Page 25 of First Kiss with a Mothman

“Wait, no, please…” He holds my arm tighter, and I can’t say I don’t enjoy the touch. “Please stay.” He may be a tad sick right now, but I like being close to him. I find I enjoy helping Arie.

“Alright. I’ll call one of my roommates to get a bottle.”

“Ooh, please don’t say bottle.” He keels over and dry wretches.

After a quick chat with Shorley, I rub Arie’s back. He continues to point his head down toward the ground, and I’m glad our backyard is mostly dirt and grass. A minute later, my frat brother arrives with two bottles of water. He hands them to me, and I thank him, but not before he bounces his eyebrows at me.

He appears to be suggesting that I have a crush on Arie. That’s a ridiculous but not inaccurate notion, so I flip Shorley off.

We spend the next several minutes sitting outside in silence. Arie nurses the waters and casually proceeds to sit upright.

“How can the whole world be spinning still?” Arie says. “I don’t even have a visual point of reference.”

I snicker and rub his back. “Beer will do that.”

“And shots. We pregamed.”

“Wow. You really went for it, huh?” We share a soft laugh, and even though he can sit upright, I continue to hold his shoulder.

“It was me and my cousin.” Arie sniffs and wipes his nose on his wrist. “Shit, my cousin is going to freak. How am I going to walk home?”

“It is pretty late,” I remark. This is about the time of the night where a chunk of the masses leave to go to the bars―the ones not vomiting, anyway.

“Can I stay here and sleep with you?” he murmurs.

My cock perks up, and my wings stop moving. Arie wants to sleep…with me?

This is another bad idea; I don’t want Arie to think I took advantage of him. Also, what if I catch feelings for him when he sleeps near me? I need to shut this down.

“Um, we have sleeping bags,” I reply. What the hell was that?

For the first time in what feels like ages, Arie seems relieved. “Okay. I’m pretty…pretty pooped.” He leans on me and starts dozing off.

“Hey, get up.” I shake his shoulder, and he sits upright.

“Oh, of course. I should tell my cousin.”

Arie leans on me as we slowly walk back to the house. He’s half-snoozing, and I need to find his cousin. Luckily, at that thought, she promptly walks out the back door.

“Arie, there you are!” She glances at me, and I can tell she’s almost as drunk as he is. “What did you do to him?”

“He got drunk. I let him puke.”

“And now I’m gonna sshhhhleep.” Arie passes out on my shoulder, and I shake him to get him to stand again.

Selena glances between us. “I could get him into a cab.”

“No! Let me shleep,” he whines.

“In some random frat house?”

“We have plenty of sleeping bags for this exact scenario,” I say, all while trying to wake Arie up.

Selena looks between us again. “I don’t know how I feel about leaving you at some monster house.”

Not enjoying the way she said monster, but whatever. “I swear no harm will come to him. You’re more than welcome to sleep in one of the couch rooms, too.”

“I’ll be fine,” Arie mutters. “You don’t need to protect me.” At that, his bird swoops down and lands on his head. “Reginald will protect me.”