Page 11 of By Rude Strength

LA brushed by Cass on his way back to the living room. He brought the bottle of rum with him. “Are there others like you?”

“Handsome, charming imps?” Cass grunted, squeezing through the doorway again as he followed. “Of course!”

“So, there’s other… monsters?” LA frowned.

“There’s gargoyles, demons, witches, incubi, goblins, nephilim, vampires, fae, minotaurs, werewolves, reapers, hmm.” Cass paused and then grinned. “And oh! This one guy named Jack.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah. Never met him, but I hear he’s lovely.” Cass shrugged. “You have to understand that this world is but one of many. There are countless realms with all manner of magical and monstrous folk.”

“That’s… terrifying.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” LA gestured vaguely. “Maybe because I don’t know? I mean, I didn’t know. Before now. And now I do. And all I’m doing is questioning my fucking sanity because a giant hot monster is in my living room—”

“Hot?” Cass squeaked and somehow the fur on his cheeks turned a brilliant shade of red.

“Wait, are you… Are you blushing?”

“Did you just call me hot?”

LA’s face ignited. “What? No!”

“You did!” Cass pointed. “You’re blushing!”

LA pointed back. “So are you! I’m just, just flushed from the booze!” Which he then turned up because he couldn’t actually melt into a hole and vanish. “Plus it’s just hot in here. I’m, I’m just kinda worked up because a monster—”

“Imp.”

“Imp! Whatever! Is in my living room bossing me around!” LA watched Cass’s tail twitch, the graceful curl instantly hypnotizing. He looked away, locking eyes with one of his paintings to distract himself from whatever this was.

This was stupid.

Very stupid.

Somewhere in LA’s brain, there was a thought about making a joke about how he always picked partners who turned out to be monsters, so why not be attracted to a real monster? But Cass wasn’t like any of the men he was usually attracted to.

Cass was goofy and silly and absolutely aggravating and—okay, okay, the sheer difference in size was something, but… Wait, what the fuck was happening?

LA stared at the glass of rum in his hand like he could blame all of his problems on this singular tumbler of alcohol.

Fuck it.

Maybe he could try.

LA was buzzed and that was definitely why he thought the monster was attractive. It was the alcohol making his golden eyes so bright and his smile charming, and it was absolutely why he was secretly tempted to find out just how good one of those award winning hugs was.

He sighed haggardly, asking, “If I get my strength back and fix my problems, that means you go away, right?”

“More or less, but that’s really a huge oversimplification of what I do—”

“I have time to get a lawyer and appeal my bullshit termination. I am going to be ignoring my mother because I really do not have the energy to deal with her right now. So, I want to focus on Gavin.”

“What’s a Gavin?”

“Gavin is my boyfriend.” LA sat on the couch as he nursed his drink.