Gravy Boat meowed with concern, but I shushed him.
Right now, I just wanted another nice evening with a book I couldn't wait to read. Because some part of me felt sure that if I read enough happily ever afters, it'd be easier to accept that I was never going to get my own.
2
Riggs
All I wanted was some alone time with my goddamn burrito. That, and the tasteless club soda I was working on at the bar.
But it was apparently too much to hope for.
I was only halfway through my meal when Felix and his big ass came through the entrance of The Wet Flea.
He spotted me and made his way through the crowds of howlers dancing mindlessly to the music. The Wet Flea was always loud, always packed, and always had the best food in Chicago. It was also werewolf only, and if a normie tried to find it they'd only get access to the bowling alley upstairs.
Felix eased himself into the barstool beside me, which groaned under his weight. Felix was big, even for a werewolf. He looked like he could rip a tree trunk in half with his bare hands.
Felix signaled for Jasmine to bring him a drink, then elbowed my arm softly. "Figured I'd find you here."
"Impressive deduction skills, detective."
He thanked Jasmine and took a swig of his drink, ignoring me. "Got an easy job this morning. You could tag along, unless you're having too much fun here."
I lifted my eyes from my burrito and focused on him. He was a big bastard, but we went way back. It meant I knew he wasn't nearly as scary as he looked. Not if he took a liking to you, at least.
"You spend too much time worrying about me. It's going to get you killed."
He leaned closer, meeting my eyes. "Or maybe the thing that gets me killed will be my partner continuing his love affair with burritos and club soda."
I laughed through my nose. "How long are you going to keep trying to drag me back in, anyway?"
"As long as it takes, asshole."
I polished off the last of my burrito and licked my fingers clean with a shrug. "Better hope you live a long life. I'm done."
Felix stopped me from leaving with a hand on my arm. It was the first time he'd gone that far, and I briefly considered ripping the thing off me. Instead, I just glared down at it.
"You did everything you could. And she's still out there, Riggs. It could've been much worse."
Neither of us had directly talked about what happened, and it took me a moment to process what he was trying to say. Then the rage boiled up out of nowhere. I yanked my arm free of his. "No. It couldn't have been worse. Nothing is worse than becoming one of them. You know that."
Felix shook his head but didn't argue with me.
3
Sylvie
The sound of cars humming along the street below me was comforting. I'd always found something particularly pleasant about the sound of tires on wet asphalt—the crinkle and crunch of rubber trying to grip its way around a turn.
My forehead was resting against the window as I watched the scene below through a condensed haze of moisture on the glass. It had been a hot day, so the cool touch of glass on my skin was pleasant.
Rainy days made me feel like I had company in my bubble, I guessed. For normal people, the clouds and gloom meant a lazy day inside. No frisbee in the park or brisk dog walks. For me, they were business as usual.
Rain, snow, or shine, I mostly stayed inside with my books and my big sister. But it could've been worse. I wasn't in pain. I wasn't technically sick. I had all my arms and legs, and I had the world's most iron-clad excuse to sit around and read all day.
Because healthy people had immune systems that were like personal security for their insides. The better the security, the less likely they were to get sick. I always imagined most people had Liam Neeson phoning up the flu virus the moment somebody within ten miles sneezed.
I will find you. And I will kill you.
I actually couldn't remember if those were the lines. I wasn't much of an action movie kind of girl. Romance was my jam.
But my body didn't have Liam Neeson keeping the germs at bay. It was more like having Paul Blart—the mall cop, for the uninitiated. And honestly, that was probably giving it way too much credit.
If I was being honest, my immune system wasn't even on the same level as an old lady on a scooter with a heavy cane. My body basically had an open-door policy. Bad germs? Come on in! I could thank my mom for that genetic lotto win.
The smell of spaghetti sauce mingling with ground beef drifted from the kitchen towards me. I sniffed deeper, picking up the garlic and basil, too.
My big sister, Maisey, was a halfway good cook. She could season food and follow recipes with the best of them. The problem was she almost always managed to forget to pull things out of the oven or out of the pan soon enough. It meant everything was well-seasoned and then baked, broiled, or fried into oblivion.
Thankfully, tonight she’d whipped everything up and asked me to heat it up around the time she’d be coming back from teaching her yoga class. No burned food tonight. Unless I got too wrapped up in my book.
The rain had finally let up, which meant Chicago's night life was back on schedule. Below me, people were already starting to thicken the crowds on the street below.
Beside me, Gravy Boat purred contentedly. I tried to scratch his ear, but he did his best impersonation of a naked alligator roll—biting my palm while hugging and kicking me.
Once the barrage of kicks and bites was over, he let me go, composed himself, and gave his paw a dignified lick.
I rubbed at the place where his claw had got me while I studied the people below. I focused on a young couple holding hands. The girl was wearing the sort of bright sun dress that made me imagine they hadn't been dating long. The guy looked a little like a former skater guy with the thick black gauge earrings and tattoos, but he had a button-up shirt on. It was cute, and I smiled while I watched him lead her by the hand through the puddles on the sidewalk.
I imagined they were going out for their date. Maybe dinner and then a night spent ice skating. Or maybe they'd just grab takeout and go back to his place to stream a movie.
Once they were gone, I noticed a man by himself. He looked straight out of one of the romance books I liked to read. Square jaw, muscular, and devastatingly handsome. He was waiting at the street corner with his phone out. Maybe he'd called an Uber, I thought. Either way, it gave me plenty of time to creep on him from my perch at the window.
As if he knew what was going through my head, Gravy Boat let out a judgy meow and then started aggressively licking his asshole.
I tossed a balled-up napkin at him, but it only made him get more intense.
Disgusted, I looked back to the guy and tried to tune out Gravy Boat's noise and my sister's clanging from the kitchen. She usually had no idea how loud she was being because she wore noise canceling headphones and blasted music to herself. I’d joked several times that she wouldn’t hear if someone broke in and decided to murder me, then I’d violently knocked on wood.
I pulled out a sheet of paper and started writing a letter to the guy. Yes, I knew it was incredibly dorky and also technically littering. But I figured the universe could cut me a little karmic slack considering the hand I'd been dealt. Sometimes I liked to write notes to people I saw on the street, fold them into paper airplanes, and then chuck them out the window. Just about every single time I did this, the airplane got sucked back against the building where it fell uselessly to the street, or it got pulled along with cars on the road and pulverized into oblivion by the tires.