Chapter twelve
Bo
‘On the way’ turnedout to mean they’d be driving twenty minutes off the interstate and into a secluded, rural area surrounded by pretty trees, birdsong, and little towns that would call Talia ‘honey’ until their cows came home.
Even on the overcast midday, autumn painted the trees gold and bronze and brown in a completely different kind of beauty than Skyler. Only the brightly colored signs withAMAZING ALIEN LANDING A SITE TO BEHOLD - 2 MILESkept Bo from assuming he somehow drove them into the middle of fucking nowhere.
All concerns over going the wrong way vanished once the beat-up parking lot came into view. A seven-foot-tall plaster humanoid held a placard that read:We come in peace! Parking for Allen’s All-Around Alien Adventure up ahead. Open M-F 0800 - sundown, Sa & Su 0900 - sundown.
The statue itself showed off an odd array of colors, with greens that ranged from the sickly slick of rot to the vibrant highlighter neon of Bo’s childhood. A pair of dark sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat decorated it, both plaster, presumably to hide big alien eyes and too much skull with not enough face.
“I think we found it,” Bo said. He parked directly in front of another plaster statue. Several lined the parking lot, each with a different hat and wearing nametags. Bo’s said CLARK and brandished a weatherworn sign with the rules.
“Can’t get high, no groping the statues, don’t feed roaming aliens,” Bo translated from the politely worded list, eyeing them as he turned the car off. “You sure you want to do this, Talia? We’re not even allowed to try and hijack the spaceship.”
Talia perked up next to him, leaning closer to the window to get a view of Clark’s stringent rules. Even so, her cheerful voice came out a bit strained with her, “Can we get the aliens high?”
“We may as well try,” Bo murmured, watching as both Talia and Everil scrambled to escape the car. Talia seemed to weather the iron better than Everil, but it was obvious that even she didn’t like it.
Bo locked the car, his attention flicking from Talia to the clearly unsteady Everil. Not even the ungodly pretty features could hide the kelpie’s tension or the way it eased when Everil moved further from the car.
“Ooh, this one is named Marvin,” Talia called, a few aliens away.
“Don’t get Marvin high,” Bo called back, sidling up to Everil. He relaxed even further as Bo drew closer, but the line between his eyebrows didn’t quite disappear. “What do you think?”
“How very unappealing,” Everil murmured, soothing voice still tight with pain. Bo resisted the urge to smooth his hand over Everil’s dark tumble of hair. It’d probably not help the stress any.
“Right?” Bo grinned. “They’re ugly as fuck.”
Ever the curious fucking cat, Bo reached out and tapped lightly at rule two on Clark’s sign: Don’t touch the aliens.
“The ‘spaceship’ is inside, then?”
“That’s what it said online. Some big ass old warehouse building type thing.” Bo glanced at Everil, the other man studiously watching the alien, rather than looking back. “You want to stay here? Hang out with Clark? Talia and I can manage a clearly marked path through some woods.”
It was the right thing to ask. Everil glanced up, a rush of relief sounding through the bond, and smiled, brief but genuine.
“That’s very kind.” Everil stepped closer, then past Bo. “I think I’ll rest on one of the benches for a time.”
And Bo wasn’t fucking imagining it, the brush of Everil’s fingers over the nape of his neck, making him shiver. Warmth and reassurance threaded through the soft contact, left Bo watching Everil with a half-smile tugging the corner of his mouth. Contented warmth curled in their bond, all the more comforting for the lack of anxious guilt or prickling hurt, made it all the sweeter.
“Knock yourself out, Everil.” Bo grinned at the flicker of confusion between them. “Figure of speech. Means, fuck, like, ‘have fun.’ ”
“Ah,” Everil said after a moment. “I will endeavor to do so. Please don’t steal anyone.”
The last was directed at Talia, who only laughed, “It’s not stealing. It’srehoming.”
“We don’t have the room, sport,” Bo told her, forcing the idiot look Everil’s touch had left him with into a grin just for Talia. “And people don’t do well tied to the top of the car. Too many bugs in the teeth.”
“But what am I supposed to put in my terrarium?” she asked, tugging up her hood against the cold, small hands shoved in the front pocket of her sweater. Bo laughed and started up the path, Talia continuing on. “It’s got a heat lamp and a little kitchen and one of those plastic castles.”
“Don’t have too much fun without us,” Bo called back to Everil just as Talia scampered between two aliens in floral print shirts on either side of the path entry. “A plastic castle?”
“Humans like plastic castles, right?”
“You’re thinking of hermit crabs. But yeah, humans like plastic castles,” Bo conceded, laughing. “Mostly the big ass kind they can walk through. That shit will definitely not fit in the car.”
“I want a hat, then,” Talia said because she wasn’t just practically all-powerful; she was also magnanimous. “Do you think they have those tinfoil ones here? It looks like a tinfoil hat place.”
