Authors: Karina Halle
“Are you sure you’ll be able to control yourself?” he asks, cocking a brow.
“Hey,” I chide him.
“Because you came on to me pretty hard.” He gets on the bed on his knees and crawls toward me. “Temptress.”
“And you came
on
me pretty hard,” I counter. It was such an easy pun, I couldn’t pass it up.
“Wouldn’t mind doing it again before we hit the road,” he says, his voice taking on that throaty, thick quality that makes me want to surrender every cell to him.
He prowls over me, mouth going to my neck where he gently sucks.
I wrap my hands around his t-shirt and pull it off, reveling in the feel of his hard back muscles like I’ve been deprived for centuries.
We fall back into bed together, sighing softly.
Reality is put on hold for another hour.
***
We get to Seattle around four, the sun glinting off the high rises and the flat mat of Puget Sound. Perry and Dex live pretty much downtown, by the monorail tracks that have me singing
The Simpsons
monorail song every time I see them.
In fact, as we head down Fifth Avenue and I see the track, I start singing along.
Poor Jay has no idea what I’m doing.
I think I’m losing my mind, is what it is.
The whole drive I’ve been training myself to go back to thinking of Jay as I did before. Well that didn’t help because I was always being a pervy girl after him anyway. But going from having our hands all over each other, sharing secrets with our sex and souls, to now just a strictly Jacob and student scenario (as if that’s some common situation) is rough.
I want to touch him. I ache for it. I want to feel his body against mine. His lips. His breath. I want to keep him close, closer than ever. This is all so new for me, this transition from one reality (you can’t have him) to another (have all the sex) and back again is disorienting.
I’m like every girl in that head-over-heels infatuation stage where he’s all you eat, sleep, breathe, but it’s been cranked higher and higher—lust on meth—to the point where I feel like we’re fated for each other.
And fuck, as nuts as it sounds, we might be. Because otherwise there’s no way to explain it. I can just guess that having constant sex with someone immortal might warp your mind, body, and soul in ways you’ve never expected.
But if Jay is straining against this new rule (which, I remind myself, was my idea in order to ward off Perry’s wrath), he doesn’t show it. He’s back to a tight jaw, a harsh squint, as if nothing’s happened between us at all.
Or maybe it’s because the more time he spends with me, and the more human, the more emotional he becomes, the more that Silas Black peeks through. And the more we’re apart (aka, not inside me every moment), the more he reverts back to his old self.
Of course he could be thinking about what we’re doing after this. The going to Hell thing. I’ve decided to push that concept out of my poor brain and deal with it later.
And by later, I mean tomorrow.
I text Perry just as we pull onto her street and then twist in my seat to face Jay.
“Didn’t Jacob say it was a bad idea to have all four of us in the same place together?”
He nods, chewing on his lip again. “He did. But that was then and this is now. And he’s not always right you know.”
“You mean the all-powerful Oz can be wrong about something?” I ask in mock shock.
“He has been before,” Jay says. “He told me if I ever touched you, I wouldn’t like the human I’d become. I can’t say I agree with that.”
Ouch. “He said that?”
“Don’t worry about it. Scare tactics. He just wants me to do my job and this makes me want to do it better than ever.” He props his shades up on his head so I can see his eyes. So piercing and blue, I almost gasp. “I haven’t lost anything. I’ve only gained.”
Perry comes out of the doors, breaking up our moment. She waves at me excitedly, then gives a stiff smile to Jay before walking to the parking garage and gesturing for us to follow. She waves her key card in front of the reader and the gates open.
We drive in and park in one of the visitor’s spots.
In parking garage terms, I’ve had one demon incident the last two times I’ve been in one. Let’s see what the third one holds!
But it’s just Perry pulling me into a bear hug before she says, “You smell funny.”
“Gee thanks,” I say as she holds me at arm’s length and inspects my dress and denim shorts combo. “I saw you wearing this on Instagram, like, last week. A repeat outfit, Ada are you feeling all right?”
She pretends to feel my forehead—which does feel flushed at the moment—and I knock her hand away.
“I didn’t pack properly, it was last minute,” I tell her, even though Jay packed for me. “I may need to borrow your clothes.”
She raises her brow. “Everything will be huge on you.”
I don’t comment. She looks over at Jay. “Thanks for getting her here safely,” she says with effort.
He nods gravely, his eyes flicking to me and back. “Not a problem. Thanks for letting us stay over.”
She gives him a tight smile before she starts leading me toward the stairs. “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she whispers in my ear.
“It’s a long story and I didn’t want to worry you,” I tell her. “Plus Jacob said—”
“Not that story,” she says in a hush. “Though I want to hear that one too. The one with you and this guy.” She jerks her head back at Jay who is following behind us, carrying our bags and obviously overhearing everything. “You’re in big, big trouble. I can tell. I can smell it all over you.”
I grimace and resist the urge to give myself a sniff.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Moments later we’re taking the elevator up to their floor and heading down the hall to their apartment.
Dex is at the kitchen island, pouring a glass of red wine. Fat Rabbit, their white fat French bulldog, comes scampering off the couch and running over to us as he normally does, all stubby limbs and wiggling butt.
He jumps up on my legs and I lean over to pet him when Jay steps in the apartment. Fat Rabbit snarls at him, barking repeatedly until he turns around and runs all the way to their bedroom.
“Hey you little fartface,” Dex admonishes him, putting down the glass of wine and shooting us an apologetic look. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into him.” He goes down the hall after him and I can hear him berating the dog in their bedroom.
I look behind me at Jay who is closing the door.
“I must have one of those faces,” Jay says, not seeming too bothered by the fact that the dog just acted like he was a spawn of Satan.
“Yeah,” Perry says slowly, giving him a skeptical look. “Anyway, do you guys want a drink? Jay, want a beer? Wine?”
“A beer would be great,” he says.
While she pulls a growler out of the fridge and two glasses from the cupboards, Dex comes back into the room.
“Little fuck,” he swears. Then he strides over to Jay and for a moment I’m certain they’re going to have a pissing competition considering the last time they saw each other was when we were in the streets in the wee hours of the morning and Jay just kidnapped me to the Thin Veil. That feels like a different life, a different Ada.
A different Jay.
But Dex just takes the backpack and duffle bag from Jay’s hands. “Let me take those.” He holds up the backpack and starts walking across the room. “This one yours, Jay?”
Before Jay can tell him yes, he tosses it on the couch. Then he goes to the spare bedroom turned den turned office and chucks my duffle bag in there. “Jay you get the couch. Ada you get the spare bedroom.”
“Cool,” I say, trying to sound cool too. “Thanks for letting us stay over, by the way. I know it’s last minute and you guys are busy.”
“Ada,” Perry says, handing Jay his glass of beer and me the wine, “you’re my sister. You could have just showed up unannounced and it would have been fine.”
“Besides,” Dex says, taking the other glass of beer, “you’re a great excuse to get out of the damn apartment. I’ve been working too hard all week and if I didn’t have a reason to stop, Perry was going to divorce me.”
“Oh stop,” she says. “But I was going to tell you that we’ve made dinner reservations for tonight.”
“Don’t tell me Zeke’s Pizza again.”
“No,” Dex says dryly, knowing full-well that every time I’m here we end up eating at the pizza place because it’s right around the corner. “A little place up in Fremont. They have Italian waiters who kiss you on the cheek when you come in. I love it.”
“You mean The Olive Garden?”
“Well aren’t you picky, little fifteen.”
I stick my tongue out at him.
“Cheers for needed escapes then,” I say, raising my glass of wine. Everyone else does the same, Jay reaching over me as we all lean toward each other to clink our glasses.
It turns out that the dinner reservation was actually for six people. When we get to the restaurant, around the corner from the famous Fremont troll, which, despite its cartoonish appearance, is terrifying to me in a completely irrational way, two other people from our party are already there, waiting by the doors.
I’ve met them before and I call them the odd couple because I’m not quite sure what’s up with them. Rebecca is gorgeous, a British rockabilly pin-up girl type that could be an even prettier version of Kat Von D. With her is Dean, cocoa-skinned and cool as a cucumber. The two of them have a baby together but as far as I know she’s a lesbian and he’s straight. But hey, I’m not one to judge.
After the quick formalities—Jay is introduced as a friend of mine—we take our seats and get drinking, the Chianti (I get a Coke) and breadsticks flowing.
The conversation comes easy. Rebecca is talkative, as is Dex, and the two of them dominate the entire table to the point where it’s almost a competition of who can be louder and more engaging.
Occasionally a question is hurtled my way and it seems Rebecca has a checklist about my design school. Actually it’s nice to be able to talk to someone about this who actually cares and has an interest in fashion. It comes to the point that Jay goes and switches seats with Rebecca so she can grill me some more. Even having him a few chairs down from me feels hollow and wrong but Rebecca does a good job of making me forget every strange and horrifying thing that lies in my future. I’m pretending, just for a bit, that the only things I have to worry about are what kind of designs I need for my portfolio and what outfit I’ll wear the first day of school.
“I’ll tell you what,” Rebecca says, her English accent coming out stronger now as she leans lazily on her elbows, swigging her wine. “If you need a model for your projects, count me in. I know I’ve had a baby but I can wear a corset like no one’s business.”
“Where is your child, anyway?” Dex asks, pretending to look under the table. “Lucinda?”
“Seb has her,” she says, which makes everyone at the table laugh, except for Jay and I. That’s the problem with hanging out with this crowd, you end up feeling lost all the time and missing all the inside jokes.
My eyes glance down the table at Jay and I can’t help but smile at the sight of him. They might all have their own stories and their own worlds, but Jay is my story, my world. Perry and Dex may not trust him but this is the man who’s willing to go to Hell and back with me. You can’t ask for much more than that.
As if sensing me, Jay looks up from nodding at Dean over something and holds my gaze. It bolts me to the chair, the chair to the floor. Roots me there. Grounds me.
He doesn’t say anything, his expression doesn’t change to the naked eye but I know he’s telling me he’s there.
Perry clears her throat.
I look to her with an innocent expression as her eyes dart between the two of us. Jay goes back to saying something to Dean. I quickly dig into my penne pasta.
I’m about to shove it in my mouth but I’m hit with a sense of pressure, like the air has solidified.
The room goes mute.
I look up from the dish and pause.
Everyone at the table is staring at me with a grim expression. Even Jay.
The waiters have stopped moving. They are staring at me too.
It feels as if icy fluid has been injected into my veins, chilling me from the inside out, sticky and black and relentless.
I immediately drop my fork. It rattles loudly against the plate, the sound a gunshot.
But no one flinches.
Every single person in the restaurant is still staring at me. Some glaring. Some seething with disappointment. All absolutely still and looking right into my eyes.
I try to speak. To get them to snap out of it.
I can’t.
It’s like
Inception
when you’re caught in a dream, but I know I’m not dreaming. This is real.
I do the only thing I can do. I very slowly get out of my chair.
The eyes follow me.
All of them, glued to my face.