by Amy Star
“Hotter,” Charlie assured her as her dress fell down her legs and pooled around her feet. She stepped out of the circle of cloth and began pulling pins out of her hair.
Sam whistled lowly. “You know what that means,” she cautioned. “He can’t be too good to be true; he wants something.”
Charlie snorted. “He needs to show proof of intent to marry and procreate or he’s going to be disinherited,” she replied, and she ignored Sam’s sharp bark of laughter upon being proven right. “But hey, I wasn’t expecting this to just be because he had a hankering for spending money on a cute girl. He seems pretty nice, and you know what? I can pretty happily cordially coexist with him and occasionally get a good dicking.”
“Only occasionally?” Sam wondered dryly.
“More than occasionally,” Charlie corrected. “Anyway, I have ulterior motives. I wasn’t expecting him not to. He didn’t seem to mind.”
“Well, the lack of a double standard is refreshing, I guess. So, you decided?”
Charlie made a low, dissatisfied noise. “Not quite. I’m still debating.”
Sam snorted, the laugh turned into static somewhere between her phone and Charlie’s. “Of course. Well, I’ll let you go, then. You go stare at the ceiling and ponder, or whatever it is you’re going to do.”
“Uh huh,” Charlie agreed wryly. “I’ll let you know what I come up with.”
She hung up without ever mentioning the strangest detail of the night. That seemed like more of an involved conversation that she wasn’t really up for just then. Not when she already had plenty of things to ponder.
Aside from being a little crazy, it had been a pretty decent night. Talking to him had been simple enough. He hadn’t protested at the idea of paying off her student loans for her. He hadn’t seemed to think that it was ridiculous for her to paint. He had been pretty pleasant in general. And his brand of crazy had been… fairly benign, assuming that it wasn’t just some strange joke to see how far he could push before she ran off. If he thought he was mostly a person but could also be a bear, well, that sort of crazy seemed pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.
She was pretty sure she was going to wait a while before telling Sam about that detail, though.
Aside from being a little crazy, she didn’t actually have any complaints about him. Oh, sure, she would probably have complaints later, because everyone had complaints about everyone, but she could feel those out later. For the moment, the fact that she had no real complaints seemed pretty promising. And if the little bit of crazy got to be a bit too much crazy, well, she could call things off later.
She picked up her phone and contemplated it carefully for a moment, before she pulled the slip of paper from her clutch and entered the number. Her text was short and simple; there was no need to make a giant affair out of everything.
‘What did you have in mind for a second date?’
*
Date Number Two, as Charlie was calling it in her head, was rather different from the first date. It was in the middle of the day, for one thing, rather than in the late evening. And they didn’t actually go anywhere in particular. Instead, Zeke had a camera dangling from around his neck when she met him at the strip district.
Charlie couldn’t say that photography was really her expertise, but when she was handed a very expensive camera, she certainly knew how to entertain herself. And that was all it was, really. The two of them ran around the most colorful parts of the city, taking photos of whatever looked the most interesting, or staging photos if there wasn’t anything in the immediate area that really screamed to have their pictures taken.
There were elaborately painted statues of herons all over the city, on street corners, in storefronts, in courtyards, in parks, they were everywhere. They managed to get pictures of at least a dozen of them, though it meant they had to flee a certain business’s courtyard before they could get pictures of anything else, because the security guard disapproved of Zeke taking a picture of Charlie riding the starlight heron like a horse.
They ate lunch at a tiny, Vietnamese hole in the wall wedged between a coffee shop and a fishmonger’s shop. The food was incredible and Charlie was pretty sure the iced coffee she got in the restaurant trumped anything she would be able to get at the coffee shop.
It was such a simple day when she held it up to what she would have expected a billionaire to do. But in its simplicity, she found she had no complaints.
They were waiting for the car that Charlie called to bring her home when she said, “I don’t think I’d mind giving this a try.” With something like levity, she added, “Worse comes to worst, we can just get a divorce later.”
Zeke snorted out a quiet laugh. “A fair point,” he agreed. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“I guess I’m going to have to meet your family, then,” Charlie mused quietly, standing up as a car slowed as it approached the curb.
“True enough,” he agreed, “but we can work out the details about that later.” As the car pulled to a halt, he opened the rear door and ushered Charlie in. “I enjoyed today.”
“So did I,” Charlie assured him, and she was actually a bit surprised to find that she meant it.
He offered a small, crooked smile as she slid onto the seat and he closed the door behind her, and she waved out the window as the car pulled away.
She supposed this was actually happening. In a strange sense, she was engaged. And she was going to meet his family.
…That thought seemed a lot more unnerving than it had when Charlie agreed to it.
*
Their third date was not so much a date as it was a cram session that just happened to involve lunch at a very nice café. If Charlie was going to be presented to Zeke’s family as proof that he was going to provide grandchildren, then they had to know each other. Or at least they had to be able to pretend that they knew each other.
Their hobbies were… complementary, in a way. Charlie’s visual arts against Zeke’s musical arts. He could also sing, apparently. He refused to give her a demonstration in public. They both knew how to ride horses, though in Zeke’s case it was because he had horses and in Charlie’s case it was because of summer camp.
Their lives, on the other hand, could not have been more different. Charlie was pretty sure one semester at Zeke’s university would have cost as much as Charlie’s full tuition, but that would only have happened if he hadn’t been granted a full ride on scholarships. He had no siblings, while Charlie had five. Charlie’s father cared reasonably little about getting involved in their lives unless they were in trouble, and Zeke’s parents never knew when to butt out.
If nothing else, by the end of lunch Charlie felt reasonably prepared to pretend they had been dating and getting to know each other for weeks already.
He gave her a ring at the end of it. They were engaged, after all. It was simple—a pewter band with a trillion-cut diamond wrapped in swirls for the setting—but in an elegant way, rather than a cheap way. ‘Engaged’ was still a strange thought, but she was rather enamored with the ring.
*
Zeke’s family was surprisingly small. As he pulled out her chair for her and she sat down, she took a moment to glance around the table, and there were only three other people there, aside from the two of them. She knew he had no siblings, but she had expected there to be a few more extended relatives.
The term “old money” was very literal, in their case. Zeke’s father looked as if there might have been a family resemblance once upon a time, but he appeared to be well into his eighties. His wife, conversely, barely appeared to be in her fifties. She was an attractive woman, who seemed to have passed both her hair and eyes to her son.
The third person was a man perhaps a few years older than Zeke. He was very pale and blond and his eyes were clear blue. Facially, he looked a bit like a ferret; he was very pointy, and his eyes looked like he was planning something. Those were Charlie’s first thoughts on cousin Richard, who Zeke’s parents had
apparently taken in after his own parents passed. There was no elaboration on that, but if his parents had been as old as Zeke’s, Charlie had her guesses.
The look he gave her as she sat down was as if someone was holding a bag of dog shit under his nose; it was like he was objecting to a smell but didn’t actually want to say anything about it. After a few seconds, he forced a polite smile into place.
Nothing got any better from there, but Charlie was slightly gratified that Zeke seemed just as put out by it as she did.
Richard asked her if she was planning on going to college, as if it was the most logical assumption that she hadn’t gone. He didn’t seem particularly impressed when she explained that she already had a bachelor’s degree.
Zeke’s father went off on a tangent about the irrelevancies of art, until his wife slapped his arm and laughingly said, “Oh, stop. Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere.” Charlie couldn’t help but to wonder if Zeke’s dad even knew about Zeke’s music. Granted, she doubted it would change his opinion one way or the other.
But Charlie behaved herself. She was polite and gracious and she asked all of the proper questions. She barely tasted any of her food, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of how hard she was concentrating or just because the portions were so small.
*
Zeke’s family was… fascinating. That was the only word Charlie could think of to describe them without dipping into profanity. His mother had seemed nice enough, though the degree to which she was younger than her husband had been a little jarring. His cousin had been a downright prick and she sort of wished she had “accidentally” poured her wine in his lap. She couldn’t even pinpoint why he was a prick; he just got under her skin, like termites.
Charlie reflected on this as she scrubbed her makeup off and pulled the pins from her hair. Her dress was already in a heap on the floor as she wandered around her bedroom and bathroom in her bra and panties. She made her way into the kitchen. She was still starving.
Richard was basically like every stuck-up asshole in high school who always assumed that everyone was coming from somewhere below them. Zeke’s father wasn’t much better.
But, well. He really was very old. Charlie doubted she would see him particularly much, and if she wanted to be morbid about it, at least he probably wasn’t going to be around much longer. And once that came to pass and Zeke got his inheritance, hopefully Richard would just disappear.
Zeke himself, though… he had been perfectly sweet, craziness aside. (Strangely, she couldn’t actually tell if the rest of the family was in on the craziness or not.) A bit distant, maybe, but they were still getting to know each other. She supposed everything would work out well enough, if she was just allowed to avoid most of his family.
*
There were very few things in life that Charlie truly hated. Racism. Sexism. Being condescended to, especially by her father and his friends. Things like that. But ranking along with them at the top of the list was the late shift. True enough, she considered herself a night owl, but that was because she enjoyed having her nights to herself to relax and decompress. She couldn’t do much relaxing or decompressing if she was getting out of work at ten o’clock at night, and that was only on nights where all of the customers were scooted out the door at the right time so cleanup could begin on time. Thankfully, she only had to work the late shift once a week.
She lived in the suburbs, well away from the bustle of the middle of the city, but the restaurant she worked at was near enough to the duplex she lived in that she could walk, and there was rarely any reason for her to truly worry. Granted, she tended to keep her keys between her fingers regardless, but she figured caution was an admirable trait. On the whole, though, she typically never ran into anything more dangerous than a raccoon or her neighbor’s elderly terrier.
That night, though, was quiet. She was about halfway back to her duplex before she realized that it was a very intense sort of quiet. There were no bats, stray cats, barking dogs, raccoons, or opossums. Animals always knew before anyone else when something bad was coming, and it felt like that sort of stillness.
Charlie glanced around cautiously and picked up her pace to a jog. Right about then, all she wanted was her kitchen in front of her and her door behind her and for the night to be over.
She made it to the end of her street when a trashcan rattled and fell over, and for a moment, she was relieved—finally, some sign of life! But then she actually saw what had crashed into the trashcan.
She lived close enough to the city proper that big wildlife was largely unheard of. And yet, standing not six feet away, a brown bear the size of a car stared back at her. It was looking right at her. And then it started moving towards her, with a slow, purposeful lumber.
Charlie managed a few stumbling steps backwards, her purse falling from her hands, but as the bear advanced, she ground to a halt, as if her muscles had turned into cement, stiff and unyielding.
The bear was close enough that she could have touched it, had she been able to get any of her limbs to actually move. Then it stood up on its hind legs and towered over her. Tears streaked silently down her face, and as the bear opened its mouth wide enough that it could have crushed her head, and growled, all that went through Charlie’s head was a distant, tinny, ‘So this is how I die.’
CHAPTER TWO
As the bear prepared to make the final lunge, something equally enormous crashed into it with all the force of a freight train, sending it sprawling over the ground. Charlie felt only a moment of relief before she realized what her unexpected savior was.
If there was one thing that could make a bear attack worse, it was the addition of a second bear. One equally as large as the first bear, and with equally enormous teeth and claws. She was convinced, for a few moments, that she was not only going to be eaten, but fought over and ripped apart.
And then she realized that the second bear seemed far more interested in the first bear than in her. In fact, it seemed to be trying rather hard to keep the first bear away from her. As the first bear got back to its feet and surged forward, the second bear stayed in its path, bodily blocking its way.
The first bear paced back and forth for a moment, and the second bear watched it carefully. They were sizing each other up in a manner rather more intelligent than most wild animals were capable of.
With a low growl, the initial bear backed away a few steps, evidently deciding that whatever damage it might potentially inflict would not be worth the damage it would acquire in turn. It growled once more, as if for good measure, before it turned and loped away in the direction it had originally come from.
Charlie sank to her knees slowly, staring blankly down at her lap and blinking slowly. Hands moving on autopilot, she reached for her dropped purse and began to shove the scattered items back into it.
She drew in a sharp breath, letting it out as a tiny, terrified squeak as a long muzzle was abruptly two inches from her face. It huffed a breath over her cheek, but otherwise it simply stood there.
Slowly, Charlie looked up at it, and found herself looking into a pair of green eyes. She was pretty sure bears weren’t supposed to have green eyes.
It huffed another breath at her and then jerked its head to the side, presumably pointing at something. With stiff, mechanical motions, Charlie got to her feet and stumbled in the direction it had pointed. She found a pile of men’s clothing on the ground. Glancing over her shoulder, she asked faintly, “You want me to grab this?”
The bear’s head dipped once. It nodded. A fucking bear actually nodded at her. She was pretty sure she was dreaming, or maybe the first bear had actually killed her and this was just what her brain was showing her as she died. Either way, that didn’t seem like a great reason to annoy the second bear, so she gathered up the pile of clothing.
Nothing got any closer to normal after that. It took a moment for Charlie to get her legs to work well enough to actually start walking, and once she did, the bear trailed a few paces behi
nd her. She glanced over her shoulder at it every few seconds, but it seemed more interested in escorting her than eating her.
Once they were standing in front of her duplex, the words, “Please don’t wake up my neighbor,” fell out of Charlie’s mouth automatically. The bear didn’t seem to think much of it.
It was looking around carefully, and it took Charlie a few slow seconds to realize it was trying to see if anyone was looking.
“You, uh—” she paused and cleared her throat, and began to carry the pile of clothing around the side of her half of the duplex. “No one can really see the side yard,” she mumbled down at the grass, before she peeked over her shoulder to be sure that the bear was still following her. Cautiously, she ventured closer to its side and set the pile of clothes down on its back. Worryingly, the creature was massive enough that just reaching its back was a bit of a stretch.
With that accomplished, she hurried back to her front door, as if that was safer than any other part of the yard. She hugged her arms around herself as the bear lumbered towards the side of the duplex. She supposed she would just… keep watch. In the incredibly unlikely event that anyone showed up. It was a blatant excuse and she was one hundred percent alright with that.
