Page 29 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
Now that I was thinking about it, this probably wasn’t the best place to take a bunch of aliens new to this planet when I now had four million dollars. I was still used to being broke, but we couldn’t go to any of the nice places I couldn’t afford before because they’d kick us out.
I knew a place that didn’t have whiskey or good music, but itdidhave the best pie I’d ever eaten and it was just down the block. And if Torrek could smell my ex on the hoodie I was wearing, sitting next to the bathrooms was probably going to be miserable for him and Omi.
“Change of venue,” I said, leading them back out.
Luckily, the twenty-four-hour diner was just two blocks up the road. I had to laugh. I was strolling down the sidewalk with three aliens and a cyborg. I had all the proof I wasn’t lying and people still wouldn’t believe me. They all had accents that were nothing of this planet, but they spoke English perfectly fine. And aside from Torrek getting weird around me when I wore my ex’s hoodie and this pull to him now, they didn’t act that much differently, either.
I had a booth here, too, because I wrote here sometimes. All the waitstaff knew me because even though I was broke as fuck, I tipped really well because they kept bringing me coffee. When I walked in, Stella was working behind the counter. She didn’t even blink when she saw my strange companions.
“Your booth is free. We’ve got the strawberry rhubarb pie tonight and Coby made the salmon chowder.”
“Stella, have I told you that I love you lately?”
“Every time Coby makes the salmon chowder, and I had nothing to do with it.”
“Pretty sure you know I’m coming and tell him to make it.”
“Pretty sure you’re full of shit, Baxter.”
“That’s because I am.”
Stella was my platonic wife. She was married to Coby, but she called me on my shit all the time and she brought me food that I paid for. We took our booth, and they all looked around.
“This place smells nicer. If I told him it would please my Zovea, would this Coby teach me to make salmon chowder so I could cook it for you?” Torrek asked.
“What’s a Zovea? And no. Coby is maybe one hundred and forty pounds soaking wet and in his seventies. He would still try to take you if you came into his kitchen asking about his recipes. They’ve been passed down through his family and he’ll eventually teach whatever grandkid is going to take over thediner when he retires. Pretty sure someone here is reading tarot cards and knows when I’m coming because he doesn’t always make it, but I always seem to come when he does and it’s my favorite.”
Before he could explain, Stella came to our booth to take our order. She eyed everyone sitting with me.
“I’m not sure how you convinced these men to dress up like your kinky books, but does that mean the last one is coming out soon?”
Oops. Stella took a peek at my laptop when she was refilling my coffee once and asked me about it. I wasn’t going to give her my pseudonym, and I didn’t think she’d be interested in it, but she was a fellow smut fan and said she wanted to read them. Not because I was a customer, and she was just being nice, but because those were the kinds of books she liked.
She ended up binge reading all of them and was probably the only fan I actually had. She would have known all these guys lookedexactlylike the characters in my book and she knew I was fucking weird enough to ask men to dress like this and do nefarious shit like bring them to diners for salmon chowder.
“I’m hoping to work on it soon. These guys are actors, and they agreed to dress up like my characters for inspiration.”
Yeah, the original plan wasnotgoing to work on Stella. I hope my time traveling space bastards were cool and knew to play along.
“You’re fucking weird, Baxter, but we like you anyway. I’m guessing the usual for you. What do the rest of you want?”
“We’ll have what Baxter is having,” Torrek rumbled.
Yeah, his chest was doing that rumble thing that I loved and there was no way to explain that if it got any louder.
“They’re method actors,” I whispered, like that explained everything.
“Okay, but if you break anything, you’re paying for it,” Stella said, shrugging and leaving.
Yeah, pretty much the only reason that went as well as it did was that I was in here a lot, and I was always alone. Stella chatted with me all the time. Yeah, this was bizarre, but I’d probably said something a lot more fucked-up while I was eating salmon chowder in this diner.
“So, anyway, back to my murder and Torrek calling me his Zovea.”
“I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I meant to tell you when we were alone.”
“Can’t be helped. I might get murdered soon and I have the patience of a hangry toddler.”
Omi started giggling.
