Page 19 of The Slug Crystal

Jake doesn’t say anything, reaching his arm awkwardly behind him to grab his coffee without looking at us.

I poke a bit of berry into the terrarium and watch the snail ooze toward it. I want to pretend this could be a happy ending, that he would be content to be a gastropod for the rest of his weird little life, but I know better. No one is ever really happy in a box.

The coffee is hot and bitter, and the Danish is better than I expected. I eat it in tiny bites, as though slowing the process will delay whatever comes next. Ben’s phone dings, and he’s on it in a flash, thumbs flying. Jake sighs audibly, like he’s been annoyed by our very presence.

After a long minute, I can’t take it anymore. “Jake,” I say, “can we?—”

He stands up before I can finish, nodding toward the door. “Yeah.”

We step outside, the cold, misty rain hitting like a slap. For a second, neither of us speaks. Jake rubs his hands together, then shoves them in his jacket pockets.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt.

Jake releases a sharp, short laugh. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes, I do. I do. I’m an asshole, and you deserve better.”

He shakes his head, teeth gritted. “You’re not an asshole, Emma. You’re just… you. You always do impulsive things. I like that about you, even though it sometimes hurts me in the process.”

I want to argue, but he’s right. It’s exactly what I do. It’s exactly what I did last night. And the night I ordered the slug crystal.

Jake steps closer, his eyes red-rimmed but steady. “You don’t have to choose me. I just needed you to know how I felt. I don’t regret telling you.”

I reach out, fingers trembling, and touch his wrist. He doesn’t pull away. “I do love you,” I whisper. “I just… I don’t know if I’m in love with you. And I don’t want to do anything to mess up our friendship.”

Jake smiles, a fragile, hopeless expression that tears at my heart. “I don’t want that either.” He squeezes my hand, then lets it go. “It’s okay, Em. We’ll figure it out.”

I want to say more, but the door bangs open and Ben sticks his head out, his expression too excited for a rainy Tuesday morning. “Sorry to interrupt,” he announces. “But I’ve got a solution.”

Jake and I look at each other, then at Ben, who is practically vibrating with barely-contained glee. “A solution for what?” I ask hesitantly.

“My cousin’s a pilot,” Ben says. “He owes me a favor, and he’s got a jet with international clearance.

He’s flying out of New York tonight. He can get us to Italy by tomorrow if we pack light.

The other side of his family, the side I’m not related to, has a ton of connections that could probably help us. ”

I blink. “Is this a joke? Please just go away if it is. No one thinks you’re funny.”

Ben grins wider and says, “I never joke about family. Or free airfare. Private jet. No questions, no TSA, just pack a bag and bring the snail. We could be in Venice by tomorrow.”

Jake looks at me, waiting for my reaction. It takes me a second to catch up, and another to believe it.

I want to say no. I want to say it’s insane. I want to say that I have a job, rent, obligations, people, and things to get back to. But I look at them, Jake with his raw honesty, Ben with his shit-eating grin, Alex in his tiny terrarium, and I know there’s no way I can turn this opportunity down.

I nod slowly. “I owe it to Alex to try. Let’s do it.”

Ben claps his hands. “Beautiful. I’ll text him back.”

Jake turns to me, lips twitching with something almost like a smile. “Guess we’re going to Italy.”

“We’re going to Italy,” I confirm.

We have a plan. It’s reckless, possibly illegal (are snails allowed to cross international borders?), and one hundred percent on-brand.

We head back inside, the cold lingering on our skin. I watch as Ben types out the details. Dottie winks as she wanders over to our table and refills our mugs. I wonder if she knows how much life can change over a single cup of coffee.

Tuesday, 3:18PM. If you’ve never flown private, don’t start now.

It’ll ruin you for the rest of your life.

Ben’s cousin, Luca, meets us at a sleepy regional airport in upstate New York, rocking the kind of aviators that scream “I’ve seen Top Gun thirty times and masturbated to all of them.

” Or maybe I just have the imagination of a pervert.

Luca looks a little older than Ben, with dark hair buzzed tight at the sides and gelled at the top. His jawline is impressively sharp, and he’s tall, with long, powerful limbs wrapped in jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket.

The jet, a tricked-out Gulfstream that looks like it’s equipped with leather seats and a fridge full of Prosecco, is parked on the tarmac, glinting in the sun peeking from the clouds.

“Amore! Benji!” Luca hollers, hugging Ben so hard I hear something crack. Then he turns to me, eyes flicking up and down, zeroing in like he’s assessing every inch of me and determining if I’m attractive or not .

“And this,” Luca says, “must be the famous Emma.” He grabs my hand, turns it over, and kisses my knuckles. The act doesn’t make me feel as squeamish as I thought it would. “Welcome to your chariot. It’ll get you wherever you need to go, in style!”

Ben snickers. Jake, stonefaced, just nods and shakes Luca’s hand.

Luca grins wider. “You fly often?” he asks me.

“I’ve flown coach a couple times,” I reply sheepishly.

He does a little mock swoon. “This will be different, I promise. No lines, no babies, no bullshit. You want a Bloody Mary before takeoff? I make the best.”

Jake mutters, “I’ll pass.”

Luca barely spares him a glance, cocking his head to the side and pulling his aviators down his nose to look at me. His eyes are a pale gray, framed by sooty lashes.

“Uh, sure,” I stammer out, flushing under his intense gaze.

Before I know it, Luca’s ushering me up the steps and into a world where even the seatbelts feel expensive.

The inside of the jet is... something. There’s a little lounge area with a velvet couch and a credenza stocked with glassware, and a narrow galley where Luca heads to mix drinks.

On the opposite side are eight seats draped in leather leading towards a small bathroom and a second door that I’m guessing leads to the cockpit.

Ben sprawls across two seats, manspreading with wild abandon, and Jake parks himself by the window, arms crossed, eyes glued to the runway, ignoring us all. Again.

I settle into a seat by the galley, buckling Alex into the seat next to me, and then watch Luca work.

He pours tomato juice with one hand, vodka with the other, never once looking at what he’s doing.

“A good pilot,” he says, “trusts his instruments.” He winks at me as he shakes the cocktail, then pours it out, garnished with celery and, because why would this plane not have every luxury, a single green olive impaled on a tiny sword.

He hands me the first drink. “To adventure,” he says, clinking another glass against mine, then passing it to Ben.

Ben reaches over to clink his glass against mine a second time. “To not dying.”

Jake, dryly adds, “To surviving this trip without murdering each other.”

I glance at him worriedly, but he smirks at me, adding a wink to show he’s joking. I smile back, then sip on my utterly delicious Bloody Mary. Damn, Luca is a pilot and a near-expert bartender. Ben really hooked us up.

We take off quicker than expected. The engines roar to life, and within seconds, we’re up, off the ground, the world dropping away below in my oval view through the window.

When the plane levels out, so does the vibe.

Ben grabs a deck of cards and proposes strip poker, which Jake shoots down immediately.

Instead, we settle for Hearts, played at 35,000 feet with a cash pot made of whatever American bills and spare Euros Ben fishes out of his pockets.

Luca keeps the drinks coming, slipping into the lounge area every few minutes to top me off or lean against the armrest and tell a story that involves motorcycles, near-death experiences, or European models with more vowels in their names than I thought possible.

He touches my shoulder whenever he laughs, always lingering half a beat longer than necessary.

At one point, he leans in and says, sotto voce, “If you get cold, the blankets are cashmere. But if you really get cold, you come find me, eh?” He smells like expensive soap and a little bit of jet fuel. I almost drop my cards.

Ben clocks it immediately. “Careful, Emma. My cousin falls in love three times before breakfast.”

Luca shrugs. “It’s genetic.” He flicks Ben in the forehead, grins at me, and moves off to the cockpit, leaving the door open as he slides inside.

I finally ask, “He’s always like this?”

“Only when he’s interested in someone. With men, he’s an asshole.”

Jake, without looking up, comments, “He likes you, then.”

Ben adds, “He’s got taste.”

I feel the heat creep up my neck, but the buzz from the Bloody Mary takes the edge off. Ben eyes me over his cards, a wolfish tilt to his smile. “You ever been to Venice?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I just got a passport last year after Jake convinced me. We’re lucky he thought we might want to drive into Canada for some reason during this snail mission.

Otherwise, this entire trip would be impossible.

Also, we’re smuggling in a human turned snail. This whole thing is probably illegal.”

Ben shrugs. He leans closer, lowering his voice. “If we’re going to risk an international incident, I want to make sure you see the best of Venice. If we don’t get turned around at customs, that is.”

Jake finally breaks his silence. “She’s not here for the sights, Ben.”

Ben raises his eyebrows. “What, you think she’s here for you?”

The air crackles. Jake meets Ben’s gaze, the tension sharp enough to cut. “No. I think she’s here for Alex. She’s looking for Sarah DeMarco and a crystal reversal spell, not romance.”

Ben glances at me, then back at Jake. “Either way, it’s good for her to know that she’s got options.” He smirks, then turns his attention back to his cards, but his hand lands on my thigh and stays there, heavy and warm.

Jake doesn’t respond, but I see his knuckles go white on the armrest.

I should move Ben’s hand, but the truth is, I kind of like it. I kind of like all of it, the high, the banter, the way they circle each other with me as the center of gravity.

After two hours of flight, Luca walks back to our seats. He leans in close to my ear and murmurs, “You deserve better than these two idiots. Come up to the cockpit, I’ll show you how the world looks from the sky.”

Ben objects, “Hey, don’t try to steal my girl.”

Luca responds, “You snooze, you lose, cugino.”

I look at Jake, who just shrugs. So, I go. Why not? The cockpit is tiny, full of blinking lights and a bunch of knobs and buttons. Luca sits me in the co-pilot’s seat, shows me how to work the controls, then, out of nowhere, states, “Tell me about yourself.”

I laugh. “What do you want to know about?”

He watches the horizon, all business, then glances over, a different kind of intensity in his face. “Why is a beautiful girl like you so attached to your snail ex-boyfriend when you could have any man at your fingertips in an instant?”

I swallow, not sure what to say. It’s clear now that Ben told his cousin the reason for our trip, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising, but I’m still caught off guard. Luca is… a lot.

He takes my hand, guides it to the yoke, and says, “You want to feel something real, you have to let go.” His voice is low, almost a growl.

I’m not immune to hot men giving cryptic advice. I’m also not immune to the way he’s looking at me. So, I do what I always do best. I deflect. “So,” I say, “how many girls have you seduced at thirty thousand feet?”

He laughs, loud, and lets go of my hand. “Only the ones who are worth it.”

I roll my eyes, but there’s a flutter in my chest I can’t quite kill.

After a few more minutes of banter, he walks me back to the lounge, where Jake and Ben are arguing over which of them would survive longer on a desert island.

The energy is different now. Sharper, and more competitive, but also warmer.

Ben pulls me onto his lap, which is so brazen I almost squirm off, but his hands are gentle, and he nuzzles my neck like he’s claiming me in front of the others.

Luca jokes, “Ah, this must be what people mean when they say American hospitality.”

Ben laughs and waves him off, but Jake watches the two of us, silent and inscrutable.

Eventually, I find my eyes starting to get heavy and drift shut as I sit, cocooned in the warmth of Ben’s body.