jack. No one here has not seen you naked.” Her blonde hair was tucked up under a fuzzy, dark green beret. She lifted the other end of the box that Lin attempted to carry and barged her way over the threshold into his house.
Jack swallowed the panic in his throat. So far, no eyes gleamed from the shadows, no teeth flashed in the rafters, and no piles of…unusual meteorological detritus betrayed anything out of the ordinary.
Lin touched his arm. She, too, glanced around the loft. “For the record, this was not my idea.”
“But this was, so technically, she’s an accessory.” Starla turned around to a second, smaller box still in the foyer, and held up a carrier of coffees. “We come bearing gifts.”
Jack hiked the sheet up more snugly around his hips and glanced at the clock, then grunted. “But what will you two drink?”
“After you pulled your disappearing act the other night in my backyard—” Starla tugged the second box inside with one hand while balancing the coffee carrier with the other. “I felt it only fair to return the favor somehow. Lin inspired me.”
The scent of fresh coffee filled the air, battling the dust from the boxes. “Inspired you to what? Home invasion?” Best he could do was move out of her way and wonder how much detail Lin had shared with her. The parts where we failed at having actual sex? The parts where we jumped down a rabbit hole into an alternate universe in her backyard?
“She left her car in my driveway all night, so I thought I’d pass it on and leave my Christmas decorations in your house.” She set the coffees on the counter near the door. “You told me you never put up a tree. So I thought to myself, ‘What good holiday deed can I do today to fill someone’s life full of cheer?’ ”
“And justify your overspending on decorations this year by getting rid of the stuff from last year.” Lin’s additional detail came amid breathless huffs as she maneuvered the larger box out of the doorway.
Jack was still trying to make his brain understand that there were two women in his apartment, one of whom he was very glad to have back here, and the other he was very worried about having here. He tightened his grip on the sheet as Lin stepped towards him. “You know what she’s like when she gets an idea into her head.” Her dark eyes had trouble meeting his. She kept focusing on his shirtless chest. “I—told her we should call first, and she, um—” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “—she said you’d just fail to talk her out of it.”
A shiver traveled through him at her sudden scrutiny. The faint blush creeping into her cheeks reminded him to bunch the sheet a little more solidly in front of him. So option five was right out, which meant that option two—continue having fun not-talking—was definitely still an option.
She drew a deep breath, offering him a very nice view of the rise and fall of her chest and the blush that said she might be thinking about option two right now.
He smirked. “I believe there was some mention of a booty call?”
He shouldn’t have expected a private moment to go unremarked. Not with the life he was currently having. “See, Lin? I told you men’ll believe anything with the possibility of sex.”
Lin spun on one of her spiky heels and swept past him into the apartment. “Who said it’s just the possibility?”
He let the door fall closed. This was so much better than 6B.
~*~
Lin’s blush faded, but the heat in her belly sparked embers that were more than happy to flare to life. If she knew herself, she was on the way to a full-fledged hot flash that might last hours.
Jack growled. “Well, if I’m not getting any, I might as well get some pants on while I’ve got some dignity left.” He stomped off toward the sleeping area, trailing his sheet like a king’s robe behind him.
Starla cackled. “You left dignity behind when you started associating with the likes of us.”
“Tell me about it,” he retorted from behind the screen.
Lin tried to ignore the fact that he was naked behind a thin mixed-media screen and some bookshelves. “Like I said, wasn’t my idea.” She popped the lid off one of the coffees and inhaled to distract Starla while she glanced at the ceiling, searching for Cheshire-cat grins and gleaming eyes.
She hadn’t been able to come up with a good answer to Starla’s challenge from yesterday—why are you having tea with me instead of breakfast with him. Her non-answer ended up inspiring Starla into a full-blown Cunning Plan, engaged with all the subtlety Lin had come to expect from her best friend when it came to getting what she wanted. And what Starla wanted, was to see for herself just how far gone Jack really was.
If you only knew, Lin thought. Up in the rafters, she thought she saw something move.
“I had to find out,” Starla said, shifting the boxes further into the living room area. “And since you wouldn’t show me the morning-after text—”
“God, will you let that go, already.” Lin made a show of turning away from Starla in order to scan the living area and the staircase leading up to the loft balcony for critters. The text couldn’t have come at a worse time—right as she and Starla were sitting in the silence of Starla’s minivan.
“Is that him? Of course it’s him. What’s he saying? Lemme see!”
Thank God Starla had been driving, allowing Lin to give her the distractive lecture on not texting and driving as she glanced at the text. Ha—not so much a text as a short novel. A short novel that made her smile. How the fuck does he do it, she’d wondered.
“You’re killing me, here!” Starla whined.
She’d sent back her own—much shorter—text. She couldn’t properly respond without thinking—and overthinking—it, or with Starla breathing down her neck, so she did the only thing she could—took the movie reference and punted. “Remember back in college when we picked out theme songs for everybody?”
“Yes. You picked that Mazzy Star song about melting into the woodwork or something.”
“Fade Into You.” Lin still remembered the dreamy lyrics. “It fit me.”
“It fit the slice of you that peeked out from under big sweatshirts. Anyway, where is this going, because don’t think I don’t know a distract-and-redirect when I see one. I’ve got kids.”
Lin wrinkled her nose. Busted. “Jack’s theme song was Heart’s ‘Magic Man’ and you made fun of me for it, but he just figured out a way, via friggin’ text message, to turn the most awkward morning-after fail into something smooth enough to spread on a bagel.” She gripped the phone until her knuckles went white. She’d had no idea how true that song might be.
“Now you’ve really got me intrigued,” Starla had said.
In the now, Starla had begun to wander around the kitchen, not very subtle in her inspection of Jack’s living space.
“Quit being nosy.”
“It’s my job to be nosy,” Starla retorted.
Jack emerged in a pair of faded jeans and nothing else. Lin’s internal temperature went up another few degrees. She blew on her coffee and tried not to stare. “Finally, a little honesty.” He wrapped his fingers around a cup and took a sip. Lin tried not to notice the faint condensation around his fingers. Or the way his fingers, long and taper
ed, cradled the paper cup, his thumb rubbing against the cardboard sleeve. She tried not to notice the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, or the rakish stubble that salt-and-peppered his jaw. He lowered the cup. “Does your old man know where you are, McMorrissey?”
“The question is, does my old man know where you are?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. Lin’s belly twinged, this time from nerves, rather than hormones. The guarded look in his eyes gave her fair warning that Starla might be coming close to a line. Leave it alone, Starla, she wanted to say. Jack had already vanished from their lives once. “He knows I’m not busting into his house at an ungodly hour of the morning. Being nosy.”
“Oh, go make yourself decent.” Starla waved her hands at him. “We’ll just be in here, going through the cupboards until that coffee kicks in and improves your mood.”
Jack’s scowl softened when he met her eyes. Noticed her looking. She blushed. Maybe her “booty call” ruse hadn’t been as much of a snow job as she thought.
He turned on his heel. “Next time, at least bring bagels, too.” He slammed the bathroom door with more force than might have been strictly necessary.
Lin shot her friend a look. “You really are dangerous when your kids aren’t around to distract you.”
~*~
There was no worse time to realize you weren’t alone in a private moment than in mid-stream. “Majesty’s honor guard reporting in, Sir!”
“Gah!” Fuck. There was a mess to clean up. “What the hell!” He turned and glared at the Frostling commander that had appeared on the radiator under the window. “Is nothing sacred to you people?”
The Commander snapped a salute. “Deepest apologies, Majesty. We shall wait outside—”
That was even worse. “No!” He shook off and flushed. “You cannot, under any circumstances, go out there. Neither can any of you little freakballs, understand? I have guests.”
A Chillsprite head popped up from behind the shower curtain and bowed to him in the mirror over the sink as he washed up. “Majesty’s entourage must greet Majesty’s guests. Majesty’s guests must see—”
He pointed his toothbrush at the critter. “Oh, hell no. The last thing any of Majesty’s guests ‘must see’ is any of you. And you’d better not be spying on them, either, capische?” He stuck the toothbrush back in his mouth and scrubbed furiously. This is why I can’t have friends over. Lord knew what brand of disaster might erupt if one of the women had wandered in here. Even if Lin didn’t seem all that fazed, she still hadn’t come face to face with any of his Oddlings living on the fringes of peripheral vision. Once he’d started seeing them, he couldn’t un-see them anymore, and he didn’t wish that on anyone.
He narrowed his eyes at the Chillsprite in the mirror. The little buggers worshipped him, but had no problem disobeying his orders. The Frostlings, on the other hand— “You.” He pointed at the Commander. “I have a job for you.”
“Frostling Tribe serves Majesty!” The blue body vibrated with glee.
That remains to be seen. “Clear out every last Oddling from my place. You all have places to go and people to harass, I’m sure. Make yourselves scarce until at least noon and—” Now was as good a time as any to try his idea. “And there’ll be ice cream for everybody tonight. Deal?”
Three more Chillsprite heads popped up. “Ice…cream?” The Stylist was back again, this time having helped itself to two of his outer shower curtain hooks—the decorative ones with shiny chrome beads on them—to add to two more holes in its ears.
“Yes, ice cream.” Jack spat minty slush into the sink. The pipes emitted a telltale groan when he rinsed and he knew his time was limited.
The Stylist vaulted over the shower curtain rod and landed on his shoulder, cold little toe-claws digging into his bare skin. “Majesty is truly a great and proud regent!” The Chillsprite dug her—he was coming to think of it as female, even if the critters didn’t seem to be sexed—fingers into his hair and began tugging pieces here and there. In seconds, she’d jumped back down onto the sink and clapped her hands.
Jack glanced in the mirror. “Not bad.” He still missed his ponytail, but at least the style didn’t make him look like a dowdy old grandpa. He ran his fingers through the silvery locks. Hip grandpa, maybe.
His words echoed in an empty room. The Commander was gone. The Chillsprites—vanished. He peered behind the shower curtain. Not a trace. As he stepped back out of the bathroom, he glanced up, almost afraid to peer too deeply into the shadows of the rafters. He appeared to be…alone. Really, truly alone. Not an eyeball gleamed, not a tooth flashed.
He raked a hand through his hair as a giddy feeling bubbled up through him. This might just be doable.
~*~
When he emerged from the bathroom, neither of the women paid attention to him. They were pulling out artificial Christmas tree parts. “I can’t find the stand. You did remember the stand, didn’t you?”
“Of course I remembered it. Not like I don’t have three of them.”
He emerged to find a half-built tree in the middle of his living room. “Starla, I can’t see the TV from the couch if you put it there.”
Starla glared at him from around the half-built tree. “Who’s in charge here, Winters?”
He ducked his head and reached for a box. “Uh, where do you want me to hang my balls?”
“I’ll handle those.” Lin plucked two blue spheres from the box with a smirk. The lingering look in her dark eyes promised more meaning than the obvious, and the morning started to look way up again.
Aside from being in a constant state of mild panic at his friends’ invasion of his house, Jack actually felt like a normal human again. “Sorry I don’t have any munchies or snacks.” He made a mental note to start stocking up on foods that would make nice breakfasts in bed.
Lin snorted. “For early-morning drop-ins? I’d be worried if you did. In fact, I told Starla we should have gotten bagels, too.”
Starla dismissed his lack of preparedness for drop-in hospitality with a wave of her hand. “You’re a single man living in the city. The fact that you exist on cold cereal and Power Bars does not surprise me in the least. I’m trusting you make up for it by sharing your intimate knowledge of fantastic out-of-the-way places to eat for the next time Bailey and I get a chance at Date Night.”
A memory from college pounced on him out of nowhere. “Remember that place across from the student union?” Even the memory of the smell gripped him.
“The one that did the onion and herb bagels? God, yes!” Starla stopped and sighed. “It closed down four years ago. I had Shane check it out one day for kicks.”
Lin made an, “Mmm,” sound. “The Irish pub place closed down around that time, too. And the Indian deli. I thought for a minute the whole neighborhood was going to roll up the sidewalks.”
It sounded outlandish, but Jack actually felt a physical warmth in his chest. While Starla bossed him around and made him hang decorations only tall people could reach, the chatter between her and Lin made a comforting background to his thoughts. The care he took not to touch Starla didn’t seem like such an insurmountable barrier anymore, especially since he could relax about the Chillsprites’ absence.
Relaxation let some of their old closeness return, filling a place inside him he’d gotten far too used to being empty. After the third time he hung a shiny little trinket in “the wrong place,” he gave up—or rather, Starla gave up—and put him to work replacing bulbs on the strings of lights. “You know architects are the natural predators of interior decorators, right?”
“I know. It’s like you’re allergic to color or something.”
“My house, McMorrissey,” he retorted when she insisted on using one of the masonry-mounted clips on his wall to hang a stocking instead of the week’s invoices. “I need those.” He moved the stocking to the clip that held an addendum to zoning laws for the Hillsides.
Starla glanced at the papers and noted the address. “Fancy neighbo
rhood. Freelance is treating you well, I take it?”
“Old contact from when I worked at Edifice. He still gets in touch when he needs consult for upgrades or repair-work.” Jack made a face. “Most of my stuff comes from people without the budget to afford a firm.”
She glanced at him. “Do you miss it at all?”
He cocked his head, not sure of what she was asking. “Miss what? Working for a firm?” He shook his head. “Most of what I do is consult for individuals and small businesses. I don’t miss having to compete for the high-profile projects. I don’t miss having to turn my nose up at a couple looking for a consult to build a house, or a shop owner who wants to upgrade aged retail space.”
At her look, he figured out quickly that wasn’t what she was asking. EvoWorld. In the middle of the room, Lin stopped her one-woman fight with the branches of the artificial tree.
“Do I miss EvoWorld?” His voice was quiet. The effort to find the words overwhelmed him enough that he couldn’t find the extra strength needed to turn up the volume. “Do I miss designing and building an entire world? The buildings, the flora and fauna, the laws of physics itself?” He thought he didn’t. He thought his time there receded into fond memories firmly entrenched in his past, the dreams of youth sacrificed on the altar of practicality with an aging, sick parent to care for and a wife to support.
He was wrong.
The loss, long pent-up in some storage-corner of his inner self, burst out, rolling him until he might have physically buckled under the weight had he not been gripping the back of his office chair.
“Every day.” It hurt to breathe. Every day not seeing and working with his best friends—one of whom he’d known since he was the awkward new teenager in school. Every day not creating with them something new and wonderful and amazing—even when there were long stretches of utter mundanity like paying bills and hunting bugs in the software and scheduling maintenance. Every day not doing that felt like half a life, if he let it.
~*~
Starla straightened, curls bobbing. “Do you remember what it was like when we first dreamed up the idea of EvoWorld?”
WinterJacked: Book One: Rude Awakening Page 15