She mimicked the salute I had done, clicking her heels together joking, “Blessings to ya, Hottie!”
I groaned. “I’m so embarrassed, it just kept getting worse and worse, he’s so freaking hot, it got me all flustered. I couldn’t remember how to stand right, or move my face.”
She laughed. “You’re in arelationship,I think you should be able to talk to hot guys without turning into a bumbling mess of stupidity.”
I bared my teeth, “Do I have food in my teeth? I forgot how to be normal.”
“You got some egg right there,” she pointed, “but he probably didn’t notice or care, he looked like he’s used to Viking wenches with questionable mouth hygiene.”
I sucked on my tooth and picked at it with my finger. “Well, it wasn’t just me, that whole experience was weird. What was that metal thingy?”
“Who knows.” We left the hospital and outside she blinked in the sun. “What a wild morning, I got to meet a crazy person in the hospital and see my bestie become a jabbering idiot.”
“Yeah, I thought it was going to get less weird, but it only got weirder. Why was that guy in my yard this morning? I got no answers.”
As we crossed the parking lot for my BMW, she said, “Maybe it was simply an unexplainable mistake, he seems nice enough, he was passing through, he just got lost, and now he’s getting ready to leave the hospital. It’s all perfectly normal, except hehas that thingy that we don’t know what it is, but we don’t knoweverythingin the world. There is a reasonable explanation, the only thing silly about the whole morning wasyou.”
“I am so glad Cooper didn’t see me act like that. I got flushed.”
We climbed in my car and I started it.
She said, “He was very, very hot. Something about that voice, hot-hot.I,for one, am glad I don’t have to watch you be all awkward anymore, you weirdo.”
“Are you going to let me live it down?”
“Let’s see,” She pretended to bow while flourishing her arm, “‘You’re not from these parts, I’m just a simple girl, don’t got no sense.’” She laughed. “Nah, I’m probably not going to let this go, not for a few hours.”
I groaned. “Well, it was worth it, did youseehis chest?”
“Hell yeah, and his hand, when he had it on that object, wow. The veins running on the back of it, I am a sucker for those.”
We both sighed dramatically. “Well, it’s over now, we have established that I am a doofus and... I can’t seem to make myself be…”
I had driven up to the parking lot exit and was about to pull out to the street when I glanced in the rearview mirror.
Torin was running out of the front doors of the hospital. The cloak around his shoulders, a sword in his hand. Kilt flapping behind him as he ran.
“Uh oh.”
He was running across the grass sloping into the woods.
A nurse was at the door waving her arms, trying to get him to return.
Jen turned, following my eyes. “Girlfriend, I don’t know what’s going on withthat,but you donotwant to get involved.”
The car behind me honked.
He disappeared into the trees. “Yes, right, absolutely, no way, I amdonewith that.”
I pulled out on the road and drove in the opposite direction. But every now and then I found my eyes drifting to the rearview mirror looking back there —what was going on with that guy?
6
TORIN
2004 - BREVARD, NORTH CAROLINA
Och, the harsh, unnatural illumination of the world stung m’vision. I was disoriented, squintin’ my eyes, desperate tae see clearly, tae understand where I was and how tae find m’way back home.
