Page 37 of Snowed In with an Incubus

Sam groaned, dropping his head back against the staircase. “Fuck. I really fucked this up.”

Reg didn’t reply for several long seconds. His voice was oddly light when he finally said, “She’s leaving, right? No big loss.”

Sam laughed sourly. “Sure! Yeah, great. Nothing to be upset about.”

“Unless she gets back with that asshole,” Reg said, craning his head to look up the staircase. “That’d be a shame.”

“She won’t,” Sam said. “She knows she’s better than that. She—she knows.”

He swallowed. His vision kept flickering: pink, normal, pink again, normal, normal, normal, the heat building and fading behind his eyes. He hated it with everything in him—but she’d looked so beautiful splayed outon his sheets, flushed and grinning. He’d made her look like that. It couldn’t be all bad if he could make her look like that.

“God,” he said. “She just—she actually goes after what she wants, you know? She decides she wants it and she just … doesit. And if she feels something, you’re going to know about it. It’s so much. She’s so much.”

And he still wanted more. He wanted to find out what she looked like pissed off in a traffic jam. Wanted to see her cry overa sad movie. Wanted to see what weird habits her family drilled into her, like never putting forks spiky side up in the dishwasherin case someone fell on them and got skewered. He wanted to smell every emotion on her skin. He wanted to be the one to takethat new dressing off her tattoo and the one to put the skin cream on, and he wanted to look over at it and think, I did that. That’s going to be there forever.

He jerked. His horns were bursting out—unstoppable—curling neatly before coming to a halt.

He growled, feeling the thick base of each horn. “Why is this happening? I’m fuller than I’ve ever been in my life!”

“Physically, yeah,” Reg said. “But that girl gave you something else you were starving for. Of course you want more.”

“What?”

“She finally made you get it. Right? Or start to.”

“Get what?”

“That there’s nothing wrong with you,” Reg said. “That you’re okay. That you’re not going to hurt her.”

Sam cringed. Reg had been throwing this stuff at him since middle school, and it never got less embarrassing. Like an after-schoolspecial. You’re fine just the way you are. Like anybody believed that. Especially about monsters.

“Shut up,” he said.

Reg smacked him in the shrimp tattoo. He couldn’t see it through his shirt, but they could both hit each other in the shrimptattoo with their eyes closed.

“Dude,” Reg said as Sam rubbed his chest. “Stop being ashamed. Look at me! Am I some selfish, feral jackass who takes what he wants and doesn’t care who he hurts?”

“No,” Sam muttered.

“No! And neither are you. I’ve told you a hundred times, but I think she’s finally making you hear that.”

Sam curled in on himself. He was getting taller, his wings shaking out of him no matter how hard he tried to shove them back.

Reg rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “Hey. It’s okay. Let it happen.”

Sam laughed wetly. “You are so annoying.”

His shirt ripped. His wings unfurled behind him, his tail snuck out from his jeans.

Sam panted. He looked up at Reg, his own fiery eyes reflecting back at him.

Reg smiled proudly. “There we go. You okay?”

Sam swallowed. He felt naked, even though his shirt was mostly on and his jeans were fully intact. But he felt less like peoplewould judge him for it. He didn’t want to go do the Macarena in the middle of the dance floor, but he didn’t want to findthe nearest corner to hide in, either.

Whatever Reg saw in his eyes made him grin. “Looking great, man. Nice wings.”

Sam flexed them. It was a relief. Like stretching his legs after a long car ride. A lifetime of being stuck in a cramped car,going nowhere.