by Lynn Red
Shaking her head, she was just about to put the phone back in her phone when it buzzed again. “I like showers better anyway. Be there by dinner. Pick a place.”
With her heart pounding in her chest, Garnet considered asking him if he was serious, but decided that she couldn’t take the shock if he sent back a j/k, so she just sent back a smiley face. He tried to respond with another emoticon, but the one he picked looked like Grimace from McDonalds, with a pound sign in the middle of its face.
She laughed, unabashedly happy in the middle of a protest.
I’m happy, she realized with a little bit of a shock. Like actually happy. How long had it been? Not happy like getting a good piece of pie, or having that first perfect Honeycrisp apple of the season. Happy like being at home at Christmas, or having someone give you a hug when it was the one thing you needed most in the world. The sort of happiness that didn’t come with money or new iGadgets. The sort of happiness that was real and true and pure.
I’m a moron, she thought with a self-deprecating laugh. I had a blind date with this guy last night and I’ve decided he’s the one for me, that we’re destined somehow to be together. Then again, shifters ARE kind of given to think things like this… and more often than not, they’re right.
The protest had advanced further down the street and she knew she had to follow. Past that, Garnet knew she had to get her damn head together if she was going to write anything like a good story. The worst part of it all was that she was having a hell of a time caring about how the story turned out. All she could think was, “Stacy,” she said out loud, with a slightly embarrassing sigh that reminded her of the breathless heroine of a rom-com. She shook her head and smiled despite herself. I am a ridiculous teenaged baby.
She laughed again, just thinking about his warmth, and the way he laughed that filled her with happiness. And then she thought about the fact that the building she was holed up under had apparently begun to rain mortar onto the top of her head.
“Uh… what’s with this?” she looked up, and as she did, she instinctively opened her mouth. A heaping helping of dust and grit square in the kisser was the last convincing that Garnet needed to get the hell out of there. She darted out of the alcove, dodging a falling brick. And before she went another step hopped back in, grabbed her notepad and pen, and bolted again.
Back out on the street, she looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun with an outstretched hand, and watched a bunch of guys with jackhammers working on the building.
“You gotta get outta here! Construction zone, honey!” An older guy with a big potbelly, a walrus mustache, and a low-riding tool belt grabbed at her. Instinctually she pulled back, but he caught her. “This building’s comin’ down! You gotta get out of here. Damn protesters keep tearin’ down our barricades!”
She shook her head, trying to make sense of what was going on. “Building falling?” she gasped.
“Yeah! Move!”
Garnet darted out of the entryway with a substantial amount of urging from her hard-hatted friend. When they were safely to the side of the billowing dust, he pushed her into the front door of a closed coffee shop and she instinctively reached for her press pass.
“Don’t worry,” she announced, a little like Superman. “I’m with the news.”
He scrunched his nose, plucked a pair of reading glasses off of the cord around his neck and took a look. “Why’re you showin’ me that?”
For a second, Garnet cocked her head to the side and thought. “Well,” she stammered, “I’m not really sure. Guess it’s just kind of what I do when I think I’m in trouble.”
“Trouble? I just wondered how the hell you got into a construction zone without knowing you’d got into one. These damn protesters must’ve torn down the signs. And the barricades. And every damn thing else. I wish they’d just shut up.”
Like a tingling in the back of her head, Garnet felt her journalist sense flicker to life. “What are they protesting, anyway? Oh and what’s your name? And do you mind if this is on the record?”
The gruff, bearded foreman groaned and scratched at the ample whiskers bunched up with a ponytail holder on his chin. “Hell, little girl, I don’t…”
“Please?”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I can’t say no to a pretty lady, I guess. I’m also an idiot, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he looked at her in a way that said she should have picked up on some kind of hint. “I’m piddling around with a reporter because I can’t say no to pretty girls? And I should be working, and I’m probably going to say something I regret?”
“Oh,” she said, laughing it off and patting him on the shoulder. “I’m not with Gawker or anything, I actually freelance for a real newspaper. We won’t print anything about the kind of underwear you wear.”
“Boxer-briefs,” he said matter-of-factly. “I like the support, but also the feeling of freedom, I—goddam I told you I’d do that.”
Garnet grinned. “Stricken from the record. Although I’ll admit a man in those things is a sight to behold.” The pair shared a quick laugh. “Anyway, what’s your name?”
“Sanderson Douglas. Bear. Now we do gotta hurry this thing along, because that building is gonna fall down in a few minutes and I gotta get going and—”
“Sure, of course. So protests. What’s going on? I saw some sign about healthcare for shifters?”
The old bear scratched at his huge mustache. “Welp, like I said, I don’t wanna get anybody in trouble. But yeah, there was some business about a big protest for the shifter council to support us old folks. It’s expensive, you know, takin’ care of an old bear’s teeth. Or, you know, a beaver’s tail.”
Garnet was nodding and scratching furiously at her notepad. “Go on,” she urged.
“You writin’ this down? Ain’t people your age supposed to mash their fingers on phones or some such thing?”
“I’m probably older than you,” she said with a grin, “in spirit. So these protesters are going on and on about wanting better healthcare for old shifters?”
“Not just that,” his eyes started twinkling. “Aw hell, I’m really gonna get myself in trouble. The damned old bear that can’t keep his damn mouth shut. Look, thing is, we live a hell of a long time, right?”
Garnet, nose twitching at the scent of dust from the collapsing roof, nodded. As the two chatted, she felt like she was falling into The Zone, that special place where her concentration narrowed to a pinpoint, and she felt like she was absolutely in her element. Truthfully, she’d felt like a little of an alien in her own head since she met Stacy, who had taken her heart with a single glance and a chuckle.
And… just like that, he was back in her brain. She was enough of a professional to get the interview finished, and had plenty of notes about pensions, rising costs of healthcare, and all the predictable arguments for and against that she expected. Then again, she’d known about all this before. The protests were nothing new, and having been sent out to look into them in such a remote, and admittedly pretty and expensive place was nice, but it hadn’t made much sense.
All her thoughts turned to his sweeping, curly hair, and his chiseled cheekbones and the way she could imagine the dimple in his left cheek. And before she knew it, Garnet was a million miles away.
“You havin’ some kind of fit?” Sanderson asked, poking her gingerly on the shoulder. “You in there?”
Garnet shook her head hard enough to get a little twinge of soreness in her neck. “Oh, uh yeah,” she said with a shy grin. “Just thinking about something. Bad habit of mine. Sorry. Really, I’m sorry.”
He laughed in a way that brought a slight wheeze to his voice. “You remind me of my daughter. Except she would have told me exactly what she was thinking about and I’m not sure any father ever really wants to know that, no matter what he says.”
“Well, I think that’ll do it,” she said, “I really appreciate it.”
“I didn’t tell
you anything you didn’t know. Anyway, whoever he is, he seems like a lucky guy.”
Without anything further, Sanderson did a prompt about-face and scooted outside when the guys on his crew started shouting about something. And just like that, she was alone with her thoughts.
And being alone with her thoughts meant that Garnet was alone with her gigantic, warm-skinned bear. “Of all the things,” she said, laughing. “A bear? I should be afraid of how big he is, huh? But somehow…” she just shook her head. “I guess that is true, what they say about us always finding the one we’re supposed to find, no matter how ridiculous it all is.
And… I’m talking to myself in an empty coffee shop. Good, Garnet. Very, very good.”
She took another deep breath and bent over, bracing her hands against her knees. “I gotta get a grip, I gotta—”
Her phone buzzing violently in her back pocket gave Garnet a slightly pleasant jolt. “Hello? Lita?”
“Got your hotel,” she said. “You get a story yet?”
“I… sort of? I talked to a construction worker who saved me from a falling—never mind. Anyway, I ended up more confused than I was before I talked to him. This is just a garden variety protest about something that’s been going on forever. Why am I here? Seems like a whole lot of expense for not much reader interest?”
Lita disregarded her concern with a careless grunt. “You never know when you’ll find gold in a dumpster. Not that I’m saying that place is a dumpster.”
There was a slight bit of either confusion or irritation in Lita’s voice. It was hard to tell which, but with her there was almost always a hint of one or the other when she talked. “You okay? Sounds like you’re distracted.”
“I’m always distracted. Editors are busy. Anyway, you’re staying at the Four Seasons, uh… suites? I dunno. There’s only one Four Seasons in that place, just go there and tell them who you are.”
“The Four… really? You’ve never given me a place any better than a Motel 6. You aren’t hatching any weird plans to try and get me full time, are you?”
“Yeah well, it ain’t me,” Lita grunted. “Anyway, I’m trying to get a line on getting you interviews with some of the protest leaders, it’s a reporter thing. Look, you go back to the hotel and I’ll get in touch with you whenever I’ve got something else for you, yeah?”
Confused, slightly worried about Lita having hatched some kind of plan or other, and still coming down from the adrenaline rush of almost being smooshed by a building, Garnet sat down, a little harder than she hoped. She checked her watch to see the hands creeping to half past five. She had no idea when Stacy was coming, or honestly if he even was – after all, no matter what kind of ridiculous feelings she had about him, he was still someone she met the night before on a blind date.
“Are the things in the minibar covered on my expenses?” she texted Lita. A few seconds later, the response came – a smiley face. A few seconds after that. “No, but the regular bar I can probably swing. Those stupid little bottles aren’t even enough to get feeling good anyway. Gotta run, I’ll keep you updated. Have a good night.”
Standing up, cracking her back and knees, and waving to Sanderson, who was standing atop a small pile of rubble and yelling at someone. He took a second to wave back before railing on the poor guy again.
All around her the world seemed to hum with life. People were shopping, the vague din of the protest’s noise could still be heard in the distance, and more than anything, she couldn’t forget Stacy. As much as she knew it was crazy, his burning eyes and the way he made her breath feel just a little tickly as it slid into her nose and the way his laugh and his smile made her feel safe and comfortable… she just couldn’t deny how he made her feel. And after all, why should she?
Looking down the street to her left, in between the small knots of shopping tourists in various states of shiftedness, Garnet could just barely spot the top of the Four Seasons stretching up ahead of where she stood. It was all just so strange. Why would her notoriously Grinch-like, Scrooge-like editor spring for her to have a suite at the fanciest hotel in town? Was there some kind of anniversary she forgot? Had she managed to forget her own birthday again? Wouldn’t be the first time by a long-shot. Once she hit the 30s, Garnet sort of stopped caring very much about the number going up.
Before she knew it, she’d managed to wander up to the front door of the palatial hotel. Before she could open the door, it swung wide, and a very dapper older man in a uniform suit smiled, welcomed her and gestured her inside.
“Uh, hi,” she said, slightly shocked. “I’m—”
“Garnet Pendleton,” he said with exceptional gravitas. “We’ve been expecting you. Your employer made sure that all the arrangements were made well in advance.”
“Er, no, she just told me she got this place, she—”
Garnet stopped herself when he smiled again, broadly and cheerfully. “I’m afraid she’s had these reservations since early this morning. Your employer is an… Yvette Lorraine, yes?”
“That’s… not at all what I expected you to say,” Garnet said. “But… okay, I’ll take it. Are you sure?”
The doorman simply continued to smile. “Can I take your bag?”
She handed it to him wordlessly, completely unable to formulate a thought or put word to thought once formed.
“Oh,” he said, “I have this for you,” he handed her a note in a very fancily folded envelope. “It was delivered just before you arrived. They’ll get your key to you at the desk.”
Garnet nodded, carefully unfolding the paper to avoid damaging the contents. “Dear Garnet,” it read, in exquisitely curled cursive writing. “This isn’t something I always do for my clients, but Dora insisted that you were special. At any rate, enjoy. I know this is the bear for you, and I’m never, ever wrong.”
“Right this way,” the doorman said. “I noticed you seemed a bit taken aback, so I took the liberty of getting your key, Ms. Pendleton.”
“Yeah,” Garnet said, “I’d say that’s fair.”
She could hardly think on the way through the place to the absolutely enormous room that the doorman opened for her. But when she walked inside, a feather could have knocked her flat on her ass.
“I thought you’d never make it,” Stacy said, his voice flowing through the air like silver caressing Garnet’s ears. “Of course, I could sit in this place all day eating these M&Ms from the little fridge and never get unhappy.”
“You,” she stammered, staggering forward and dropping her purse. “You’re…? How? But and…?”
Garnet was staring straight at him, feeling swirls of heat and chill course through her one after another. “But how?”
“Oh, you know, I called in to work when I got the invite from Eve and your boss. Turns out, that girl likes you almost as much as I do, I think. I told her I could get out here early tomorrow, but she wasn’t having any of it. Somehow, she got me picked up by a helicopter and deposited outside of town. I seriously feel like I’m living a life I never dreamed of.”
There was another note on the pillow, which Garnet noticed and immediately disregarded. She much preferred walking over to where Stacy was sitting, and collapsing on his lap. “I hope I’m not being forward,” she said, hardly containing her nervous laughter. “But what the hell is going on?”
From the way his hands slid up her back, she figured that, no, she wasn’t forward as far as he was concerned. She kissed him eagerly, tasting the melted chocolate on his tongue and the faint hint of spicy, leathery cologne that clung to his shirt collar. The two unbuttoned buttons of his collar let her kiss his chin, then his throat. Stacy leaned his head back, smiled, and let out a long, drawling groan.
“This is… exactly what I want to be doing,” he said, effortlessly lifting Garnet up and cradling her in his arms. “But I think we’re supposed to be somewhere. Right when I got here, Eve from Mating Call, er, called. She said to make you look at that note as soon as you got here, but I have no idea what it
is.”
Reluctantly, she slid off her bear recliner and tip-toed over to the bed. She grabbed the note, and as she read, her eyes grew about four sizes. “It’s a reservation for Le Chateau. Good lord,” Garnet was getting near hyperventilating. “Is this how Eve always makes sure her matches, well, match?”
“It’s a damn good start,” Stacy said with a chuckle. “But I hope they have bigger portions than the French places I normally go. I’m kind of… well, you know, big.”
“Don’t worry,” Garnet said, slightly breathless. “Given everything else that’s happened so far, I have the feeling that Eve’s thought of damn near everything.”
With his arm around her waist, the two of them made their way out of the hotel and to a waiting car. This, Garnet thought, is going to be one hell of a night to remember, whatever happens.
7
The unlikely pair waltzed through the massive swinging glass doors and into the lush, red-carpet anointed lobby of Le Chateau looking confused, amazed, and slightly embarrassed that they were most definitely underdressed for the restaurant.
A piano player was tinkling away at the keys with an upbeat, but sedate, jazz tune that made Garnet feel warm deep down inside, almost like she had wandered into some kind of lost memory of 1920s Paris. “I sorta expect to see Faulkner and Hemingway sitting at one of these tables with a pile of wine bottles splayed out in front of them.”
Stacy nervously adjusted his jacket’s wrist cuff. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt like an alien before. Look at all this stuff.” He turned his head toward a massive chandelier and stared at it, slightly entranced. “If I touched that thing, it would probably shatter and I’d spend the rest of my life paying it off.”
“It is faux crystal,” a soft voice with a decided French accent said, followed with a soft laugh. “The real crystal ones are above. We’d never leave something like that within a child’s possible grip. Too many bad things could happen. I’m Maurice, your waiter for the evening. Come this way.”
The two of the stunned, slightly agape shifters followed the tall, lithe man in the tuxedo through a crowded dining room that was absolutely alive with genteel conversation, clinking glasses, and soft laughter. On the other side, there was a stairwell leading up. “This way, please,” Maurice said, letting the two of them ascend first. “This is our private balcony. From here you can see the town, the sunset, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, a storm boiling up on the horizon.” He went to pull out Garnet’s chair, but Stacy moved past him with surprising agility, and the two men exchanged smiles.