Now it’s my way to honor them, and I don’t let anybody into my car. I shit you not, I rent an Uber for anyone who needs a ride home. When I date, I drive my date’s car. Some women think I’m a dick, but it’s a solid rule that’s seen my grandpa’s car kept perfectly pristine.
Yet something about Inara has me reluctant to send her wherever she’s going with some faceless Uber guy who won’t give two cranks if she’s curling up on a park bench tonight.
Stacy is staring at me like I’ve grown three heads and as many horns.
“Yesss,” I manage through gritted teeth. I cut a look at Inara. “Will your suit drop any glitter or any—and I mean anything sticky?” I can just imagine latex glue leaking onto the premium leather. I can feel my grandpa’s hands wrapping around my throat, and the ghostlike sensation is so real I struggle to swallow for a second.
Inara looks nonplussed. “No. I will emit nothing.”
“Matt, pretty please can I—” Stacy starts, and her highly effective puppy dog eyes are on.
But nope. I’m puppy-dog-eye proof. “Get home safe, Stacy,” I repeat.
“Goodbye, Stacy,” Inara says. “I look forward to interacting with you again tomorrow.”
“Oh, girl, same here,” Stacy grins—and she means it.
I can relate. Inara’s whacked, and I can’t wait to see what she does tomorrow either.
Even if my neck is tight at the thought of driving her, and what I’m going to walk her to tonight. She can’t really be hiding in the woods somewhere, right? She had to have a decent place to do her makeup and get her suit on? I can’t see that being possible if she’s living homeless or a step up from homeless in a tent. Or a cardboard box with a spaceship outline drawn on it, which is what I’m half-preparing myself to find.
When Stacy leaves the lot—using her blinker and obeying the lot speed limit (man, you gotta love a good kid)—I turn to Inara. “Let’s… do this.”
***
Fifteen minutes later and I’m standing in Grant Park on the Dove Girl’s side, far, far off the walking path. Hell, we’re far off the dog walker’s path, and that cuts through some trees.
We’re standing in the middle of the park’s woods, where the murderers and rapists could not be happier to find a lone woman. It’s pitch black out here, and no one will hear her fucking scream. Just—just NO.
And there’s the small fact that Inara is insisting that she’s going to be safe out here tonight because no one can break into her ship.
Her invisible ship.
That’s right.
We are staring off into trees and she… she is so dedicated to this reality she’s built for herself that I believe she believes it.
This is seriously just sad.
“I’m going to level with you,” I tell her.
Inara’s eyes narrow to slits. “You think I’m mad.”
“I call it like I see it,” I confirm. “And you are off your rocker if you think I’m going to leave you in the park, at night, pretending that you’re going to be just fine in your invisible spaceship.”
“I will be, Matt. I promise, I will be fine in my cloaked air ship.”
“Look, honey—”
This is what finally breaks Inara’s patience with me butting into her business, I guess. “‘Honey,’” she repeats like she’s taking issue with me saying it. “One of my brothers has a mate who calls him this. I know that when used between two who are not mates, it is meant to be patronizing—”
“Whoa. Hey,” I tell her, catching her eyes before she can boil over. “I swear, not my intention. It’s…” I rake an impatient hand through my hair. “It’s a respect thing.”
Inara makes a pretty adorable-sounding noise of disbelief.
“It is,” I assure her, hoping she can see I mean it. “Let me tell you how. See, I don’t care what other men think of me, if they think I’m a rude dick. I am a rude dick,” I tell her bluntly. “I don’t care if women get that impression of me either, ‘specially since it’s the right one. But I do at least try to deliver my words more gently—”
“You’re aware it’s coming off condescendingly?” Inara asks, no longer sounding steamed, just trying to be helpful in pointing out how what I say hits her.
“No,” I deny. “It comes off like a man cares. If I think a man is being a fucking idiot, I have no problem telling him so. In exactly those words. If I think a woman needs to hear something along those lines, I choose my words with as much care as I’m able though, because it matters to me that I don’t hurt her feelings.”
Inara blinks up at me, arms crossing not in anger, but holding herself, concentrating on me. “You think we need ‘care?’”
“I think you deserve it.” I feel my shoulder go up as I give my head a once-shake. “I get that I still probably sound like a chauvinistic asshole, but hey. The rule is respect your elders. Love your mother and father. And as far as I’m concerned, without women going that extra couple miles carrying each and every one of us, something no guy can do, there wouldn’t be a damn person on this earth. Every woman deserves a little extra respect.”
Silence meets my finished speech.
“Okay,” I say after a too-long stretch of quiet. “You’re going to come with me on your own power, or I’m going to pick you up and haul your alien-costumed-ass out of this—FUCK!”
My knees lock. A damn good thing, because otherwise, I’d be on my ass in the grass. A metal sound is still ringing, and I can’t tell if it’s coming from my ears or whatever the hell I just ran into.
“Are you all right?” Inara asks, and when the stars clear from my vision, I see she’s biting her lip. “I told you my ship was cloaked. Try not to walk your face into it again.”
I just… stare at her.
Then, slowly, I reach my hands up, and feel… her… ship.
“Holy shit,” I breathe. Because my eyes don’t see a damn thing—I mean, they do, but I only see the well-tended grass of a park at our feet. I see trees all around us. I see everything I’m supposed to see—
But under my hands, in front of my face, something is here.
Something solid, and metal, and… I mean, maybe the technology is here, maybe this woman is still in a kickass alien suit, and she’s completely off her rocker but so stinking-ass rich that she paid out for a top secret government contract so she could tool around in a vehicle that cloaks itself in its surroundings.
It’s possible.
But… feeling equally possible… is the fact that Inara…
Is…
Actually...
An…
Alien.
CHAPTER 6
“I don’t know what the contingency plan is for this situation,” I babble—I’m babbling here. “I mean, do I let you stay in the park—still alone—now? Do I just stop worrying because you’re an alien from another planet and your ship cloaks, so you’ll probably be fine? Pfft,” I chuff, eyes feeling too wide. I fish around in my pocket for a stick of gum. I find three, unwrap three, and cram them in my mouth, the mint cool enough to burn as I chomp. My eyes start watering. “And fuck. If the IRS catches me paying you under the table, you better stick around so I can walk their agents’ foreheads into your ship too. When I tell them you’re an alien, I want them to know exactly the situation I’m dealing with.”