Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  Arthur kept his hands up. He delivered too, and he couldn’t imagine that everyone wanted strange drivers inside their homes.

  “I’ve got it. It’s fine.” It was possible Arthur was making a big deal out of nothing, but if it was something, then this had to be part of his job description, somewhere. And if not, then he still owed Bertie for the spaghetti.

  He took the crate and hid a small, surprised grunt at the weight, a weight explained by the milk and clinking bottles of wine all on one side, a weight that Drew hadn’t even seemed to notice, though he was noticing Arthur’s reaction to it. His mouth turned up in a smirk.

  Arthur started to turn away. Bertie’s voice stopped him.

  “I’ll be down in a moment, Arthur dear. I’m having some difficulty with my pants.”

  Arthur looked back at Drew, though he was very aware of the increase of heat in his cheeks that meant he was blushing. Drew was considering him with his eyebrows raised, as if that had surprised him.

  “Stay there. I’ll be back with your money,” Arthur snapped at him, at that smirk that said Drew thought he understood everything about what Arthur was doing there and everything Arthur felt.

  His answer was a low whistle and a “Take your time, Arthur dear.”

  As if Arthur was going to take his time after that. He used his foot to kick the door shut and then went down the little hall so he wouldn’t have to push open any doors. He deposited the food unceremoniously on the island in the center of the kitchen, then snatched the crate and the envelope of money and went back to the front door.

  Drew had his mouth open to say something, but he stumbled back when Arthur shoved the crate at him, and while he regained his footing, Arthur looked at the invoice and pulled out the right amount of cash.

  “Where is Ravi anyway?” Considering how hot his face was, Arthur thought his question was remarkably cool, but Drew’s lips went up in another smirk.

  “Out sick, so I thought I’d help him out, take care of that nice, generous dragon he always talks about.”

  Nice, generous dragon. It didn’t sound like a compliment when Drew said it; it sounded like a weakness, and it summed up Drew’s intentions. Either he was here to befriend Bertie for his money or just to take it.

  Arthur thought it might be better, safer for Bertie, if he would try to act as scary and mean as dragons were supposed to be. But Arthur knew it was much more likely that Bertie would have welcomed Drew into his home and tipped him too much and chatted with him and found him as ridiculously good-looking as he was.

  “Ravi sounds great.” Arthur’s voice was clipped, and if Drew now thought that Arthur was after Bertie too, his tone wasn’t helping. This guy wasn’t coming anywhere near Bertie if Arthur had anything to say about it. “I look forward to meeting him,” he went on and left Drew the change but kept the rest of the tip in the envelope and closed the door. He didn’t realize that he was as tense as he was until he turned around and saw Bertie watching him from the foot of the stairs.

  He had pants on. Arthur wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not to see the sweatpants with what looked like a brand new tear on one knee.

  “It wasn’t Ravi,” he explained shortly, struggling to calm down. He couldn’t believe he’d done that. He knew personally how important tips were. He really shouldn’t have refused to tip Drew. He definitely shouldn’t have been rude to Bertie’s delivery driver. He was supposed to be apologizing today. Not that he could ever have imagined Drew.

  “Of course not. Ravi wouldn’t ever try to come inside my home without my permission.” Bertie took a few slow steps with his gaze still focused on Arthur. His voice was lower than usual.

  Arthur took a deep breath because he’d just slammed a door in someone’s face for acting too interested in this house and smirking at him, and as stupid as that was, he was still flushed and wound up. “Ravi’s out sick.”

  He was almost as agitated as he’d been after punching his sister’s boyfriend, his one and only adult act of violence. His hand had been sore for days afterward.

  “Do you want me to put your groceries away?” Arthur skipped around the subject of Drew and moved toward the kitchen without waiting.

  “Arthur.” Bertie just came into the kitchen after him, using the other doors but stopping once inside. He turned on the lights while Arthur put the envelope back. Arthur opened the refrigerator, since he at least knew where the milk had to go, but Bertie kept talking. “Arthur, there are many who don’t like dragons, or any Beings. There are others who think of us as creatures to be used. They are like any other ignorant people or group of bullies in the world.”

  Arthur put away the milk, then took a moment to line up a carton of brown eggs with a package of butter. He didn’t answer.

  “You don’t need to do that, Arthur,” Bertie spoke up behind him. Arthur chose believe Bertie was referring to the groceries and not the person who delivered them and how Arthur had kicked him out, so he shrugged. He grabbed a paper-wrapped loaf of bread that smelled like sourdough.

  He moved aside some butter, found the fridge’s meat compartment, and added in pound after pound of fresh meat. He noted the meat as something to think about later; he wasn’t in the mood to consider the typical dragon diet right now.

  “Are you going to reorganize my cabinets too?” Bertie took the bread and slid away to pop it in a breadbox. Arthur looked up from a basket of fat mushrooms. Bertie raised his hands. “Not that I’m sure they don’t need it.”

  “I’m not.” Arthur bit his lip and lowered his voice. “I’m not anal retentive or anything. I just….”

  “Prefer that things be there when you need them.” Bertie made a gentle tut sound. “It’s fine, pet.”

  The warmth in his voice was enough to get Arthur hotter. He picked up a tiny glass jar marked “Saffron” but had to pause to look around. He had no idea where it went. He hadn’t even known what it was until he read the label.

  “Here.” Bertie deftly slipped it from between his fingers and came around him to demonstrate where he kept his spices. He opened a cabinet, dug around for a moment, put the saffron in its place, or more likely, any place, and then froze before Arthur could suggest a spice rack to keep things neat. “Arthur.”

  The strained note made Arthur carefully sniff the air for anything unusual, but he could smell nothing but a musty spice scent from the cabinet and the lingering odor of sourdough.

  “Arthur,” Bertie repeated with greater urgency. Arthur came forward, staring hard at Bertie and then inside the cabinet until he saw a small brown spider sitting on a cloud of webbing.

  He blinked, taking in Bertie’s posture and realizing that he was frozen with fear. Fear. He couldn’t believe it.

  “It’s just a little spider, or are you scared of….” He couldn’t finish the sentence because a fearsome dragon of ancient and noble lineage shouldn’t be afraid of anything, certainly not a spider.

  “Just get it out! Out!” Bertie gestured at the door so fast that Arthur couldn’t duck in time and almost got smacked in the face. He backed up to save himself and to get some paper towels, but when he came back Bertie shouted again. “No, don’t kill it, just take it outside!”

  “I wasn’t going to kill it,” Arthur huffed back, not that there was any use in arguing, not with Bertie scurrying to the opposite side of the kitchen as Arthur picked up the spider with the paper towel.

  He took the little guy out the back way and left him on a stack of firewood, all the while thinking that Drew would have been surprised to see a dragon panicking over a spider. Then he took a moment in the cold air to calm down and think about that.

  Maybe it was better that people thought dragons were fearless. Maybe they were less likely to hurt them that way, not like they would if they learned dragons had the same quirks and phobias as humans. Unless all that had been unique to Bertie, but Arthur didn’t think so.

  He locked the door behind him and tossed the paper towels into the bathroom as he passed it. Ber
tie was still in the kitchen.

  “You know, my sister is scared of spiders too,” Arthur began as he came back in. “And it’s funny because—”

  “My hero!” Bertie swept forward so fast that Arthur couldn’t have stepped aside if he wanted to. For a second a hot, hot dragon was wrapped around him and breathlessly expressing his gratitude into his ear. “Thank you, Arthur.”

  Arthur stuttered something in return—he had no idea what—and then Bertie straightened and pulled back to study him.

  “If you hadn’t been here I would have been afraid to go in that cabinet for weeks.” He gave a pleased sigh when Arthur rubbed at his stinging face. His next words were rumbling and indecently sexy. “Arthur MacArthur, my champion.”

  “Assistant,” Arthur corrected without thinking, too quietly to be taken seriously. Bertie didn’t.

  “Feel free to get rid of as many pests as you deem fit,” he continued, still so pleased with Arthur, or himself, that Arthur turned to watch him deal with the mushrooms and some bell peppers.

  “I don’t… that isn’t….” Arthur had never fumbled this much until he came to work here. “Is a fear of spiders normal? For dragons I mean.” He changed the subject clumsily and didn’t care. “Like elephants and mice?”

  “Arthur, I doubt an elephant would even notice a mouse.” Bertie was keeping his eyes on the vegetables. “As for whether it’s normal… I would simply prefer to never have to touch one of those nasty little buggers ever again, if it’s at all possible.”

  When Bertie shuddered, Arthur sagged against the wall and exhaled. He reflected on that statement for a moment and then nodded. He didn’t think Bertie was terrified of spiders, but he didn’t think Bertie liked having them around either. And as for the rest, what Bertie had been insinuating since following Arthur into the kitchen was that Arthur was the one who had stepped up to kick Drew out, and he had done it all on his own. Bertie just wanted to let him off the hook, so Arthur should forget all that “champion” stuff and get back to work.

  But he paused because he didn’t really need to help put food away, and he still hadn’t apologized for falling asleep.

  “Did you want me to organize your cabinets?” he offered, to make up for that and because those cabinets needed it. Bertie lifted his head.

  “Did you want to? I am sure you have enough to do.” He seemed to consider it, and then his smile disappeared. “Or do you? Is that why you’re picking fights with hulking brutes?”

  “I wasn’t picking a fight,” Arthur argued before he could think better of it, though he felt a small part of his tension leave him to hear Drew described as a “hulking brute.” “I didn’t like the way he was looking around, and then he lied. I bet there’s no rule saying he has to come in.”

  “No, I don’t believe there is,” Bertie answered, inclining his head toward Arthur so carefully that Arthur abruptly realized how crazy he must sound. As if a dragon needed his protection. Bertie might seem helpless sometimes, but he wasn’t. He was sharper than most people and came with his own weapons built right in.

  “I’m sorry,” Arthur apologized instantly. “Of course you could have handled that…,” he started but trailed off at the return of a familiar grin. He gulped when Bertie added a wink.

  “You didn’t like the look of him. I didn’t care for the smell of him. We all have our instincts, Arthur. Let’s just call it even. Not that it wasn’t gallant of you. I’m still picturing you with a sword, or perhaps on a white charger, bedecked in my colors.”

  Arthur forced his hands to relax and open up, and forcefully redirected his thoughts away from imagining what Bertie was describing.

  “Just consider pest removal another service I offer,” he joked quietly but waited until Bertie grinned again before he went on. “And anything else you might need me to do.”

  Bertie’s smile disappeared so suddenly that Arthur almost looked around for another spider.

  “You are bored, aren’t you?” Arthur hadn’t thought Bertie would look so upset over someone asking for more work.

  “No, no, I just… after the other night, and thank you, by the way, your spaghetti was delicious. We loved it.”

  “We?” Bertie only looked more upset, frowning and putting his hands firmly down on the island.

  “I have your Tupperware.” Arthur did his best to stay on topic anyway. Bertie frowned and shook his head.

  “Tupperware?” He clearly didn’t care about his dishes. His frown became a full glare.

  “My sister had some.” Arthur didn’t want to relate all of it, how the two of them had been so grateful for real food that they’d practically licked their bowls clean. It was too embarrassing.

  Bertie let out a loud breath, but Arthur didn’t want to be interrupted yet. He still had to get his apology out. “It was nice what you did for me, but I shouldn’t have fallen asleep like that. It wasn’t what a good assistant would have done.” He stopped to swallow and make sure his voice was even. “I’d understand if you wanted to go with one of the other applicants. Someone with more education.” Or someone who had just the one job so he wouldn’t fall asleep at his other one.

  “Arthur, you puzzling little human.” Bertie put down the vegetables and rolled an apple toward him. Arthur stepped forward to catch it before it fell off the edge of the island, but he didn’t eat it. He didn’t know what it meant, or if he liked being called a little human, even if he was.

  “The first applicant ran away when she saw me. The second was qualified, but he couldn’t stop telling me how qualified, and his favorite period in history was the American War for Independence.” Bertie’s expression was disdainful of either the applicant or his taste in historical subjects, maybe both. “I chose you because you didn’t run, and because you were also qualified, and because your interests ran alongside mine. You also wanted it the most. You were the best choice.”

  “Really?” The apple was smooth and perfect against his fingertips. “I thought….” Arthur remembered Bertie’s sense of smell, and his tongue, and his burning stare. “You didn’t do it because I… interested you?” He wasn’t asking about the flirting. He wasn’t. It was bad enough that he was asking why he’d been hired at all.

  Bertie’s head went back.

  “What kind of Being would that make me if I had?” he demanded with his eyebrows raised.

  “I’m sorry.” Arthur stepped forward again but stopped when Bertie’s gaze met his. “I didn’t mean it like… like that. I just thought you saw how much I needed it and you were… curious. That’s what I meant by interested. I didn’t think you were… interested.” Arthur wet his mouth. “In me.”

  Bertie’s head went up even higher, then lowered. He took a second while he thought that out, and he must not have found Arthur’s reasoning too offensive, because he finally smiled and spoke.

  “Did I give the impression I wasn’t?”

  Arthur forgot about the apple completely. He stared so hard his eyes burned, and then he remembered himself enough to blink and look away. When he looked back, Bertie’s shoulders had dropped, but he was waving around at his cabinets.

  “But if you’d rather organize my spices, Arthur, I would not say you nay.”

  “What?” Arthur’s pulse was suddenly racing. He couldn’t manage anything else, and he finally moved, inching forward in a kind of blind heat. Bertie took a long, sharp breath.

  “I’ve never had an assistant, so I might get things wrong, but I am flexible. If it makes sense, I doubt I’d object to anything you might suggest.”

  Arthur was imagining the innuendo in everything. Even “organize my spices” sounded dirty to him at the moment.

  “If you think of anything, just add it here.” Bertie tapped a notepad on the fridge. Arthur recognized the paper as one that more than one note had been scribbled on before being stuffed into a book.

  “I was the best?” Arthur heard himself echo the earlier words and flushed as he stood up straight. He might as well ask if he re
ally interested Bertie and completely admit how high school his crush was. “But I fell asleep.”

  “Arthur.” Bertie frowned and took another second, this time apparently to gather his thoughts. “You don’t have to solely focus on work here. I thought I told you that.”

  Arthur started to shake his head and was cut off.

  “I dislike focusing solely on work. You love to. Neither way on its own is correct. We’ve proven that already since I am behind with a looming deadline and you were so exhausted that you fell asleep. But it’s all right. I think we’ll balance each other out nicely once we figure this all out.”

  “But I fell asleep.” Arthur couldn’t keep the distress from his voice, and Bertie tutted again before tossing him a smile.

  “Darling, you’re only human,” Bertie scolded him with too much amusement in his expression and then went back to putting away vegetables. “Now eat your apple so you can battle books and dust bunnies with your full strength.”

  It was a nicely phrased order, but Arthur didn’t move until Bertie had only the wine left to deal with. Then he saluted.

  “Yes, my lord,” he replied with a straight face in answer to Bertie’s earlier teasing tone and turned on his heel just as Bertie raised his head to look at him with a startled, soft look on his face.

  He kept the apple in his hand, and the sound of Bertie’s slow, approving laugh followed him out.

  IF BERTIE thought Arthur was the best, then Arthur was going to try his hardest to be the best, and for the next few days he worked harder than ever, only stopping when Bertie insisted he stop or when he had to eat.

  He was exhausted, but for the first time in years he felt good about it. Not that he was going to fall asleep on the job again if he could help it, but he felt accomplished when he got home every night and excited when he came in to work in the morning.

  He knew Bertie was pleased with what he was doing, and that was what mattered right now. The other things Bertie said, or hinted at, Arthur was too busy to think about anyway.

  Dreaming about it didn’t count, because not even dragons could tell what a person dreamed of, and in Arthur’s dreams, Bertie meant exactly what he’d been saying, and Arthur wasn’t too scared to take him up on his offer.