Quig recognized the scent, mixed with the aroma of lilac and earthy spice, trying to cover up a caustic odor. He thought, 'is Zill trying to repel me with an anti-love potion?' He stepped closer to Grew-Ella and could see her blushed cheeks and feel her hands tremble.

"Let's chat without my sister." Zill led Chase and Quig into the garden room.

Quig coughed. Rotted plants and dusty sheets covered the furniture.

"Wow, Karen has become a slob." Chase talked with his hands.

"You're using my sister to avoid reject status." Zill shook Quig's hands and twisted his thumb back.

He yanked himself away and walked closer to the door. "Avery-Joy and I informed Grew-Ella that you tried to toss me into a workhouse."

Zill sneezed twice and ignored the long-dried residue that seeped into the floor. "Loser, you always crept after my sister."

"I'm not playing with anti-love potions and serums, and I never propositioned or threatened you," Quig said.

"Do you mean the dating party where you claimed Zill flirted with you? The photos and videos were doctored. Grew-Ella is a sweetheart, but no man would pick her over my wife." Chase kicked over a dead pot of roses, spilling the dirt on the tiles.

Quig found a broom and swept up the mess. "I chose Grew-Ella."

Yoleta entered, removed a dusty sheet, and threw it in the trash. "Sweetie, I know what you're doing to your sister. Don't interfere. Karen invited your mom, but not you."

"Dot turned her against me." Chase picked up the container and flung it.

"Your bathtub potion is an ingredient in many truth serums. Anti-love potions don't work, and those serums are as easy to botch as back-alley plastic surgery. I'm also immune," Yoleta said.

"Is it because you can't feel?" Zill asked.

Yoleta turned to Quig. "I'll send over a cleaning crew. We've ignored this room long enough."

Later in Karen and Paul's Den

*

Quig and Yoleta exited the garden room. Zill and Chase stomped behind them.

Yoleta grabbed Zill and Chase's hands, and all three vanished.

"What happened?" Karen asked.

Yoleta popped in a moment later. "They're back on board Flint's ship. He gave me a temporal watch to hop between the multiverse and time. The wedding's timeline is now locked, and they can't disrupt it. He stole a spaceship to ruin the wedding."

Grew-Ella stared into her tea. "Wasn't that a dream?"

"I'm going to prepare the apartment." Quig left and drove home.

When he unlatched his door, he found Yoleta's personal shopper had heaped Grew-Ella's belongings on his tea table. Quig put them away, including her clothes and seashell collection.

He displayed Grew-Ella's hand-drawn comics and photos of him on the laundry room door, including two taken by Dot while he was hospitalized.

Quig turned around and saw his sister, Ida, walk out the reflection of the glass in his living room mirror. He hugged her and felt her arms. "I feel you."

"Yes, I'm alive."

"Why didn't you visit me before? You know how sad I've been."

"Most people pretend they don't see me. I visited you in dreams, but I seem to be pulled into the shadows. There are so many things that I wish I could tell you." She helped him unfold the cot in the closet, and they stretched it out widthwise to fit, changed the sheets, and positioned gifts on top with silk carnations.

"Where are you staying?" Quig asked.

"In the tent village near the coast. No one knows me there, and with my new abilities, it's no longer a time-consuming drive." She jumped through the nearest reflective surface and used it as a portal.

"I forgot the typewriter." He arranged Grew-Ella's typewriter next to his on his bookshelf in the bedroom and spread a blue comforter on the bed that Hempstead's family wove as a wedding gift.

To finish, Quig located his picnic basket and blanket and prepared a quick lunch, and he picked up Grew-Ella at her mom's house.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

He guided her, and he decorated an empty lunchroom table. He texted Avery-Joy that they'd meet her at the cafeteria.

Students ate, studied, and fell asleep there between classes.

Grew-Ella hovered, and Quig felt the warmth of her hand as her fingers intertwined around his. His wings twitched wildly, but he could not hover. 'No,' he thought. 'I'm more than attracted to her. My feelings are coming back, and I can't go through this again.'

Objects hit him, and Quig picked up a cheddar cracker. Another cracker hit him, and three additional crackers hit the table.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Students waved at him.

"Tossing crackers in your direction until you turn around. Are you two engaged?" A short human asked.

Quig grinned, and he showed Grew-Ella's wrist to the women. "We got married last night."

The shorter woman left a family-size box of cheddar crackers with Grew-Ella and Quig. "We won the betting pool, and the crackers are our wedding gift."

The two students left.

"Thanks." Quig dug through the crackers and ate a handful. "Where was I? Our next date has to be public, romantic, and over-the-top. Sean-Mack will be forced to support us if we sway public opinion."

Grew-Ella snuggled against him. "Whatever is open is fine."

His wings twitched faster.

Grew-Ella waved at Professor Avery-Joy and Odin. "We've been waiting for you."

Quig took out his phone and took a selfie of himself and Grew-Ella. "I'll email you a copy."

"Your photos are trash." Avery-Joy took hundreds of photos before placing her camera away.

"Betsy is thrilled and can't wait until you babysit her next time," Odin said.

Quig stretched, sighed, and gazed at Grew-Ella, then turned to his brother-in-law. "I applied for married housing." His wings calmed down.

A tiger woman with a swishing tail approached them with a tray of cosmetics and face paint. Advert signs hung around her wrists. Madam Eloise Hide's Beauty Serum. "Professor Grew-Ella, our store is two doors from the cafeteria. Our beauty potions are 100% lab-created with no pesky natural ingredients. We tested rigorously on ugly cheerleaders. Half of them died, but they died happy, beautiful, and fabulous."

"I buy my cosmetics from the tent village." Grew-Ella backed into the lunch table.

The woman thumbed her nose and made other childish gestures with her free hand. "Professor, you are passable now, but in a year, they'll force you into a workhouse because you'll be similar to spoiled potatoes or stale donuts. But I'd love to see you attempt to fight it out for the title of queen."

Grew-Ella scrunched her face. "I'm married."

"Weirdo, the only guy I ever see you with is Professor Quig, and he isn't interested. He's after any woman but you," she said.

"Apparently, you don't read the school blogs or the paper." Quig grasped Grew-Ella's hand and kissed it, showing off her nuptial bracelet.

The saleswoman grimaced and fled.

Avery-Joy tapped her fingers on the table, and a sly grin spread across her face. "I bet she lost the betting pool."

Odin nodded. "Quig, I won a thousand and a bag of apples, but Ida made the bet while you were engaged to Ann. I told her she could keep the money, but she wanted it to go toward her child support. She is no longer hiding because she enjoys freaking out Sean-Mack."

"I've seen her," Quig said.

Avery-Joy winked at Odin. "Maybe I should write about spending caps on dating pools."

Odin and Avery-Joy helped gather the leftovers from their picnic and carried them to their apartment.

"You went all out decorating." Avery-Joy fumbled for Odin's hand and left with him.

Grew-Ella hyperventilated and bumped into the electric candle behind her. She rocked to comfort herself.

"I bought gifts for you to feel at home. Well, Yoleta helped me." Quig guided her to the closet.

She picked up her repaired tea set, and her finger traced over the blue and gold flowers. "You're perfect and wonderful. Thank you. I'd say this is the third-nicest thing you have ever done for me." Grew-Ella hugged him.

They played video games, kneeled at their home church altar to pray, and went to sleep alone.

Sunday

*

Paul dragged Quig and Grew-Ella to his cookbook library after a lunch of roasted pepper soup.

His fingers rested near a painting of Karen and his daughters when they were younger.

"I wish we fled this planet, but the board revoked most interplanetary working visas." He sat on a lounge chair.

Quig bowed his head. "I regret the negative press Zill is getting. Though nothing Avery-Joy published was a lie."

"I should apologize to you. I can't believe she is betraying us."

Quig touched Grew-Ella's hand by mistake, and his heart raced. His wings spasmed and ached.

"Grew-Ella's wings used to do that every time a guy broke her heart," Paul said without thinking. "Quig, while you can't be with the woman you're in love with, why not try to love Grew-Ella? She adores you."

She gulped the hard air. "Dad, why don't you and I prepare dessert?"

"Baby, I didn't mean to embarrass you," Paul said.

Quig fumbled for her hand. Thoughts swam in his head, 'is Grew-Ella still rejecting me? She is acting jealous.' He smiled at her. "Are you jealous?"

"Quig, we'll talk next week." Grew-Ella stood up.

Paul Eliot hugged them both. "Don't date others or commit adultery. Vex and his cronies are cracking down on fake marriages to fill the workhouses."

Quig grimaced. "Dating outside of marriage is against my morality."

"Kiss each other at least once in private. Marrying my best friend is the best decision I ever made," Paul said.

Quig thought, 'I'll think about it. All I can do is think about it.'

Karen ran into the library, knocking over a stack of cookbooks. "Junior's new advertisement aired, and I recorded it."

Grew-Ella fled to the kitchen. Her wings trembled.

The others followed her to the den, where the TV blared.

Junior performed a voice-over of a cute animation of Yoleta and his adopted father, Sean-Mack, dancing on graves with sacks of money. "Why are we paying for Yoleta's and my father's arrogance? They should conform or suffer with the rest of us."

"Haven't we suffered enough under his father's thirty-year reign?" a guard asked.

"Junior means self-sacrifice." Quig's lips fell into a frown.

"What is wrong?" Paul asked.

Quig interrupted. "Sir, my issues with Zill predate Grew-Ella. They're about how she treated her stepdaughter."

"Delia is obnoxious, and Yoleta says she lies," Paul said.

"Yoleta is the one who lied." Karen hugged her husband's arm. "There is more. I'm asking Delia's brother, Junior, to move in with us. Yoleta is providing us with guards."

Paul crouched and kissed his wife. "Of course, I adore him."