Page 163 of Sigils & Spells

“At the rodeo! You’re the girl who, like, does homework and orders pickles. Every night. Sprite and fried pickles.”

The girl blinked. “Um… yeah, that’s me. Are you one of the bartenders?”

“Uh…” I wanted to stand but the weird, crouched position I squatted in was the only thing keeping my modesty. It wasn’t comfortable, but I’d rather look like Gollum than accidentally flash this girl. “Yeah… I’m the hot one.”

She snorted and raised one eyebrow with the ease of Spock. I cleared my throat thinking that the joke could have gone over better if it weren’t for the current circumstances. “You… wouldn’t happen to have extra pants, would you?”

The girl looked at me for a long, long moment. “You really aren’t sure how you got here?”

“I am completely clueless and as confused as you are. I just want to wear pants again.”

I really sounded pathetic now. I could feel the girl analyzing my threat level. She had the advantage of being clothed and standing holding a large bucket of water. I’m tall but not strong by any means. I’ve got arms made of spaghetti and she looked like she worked out. Right now she wore a too big flannel over cropped overalls, but I’d seen her arms at the bar, and they were well toned. What can I say, I’m a fan of a woman who could kick my ass, and I could tell that Pickle Girl could.

She took a sharp decisive breath.

“Fine.” She removed her flannel and tossed it to me, “I’ll take you to get some clothes and get you home. However, I took Jujitsu for ten years and can bench press 250. If you even think about being a creep, I will break your arms. Got it?”

I nodded. I wouldn’t want to give a random naked man pants either.

“Thank you so much.” I shifted so I could wrap the flannel around my waist before standing, and my muscles strained and thanked me as I did so. There’s a reason Gollum was so unhappy. I still felt silly and only moderately less vulnerable. Pickle Girl stared at me. Suspicious still and a little startled. I looked at her a little startled too. She was shorter than I’d been expecting. She could still probably kick my ass, but her head ended at my chest.

“Huh. You really are that bartender. I couldn’t recognize you.”

“In the flesh. Maybe… some more flesh than needed.”

She rolled her eyes and unlocked the stall door, talking gently to her horse as she did so, “Sorry, honey, I’ll have to come back later.”

She stood back, holding the door open, moving well out of my way. I stepped out, giving her a wide berth, hay and other unmentionables crunching under my bare feet. Pickle Girl closed the stall door without taking her eyes off of me. I cleared my throat awkwardly, rubbing some more of the hay out of my hair with the hand that wasn’t holding the flannel up Tarzan style.

“I’m Julian.”

Pickle Girl bit the insides of her cheeks, thinking. After an up and down of my pitiful frame. She put her hands in her pockets. I noticed the edges of her overall shorts were frayed and uneven as if she had chopped them herself. Under it she wore just a sports bra, leaving her sides visible. She had a tattoo on her ribs on either side, but I couldn’t tell what it was. She also wore big thick combat boots that would hurt like a bitch to get kicked by. Facing her, I could see that she was small in height, but she had broad solid shoulders and wide hips. Pickle Girl looked like she’d been carved out of stone. After a moment, she made up her mind, and rolled her shoulders back, trying to make herself look more dignified–which wasn’t hard considering, if I haven’t mentioned, I was naked.

“I’m Alice.”

I expected Alice to walk me to a car, but we walked out of the back door of the stables, into a broad golden field. I recognized it. There was only one farm with this many horses in town; Blaze’s. He owned Rodeo Blaze, and kept the horses on his farm when they weren’t at the show. It was the only farm in town bigger than the Brambles’, but years of shared history had kept the two from competing. Of course, I’d wound up naked on my boss’s property.

Alice had me walk right in front of her and directed me away from what looked like a big gravel driveway and towards the farmhouse. I really didn’t want my boss to see me like this, but I followed her direction without comment. She literally was the one wearing the pants. I opened the back door.

“Do you like… live with Blaze?” I asked. She shushed me and shut the back door. It was in the hottest part of summer, but it was almost chilly in the house and smelled like apple cider candles. A plush blue carpet covered worn hardwood and the wallpaper was a faded floral, with framed pictures covering it from floor to ceiling.

Alice made a directing motion and I turned down a narrow hallway which opened up into a big kitchen, complete with drying herbs hanging from one wall. We walked past it, through a screen door and down a narrow flight of stairs. For a millisecond I thought Alice was about to murder me, but she pushed past me when we reached the bottom, fishing in her pocket for a set of keys and I realized it was some kind of basement apartment. The door opened into a small living room. Alice motioned me in ahead of her, and I stepped into the little room. It smelled like summer, like watermelon and strawberries, but was even colder than upstairs had been. A kitchenette sat to one side of the little entryway, and to the other side was a mirror about at chest height—eye height for her—and a little table with a candy bowl full of change and keys and receipts. In front of me was a well-kept living room with two windows set high up against the ceiling and pretty green furniture. In the few seconds we paused while Alice shut the door, a small gray tabby cat trotted out of seemingly nowhere and trilled at Alice.

She ignored the cat and ducked past me without a word, disappearing around the corner.

I heard rustling, and after a moment the cat followed. I stood awkwardly in the little entryway. I didn’t know Blaze rented out. Or many she was related to him?

I heard keys again, and a solid shut of a door before Alice reappeared with a bundle of towels and maybe some clothes which she shoved unceremoniously into my arms. “Bathroom is around the corner. You should… shower.”

“Oh, right.”

She nodded sharply and left back up the stairs, leaving me alone in her little apartment. I looked down at the cat, who looked up at me with big green eyes.

“You.” I said and walked around the corner where Alice had gone. Two doors, one propped open with a light on that I assumed was the restroom, and one shut. I assumed that was the locking door I’d heard. Probably her bedroom.

The cat followed me and stopped just outside the door like she was bored and looked at me blankly. I saluted her and shut the door.

I stared at my reflection in an ornate round mirror mounted over the sink.

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