“Now you’re just naming things.”
My last visit to the apartment had been a blur of panic and trauma. I collapsed onto my couch, hugging my couch cushion like it was my lifeline. It had been less than a week in the human realm, but I’d spent days in Álfheimr and even longer with the Phoenicians, even if the mortal calendar didn’t reflect my absence. The roller bag teetered on a single wheel after our jump, balancing precariously as I leaped for the comfort of my cream sofa rather than rescue it from gravity. I ignored the permanent marker scribbles that remained on my window and front door. Other than the faint, lingering scent of the sea, everything was exactly as I remembered it.
The midday sun illuminated the space as Silas went straight for the kitchen and began opening cabinets.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, sitting up. I could feel the static as my hair billowed around me and thought maybe I’d been a little overdramatic when I’d rubbed my head against the cushion like I’d never see it again.
“I’m trying to make myself at home. This had better not be a dry house.”
I realized that Silas had been in my home before, sure, but only for the barest of necessary moments. At last, I was playing host.
“Oh.” I grinned. “I have everything.” I hopped up from the couch and gestured to the bar cart between the kitchen and the living room. “I have the biggest bottle of whiskey known to man.”
“Yes.” He nodded approvingly. “But after I down it, what will you drink?”
“Gin.”
And just like that, we were outlaws, doing things we knew we shouldn’t.
We were already an angel and an antichrist in mixed company. That scandal alone was one for the ages. Then, we were at my house, even when wisdom might have dictated that we hunker down in a less obvious location. Then, there was the unspoken taboo—the tension of him and I being alone together that was too outlandish for me to dignify with a coherent thought.
So, maybe a slumber party wasn’t the wisest choice, but we had a lot of problems, and alcohol was a solution.
I was suddenly twenty-one again. In lieu of shots, we did burning, cough-worthy pulls straight from the bottle. At least, I coughed. Silas made an exaggerated sound as if it were the most refreshing drink in the world.
I probably shouldn’t have tried to go one-for-one with a supernatural being—preternatural, I corrected myself—but I was who I was.
After our second drink, I disappeared to change into sweatpants, fluffy socks, and an oversized T-shirt, abandoning my bra to some corner of the bedroom. After the third drink, I attempted to show him a reality show where the worst Americans brought their partners over from other countries on a fiancé visa. After our fifth drink, my intensive theological training came out when he began to argue Biblical texts against the human interpretation. He conceded that yes, given the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic translations, I was making fair points and couldn’t have possibly come to the same conclusion he’d come to with the information offered. After the sixth, I’d switched to a short-lived arm wrestle and an equally fruitless thumb war.
By the seventh drink, we were the best friends in the world.
“Wait,” he said, “before we get drunker. Do you need to…you know…”
I looked at him through my tipsy blur before I understood his meaning.
“The venom?” I asked. A smile spread across my lips.“Silas, are you uncomfortable telling me to do drugs? C’mon. It’s the end of the world.”
“Hey, the first miracle was turning water into wine. Alcohol is good to go in my book. At least…for another day.”
“Do drugs after the concert, got it.” I nodded. I pulled out the baggy, then hesitated. “She was a little light on the instructions,” I said.
“We’re going to be awake for a while,” he said. “Do a little now, and a little more before bed.”
I pressed my lips into a line to conceal my smile. Silas wanted to be awake for a while, which I had to take to mean he was having fun. I dipped my silver mailbox key into the bag and lifted the substance to my nose, inhaling the gift of Gorgon invisibility. It may not have been drugs in the traditional sense, but it still sent a jolt of lightning straight to my brain. I blinked through the electric crackle, enjoying the hum it sent through my body.
I set the bag down and returned to my seventh drink of the evening.
At least, it was seven for me. I was pretty sure he was three-quarters of the way through one of many bottles of whiskey. I was glad for it. It would be unfair for me to be plastered while he remained sober. Plus, I was a high-functioning covert alcoholic with booze stashed all over the house. If he made it through everything in the bar cart, I’d show off my secret collection in the cabinets above the fridge.
The TV was still on, but it had been muted ever since our lively debate. I’d put on Vexa’s discography in preparation for our upcoming mission, which he claimed made his ears bleed.
“She is an icon!” I gasped. “She writes all of her own songs.”
“Well, maybe she shouldn’t,” he mused, taking another swig.
“Tell that to her self-made billions.”
I plopped my feet in his lap as I leaned into the back of the couch, watching the blues and purples and whites ofharsh plasma light illuminate his profile as the daylight faded. He gave my foot a squeeze and looked back at me. He flicked his fingers, and the volume lowered to scarcely more than a whisper. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered Fauna doing something similar to a honking horn many moons ago.
