by Willa Okati
“What?” Harper asked, suspicion levels immediately rising to DEFCON 1. “Why?”
“If you think I’m telling you, then you still don’t know me very well.” Patrick flicked his cigarette, still lit, at Harper. “See you around, kid.”
There were, in life, certain lines that should not be crossed. Harper decided to lay the blame for their obliteration on the lethal combination of toxic levels of irritation, pent-up aggression, and Corona, would let the devil take the hindmost, and to hell with everything else because this would be worth it. Fist at the ready, he moved ‑‑
“Don’t…you…fucking…dare,” Janie snapped, catching his wrist.
Patrick’s quiet laughter drifted back to them.
Harper jerked away. “Let me go.”
“Not on your life. Harper, look at me. Harper.” Janie caught him by the chin and forced his head around, Patrick out of his line of sight and her anger wrathful in his place. “He wants you to go after him, idiot. It’s kindergarten-bully tactics.”
“Janie ‑‑”
“Shut up. You punch him, and he gets a bruise. Maybe a wobbly tooth. You get skinned knuckles and a reputation for being dangerous, and don’t you think for a second he won’t use every bit he can get against you.”
Harper remembered, several seconds too late, that Janie had her own reasons for loathing Patrick. His double-dealing had carried a poisoned stinger for all he’d worked with. “I’m sorry.”
“You can say that to me but not to your pretty boy? Men. I swear. I could end all war on this globe by draining every last one of you dry of your semen for future breeding purposes and then bashing you over the head.”
Ouch. “I get the point. I’m being a jackass.”
“If the ears fit.” Janie sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Take a lesson from a woman who’s been divorced three times, Harper. Forget Patrick. Get out of here, go find your Rory, and get down on bended knee if necessary to make him listen to you apologizing at length. Ah, ah, ah.” She stopped his indignant interruption before it could start. “I honestly don’t give a flying fuck if he’s in the wrong, or if you are. All I know is Lisa had the right of it. This should be the happiest day of our combined lives and your personal problems are harshing my mellow.”
Harper blinked. “Wait, you have a mellow?”
“I’m a child of the seventies. I have to reach for my mellow, yes, but it’s present and hurting from your mood. Find him, fix it, and let’s never have this conversation again. Deal? Now go.” She gave him a push. “Go apologize. Profusely.”
“You’re enough to drive a man to drink.”
“As long as I drove him home where he belongs, I’m fine with that.”
Apologize. Harper shook his head. “Would you believe I don’t know how?”
“Without difficulty. Helen Keller would be able to tell you’re head over heels for that man, so I’m not surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.”
“No, I got the memo there.” Harper lifted his gaze to the street, half-imagining he could see the path Rory had taken beating feet away from him, like a firefly’s trail in the deepening night.
“Do I have to tell you again, then?”
“No.” This was going to suck beyond the telling of it, but… “I’ll see what I can do.”
Janie shocked three years off Harper’s life by raising on tiptoe and kissing his cheek. “Good. And if you don’t get it back together to form the best writing team I’ve known in years, then I’ll skin you alive. Are we clear?”
“There’s the Janie I know so well.”
“All shall love me and despair.”
Harper admitted that he might be dumb, but he wasn’t yet suicidal. If Rory was still around to find…if the Clerk hadn’t caught him first ‑‑
Fuck. The Clerk. What if this counted as a violation of Rory’s probation? Fuck!
“Harper? You look like you just saw a ghost or had a heart arrhythmia.” Janie sounded concerned. Her push changed to a grab. “Don’t you go fall-out-boy now.”
“Oh, fuck.” Harper thrust his hands through his hair. “Janie. Look, don’t worry about me, seriously don’t worry about me, and if you see Rory tell him don’t talk to his boss.”
“I’m supposed to tell him not to talk to me?”
Argh. “I’m sorry, I’ll explain later if I can, right now I’m a blur of greased lightning and I gotta go.” Harper kissed Janie on the lips for maximum stunning effect to better make his getaway from the mother bear he’d poked awake, dealt himself a hard kick in the ass, short, sharp and to the point, and moved. Fast.
Chapter Fourteen
Thank God and all his little angels that New York hadn’t yet come up with a stoplight system for pedestrians. At least not one that Harper knew of. He could plead innocence in court, or possibly insanity. A hyperactive muse gone haywire and absent without leave would drive any man around the bend. Or motivate him with a burst of speed fit to give NASCAR drivers inadequacy issues.
Harper had no clue where Rory might have gone, if he was still on the plane. He slowed to a sprint and pounded his ear once, just checking to see if there were any heavier weights in his brain that might indicate the presence of a reabsorbed ‑‑
“What the hell am I doing?” he panted, stumbling to a stop. He braced his hands on his knees and shook away the perspiration that threatened his eyes.
“If you asked me, I’d say you were trying to self-induce a heart attack.”
Harper froze. Inasmuch as he could freeze while shock waves from pounding the pavement were still reverberating through his legs. The dulcet sounds of sarcasm. Couldn’t be. Could it?
It wasn’t. Voice was different, tone was different, inflection was…familiar.
He looked slowly over his shoulder and deflated ‑‑ then bristled. Not a case of “even better,” but nicely sufficient for “target acquired.”
“You,” he growled. “Where is he? Where’s Rory?”
The Clerk ignored him. “Funny. I didn’t know they held the marathon at” ‑‑ he checked his watch ‑‑ “nine p.m., but good weather for it. Hold on, Gojira, I think that’s close enough.”
Midrush, Harper staggered. His feet had grown as heavy as if he wore cement shoes. “Nice. Really cute.” At least he’d ceased to move positioned in a runner’s start. As soon as the Clerk took the whammy off, that pencil neck clipboard-carrier was going down.
“Nice teeth.” The Clerk whistled. “Might have figured you for a biter. It’s always the quiet ones. Or the brainy ones. Or anyone who’s got an oral fixation, I guess. You do realize I’m not keeping you Krazy glued because I’m afraid of being hurt. I’m not even physically here. Mostly I don’t want you to hurt yourself. That’s what this meeting is about, Harper.”
“You can start making sense any time now.”
The Clerk clasped his hands loosely around his knee. “There are none so blind as those who will not see. I get that you’re attached to Rory. He’s like a…a favorite hero, isn’t he? The quirky point-of-view hero who rips off some ripostes and saves the maiden fair, or in your case the writer wacky. Always kinda sucks to write ‘the end’ even if by that point you’re ready to burn all the pages and hie thee to a monastery.”
Several retorts, ranging from the clever to the incisive to from the gutter occurred to Harper. He used none of them, kept his mouth shut, and glared at the Clerk, praying that for once in the whole of existence, looks really were able to kill.
“Nothing to say?”
“One thing. Where’s Rory? Two things. I’m not done with him. Not yet.”
“Technically, that was two with a subnote, but I’ll cut you some slack here.” The Clerk regarded Harper almost thoughtfully, with a trace of something far too close to pity for Harper’s tolerance. “I never expected Rory to get so far under someone’s skin, I’ll give him that.”
“I ‑‑” I love him. Be damned if he’d say that first to the Clerk and not to Rory.
Looked like he
didn’t have to. The Clerk’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “You’re joking.”
Harper clamped his lips shut.
“Saint Peter on a cracker. That’s great. Harper…” The Clerk scratched the back of his head. “There are rules, and one of them is that muses like Rory don’t stay.”
“How am I supposed to write without ‑‑”
“The same way you always did, jackass. Stand on your own two feet, slap your fingers on the keyboard, and get busy. You’ll still have inspiration cooking around in the little gray cells. Always did.”
“Then why did you give him to me at all?”
“Here’s how it is, kid. You can be an obstreperous mule about this all you want, but it won’t change the end result. You stay. You take this golden opportunity to go forth and entertain the nation ‑‑ which is a hell of a lot more than most get, so I don’t know why you’re whining, over a dream coming true no less ‑‑ and you dedicate your first Emmy to Rory. Whatever toots your tug whistle.”
Harper licked his lips, tasting the salt of his sweat. “And Rory?”
“Rory moves on to his next assignment.” The Clerk raised his hands, palms up. “What do you want from me, Harper? This is the way muses have worked since way before Orpheus. The original cave paintings? One of us was standing over Ug’s shoulder grunting ‘You can do it’ in caveman-ese while trying not to puke at the stench of uncured mammoth hide. I can’t change eons’ worth of rules that are rules for a reason because you have a crush.”
“I’ll figure out something.” Harper bared his teeth. “You saw to it that I’m inspired. And you didn’t deny you were the one who sent him.”
The Clerk mimed shooting at Harper with his thumb and forefinger, tapped his nose, and said nothing.
“Who are you? Beneath the clipboard.”
“Someone you don’t want to tangle with, and if you don’t pipe down, it’ll get ugly between us.” The Clerk’s level stare and lack of one-liners told Harper he spoke truth.
Harper decided he didn’t give a rat’s ass about the truth. “Do your worst. He’s mine.”
“Sheez.” The Clerk sighed. “Look. You’ve got him for a few more days, at least. Until the high-you-might-a-mighty muck-a-mucks at Rialto make their call about the head writer’s position, there are scripts to work on. Not even an idiot could call you writer’s blocked now, but since Rory got tapped to help you on the path of landing this fish, I’m being a really, really good guy and giving you a few turns of the clock to say your good-byes.”
“How long?”
“Until the wind changes.”
“Rory already quoted Mary Poppins at me. It didn’t change my mind then, either. How do you think I got where I am before Rory came along?”
“Luck,” the Clerk said flatly. “There are a million writers and a gazillion ideas that never see the light of day. You were in the right place at the right time. The end.”
Ouch.
“I’m not in the mood to run around in circles with you all night, kid. You want to find Rory? Go. Fuck like rabid weasels, write your fingers to the bone, feed him sugar until he pops. But when the word comes down, Rory’s gone. Deal.”
Harper pounced. “He’s really not gone yet? I thought you’d ‑‑”
“Pfft. You think you’re the first to have a knock-down, drag-out fight with your muse.”
“I thought…probation ‑‑”
“This isn’t an infraction of the rules.”
Harper huffed, attempting to shake the hair out of his eyes. “You keep saying that word. You and Rory both. ‘Rules.’ Maybe if you let me in on what these crazy rules are ‑‑”
“Sorry. Can’t do that.”
“Can Rory?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Then I’ll find out on my own.”
“Knock yourself out. Literally. Please do. The world will thank you for a period of temporary unconsciousness.” He stood, brushing off his slacks. “I like you, Harper. You don’t believe me, but I do. You’ve got the kind of fire and passion I haven’t seen since the days of lyres and bacchanals. Granted, it’s the kind of zealotry that spells a messy end, but you win some, you lose some.”
“Shut up, already. Rory’s still here. Where is he?”
“If I ever go looking for happiness, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. There’s no place like home. He’s there. Probably wreaking havoc. You’re free to go. The next time we meet will be the last, Harper. Keep that in mind.”
The Clerk disappeared. Harper lurched forward, slapping the pavement with both palms. He hissed at the sting of abraded skin even as he rolled with the fall. Heaving himself upright ‑‑ he could tend to his owies later ‑‑ he ran for the curb, arm up, voice raised. “Taxi!”
* * * * *
“Rory?” Harper rapped on his apartment door with one knuckle, the rest of his fingers flared out. He knew his muse was inside. Rory’s presence was, as ever, a tangible thing now Harper understood how to recognize him.
If he hadn’t, the smell of scorched chocolate and burned toast wafting out in waves would have been a decent clue.
“Rory, it’s me. I’m coming in.”
He heard a growl, and then the sound of the couch springs protesting from the den. “Can’t stop you,” Rory said, surly, quiet yet loud enough for Harper to hear. “It’s your dive.”
Harper swung the door open and scanned the entryway. Artemas stood foursquare in his path, snapping his jaw. Not that he hadn’t already suspected as much, but his place in the turtle’s heart had now certainly been usurped by a sugar-fiend abstract of the psyche given flesh.
Rules. None of what he knew made sense.
He’d find out tonight, or die trying.
“Move, Artemas.” Harper toed out of his Converses and nudged his turtle out of the way. “I promise I won’t hurt him. Not on purpose.”
The fierceness in Artemas’s attempt to bite his socked toes would have been a laugh riot ‑‑ how much damage was less than a pound of reptile going to inflict on a full-grown human? ‑‑ except there was nothing funny about tonight. Nothing at all.
Rory appeared in the door to the den, leaning heavily on the jamb.
“You look terrible,” Harper said without thinking. It was true. Hollowness, smudged with dark shadows, emphasized the dark slate of Rory’s irises. His stubble had grown maybe a millimeter longer, just enough to make him look down at heel rather than dangerously sexy.
He wasn’t even naked, dressed instead in baggy jeans and a sloppy sweatshirt, and that put the fear of God in Harper’s heart.
“Such a flatterer. You’ll turn my head. Stop. Stop.” Rory put his back to Harper and trudged ‑‑ at least his feet were bare ‑‑ toward the den. “Can we not do this?”
Harper followed him, hands in his pockets, jingling his keys. “I can’t apologize for being a dick?”
“You just did. Turn out the lights before you hit the sack, would you?”
“Rory…” Harper stopped at the edge of the den, watching Rory stop five paces in, fists tightening. “Do you want to take a swing at me? Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”
“A pity punch. No thanks.” Despite the scorn, Rory’s fists twitched.
The anger satisfied something burning darkly in Harper. He let it feed his fire and raised his voice to a fitting echo. “Come on. Hit me. I deserve a good one. Let’s have it.”
“Fuck you, Harper.” Rory said it so quietly that at first, Harper wasn’t sure he’d heard Rory or if it was only his imagination firing back one-liners in the absence of Rory’s usual scathing volley.
“Excuse me?”
“You know what? No. You are not excused, not this time.” Rory pivoted, his glare fierce enough to quell a forest fire. Harper didn’t flinch back, but it was a close thing. Good God. He’d been tugging at a tiger’s tail all along, hadn’t he?
He’d be unnerved, if it wasn’t Rory.
“Okay.” Harper inclined his head. “Then what can I do?”
“You really want to know?” Rory’s lips thinned. “Yeah. You do want to know. Fine, you asked for it. How about some respect, Harper?” He drew closer with each word, the crackling force of his aura searing Harper’s nerve endings.
Harper stayed put and let Rory rage. Wasn’t anywhere near enough, but it was all he could offer as yet.
“I am not your plaything, I am not your pet, and I am sure as hell not your punching bag. I have a job to do. I am my job. I don’t work, I don’t exist.” He jabbed Harper in the sternum, then pounded his fist over Harper’s heart.
“I know now there are rules you can’t tell me about.”
Rory’s lip curled. “The Clerk tell you that?”
“He did. And he swore up and down you’d have to go soon.”
“Ha! Should’ve already been long gone. Did he tell you that, too?”
Harper nodded.
“He’s a fount of information tonight. He didn’t happen to pass along a recipe for marzipan fondue, did he? Never have figured out how to make that. Let go of me already.” Rory made to pull away from Harper.
“No, Rory. Stay.” Harper caught his muse by the arm.
Rory favored Harper’s hand with a glare. “Not in the mood. Let go.”
“No.” Harper tightened his grip. “I don’t care what the Clerk says. Whatever the rules are, they can take a flying leap. I’m finding a way to ‑‑”
“Damn it, Harper! You can’t.”
“I can try. At least let me try.”
“Why? So you can fail spectacularly? Because let me tell you, that’s the only thing that’ll happen.”
Harper studied his muse, from his hollowing cheeks to the dark shadows to the shaking of his hands. “You’re just giving up. That’s not you, Rory.”
Rory shoved him, or tried to. Harper held fast. “You think I want to go? I don’t. Does that make you happy? I like it here. I love working on scripts, I love these newfangled Pop-Tart things, and I lo ‑‑” He stopped, breathing too quickly. “I like you. If I could stay, I would, so don’t make this any harder by playing bleeding heart. You’re Juliet, I’m Romeo, and we know how well that ended.”