I was honestly pretty thrilled about the idea of being able to make weekend plans with a friend. My lonely heart was practically jumping up and down with enthusiasm, but I hoped I could hide it so he wouldn’t get scared off. Because nothing would scare off people like realizing how desperate someone was just to be friends.
“Um, either is fine.”
My stomach decided to rumble then, which seemed to amuse him but embarrassed me.
“You want me to make something or should we order in?”
We ended up ordering pizza – because, you know, pizza – and then watched the movie. We were partway through it when my phone, on silent mode, flashed at me and I looked at it curiously.
Unknown Number: You having fun? You look like you’re about to fall asleep.
I looked up at Tommy in surprise, who I now realized was holding his phone.
From the other end of the couch, he looked down again and typed something, and my phone blinked at me again.
Unknown Number: I got your number from Colt’s phone. Even though you blocked him, your number was still in his history. Hope you don’t mind, but now you can have my number, too.
I wasn’t sure if this was silly or cute that he wanted to have a text conversation when we were literally sitting a few feet away from each other, but I was kind of inclined to go with cute.
Me: I am getting kind of sleepy, I think it’s the meds they gave me.
Me: Thank you for your number.
I got a weird sense of satisfaction getting to save his number in my phone, adding my contacts up to a grand total of seven. Okay, one of those was Maria, one was my dad’s friend, and four were people who forgot about me and I probably shouldn’t still be trying to be friends with, but at least for now I had one whole person in my contacts list who would actually talk to me if I reached out.
And for me, that was a very big deal.
~~~~~
I looked out the window in awe, trying to keep my jaw from dropping open and hoping I didn’t look as awestruck as I felt.
Tommy had made good on his promise to take me up in his plane, and I was quickly discovering why he loved flying. This was no doubt different than flying on his own, but still.
“Any motion sickness?” Tommy asked through the mic that linked to my headset.
I shook my head. I’d never been in a plane before, but I hadn’t had issues with motion sickness the handful of times we’d been to amusement parks as a kid and I hoped I wouldn’t develop it now. There was too much to see to waste on being sick.
“So from up here,” he told me, “you can see the entire city of Durmond, and off to the right horizon is the town where you went to college, I think.”
Surprised that it would be visible from here, I immediately turned my attention out my window and looked off in the distance. Sure enough, what looked like another city over there – I’d just have to take his word for it that it was my college town.
We flew around for a while longer, Tommy pointing out tiny little dots that he insisted were cattle and other dots that he said were cars. I was absolutely fascinated with everything – from the miniaturized houses and, well, entire world to the white clouds, even to Tommy’s explanations on how planes figured out right-of-way rules in the sky. This felt like an entirely different world up here and I loved it.
Tommy could apparently tell when we climbed out of the plane a while later, grinning happily at me. “Had a good time?”
“That was awesome!” I felt exhilarated. “Now I’m going to have to fly everywhere!”
He laughed but seemed pleased as he started locking up the plane and hangar for the evening. “It’s a different experience in a commercial flight than something small like this, but should still be enjoyable.” He tilted his head back as we got outside to look up at the sky. “Maybe it’s my angel genes, but the sky just calls to me.” He glanced over at me. “I guess like running would for you? Do you run much? It’s got to be harder when you’re a large cat that would stand out here.”
I shrugged a little as he led the way back into his large house. It wasn’t quite as formal as Adelaide’s, but the wealth was still obvious.
“I don’t run much,” I admitted. “Nowhere safe.” I didn’t go into detail about feeling uncomfortable shifting much since my family died. Tommy was my friend, not my therapist – he didn’t need the full experience into how messed up I really was.
“Hmm.” Tommy headed into the kitchen to get us something to drink and I readily accepted the iced tea he offered. “I know Zayne has some areas for his people, but I don’t know where they are or if we could get permission for you to use them.”
He leaned against the marble counter as he took a drink from a bottle that I didn’t recognize – beer? I wasn’t really sure. It could just be fancy lemonade for all I knew. “Zayne has his own…power plays, I guess? He feels like shifters aren’t given enough respect from other supernaturals and so, like Adelaide brought together enough angels to be considered an enclave, he did something unusual, too. He got enough shifters to basically ally with him to create a massive pack, pride, whatever you want to call it, made up of all sorts of shifters. He almost runs the western side of town as a result. Angels, naga, witches – we’re all a little careful crossing the river, to be honest, because we have to keep an eye out for him. It’s not like he or his people will just attack us without warning, but we know they’ll be watching us the moment we cross into their territory and they’ll use anything we do to their advantage. He’s not against blackmail if he gets the chance.”
He frowned and took another sip. “I’m not sure if he aims to take over the entire city or what his deal is, but for now, it just makes relations worse. We’ve been having issues with the naga since Colt beat their boss – I think you heard about that from the fairy doctor? Colt can be an idiot about things but he’s powerful, probably the strongest angel in our enclave. Their boss, I want to say his name is Mike or something, he, well, he didn’t take well to being beaten. They’ve won the duels for a while now, and whenever they lost, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t the nest boss. This was the nest boss’s first loss and that is apparently a huge blow to their egos. It didn’t need to be more than that, but they turned it into something more when they accused Colt of cheating.” He sighed heavily and gave me a grimace. “After what happened with you, though, most of their leaders are in jail and that’s going to throw a damper on things for them. I’m guessing the nest is going to quiet down now because they don’t want to get into any more fights and risk being wiped out. They have to reestablish their ranks and protect themselves before they can do anything else. Not that I’m glad about what happened to you, but at least it looks like the deal with the naga is over for the time being.”
I was nodding and pretending I cared deeply about all of this, but honestly, all I could think was that supernatural politics were stupid. People fighting over territory? Okay, human gangs and stuff did that, too, so it wasn’t unique to supernaturals, but still. This just felt so…unnecessary.
“The four major supernatural groups in Durmond are angels, naga, witches, and shifters,” he went on, not picking up on my lack of enthusiasm, thankfully. “Witches actually aren’t much of a problem here. There’s a couple of pretty small covens and they’re quiet about what they do, but witches are notorious for wanting power, so we can’t quite ignore them entirely. Then Zayne, well, I kind of explained about him. There’s a few other supernaturals in town, like the fairy doctor and I think there’s a handful of other fairies and a couple vampires, but they usually stay out of any fighting.”
He paused as he looked up at me, then his face changed as if he was fighting back a laugh. “You’re really not into this, are you?”
Bother, I hadn’t hidden it as well as I wanted. Reluctantly, I sighed and shrugged a little. “I grew up with humans and haven’t spent much time with other supernaturals on a regular basis, so supernatural politics just seem weird to me,” I admitted. “I don’t get why all the fighting is necessary.”
Tommy thought about that for a bit. “It’s probably not,” he said slowly. “And other cities handle it better. Thing is, our city doesn’t have a supernatural council that runs things and mediates between groups. Some cities do, and they get along better as a result. I’ve tried advocating for one, and there’s a few others interested, too – the witches, actually, and the fairies, too. But Zayne’s not on board and neither are the naga, and even most of my enclave aren’t fans, so it’s hard to see that happening any time soon.”
I wondered which cities did have a council. I’d almost be tempted to move to one if it meant life would be simpler. On the other hand, though…I had a friend who was actually acknowledging me and spending time with me, for the first time in ages. I was so afraid that if I moved away, he’d forget me once I was out of sight. That’s how things always seemed to work with me – look at the friends I grew up with. All of them, without exception, eventually stopped responding when I tried reaching out. The couple of people I knew in college and considered friends – other than Sean – were the same way. Once we were no longer seeing each other physically, it was far too easy for them to forget about me.
“Sorry,” Tommy interrupted my thoughts, “we can talk about something else. Wait, I have an idea. Come with me.” He led me through the house to another room that I first thought was his entertainment room and then I realized it was just a really fancy computer.
He motioned to the chair. “Have a seat,” he ordered. “I’m going to introduce you to online gaming.”
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