by S. N. Graves
She flung several articles of clothing onto the dresser, not bothering to see what they were beyond shirt, pants, and underwear. When she noted his silence, she paused her grumbling to scowl at him. Only to find him standing there with one hand on his hip and the other mimicking her rant like some demented sock puppet.
Yup, she had issues, but he was thoroughly batshit insane. All she could do was stare back at his silent, expectant smirk. Sore throat or not, she couldn’t keep her voice below a bit of a shout. “Seriously, what is your childhood trauma?”
“You’ve no idea.” He rolled his eyes, and stepped away to allow her to dress and bitch on as her heart desired.
* * * *
Sam stepped out onto Arles’s porch, grateful that for the moment the rain had stopped. Arles was already outside, leaning under the open hood of a car, not the one from the night before. No, this one was all Arles, everything she’d expected from him. She didn’t know the model or year—cars weren’t her thing—but it was a fossil-fuel burner. Knowing Arles, it hadn’t been converted either, which meant it was probably not street legal. For a relic, it looked…kind of fierce.
Not that she was really studying the car. It was difficult with him bent over and stretched out along its innards. Her gaze locked on his ass and the way the denim of his pants hugged it perfectly. She was almost afraid to approach—she didn’t trust herself not to reach out and grope him, which would have been as humiliating as it was disgraceful.
As he rose from beneath the hood and slammed it shut, she got a better look at him. Suede. The brown jacket he wore was suede. He was wearing animal skin just to piss her off, she was sure of it…even if he did look unsettlingly touchable.
“You going to set up homestead on my porch or are you planning to get in the car today?” He wiped a soft cloth over the hood to smooth away any invisible smudges from the car’s indigo finish. Then he paused to peer at his refection in the passenger-side window, setting a few errant strands of hair straight and righting his jacket.
Vanity would definitely have to be put down as one of his many vices.
“Is this monster even legal? Wouldn’t want to get pulled over by police with a hostage in the front seat.” She left the porch and ambled over to him. “I might be tempted to squeal.”
“Who says you’re sitting in front?” He smiled sweetly. “I put a pillow in the trunk just for you.”
She paused, and her eyes narrowed on him, but he opened the car door for her and held it. The perfect gentleman all of the sudden. Reluctantly she got in, and he claimed the driver’s seat and stuffed a key into the ignition. The smell of gasoline hit her like a slap in the face, and she coughed and covered her mouth with her hand. “How can you stand that? Do you drive this thing all the time?”
“As often as possible.” He chuckled and threw the car into gear. The large wrought-iron gate swung open for him as he peeled out of the drive. “Admit it, you miss real cars. Listen to that engine. You want to talk about machines with real heart, real soul…that’s all a Mustang is.”
“No, I don’t miss them. Never driven one, never wanted to.” That wasn’t entirely true. She could still remember back when everyone had one. One of her favorite memories, one of the few she could remember from her childhood, was the time her father had put her in his lap and let her run doughnuts in the field near their home. She’d always thought one day Dad’s old Fairlane would be hers, but he’d sold it once the taxes on high-emission vehicles became too absurd.
“But you can drive, right? I mean…I know I was supposed to teach you, but—”
“What?” Her gaze snapped back to him. “What are you talking about?”
He sighed, his focus falling from the road for a moment as he scowled at the steering wheel. “What are we going to feed anyway? Anything that eats people?”
“Not normally, but they may make an exception. The cats do have a taste for rat.”
“You’re so witty. Fasten your seat belt.”
“Seat belt?” Another thing she could just barely remember from her childhood. She hadn’t liked them then, and she’d been ecstatic when they became no longer necessary. “No.”
“When you are in my car, you wear a seat belt.” He reached across her and pulled the strap over her chest, but she was smacking at his arm before he could get it fastened.
“Watch the damn road, and I won’t need a seat belt. Or how about this—use your navigator like a normal person.” She jerked the strap from his hands, and they wrestled over possession of the buckle. The car ran up on the shoulder, the tires rumbling angrily against the uneven pavement. “You’re going to kill us!”
“Put it on!” He returned both hands to the wheel, but just long enough to right the vehicle before he was snapping at the strap in her own again.
“Quit it! Stop. Stop touching me!” When exactly had they both turned into three-year-olds? She slapped his hand so hard the pop resounded in the closed car, and while he was growling and shaking his wounded fingers out, she quickly shoved the buckle into its fastener. “There. It’s done.”
“Brat.”
“Ass.” She clenched her hands into fists to still her trembling fingers and turned her attention out the side window.
Silence filled the cab. No more snarls or taunts for near two solid minutes. Then she saw his hand leave the wheel again, and he fumbled with a few dials and buttons until music blared through the speakers loud enough to make her cringe. They were so going to get pulled over.
“Arles.” She winced, her yell doing little to get his attention as his fingers drummed on the steering wheel, and his lips moved along with the rumbling, screeching torture that was whatever the hell he was listening to.
“Arles!” If she didn’t find a way out of this man’s life soon, she was going to strip her throat mute.
His jaw set rigid, but he reached out and turned the music down to a dull roar. “What?”
“You can’t drive through these neighborhoods with that noise blaring to all ends of the earth. It’s illegal in a lot of communities, and I don’t feel like going to jail because you’re apparently a deaf idiot.”
“You are really good at telling me what not to do, aren’t you?”
“It’s just common sense.”
“I find there is nothing common about sense these days, sweetness. Least of all where community ordinances and district law are concerned.”
She sighed, not that he’d notice with the music still vibrating the car windows. “You can’t go through my neighborhood with that playing. If sensors pick it up, we’ll be flagged, your car will pull over, and you’re not only going to have to explain to the police your theory on district law, but also why you have a sobbing woman crying rape as a passenger.”
He frowned, his gaze darting from the road to her and back again a few times before he spoke. “You’re not sobbing.”
She leaned in, her lips drawing back into a smile that she imagined was as sharkish as she was capable of. “Give me an audience.”
“You wouldn’t. And if you do…you’ll regret it. You have my word on that.” He returned her smile, his attention abandoning the road long enough for him to lean in and nip at her nose. “My car won’t get flagged in your neighborhood. It wouldn’t pull over even if it did, because…it’s not a navigator. I drive this car. No one can take control of it but the driver. Besides, I’ve been by your house before. Never had any problems.”
“You’ve been by my house? Why?”
Arles didn’t have to feign shark; when he smiled, it was pure predator.
“Arles. Why have you been by my house?”
He turned the music back up, and she was sure it was louder now just to spite her. The song changed, but even in the few seconds of silence they had before it was roaring on to the next one, he ignored her insistent prodding for an answer. She reached out to shut it off, to force enough quiet to demand an answer, when something in the next song stilled her hand.
It wasn’t as gra
ting as the last, but that wasn’t what stopped her. She recognized it. Something they’d listened to as kids. The lyrics left her arm hanging there, her jaw going a little slack. The voice crying through the speakers was abrasive, frantic, the almost melodic screams of a desperate man promising the listener that whatever came their way, however bad it was, they were together. The backing track was brutal and machinelike, the singer’s voice sounding as if it was tearing its way through the man’s throat.
Arles had sung this to her.
He was ignoring her, mouthing the words to the song or perhaps singing so quietly she couldn’t hear him over the speakers, even though she ached to. He didn’t even look at her as he pulled the car off the main road, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She thought back on that dream she’d had, with the little Arles peering at her from the open door of her room, and wondered if it hadn’t been a dream at all so much as a memory.
She couldn’t make sense of it—the song, knowing he had sung it, but having no clue why. The strange sense of comfort she felt when she recalled the image of his younger self watching her sleep. None of it fit with what memories her Swiss-cheese brain had left her of him.
The car lurched to a stop and Arles turned off the engine, killing the music and getting out to slam his door shut before she had a chance to stop him. Not that he would have answered her growing mountain of questions anyway.
She unhooked her seat belt and grabbed the door handle, but he opened it for her and stood waiting for her to get out. Her feet hit pavement. Not soft grass. She scowled and lifted her head to take in her surroundings.
Waffle House.
Big yellow letters bellowed it at her from the building’s roof.
What the hell? She tore her gaze from the sign and peered up at him as she stepped from the vehicle and clear of the closing door. “What are we doing here?”
“Trading stock.” He pushed his hand in his pocket and moved toward the building. “We’re getting breakfast. What else would we be doing here?”
“You’re joking, right?”
No, he wasn’t joking. He was holding the door open in exasperation.
“Waffle House?”
“That’s what the sign says.”
It wasn’t at all what she expected, the interior the color of sunshine, quiet music playing from the old-fashioned jukebox in the corner, and normal-looking people scattered at the benches and bar, rather than the sort of ruffians she’d always envisioned. Since this was one of the few places in the mid-districts that still sold organic meat, despite the fines associated with it, Sam had always assumed it catered to the very worst element the area had to offer.
She felt dirty just stepping through the door, and the smell of flesh cooking on the griddle made her head swim. That was real animal cooking. And these were all real people waiting eagerly to eat it. She wanted to gag, to be thoroughly disgusted at the thought of what sort of vampiric individuals Arles was now subjecting her too…but unbidden, her mouth began to water a little as the fresh smell of perfectly cooked steak passed over her tongue with every breath. Something was seriously wrong with her.
She was about to turn to Arles, beg him to take her out of here, anywhere but here, but already a pair of waitresses were talking to him. No, they were fighting over him and where he was going to sit. Sam stared as finally the louder of the two practically ordered Arles into a middle booth she’d just cleaned, and he complied without fuss.
Sam was slower to sit, gaze roaming over the establishment with morbid curiosity. “Arles—”
The waitress cut her off, the woman’s commanding tone stealing Arles’s attention and silencing her in an instant. “Same ol’, same ol’, darlin’?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Arles smiled and gave the woman a curt nod as she settled a high-end trade paper before him along with a steaming cup of coffee and a glass of juice. As the waitress struggled with a wall of unstable menus, fishing one out to slap before Sam, Arles leaned a bit across the table to meet Sam’s gaze for the first time since they’d arrived. “Order whatever you want. Not going to impose the must-eat-meat policy this morning.”
“There is meat in everything.” Sam flicked her gaze over the menu only to fix him with a bewildered stare. “Everything is cooked together. Even the air is full of it…and bacony.”
“Mmm, bacon. Shelia, I want bacon this morning.”
“Sure thing, sweets.” The waitress’s painted-on brows rose, and she propped her hand on her hip as she gave Sam a scrutinizing stare. The woman looked ready to stamp reject across her head and toss her out. It made Sam suddenly feel awkward, clearly not good enough to be dating a Waffle House regular.
Dating. Uhg. They weren’t dating. Oh, she hoped no one got that idea. “I’m his sister.” Best to make that distinction now rather than allow Arles to parade her around otherwise, but it didn’t smooth the woman’s brow any as she continued to look at her with judgment.
“Stepsister,” he amended, and then flipped to the front page of his paper, using it almost as a wall to block her out.
The waitress just stood there, her little red bonnet askew, hand in the pocket of her apron, her face hard as stone, and her lips pressed tight. “You eatin’ anything or what?”
Good Lord, that tone. The woman knew. Sam could see it in her eyes, all but hear it in her voice. Shelia, as the name tag read, was glaring down on her as if she were the other woman.
Had Arles brought her to be served by his pancake mistress? Was Arles sleeping with a pancake mistress?
Waffle wench. Whatever.
“Can I have a glass of water?” She was almost afraid to ask, but the waitress only rolled her eyes before stomping away.
The woman returned a bit later and set a red plastic glass of ice and water in front of Sam, sloshing it on the table in her hurry to be done with it. Mostly ice, no straw in sight, and Shelia didn’t stick around long enough for Sam to request one. Rather, she slipped an unlit cigarette between her lips and disappeared into the back. She hadn’t left without fixing Sam with a warning glare. Sam was pretty sure if she had ordered anything of substance, it probably would have been dropped on the floor and scrubbed around a bit before being served to her.
She leaned into the table, whispering just loudly enough for him to hear her. “Do you know that woman?”
He chuckled behind his paper.
“That’s not funny. She didn’t like me.”
At least there was no mystery to it anymore. He’d brought her here as another devious little torture. Ass. Sam fidgeted, but sat there silently, watching the other waitresses delivering piping-hot flesh from the grill to the people sitting over at the bar.
“You shouldn’t eat here,” she said. “It can’t be good for you.”
“Thanks for the advice, O sickly one.”
“I hope you realize you don’t have to eat meat to be healthy. It’s a fact. Why do you think the food administration regulates it so harshly? Meat, real meat, is bad for you in so many ways. Not to mention…it’s pretty much murder.” She bobbed her head in agreement with herself as she raised drink and sipped at it.
Arles snapped his paper in half, peering disdainfully over it. “You just keep believing what the establishment tells you, dear. They couldn’t possibly want to do you any harm.”
“Are you a complete anarchist?”
“Yes, I’m a meat radical. Been planning my hot dog rebellion for years.” He smirked at her and brought his glass of juice to his lips to drain a good third of it. “You should join the rebel alliance. We have little kielbasa badges and everything.”
Her nose crinkled. “You’re disgusting.”
“You know you secretly want to be my hot dog warrior queen.” He winked and flashed his teeth.
The bell above the Waffle House entrance chimed as if on cue to complement that self-satisfied smile. He glanced past her, probably checking out the additional patrons as they came in, all rowdy laughs and murmurs. His smile fell away, and he popped h
is paper back in place to hide behind it.
“Look, say whatever you want. Taunt me, I don’t care. You’re not going to get me to eat an animal again. Ever. You may think you own me, but—”
A pair of fingers pinched her shoulder from behind and someone made a bizarre zapping sound with his tongue against his teeth. She nearly came out of her skin, jumping back from the attack as if she’d truly been electrocuted. Her water toppled, splashed all over the table, though she scrambled to catch it.
Shelia beat her to it, appearing out of nowhere to mop up the spill before it could soil Arles’s paper, which was good considering Sam never would have managed it with her attention on the man who now stood beside her.
“We’re supposed to eat animals. If we weren’t, then why are they all made out of meat?” The man’s voice was far too cultured for the bizarre ensemble of his look, forcing associations with Bowie, maybe a bit of Iggy Pop tossed in.
Instinctively, Sam jerked away from the hand that still clasped her shoulder, sending herself sliding to the wall for distance. She instantly regretted it when the move made room for the man to slide into her booth beside her.
He was tall, even sitting, his eyes lined in a deep kohl. His hair glistened alabaster in the light shining through the wall of windows, reflecting similarly to polished silver, despite the roots of his true ebon color showing in a way that seemed all too purposeful. Like a hardcore glam rocker ripped from some old music video. He was covered in head-to-toe intricately designed leather, from the delicate black gloves to the crimson trench coat; it brushed up against her leg as he made himself comfortable.
He was wearing an earring too, a couple of them in fact, an observation that inspired the absurd and quite lewd wondering of where else he might have those little silver decorations hidden. Having the strange man so close, trapping her in her bench, felt about like being trapped in a corner by some unwashed transient, but somehow much more vulgar and curiously arousing. Except he didn’t look unwashed. Didn’t smell unwashed either—more like opium and…cannabis? Still, he didn’t give off safety vibes by any means. Her voice stuck in her throat. All she could do was stare.