The Seat Filler: A Novel

by Sariah Wilson

  “Okay,” I said. “See you at home.”

  She hesitated. “Aren’t you leaving, too?”

  I gestured toward Magnus. “I feel like I should keep an eye on him and explain the situation. When did Noah say he would be back?”

  “Six.” She took her keys out but had that knowing look I hated. “And you’re, what, going to wait for Noah to come home? Because you miss him and want to see him again?”

  My stomach flipped over lightly that she could read me so easily. “It’s not like that.”

  “Oh, I think it is.”

  “You’re entitled to your delusions,” I told her.

  “You say delusion, I say complete and total fact.”

  “See you at home,” I repeated so she would take the hint.

  “Or not,” she responded, waggling her eyebrows at me. “Dealer’s choice.”

  “Just go,” I said with a laugh.

  She waved and gave Magnus a wide berth as she headed for the door. I heard it close and then realized I was hungry. Noah was supposed to be home in an hour. I could probably wait until then. I considered going into his kitchen but decided that was rude and possibly invasive, although technically I was doing him a favor, and feeding me was, like, the least he could do.

  I messed around on my phone for a while but it started getting low on battery, so I put it away. Magnus came in carrying his food bowl in his mouth.

  “Are you hungry, boy?” I asked, taking it from him. “Me too. But let’s get you taken care of first. Where’s your food?” I followed him to a skinny pantry and found a massive bag of kibble. I filled up his bowl and put it down for him. “Here you go.”

  And that was the most exciting thing that happened to me for the next few hours as five turned to six and then seven and eight and finally, a bit after nine o’clock, I heard the keys in the front door. Magnus ran to greet Noah, barking loudly.

  No part of me was excited that he was home. I was sitting at the kitchen table, drumming my fingers, and I was so thoroughly annoyed with him. Plus, I was now starving. Why did he say he’d be back by six when he wasn’t? Maybe six meant something different where he was from. But we’d both been born in Southern California, so that couldn’t be it, either. Maybe it was because he never went to a real school and was just really bad at counting.

  I heard him telling Magnus hello and I couldn’t resist calling out, “About time!”

  “Juliet? You sound pleasant.” There was muffled movement, like he was taking a jacket off and hanging it up in a closet.

  “Yeah. Because there’s this movie star I know who hired a flaky dog babysitter who then said he’d be home by six and it’s now nine, so I’ve been stuck waiting here for him.”

  He was talking to Magnus, and then he called back, “You didn’t have to wait. Magnus would have been fine on his own for a little while.”

  Nope. There was no way I was letting this go south for Shelby. She was going to do what she did best and would be a huge success and every movie star in Hollywood was going to put her on speed dial to decorate their houses. I was about to explain to him how responsible she’d been in calling me so that Magnus didn’t escape again when he walked into the kitchen and . . . and . . . and . . .

  . . . and . . .

  He was dressed as Malec Shadowfire. He had on the wig with the long black hair and his trademark suit of black leather armor. I even saw folded wings.

  OMG, I was going to die. I was going to shatter into a million pieces and nobody would ever be able to put me back together again.

  Noah walked over to the fridge, took out a half gallon of milk, and drank it straight from the container. It was such an incongruous sight—Malec drinking a modern thing of milk—that my brain couldn’t process what was happening.

  Maybe that was because I couldn’t get enough oxygen to it. How had he sucked all the air out of the room just by being dressed that way?

  “Could . . . could you go . . . and . . . could you go change? I can’t . . .” control my involuntary hormonal reactions to you. “I can’t take you seriously when you’re dressed like Malec” was what I settled on.

  It was amazing I was able to form words at all. I felt like I was having a series of mini-strokes.

  “You know who Malec is? Did you finally watch the trilogy?” he asked, not moving to go change like I’d very nicely asked him to. I had asked him, hadn’t I? I couldn’t remember.

  And had I finally watched the movies? I owned them all in three different formats. I’d come this close to ordering a life-size cutout of him as Malec. Had I watched the movies?

  “Yeah. Yes. Shelby and I binged them after the first time you and I met.” That was technically true, although probably not in the sense of what he would consider the full truth.

  And there was no way I was telling him the whole truth now—that I’d lied to him the first night we met about not knowing who he was. Because Shelby had her dream job and it was going to make her career take off, and I would do anything to help ensure that happened.

  If any part of her belief was true—that he’d hired her solely because she was my friend—well, what happened if he and I stopped being friends because I’d lied to him? He would fire Shelby.

  Which would be all my fault, so the best way to prevent that from happening was to say nothing to him. It might have been a big deal if we were in a relationship, but we weren’t. Friends could have secrets from each other. And it wasn’t something that could hurt our very platonic friendship, so I was okay.

  I could not make direct eye contact with him. It was like staring into the sun.

  “Let me pay you for watching him,” he said, and I saw him reaching for his wallet.

  “Put your euros away,” I told him. “I don’t want your fake money.” Our relationship was already weird enough, and I was not going to have him paying me on top of everything else. “But I won’t object to being fed.”

  “Yep. You definitely sound like you need to get some food in you.” He went to one of his cabinets and pulled out a box of chocolate puff cereal. He walked over and put it down on the table in front of me. “Do you want some milk, too?”

  “The same milk you just drank straight from the container? No thanks, Captain Hygiene.” I tore open the plastic and took out a handful of cereal and shoved it into my mouth. My shoulders slumped inward with relief. “I don’t know what I’d do without chocolate.”

  “My guess is twenty-five to life.”

  I smiled and shook my head at his remark and kept feeding my complaining stomach.

  “If you’re okay here, I’m going to take a shower.”

  “I’m okay.” I drew in a shaky breath. I was going to tell him that I didn’t really want him to leave and take off his Malec outfit, but I recognized that it was probably for the best since I was feeling so weak-willed anyway. Him leaving the room and not being in that really, um, hot costume would let me calm my nerves. I could fill up on cereal so that I would feel like myself again. Everything would be fine.

  Just so long as I didn’t imagine him in the shower.

  Oh crap! I was making it worse.

  He left the room, whistling to himself, and I realized that I probably should have left. He was home and there was no reason for me to be hanging around. But I hadn’t offered to go and he hadn’t asked me to leave. Friends could hang out together, right?

  Plus, I was really hungry.

  Magnus was sitting near my feet, giving me pathetic looks.

  “Sorry, you can’t have chocolate,” I told him. “Even the processed kind.”

  He hopped up when Noah walked back in the room wearing a dark-gray T-shirt, black sweats, and a pair of socks that had pineapples on them. His hair was wet, and I almost fell out of my chair.

  This was not any better.

  “I’m going to make some wild rice–crusted halibut,” he said. “I was up for a role as a chef a few years ago and had zero kitchen skills, so I hired a professional to teach me. I didn’t get the r
ole, but I did learn my way around a kitchen. Do you want some?”

  Wild rice–crusted halibut? Professional chef? Classes? Was he serious with this? “Sure.”

  For a second I thought he might confess to joking around, but he got out a skillet and started gathering up ingredients.

  Gah, now he was going to cook, too? I wasn’t going to survive the night.

  I was the one who said just friends. That was definitely how it needed to be. Why was this so hard? Why was he so hot? It wasn’t fair.

  I needed to talk. Something to distract me from this visual. “So where have you been?”

  “The children’s hospital. I went to visit them as Malec.”

  I blinked slowly in surprise. I’d never once heard of him doing something like that. “Do you do it a lot?”

  “Every chance I get. What, you think it’s normal for me to run around in my Malec costume?”

  “I don’t know your life,” I said, eating some more cereal and trying to ignore the way my heart was softening at the idea of him dressing up to entertain sick kids. Serious swoonage. That giddy feeling was being balanced out by the guilt I was feeling about being angry with him for not being home on time when he was busy lifting children’s spirits. I was the worst.

  He started cooking dry rice on the stove. “The kids love it, and normally it’s a fun time for everyone.”

  “You don’t sound like you had fun.”

  “One of the kids, Joey, he’s always the most excited to see me. But the doctors told me the next time I come, he won’t be there. I asked if it was a matter of money, because I’d take care of it, and they said it wasn’t. There’s nothing anyone can do. Cancer pisses me off.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

  “Thanks. So I was already in a bad mood when I left the hospital, and on the way out one of the board members chased me down and offered me ten thousand dollars for my charity if I’d take a picture with his wife in my costume. I said no.”

  I spilled a couple of chocolate cereal balls on the table and grabbed them before Magnus could go after them. “You have a charity?”

  “I started it when I got back from Afghanistan. A buddy of mine was medically discharged at the same time as me and he had a hard time finding a job and taking care of his wife and new baby. I forced him to take money from me to help him out, but I thought there should be something to help veterans start over that didn’t have a ton of red tape and oversight. So I have this nonprofit, and it provides career training and scholarships and has an emergency component for veterans and their families who need money and food to tide them over temporarily.”

  My mouth dropped. How did I not know any of this? “And somebody would have given you money for that and all you had to do was take a picture?” Was I missing something?

  Now he was using a spatula to transfer the rice to some paper towels. “That’s not the point. I want people to donate because they want to help veterans. Not because of Duel of the Fae. It makes me uncomfortable, and it feels like they’re missing the entire point.”

  “No offense, but that’s kind of stupid. There are so many great charities out there and good causes to support. Probably nine times out of ten if someone supports yours, it will be because you’re the head of it. I can’t really see where that’s a bad thing. And if you’re uncomfortable, well, maybe find a way to get comfortable with it. Are you in a position to be turning money away because it’s not coming in the way you want it to?”

  He seemed to consider this. “I guess not. Maybe you’re right.”

  “I typically am.”

  “You’re going to ruin your appetite,” he said, watching me eat more cereal.

  “Not likely,” I responded. “By the way, Karen from Regional Advantage Bank says hi.”

  He was pouring the cooked rice into an expensive-looking blender. “Who?”

  “She works in customer service. I talked to her today because I lost my debit card at the after-party and I told her I was there with you, which she totally did not believe. And as a parting shot she said to tell you hi. Like I’d made up the whole thing.”

  “Wait.” He stopped what he was doing. “You lost your debit card?”

  “And somebody used it and cleaned out my checking account.”

  “Everything?”

  I formed my fingers into a circle. “Zero balance. And don’t go for your wallet again.”

  “But you have money in your savings account, right?”

  “No, Mr. Movie Star. I don’t have investment or retirement accounts, either. It’s all gone.”

  A look of guilt crossed his features, as if that was exactly what he’d been thinking. “I’m sorry. I feel responsible.”

  “You’re not responsible for the actions of a criminal.”

  He put the lid on the blender and then looked at me for, like, a really long time. It was starting to make me uncomfortable. “People just usually depend on me for this kind of stuff.”

  “I’m not in the market for a sugar daddy,” I said teasingly, and that put a smile on his face.

  “I’ve given you money before,” he reminded me.

  “You overpaid me for a service I performed for you, and that was before we were friends. It would be weird now.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s not your decision to make,” I told him.

  “Okay. But know that it’s here if you need it.”

  He turned the blender on high, and his offer touched me in a way I wouldn’t have imagined possible. Not to mention how it sent little shivers of happiness rushing through me.

  We were getting into dangerous territory. He had taken out pieces of fish and was dunking them in different bowls that had flour, eggs, and the rice mixture, and he told me about his day. About the little girl who said she wanted to be Aliana when she grew up so that she could marry him (a sentiment I understood all too well) and the little boy recovering from cancer who said he’d grow his hair out as long as Malec’s when it came back in.

  The fish smelled delicious and took less time to cook than I would have imagined. He brought a serving over to the table for me, along with a fork. Then he sat down across from me and told me to dig in.

  I took a bite. It was incredible. Light, flaky. “Why are you good at everything? This is amazing.”

  He grinned. “Thanks. I probably should have made a salad or something, but it was a long day, and I’m tired.”

  I was going to tease him that tired people didn’t usually make wild rice–crusted halibut for dinner but decided to be nice.

  We ate in silence. It was just too good to let sit and get cold. When we finished, I offered to clear our plates, but he wouldn’t let me. “You’re my guest.”

  “Thank you for that dinner. And for cleaning up. You know, I could get used to this,” I told him as he walked over to the sink to rinse off the plates before he put them into the dishwasher. “You waiting on me.”

  He smiled and said, “I live to serve.”

  I smiled back and . . . I realized I didn’t have a reason to stay. I’d returned Magnus to him safely and he’d fed me both cereal and halibut, and now it was probably time for me to head home.

  “It’s getting late,” I told him.

  “You’re right.” He came back to the table but didn’t sit down. I took that as my cue to go and stood up.

  “Or . . .” He let his words trail off.

  “Or?” I repeated, far too hopeful.

  “You could stay for a drink. I think we both deserve one after the days we’ve had. What do you say?”

  The right, clearheaded choice was obvious. Go home. Pack my bag and get ready to start my new job in the morning.

  Walk away from Noah Douglas and all his dangerous sexiness.

  Problem was, I didn’t want to.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Just one drink,” I said.

  “Do you have a preference?” he asked. “Beer? Wine?”

  I grimaced. “Not wine.
We no longer speak after this wicked one-night stand we had years ago.”

  That made him laugh as he headed for a bar cart in the corner. “Do you want me to make you my supposedly favorite drink?”

  “Sure. What’s your supposedly favorite drink?”

  “Whiskey sour.”

  “I’ve never had it.” Which meant I didn’t know how much alcohol was in it. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

  Noah had pulled out a bunch of different bottles and a metal shaker. “If I was trying to get you drunk, I would have grabbed the vodka.”

  “Should I be worried about how fast you said that?”

  “No. I was in the military. I know the best way to get drunk fast.” He was pouring syrups and liquids into the shaker.

  “Were you a bartender in a movie, too?”

  “There was an offer, but the deal didn’t come together. I did my research, just in case.”

  He poured the drinks into glass tumblers and handed me one. “Do you want to go sit in the library?”

  Again, that felt a little dangerous. But I said, “Yes.”

  I followed behind him, remembering the room from before. I planned on sitting in one of the armchairs, but when we got there the only piece of furniture left was a couch. A very small, two-seater one.

  “Shelby’s really cleaning you out, isn’t she?” I asked when I sat. He sat down close, facing me, and I had to refrain from scooting away. But whether that was to prove something to him or something to me, I wasn’t sure.

  He took a sip of his drink. “I’m planning on staying here during the renovation, so she’s leaving me what she thinks I need and we’ll just move everything around as they work on different rooms. I couldn’t go to a hotel. I hate hotels.”

  “That must be fun for someone who travels as much as you do.”

  He raised an eyebrow in agreement, taking another drink.

  I decided to take a drink, too. I grimaced after my first taste.