Shelf-Made Man

Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

A lfie fell asleep soon after breakfast. That was mostly a relief, in that it meant Tobias could postpone the Big Trollhood Reveal. And Alfie’s recovery from his nasty injuries also required the rest.

But it also meant that Tobias was mostly alone with his thoughts, and those thoughts weren’t pretty. He’d never been the type to question his identity or his life path. He could probably thank his mother for that. She’d provided him a depth of love and support that instilled confidence in both himself and the future, despite his challenges with social interactions. You’re you , had been her constant message, and you are capable and worthy exactly as you are.

Well, he’d appreciated that. He still did. But Mom wasn’t around anymore and he had nobody else to discuss his self-revelations with.

What did it mean that he was a troll? Was he destined to turn brutish and cruel? Did he have a place in this world anymore? If not, did he have a place in Alfie’s?

Maybe Snjokarl’s minions would kill him and he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

“Are you all right?” Alfie sounded sleepy.

“Sure.”

“You groaned.”

Shit. “Just tired of being in the car. But we’re getting pretty close. Would be only about an hour if traffic wasn’t so awful.”

Alfie sat up straighter and peered outside. “Are there always so many vehicles?”

“Not at this time of day, I don’t think.” Tobias considered for a minute. “Christmas is in two days and today is Monday. A lot of people probably have the week off and are on vacation or on their way to visit family.”

Alfie didn’t respond right away. Then he said, “Ah. On top of everything else, I’m making you miss your holiday celebrations.”

Tobias couldn’t help barking a laugh. “There’s nothing to interrupt.”

“I see. Which winter holiday do you observe?”

“None.” Tobias was going to leave it at that, but then he feared that Alfie would ask how Tobias had managed to track him down. That story was definitely going to have to come out eventually… but not right this minute.

“Mom and I used to do several—Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice—but sort of in a low-key educational way. Like, we’d read some facts or folklore and eat something appropriate.” Stated baldly like that, it likely sounded dumb, but he’d enjoyed it a lot as a kid. It was fun finding out the different ways that people made a day special.

“I think I like your mother very much.”

That warmth returned to Tobias’s chest. It was becoming almost familiar. “Mom was a professor, so she always had a few weeks off around now. We’d drive down to visit Aunt Virginia. We’d all dress up and she’d have a spectacular meal catered. Then the next day Mom and I would do a road trip. Sometimes it was a big deal like Disneyland, and sometimes it was just poking around small towns or stopping at every beach on the coast.”

He hadn’t really thought about those journeys for a long time, expecting the memories to be painful. It turned out, however, that they were more sweet than bitter.

“How about you?” he asked Alfie. “Do you have a winter holiday?”

Alfie was quiet for so long that Tobias thought he might have fallen asleep. But when he risked a quick glance to the passenger seat, Alfie was awake and staring ahead. Finally he spoke, but in a monotone unlike his usual animated style. “Traditionally, the king hosts a party on the longest night of the year. Everyone who can travels to the capital, and there are drinks and food and dancing until the sun rises. There’s a lot of sex too—it’s that kind of night. When I was a child, however, my father would meet with Kol and me after the party—just after sunrise—in his private quarters. Just the three of us, you understand?”

“That didn’t happen often because he was king?”

“Precisely. But that morning there were no advisors or courtiers or servants. We ate little bits of food left over from the party, and Father would tell us stories and listen as we talked about whatever boyhood fancies we had at the moment. He would tell us that he was proud of us. For an hour or two, we were… an ordinary family.” Alfie heaved a heartbreaking sigh.

Tobias reached over for what he hoped was a comforting knee pat. Then he returned his attention fully to the road.

A few moments later, trying to keep his voice neutral, he asked, “Um, Alfie?”

“Yes?”

“Do trolls know how to drive?”

He was asking because a silver Dodge Ram had been riding his tail for the past several miles. It was fairly normal for California drivers to leave virtually no stopping distance between cars, but this guy was so close that the truck took up all of Tobias’s rear window. And when Tobias had carefully switched lanes—three times now—the Ram had switched right along with him. The most recent time, it had cut off another car so boldly that it received a flurry of angry horns.

Alfie, who probably saw Tobias glancing repeatedly into the rear-view mirror, twisted around in his seat—which must have hurt—and groaned. “Oh no.”

“Trolls can drive ?” Tobias was aware he sounded almost hysterical.

“If they spend enough time in your world.”

Dandy.

For several minutes, while Alfie kept casting nervous looks behind them, Tobias tried to lose the Ram in traffic. But it was no good, and after the third near-accident, he started worrying that the trolls would cause a wreck. Innocent drivers on their way to Christmas at Grandma’s didn’t deserve to become troll-rage victims.

Unable to think of a better plan, Tobias took the next exit, which funneled him into the midst of farmland. He was dismayed but not surprised when the Ram followed.

“Shit.”

“Tobias?”

“I’m in a car chase like a scene from a stupid movie. I’ve never been in a car chase before. I don’t know what to do.” Also, he drove a Kia Soul because it was practical and had been recommended on several websites as a good choice for tall drivers. If it had any evasive abilities, it hadn’t come up in his online search. One good bump from behind by that huge pickup would probably do him in.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about cars. But I believe in you, Tobias. You are a hero.”

The words might have been nothing more than cheerleading, but they gave Tobias strength nonetheless. He floored the gas and took off down the road, the Ram in hot pursuit. Luckily there was little traffic here, and Tobias was able to swerve around the few cars he did encounter. He briefly wondered what would happen if a cop car appeared, but since none did, there was no use speculating.

He made a sharp right onto a side road—so fast that he skidded a little—while the Ram raced forward along the original road. But the next time Tobias checked, the Ram had turned too and was barreling off-road to catch up with them. It even pulled up next to them and tried to force him off the road into a ditch, but Tobias was able to surge ahead and, a few seconds later, take another abrupt turn.

This put them on a narrow road with farmland on either side and, in the distance, some hills. There was no other traffic, which was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it meant other drivers weren’t in danger; on the other, there was nothing for Tobias to hide behind or to put between him and his pursuers. For the moment, all he could do was drive as fast as he could. Unfortunately, the Ram had no problems keeping up.

“They’re going to make us crash,” he growled.

“They won’t want to kill me,” replied Alfie, voice tight. “Yet. Snjokarl would be disappointed.”

That didn’t make Tobias feel any better.

The Ram pulled almost abreast and tried to run them off the road, but Tobias was able to surge forward and then, a short distance later, make a fast turn onto a wide gravel road. He heard the Ram skid when it tried to follow, but his relief was short-lived when the truck pulled out of the skid and accelerated. It was at this point that Tobias had a bit of a shock: the gravel road dead-ended after a couple of driveways. Those driveways led to farmhouses, which wouldn’t do him any good. So he gave the wheel a desperate crank and managed to do a U-turn and rocket back down the gravel road and out onto the pavement. Behind him, he heard more skidding but saw only a thick cloud of dust kicked up by the tires.

Although the Ram had the advantage of sheer size and was as fast as his Kia, the Kia was more maneuverable and might fit into spaces that the bigger truck couldn’t. If only he were able to find one of those spaces.

Well, at least he still had plenty of gas.

He continued down the road at top speed—trees, fields, and farmhouses nothing but blurs. After a few more random turns, the Ram was still in close pursuit.

“You’re good at this,” said Alfie.

“Lots of experience with driving simulation games.” And to think he’d assumed he was just wasting his time with those. If he survived this, he was going to have to leave some games a five-star review.

Tobias slipped around a slow-moving farm truck and then, a mile or so later, an Amazon delivery van. He did another couple of turns and executed a peel-out that probably didn’t do his tires any good but did succeed in getting a bit of space between him and the Ram, which made him whoop with delight.

He was having fun.

That thought was both shocking and inappropriate, but it was also true. He’d never had any real adventures, and now here he was with a gorgeous elf at his side, acting as if he was in a low-rent fantasy version of Fast & Furious . He wasn’t fond of the life-threatening aspects, and he was enraged about the threats to Alfie… but he was also doing something a lot more interesting than moping through the holidays.

He was nearing a farmhouse perched on a hill when he saw a possible solution to his current problem. At the bottom of the hill was a muddy-looking pond. A fence ran between the pond and the road, with just a narrow strip of grassy ground on the pond side. There were a few overgrown shrubs there too, with lots of branches and no main trunk. Road, fence, and strip of ground were all several feet higher than the pond.

“Willing to take a risk?” he asked Alfie.

“Yes. I have faith in you.”

Well. What more could Tobias ask for.

He suddenly veered off the road and onto the driveway that led to the farmhouse. But instead of continuing up the hill, he turned again—so fast that the Kia felt as if it might roll—and gunned it onto that little grassy space between pond and fence.

The Ram was right on his tail.

And a wide-ass shrub was dead ahead.

Another violent turn of the steering wheel and he cleared the bush, just barely. Branches scraped the sides, undoubtedly wrecking his paint job, but he made it.

The troll driving the Ram must have realized at the last second that his vehicle was too wide. Tobias heard brakes squeal and metal crash, but he was too busy trying to get back to the road to see what had happened.

Alfie, however, let out a cheer. “You got him!”

Back on solid pavement, Tobias dared to stop and look behind. The Ram was upside down in the pond, the tires slowly spinning above the waterline.

He looked at Alfie, Alfie looked back… and they crashed into each other for a triumphant, messy, wonderful kiss.