by JD Ruskin
He had the job, Arthur thought again, and then went weak. He put a hand on the table to stay on his feet and ignored the concerned way the doctor leaned in his direction. Arthur almost smiled at him, then tossed his head, because he shouldn’t smile, not with his reasons for being here.
He straightened.
“Thank you. I will do my very best work for you.” He felt even hotter at how serious, how formal, he was, but held still as he watched the arrested expression come and go in shining dragon’s eyes.
Dr. Jones’s mouth turned up, leaving Arthur to internally wriggle in humiliation at how obviously the myths of dragons were going to his head if he was pledging himself like a knight at a tournament.
“I’ll need you several days a week,” Dr. Jones said.
Arthur hadn’t thought he could make a bigger fool of himself. No amount of frowning could hide the way his eyes went wide to hear those words or disguise what he’d obviously been thinking about.
“And some of your nights too, I’m afraid.” Dr. Jones said it on purpose. He had to have. Arthur kept his face as blank as he could. Dr. Jones exhaled in obvious disappointment and went on. “I’m afraid I can’t tell when something will strike me, and in the meantime, there’s always something to be done.”
“You’re writing a book.” It was like Arthur had forgotten everything he knew once he’d walked in here. Everything but bits of feudal lore and fairy tales.
“Yes, Arthur, very good. I’m writing a book.” In his place, Arthur might have been far more condescending. “It’s why I need an assistant. So you will be here tomorrow?”
He didn’t say a thing about a background check. Arthur didn’t glance around for the treasure, but this was a dragon: naturally there had to be treasure here somewhere. Of course, dragons were supposed to be hard to fool. Perhaps background checks didn’t matter when dragons could peer into souls.
Arthur bit his lip and raised his head and only then realized that Dr. Jones was still talking to him, stepping close with burning heat and a cleansing brace of herbal scent to exhale a question with breath so warm that Arthur shivered when it hit his skin.
“Unless I can persuade you to stay a little longer?” He was too much, too close, and dangerous and strange, and Arthur needed this too much to risk it even for someone so… incredibly fucking sexy. He did his best to try to convince his legs to carry him away and failed when Dr. Jones continued. “I could offer you my take on what lengths those Woodvilles might get to if given the chance.”
At least it let him speak.
“What?” It took Arthur way too long to remember the Woodvilles’ role in the Wars of the Roses. At this rate, Dr. Jones was going to regret hiring him any second now. Breathe, Arthur told himself. He needed to breathe, and to do that he needed cool, fresh air free of sexy, smoky dragons and their sexy, smoky scent. “I… have to go. I have work.”
He always had work. It wasn’t a total lie.
Dr. Jones pulled back with a pout. A pout. “Whatever else you’re doing, I’m afraid you aren’t going to be able to keep it for long if you’re mine.”
Arthur swung a look over to him. Dr. Jones licked the corner of his mouth in a way that did not disguise his smile. “I mean, if you work for me.” He shrugged in a half apology for his innuendo or joke or whatever it had been, and Arthur realized that he was glaring. At his dragon employer. But he couldn’t seem to stop. In fact, his glare only grew fiercer at the man’s next words, which revealed how not sorry he actually was. “I’m the demanding, possessive type.”
Arthur had been planning on quitting his day job anyway, but he was going to keep his weekend job of delivering Chinese on his bike. He didn’t say any of that though, because he wasn’t risking anything at this point. When Dr. Jones stared at him for another moment and then took a step back to wave him toward the door, a wave Arthur could only describe as regretful, he almost reconsidered his decision.
Then his instincts kicked in and he moved toward the door, keeping his back to the wall and his eyes on the smiling predator in front of him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dr. Jones.”
“Philbert, Arthur. Philbert. Or Bertie or Jones, to my friends.”
Jones. It was perfect. Arthur stumbled but righted himself and concentrated on work, the job. The job that could answer his prayers. Jones, his mind repeated anyway, but then slid on to Bertie. It was adorable. There was no other word.
Adorable. Arthur had the faintest thought that maybe the threat from dragons wasn’t at all about being eaten, not with his mind holding onto the soft little nickname like it was made of gold. Bertie. He could almost hear himself saying it between kisses.
“I’ll be here early,” he promised too loudly, trying not to think of kissing his new boss, not now, not ever while he was in this house, and saw Dr. Jones open his mouth, as though the very air or Arthur himself was delicious to him, delicious and edible.
“I look forward to it,” he called back as Arthur hurriedly ducked away. His voice was so light that Arthur could have imagined it, but somehow he didn’t think so. Especially when the words seemed to follow him home.
HE WAS worried about rain but, though the skies had threatened it, he made it back across town to his apartment just as the first sprinkles were starting to fall. The approaching wet winter was going to be a problem now that he was working farther away, but it was something for him to worry about later.
For now he had a job, a good job. He almost couldn’t believe it. Since dropping out of school, taking his sabbatical, he’d worked two, sometimes three part-time jobs, anything he could to keep the apartment and put food on the table, but fighting for jobs with younger kids in a college town, kids who had cars and no competing work schedules, had been starting to take its toll. His paychecks had been getting smaller, his hours reduced. Sleep was something he fantasized about.
Finally, that might change. Arthur carried his bike up the stairs with him, taking the back way by the dumpsters because Mr. Cruz, nice though he was, almost never went there and rent was due in a few days, and that was a conversation Arthur didn’t want to have today. Not with his blood pumping and his cheeks hot despite the chill in the air and the growl in his stomach that he was almost used to.
It was amazing he hadn’t gotten hit by a car; the way his thoughts were spinning, he hadn’t been paying much attention to traffic. The moment he could think calmly, he was going to remember all his near misses, but for now he smiled as he unlocked the door and made sure to make plenty of noise to let his sister know he was home.
Kate was in the small kitchen, and Arthur only smiled wider to see her dressed and attempting to make dinner. The pot of boiling water meant noodles and not their other staples, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or mac and cheese, and though Arthur would have been happy to never ever smell another MSG-laden bowl of instant noodles again, his stomach rumbled at the thought of a hot meal.
Skimping on food was one of the few ways they could save money, and it wasn’t too bad if he let himself get hungry enough that it all seemed delicious.
There was a smile on Kate’s face, or a hint of one. She never smiled with her mouth as much as her eyes. They were the same blue as Arthur’s, but Kate plucked her eyebrows to make them even thinner, though they were usually slanted downward in an uncertain frown. The steam made her pink. Arthur took off his helmet and left it hanging from the handlebar of his bike while he took in her outfit.
There were very few clothes Kate owned that could be considered respectable. Her wilder, younger days weren’t that far behind her, and she hadn’t had the energy or the money to buy new clothes since she’d come to live with him. What she had on might be her best: clean jeans, low heels, a smart blazer.
“You went out?” He couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice. The apartment was clean, dinner was on the stove, and Kate had gone out. Even if he hadn’t found a job, this would have been a good day.
“There was an ad for a weekend shift
at that sex shop downtown.” Kate rolled a shoulder nervously. “I don’t think they’re going to want anyone who has to check ‘yes’ when asked if they’ve ever been arrested for something. But I thought I should try.” She was dismissive, trying to play it off, but Arthur came forward to wrap her up in a hug. He couldn’t help it. Kate was about average height for a girl, and Arthur topped her by an inch or two, but the way she reacted to the embrace made her seem tiny and fragile. She stiffened, the way she still did sometimes around displays of emotion, but then relaxed. She didn’t hug him back, but Arthur heard her swallow.
“How did you get there?” He pulled back after a second to give her space and let her regain control of the situation, and she shrugged again, though she was too tense to be nonchalant.
“I took the bus.” She was too pale, paler than Arthur, because she was inside most of the time. Arthur watched her closely as she put the dried nest of noodles into the water.
“They’ll call.” He had no idea if that was true, but she needed to hear it. Kate was young and pretty and smart, even if she didn’t believe that. “If those people don’t want you, then fuck them.”
She snorted but didn’t acknowledge his faith in her. “How about you? How did your interview go?”
“It wasn’t even an interview,” he blurted out, then shut up and slid past her to remove his jacket and wash his hands in the sink. His face and neck felt hot. It wasn’t a good sign that just thinking about his new boss made him flush all over.
“So you didn’t get it?” Kate pressed when he didn’t go on.
“No, I got it.” His smile came back, bigger than before. He didn’t think even splashing cold water on his face would have any effect on his red cheeks, but whatever. At least for now he had a job, a real job. He turned around and put his back to the sink. Kate was studying him. The steam was making strands of her hair fly around her face. Arthur had the same fine blond hair, and he had the sudden horrifying thought that it must have been just as frizzy in the heat of Dr. Jones’s house, making the faint waves that never went away even more pronounced. He usually just combed it and left it alone during the day, growing it to cover up his ears, which he thought stuck out a little, but he had at least tried to keep it neat under his bike helmet for the interview today.
Kate opened her mouth but seemed to change her mind and shook her head. “If it wasn’t an interview, then what was it? This was the dragon, right? The professor?”
“He’s a doctor.” Arthur had no idea what expression was on his face to make his sister blink rapidly at him the way she was doing before the noodles called her back. “He has a PhD and a house like you wouldn’t believe. Books everywhere.” And a face and body out of Arthur’s fantasies, but she didn’t need to know that any more than she needed to know that the man had been flirting with him.
“You would focus on the books and not the treasure.” She didn’t bother with a strainer; she used a spoon and tilted the pot over the sink, leaving some of the water in with the noodles so they could pretend it was soup.
Arthur’s smile faltered at the mention of treasure.
“There wasn’t any treasure.” Arthur scowled at her. “Unless you count those books, which I know you don’t. I….” It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of treasure—of course he had. He was desperate, and people had stolen more for worse reasons than needing money. He didn’t want her thinking of it though. He didn’t want any part of his desperation to reach her.
He shrugged when she made a face back at him for pointing out how little she liked to read.
“I don’t need it anyway,” he lied. “The hours will be better, I never have to work a graveyard shift behind that supposedly bulletproof glass at the gas station again.” He would quit without notice and not feel even a little bad about it. “And I will be around—” He stopped, not sure whether he wanted to say around the university again or around Bertie. There was no way he could say the name Bertie around his sister. She would ask questions. He should say Dr. Jones, or a well-known historian. He should tell her that he hadn’t seen the dragon breathe fire and that Bertie was an appalling housekeeper for someone with magic and money at his disposal, or maybe ask if she ever had a thing for men who smoked.
No, that he’d keep to himself. It might alarm her to think of him ogling his boss, or make her think Arthur was going to let himself get harassed by some creeper for the sake of a paycheck. It was hard to tell how Kate would take news these days. As she had told him, repeating what her sponsor had told her, without the alcohol and weed clouding her mind and messing up her brain chemistry, her mind had to relearn how to react to things, and it didn’t help that her thoughts were clear for the first time in years. Some things seemed to hit her harder than others, so Arthur had to choose his words more carefully.
After everything that being wasted had led her to, all the trouble of the past few years, Kate was a lot more scared and protective than she used to be. Arthur was just grateful to have his sister back. He could deal with her worrying as long as it meant she wasn’t depressed again. She left the house today, had thought enough of herself to apply for a job. He wasn’t going to distract her now.
“I’ll be around someone that I have a feeling is brilliant,” he settled on, though he knew it was true as he said it, from the little thrill it gave him. He’d never met anyone who talked about history like it was alive and present. He wanted to know what Bertie might have had to say on the Woodvilles. Maybe someday he could ask.
“Well I’m happy that you’ll be doing something you like again.” Kate made a face. “And that you won’t be in that gas station all night anymore.” She got down two bowls. “Though it’s a shame you’ll never see the treasure. Imagine having money like that.” She shivered. “Maybe it’s good that you won’t see it. I’d be too tempted to steal it.”
Arthur put his head down and shut his eyes at the thought. He hadn’t thought about treasure. But he had thought, in something a little more than passing, about scales. Dragons were said to lose their scales from time to time. He read that and although he had already wanted the job, he couldn’t help but think that picking up a discarded scale so he could sell it hardly counted as stealing. Maybe it didn’t. But even before he walked into that house and saw that beautiful, terrifying, extraordinary creature, it had felt like something secretive and wrong.
Now he saw the dragon, Dr. Jones, shirtless—the muscles of his back, the hint of shining scales along his spine—and flushed with color that he was going to blame on the weather if Kate asked.
She didn’t. She only handed him his bowl of noodles and a fork, and then went into the small space they called a living room because of the old couch against one wall. It was Kate’s bed at night.
He wasn’t doing anything wrong, Arthur reminded himself firmly. He wouldn’t be stealing, exactly. He’d do what he had to do, if it was even possible. No one would be hurt, despite what his suddenly tight stomach was trying to tell him.
He ignored it and followed Kate to the couch.
“I’ll still be working weekend nights delivering food.” Hopefully it would be a mild winter. He couldn’t afford to get sick.
That only made Kate sigh. He recognized the guilt in it and hurried on in an attempt to keep her from fretting even more about Arthur working so hard to support them.
“You should have seen him,” he offered, only to stare at his noodles when she looked up. His tone had been warm. Even knowing teasing him about a new crush might lift her mood, he hurried on. “He’s different, even for a Being, and you know how they can be.” Talking to Beings was often confusing; they could speak the same language as the humans they interacted with, but it was as if the words meant something else to them.
Like with fairies. Fairies weren’t flirtatious, they were shockingly direct. Elves were usually impatient with humanity’s slowness. But they both looked more or less human. Even as a man, Dr. Jones—Bertie—had seemed something other. Even with arms and legs and opposabl
e thumbs, he seemed like something special.
“I might stop by the library tomorrow on my way, to get his books. Professor Gibson recommended me to him, and he doesn’t do that lightly, so I should be prepared. I wouldn’t want him to get disappointed in me.”
He wondered if Kate would have found Bertie as fascinating as he had because Bertie’s magic made him fascinating, or if Arthur had found him fascinating for completely personal reasons. Not that he was going to ask her, or ever have a chance to introduce them.
She was watching him, her eyes round, and Arthur tried to remember the last time, if ever, he’d gone on like this around her. She hadn’t been interested in his studies back when she was high all the time and running around with her asshole boyfriend, and though she guessed he liked boys back when he was in high school, he’d never shared details of his love life with her.
Not that this was about his love life. This was about work and a chance to get ahead of his money troubles, to maybe even someday go back to school. It couldn’t be about his love life.
“Disappointed?” Kate echoed him. “Who would ever be disappointed in you, Arthur?” She must have meant it, because the twist of her lips was shy before it turned rueful.
For the second time that day, Arthur’s mouth fell open.
He thought of a similar approving look from a man who had called him a pearl, and quickly ducked his head to stuff noodles into his mouth and avoid any more talk about his new job.
His sister cleared her throat and set about eating too, as if she was suddenly just as starving as Arthur was.
IN THE morning, with the clouds momentarily parted to allow some sunshine and with Arthur no longer worried about being late to an interview, he could take a moment to study the outside of Dr. Jones’s house, which was as old and impressive as the inside had led him to believe.
There were nicer areas just outside of town, higher in elevation the way they were higher in status. Sprawling estates hidden on the edge of the woods, though even the rich wouldn’t venture too far into the forest since a pack of weres had taken up residence there a few months ago as part of Thomas Kirkpatrick’s Reclaim the Woods movement.