Page 16 of Snowed In with an Incubus

Daisy laughed, pouring carefully. “It’s pretty cold out there!”

Jaz eyed her thick fur. “Do you even get cold?”

“Sure,” Daisy said cheerily, plucking at the flowery vest she was wearing under her apron. “Hence the vest.”

“It’s so cute on you!”

“Thanks!” Daisy did a little shimmy. “I won’t pretend the fur doesn’t help. I don’t know how you’re coping out there!”

Jaz rubbed her jacket sleeves with a sigh. “That’s on me. I didn’t think about the weather when I left the house.”

“Damn. Hope it’s a quick trip home!” Daisy gave her a sunny smile and then darted away, coffee pot in hand.

Jaz watched her go, holding her coffee close. She’d left Brandon back in that tiny apartment, and her aunt’s was still hoursfrom here. Not to mention Chicago, which was at least a six-hour flight. Wherever home was, she wasn’t anywhere near it.

Jaz snapped a photo of the view outside the café and uploaded it to Instagram with the caption “wintery wonderland,” witha string of snowflake emojis. And, after some thought, a minotaur emoji.

Her phone vibrated as soon as the story went live. She let out a triumphant cry as her aunt’s name popped up on the screen.

“Auntie Deb!”

“You’re not dead,” said Auntie Deb, relieved. “Hoorah! Did you pull over for a motel, or did you sleep in your car? You knowwhat happened when I slept in my car in a Walmart parking lot that one time when I was between husbands. Where are you?”

“I’m in Claw Haven,” Jaz said. “It’s this little monster town. It’s really cute when you’re not trapped in a tattoo studioovernight.”

There was a pause. Jaz’s arm twinged, and she scratched the edges of the plastic. She wasn’t going to tell her aunt the wholestory, but she needed to tell someone.

“You what?” Auntie Deb said. “You didn’t get a motel? Wait, did you say monster town?”

“For the monster who wants peace and quiet,” Jaz recited. “I got a tattoo. The power went out, and the doors wouldn’t open.That was last night. I just got out now.”

“Well! I hope the tattoo was worth it.”

“It was,” Jaz said darkly. “It was to cover up my Brandon tattoo.”

“I always hated that thing,” said Auntie Deb, who hated all tattoos except for the tiny heart she got on her shoulder to commemorateher beloved terrier dying. “Good riddance to bad rubbish. What happened, anyway? You didn’t say.”

Jaz clenched her jaw, eyes burning. She was not going to cry over that bastard. Especially not in a delightful café with a waitress who would definitely notice and try tocomfort her. Jaz would love that, but Daisy looked busy at the moment, and she didn’t want to upset her flow.

“He cheated,” she whispered. “He’s been cheating for months.”

Auntie Deb gasped, scandalized. “Oh, that bastard. We all said he wasn’t good for you! What full-grown man doesn’t own scissors?And he made fun of your laugh.”

Jaz sniffed back the tears still threatening to fall. He had made fun of her laugh. It was something they always fought about. He said she was too loud, that she sounded like a donkey.I’m embarrassed when you do it in public, he’d told her. At first, she’d started laughing even louder to spite him.

But the more he said it, the quieter she became. Her friends said they loved her laugh, but they were her friends. They were supposed to say that. Your boyfriend was supposed to say that, too, but Brandon always “told it how it was.” Except when he was cheatingon her for months with her coworker, in which case, he stayed quiet until she walked in on him groping her coworker on thekitchen counter.

“Where did you sleep in a tattoo shop?” Auntie Deb asked. “In one of those terrible chairs? The chair in my tattoo shop wasawful. I almost called Health and Safety.”

“No, um. There was a couch up the front.”

“Must’ve been so uncomfortable.”

“No, no. Very comfy, actually. And … warm.” Jaz shivered, hunching lower over her coffee cup and breathing in the steam.

“Were you alone all night?”

“No,” Jaz said, picking out a strand of curly hair that had dropped into her coffee when she bent over it. “The tattoo artistgot stuck with me. He was sweet. Let me have most of the blankets.”