Page 134 of Stardusted

After grabbing my bag from the employee lockers and finishing my close out, I made my way back through the kitchen. Tony and Jackie were waiting. Tony didn’t waste any time, either.

“Oooh,” he said and, at my eye roll, began making kissing noises.

“Real mature,” I muttered, making a face at him. But when I turned, I found Jackie eyeing me sidelong, too. “What?” I snapped, hefting my bag. “Why’s everybodydoingthat?”

Jackie held up their hands, feigning interest in the menu board. I huffed and gave them both my back, marching toward the exit. Ridiculous.

These people seemed more surprised to find Sky willingly interacting with me than the prospect of aliens being among us.

This was doing real stellar things for my ego.

I was still mullingthat over as I finished getting ready in the bathroom.

There hadn’t been a Kelly in sight—thank God. She’d vanished somewhere once her last table had left. I’d changed into thesame jeans and long-sleeved blouse from earlier, and now I stood at the bathroom sink, palms gripping the counter’s edge.

Now that the shift was done and I’d had a moment to breathe, that surreal feeling returned. The full weight of what I was dealing with. The reason the hot bartender-slash-undercover alien was waiting for me in the dining room.

I took a long breath and stared at myself in the mirror, patting down the damp weather-induced frizz.

I had to push it aside. As wild as exploding tablets and alien mech-suits were, I still had avery realmidterm to take. One that hadvery realconsequences for myvery realdegree.

Exhaling slowly, I straightened my shirt.

I still had a future. I still had a life to live. That was what grounded me now. I might’vewantedto run home and hole up there until this threat was gone…but I wasn’t doing that. Iwouldn’t run. That wasn’t what Raven Barrister did. I’d never shied away from a challenge.

Which meant I had to stop hiding in the bathroom.

So I left it, and I took a deep breath before rounding the corner. Sky was at the bar like he’d said he would be, peering at his phone again. Texting, it looked like. Again, curiosity rose, but I tucked it away when he looked up.

“Hey,” he said in greeting when I reached him. “Ready?”

Suddenly nervous—everything outside this tiny bubble of normalcy felt unsafe—I swallowed hard and nodded.

“All right.” He glanced back down, thumbs tapping a few more words before he slipped the phone into his pocket and straightened.

Maybe that was Bast he was texting. His partner. What exactly did “partner” mean?Because if they were bonded, or mated, or whatever the space equivalent was, then…he was right about kissing me being a mistake.

Hadn’t he just given me a lecture, though, on why he couldn’t afford attachments? It hadn’t seemed like a lie, either. He’d seemed genuine.

God, we were getting ready to brave evil alien robots. Why was I fixating on Sky’s love life, of all things?

“What’s wrong?” Sky asked, and I jumped, realizing I’d been staring at him.

“Oh. Nothing. Sorry.” I tightened my grip on my bag. “Just lost in thought.”

He paused to scan my face, lingering. Concern formed a line between his brows. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Thiswas certainly a broad enough generalization for…well,everything. Starting with spending the rest of my immediate future with Sky.

But I forced a smile. “That midterm isn’t going to take itself.”

He waited another second, as if giving me a chance to change my mind. When I didn’t, he nodded and jerked his head at me to follow. “All right. Let’s go then.”

I kept to his heels as we made our way to the side door, studiously ignoring Emily and Kelly, who’d appeared from the kitchen and were now gaping with the rest of them. God, even Ashley was watching with raised brows.

I held my chin high.

Outside, the rain had lessened to a soft mist, but the sky was still gray and swollen with the promise of storms. We crunched across the damp gravel toward Sky’s SUV. I glanced once over my shoulder at the building.As we passed into the shadow of the structure, something cold crawled over my skin. Something a lot like foreboding.