It took a while to reach our destination, and Colt talked cheerily the entire time. I tried to pay attention because I wasn’t sure if he would expect me to remember anything later – like a test – but I got distracted several times by noticing how Tommy was just watching me in the rearview mirror the whole time, not saying a single word for the most part. He hadn’t been so scary the other day when he woke up, but somehow the silent observation made me nervous. I already knew I was bound to make a fool of myself here, a feeling which doubled when Colt pulled up in front of a huge, fancy mansion. Great. A fancy party. This was going to be awful.
Try to enjoy yourself, I reminded myself as I followed them inside, the nervousness gnawing at me. You survived the company party, just think of it like that! Only…with all strangers…and a formal setting…and uh, yeah. Otherwise the same.
I’d have told myself that maybe I could make friends here – I mean, other than the whole not being able to keep friends thing – but stepping onto the marble floor of the foyer and seeing the elaborate curved double staircases that reminded me of a movie set, I felt certain that all of these people would be far too fancy for someone like me. Someone plain and boring.
This was definitely not my cup of tea.
Colt practically dragged me into an equally fancy and formal living room – drawing room, maybe? – where several people were gathered.
“Okay, so the redhead is Rachel, Vernon is the guy with the beard, his wife standing with him is Kelly, then the blonde over there is Joan, and she’s talking to Rebecca and Henri. Adelaide is in the kitchen, she’s the only other one. Everyone!” He half shouted, drawing their attention to us and making me flinch. “This is Cooper, he’s the shifter who helped Tommy.”
They gave a chorus of waves and greetings, following which I attempted to slide along the outside edge of the room and find a quiet corner to exist in until I was permitted to leave.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to remember everyone’s name, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter much because Colt decided he was going to drag me out of my corner and individually introduce me to each of the angels.
What I learned from all of that was that Henri and Joan both had accents and were apparently siblings; Henri had a thing for Rebecca and wasn’t willing to hide it, but she didn’t seem to share the interest or care enough to shut him down, either; Vernon and Kelly were so into each other that they barely noticed anyone else; and Rachel seemed to be the only normal one among them.
When Colt ran off to check on Adelaide in the kitchen, Rachel gave me an amused smile. “It’s a lot all at once, I get it. Colt can be a little overwhelming – feel free to tell him to back off if you want. He means well, but he has no idea that everyone isn’t the same as him when it comes to dealing with people.”
Had she realized how uncomfortable I was? I wasn’t sure if that was embarrassing that a stranger had realized or a relief that someone here might actually not pressure me into conversation.
She and the rest of the angels were dressed a lot more formally than me, which made me want to curse Colt out a bit – I could have changed into a suit, but he’d acted like what I was wearing was fine. Now I was woefully underdressed, which made me stand out even more than I would already as the only plain person, stranger, and shifter in a group of beautiful angels.
Because let’s face it: angels tended to be beautiful. Their genetics just made them gorgeous by nature, I guess. Male, female, tall, short, dark skinned, light skinned – no matter what they were, they wore it with such beauty and grace that it was no wonder some angels like Colt literally went into the beauty business. People couldn’t stop staring at them.
Rachel got called off by Joan, leaving me alone as I watched their small groups all talking together animatedly. There it was again – that burst of pain from seeing people around me able to socialize freely and wondering what was wrong with me. Well, under the circumstances, I knew what it was here. I wasn’t comfortable and these people, this setting – it wasn’t me. These people were all friends and I was an outsider with no connections to them.
I was really regretting agreeing to this.
Then Tommy came over to join me. “Can I get you something to drink?” He’d been very quiet this whole time and now was looking at me intently, but it didn’t feel as strange as it had in the car. More like he was trying to figure me out, which…there really wasn’t that much to figure out.
“Water,” I responded after a moment. Everyone else looked like they were drinking champagne or wine but I wasn’t a fan of alcohol.
“Coming right up.” He disappeared before reappearing shortly with a glass of water for me and champagne for him.
“So,” he said after I took a sip, “I’m assuming you grew up in smaller towns? Based on what you said about the hospital.” His tone wasn’t particularly warm of friendly, but not unfriendly, either. Serious, almost. I didn’t know how to take that.
“Yes,” I agreed, then made an effort to push myself to keep talking. All I really wanted to do was retreat into myself and hide in a corner until I was allowed to leave, but I could make an effort to talk one-on-one, right? It was good practice. I didn’t expect to be friends with any of these people, but I could apparently use practice socializing, so might as well. Even if I was going to be absolutely exhausted by the time I got home. “I grew up in a smaller town, it wasn’t even big enough for a college. I moved away for school and it was somewhat bigger, but not a lot of supernaturals there. I came here for work about two years ago.”
Wait, so far we’d only talked about me. Conversations were supposed to go both ways, so I needed to make sure I asked about him, too. To be interested in him. That was only polite. Plus, according to books I read, people felt like they enjoyed conversations when they got to talk about themselves, so usually I tried to make sure I got people to talk about themselves rather than me. “Did you grow up here?”
“Mostly.” He stretched a little before leaning his shoulder against the ornate fireplace while his eyes focused on me. “I lived here when I was younger, left for school, then came back.” His eyes went to the other angels. “Adelaide is my aunt. She basically raised me since high school. This is her place – she’s responsible for gathering us into a proper enclave. Angels don’t always live together,” he explained. “Usually, once we reach adulthood, we tend to branch out on our own. Like birds, I guess – we feel the urge to establish our own lives. Angel enclaves aren’t that common, because we don’t have a strong need for community like some supernaturals – fairies or demons, for instance. Adelaide wanted an enclave, though, and went out of her way to befriend all the angels in the area. Joan and Henri live a little further away, but we all consider ourselves part of the enclave.”
“If you feel like you have to strike out on your own, why did you come back?” That seemed at odds with the rest of what he said.
Tommy shrugged. “Adelaide was never that much of a parent to me, really, despite raising me for a few years – more of an older sister or a mentor, I guess? I think coming back for me didn’t feel so much like placing myself back under the leadership of a parent. Besides, I live and work elsewhere now so while I join the enclave dinners and all, it’s not the same thing as living here. It works out for us.”
I wondered what had happened to his parents but decided that was probably best not to ask. Usually, if supernaturals grew up without parents, it meant they were dead thanks to supernatural stuff. I knew from personal experience that asking about family wasn’t always a kind thing to do.
So I went with a different question. “What do you do?”
“For work? I fly airplanes.”
That was not what I was expecting, and Tommy seemed a little amused at my expression.
“Mostly small stuff locally, but sometimes I take small business flights – none of the huge commercial things, that’s not for me. I like being in the sky and it’s the closest I can do without flying myself. Which obviously I can do, but it’s not always safe to do.”
Right. Angels had wings. I rarely saw the wings, so I forgot about that, but I suppose flying to them was like running to most shifters – built into our DNA.
Except mine. I should, actually, love to run. More so even than many shifters. And yet…and yet I rarely shifted. Ever since the accident and then the thing with Sean, there was a part of me that hated being a shifter. The last time I’d tried to shift, I’d ended up bawling on my bathroom floor instead, apologizing to my family for their deaths and wishing that somehow I could just turn it off.
So I hadn’t shifted in years. I hadn’t really run since my family died. Somehow it felt like betraying them.
Because the only reason I survived while they didn’t was that I was a shifter and they were all human. Yes, I was adopted. Whoever my biological family was hadn’t wanted me, but my family had adopted me and loved me despite me being a shifter – even though that had been a bit of a surprise to them to discover, given that they were humans and all. But being a shifter was the reason I had lived and they had died. It was the reason I was alone now.
I tried to pull myself out of the spiral I was headed into, reminding myself that I was here at a dinner party and talking to someone. What had he just said? I should probably respond to it.
“I’ve never flown,” I admitted.
“Never? Even when you moved?”
I shook my head. “I drove,” I explained. Driving made more sense for moving because then I could bring stuff with me. Planes didn’t really allow that.
“I can take you up sometime if you want,” Tommy offered. “It’s a really amazing feeling. I have my own plane,” he added. “A small one, but any time you’re free, I can take us up.”
I was almost tempted to accept that offer, even though I knew he was just saying it to be polite, because it seriously did sound like fun. Thankfully I was spared the embarrassment of accepting an offer he didn’t actually mean by Colt arriving to announce that dinner was ready.
The dining room was even more formal than the first two rooms, if that was possible. On top of that, the table settings make me feel like sinking into the floor just by looking at them because there was a ridiculous number of forks and spoons and small plates and big plates and I was positive I was about to choose the wrong one and make a fool of myself. I should probably just resign myself to the idea and not care if they laughed at me.
I took the seat I was directed to, finding myself next to Colt on one hand and across from Henri, with no one on the other side of me. That was a bit of relief – I was at the other end of the table from the graceful and predictably gorgeous Adelaide, who seemed to be presiding over her table like a queen. Tommy sat by her and Rachel was also at the other end of the table, leaving me with Colt, who seemed entirely unaware that I might not be comfortable with everything he loved, and Henri, who for some reason seemed to view me as a potential threat to his desired relationship with Rebecca. I wasn’t, and I had no idea why he would even think such – I mean, look at me, and look at him. It was obvious who anyone would pick. But I also doubted that trying to explain that to him would do any good.
Dinner was, indeed, delicious, but even by the time it had finished I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten because I was too busy trying to survive the enthusiasm that was emanating from Colt and draining my own in the process. He’d suggested he take me to an industry event and introduce me to other models, male and female, which sounded awful to me, but of course to him all he saw was that he was offering someone a chance into a world that most people would love to see and some might even kill to get involved with, so there was no possible way what he was suggesting would be less desirable to someone, right?
As dinner concluded, I started to see a faint ray of hope that maybe that meant I could escape, only to have that hope dashed when Adelaide rose and suggested we convene to the music room for “evening entertainment followed by dessert,” as she put it.
My heart sank and I struggled not to let my shoulders droop from defeat and exhaustion. I took a moment to hide in the bathroom, though, taking deep breaths and quickly wiping away the tears, splashing cold water on my face and telling myself I could survive a few more hours. Sure, it was pretty miserable, all these strangers and this fancy atmosphere and I didn’t feel comfortable at all, but just a few more hours. I could survive that long. Just…just a little bit more.
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