by Sunniva Dee
I power down my food. Drink my coffee and get another refill with offer of cream-no-sugar because by now the waitress knows. I accept. Do I want a to-go cup? I do—but how big do I want it? Fucking huge, and please mix something into it.
Aishe leaves while I’m waiting for my to-go cup. She sends an absent wave over her shoulder, with a murmured, “Later.”
I’m like this obsessed douche stalking to the bus with all my earthly remains as soon as I fucking can after that.
“She’ll never forgive me,” I tell Zoe out of nowhere while we climb on the bus.
“Aishe?”
I bob my head, shutting my eyes for having said anything at all.
“Dude, she was the one who came to the video shoot in the first place. Of course she’ll forgive you. She knows it wasn’t you who decided to do that, even if Isaias has the tongue of a lounge lizard and can talk you into anything. It wasn’t. You.”
I feel my jaw clench in horror; Zoe still has no idea. This little spat would’ve become a whole lot worse if Zoe knew about… The Hotel Room.
“You’re right,” I say and slap hands with the bus driver. “Just being ridic.”
“Do you want me to talk to her about it?” Zoe’s eyes are full of compassion.
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows at her, making her laugh.
“Is that a no?”
“We’re both grownups, I believe. I’ll let you know if I end up needing you to deliver a note, though.”
The two legitimate couples on this bus take turns in the back lounge. In no way could Waris and Elias impose on that sleeping arrangement, and even less could I, with… say, Aishe. I shake that hope off like the space debris it is.
Management has been discussing two star buses with Accounting, but we’re not that desperate. We’ve done well in one-man bunks for ages, and if the couples can sneak in bus nights here and there between hotel nights, people are content. More often than not, Emil and Zoe give up their nights to Nadia and Bo anyway due to Selena. That baby was all but born on the bus and sleeps like a rock as long as it moves, but it’s not ideal to have her crib in the narrow walkway of the main bunk area.
Tonight isn’t a peaceful night, though. You’d have thought that after a hotel night, Zoe and Emil would’ve kept it down, but they’re quietly grunting themselves into fulfillment in Emil’s bunk, while Selena’s calling out for her mommy in the back lounge.
The only missing disturbance is exactly what’s happening in this minute: Elias shout-whispering for Waris, and I quote, “to get her ass upstairs.” Yes, he has the top bunk across from Emil. Waris is at the bottom bunk across from us, and Aishe is below me. I sigh as painted toes carefully grasp on to the edge of my bed, moving Waris upward.
Obviously, there will be a lot of hushed snickering and so-called unassuming moans going on for the next hour. I want to stab myself knowing the girl of my dreams lies just a step down and she hasn’t as much as acknowledged my presence during this eight-hour drive so far. Not that I would do that to her. Bring her up to me. Embrace her. Feel her naked skin slide over my own. Make her feel amazing, loved, exquisite. Also, who am I kidding?
Three more hours, and we’re in Cleveland. Why the fuck is no one sleeping? Except Aishe. She’s sleeping, of course. I’d like to have a cup of tea with her—whatever. We’d just sit up front in the kitchen area. I’d steep some good brew for her and add sugar to her liking.
I’d watch the goddamn long-haul trucks roar by us while we chatted about nothing. It doesn’t even matter with her.
I’d comfort her. I’d laugh with her, and I’d make her soar with pleasure for nights on end if she wanted me to. Aishe. This freaking girl.
Above me, Elias starts on his whispered flirting with Waris. Soon, he’s cursing out an under-his-breath, happy surprise, then choking on whatever unmentionable awesomeness she’s performing on him.
It’s not intentional the way my arm droops over the side of my bunk. It’s reacting to gravity, though I admit to usually keeping my limbs within the frame of my mattress. But when the palm of a small hand centers against mine, fingers entwining with my own, I close my eyes and think that this night isn’t so bad after all.
AISHE
Settling into our hotel in Cleveland, my body is still buzzing. It’s the need of my ancestors, the passion, the desire I was supposed to have lost. There’s no such thing as “the love fire” I’d told myself a year ago. That was after what I felt for Emil Vinter turned out to be a hoax of the mind.
Today has been tough. So tough I almost wish I’d been on the crew bus, even subjected to Hailey. It started with Troy entering the breakfast area in Boston, eyes shining with memories of only a few hours ago.
Cold showers were for men, I thought. Men full of desire after a girl had left them high and dry. And yet here I am, leaving myself high and dry.
I’m burning again, Troy.
I turn on the faucet, letting the icy cold water splash the tiles. Undressing, I stare at myself in the mirror, find my feral self, seeing me like my family would, another woman lost to the woods.
I rake my fingers through my hair for some illusion of civilized. But then I’m not civilized anymore, and they snag halfway down. I’ll wash it. Massage in tons of conditioner. Once I’m done, nobody can see how wild my heart is.
As I prowl into bed naked like a cavewoman, I run my hands over my body. He’s there, in my mind, and he doesn’t want to leave me alone. He, of all people, should guess how I am.
He’s seen me at my worst.
He’s seen what it’s like when you let the wild cat out of her cage.
If I can’t stop, I’ll be sucking him in, devouring him like I did Emil, and despite the past Troy doesn’t deserve that.
I sigh my way through visions of him, of what I’d do to him, of what he’d do to me. I feel him deep inside of me like it was yesterday, but when I drop over the edge to ecstasy, it’s his eyes full of love and sadness I see.
I’ve shut my room down, two sets of curtains drawn and door double-locked. It’s early. Troll had arranged a common dinner for everyone, but I backed out with the excuse of a headache.
I pull a thick pillow between my legs. Embrace another pillow and burrow my face in its sterile cleanliness. For now, I’ve dulled the fire, but all I can think of are safari green eyes dimming with the realization I want nothing to do with him.
Don’t you see it’s for the best?
I blink tears of confusion into the fabric. I’m a screwed-up person, and normal people should stay away from me. The only one I can be safe with is my cousin, and Shandor is on the other side of the world with a different band. I haven’t even told him I’m back with Clown Irruption after what happened. When he finds out, he’ll throw a fit worthy of history books.
There’s a privacy-please sign hanging on my door. Troy knocks anyway.
“Can’t you read?” I try to sound mean through the door crack, but it’s moot when your voice breaks and your lip trembles.
“Can I come in?” His voice could melt stone. It melts me. I pull my nightie over my head.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say like we’re writing a Mexican soap. At the back of my dark mind, there’s still humor, because I half expect him to reply, Marianela, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.
“Where should I be, then?” he asks instead, and that’s good enough for me.
I don’t look at him as I plod back to my bed. “I’m a werewolf,” I say, serious.
I’m not surprised when he has to suppress his laughter behind me. He’s not doing a very good job of it either.
“Does it help at all to know you’re the most beautiful werewolf I’ve ever seen, and if you’re a shifter, maybe we could agree that you’re a werecat?”
“Where did that come from?” I thump back on my bed.
Again, like in some t
elenovela, Troy pulls up a chair and sits next to me with his hands folded.
“Also, you wouldn’t know the level of pretty in werewolves,” I mutter. “I’m about midrange, actually, among my tribe.”
He rolls his eyes, which is of course outrageously sexy on him. The man is heating me up under the covers without even touching me, and it’s frustrating as hell, so of course I start to cry.
“Aishe. Please, talk to me. What’s going on with you?” He leans forward and cups my cheek. His warmth floods me, skewering my body over the bonfire like some piglet.
“Don’t touch me!”
He reels back, the legs of his chair creaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” In my peripheral, his gaze widens with guilt. “Aishe, forgive me. I didn’t know.”
I curl up on my side, pressing my legs together against the heat spreading for him. Cinnamon and Artemisia attack me in beautiful tendrils, making me sob.
“Fuck. I so want to comfort you right now. What did I do?”
“It’s not you,” I gasp into my pillow. “Or no. It is you. You should have known better than to be around me all the time and be nice and sweet. I hate what you’re doing to me.”
“What am I doing to you?”
I breathe through pursed lips, trying to keep it together. “You make me forget who I am.”
“If you forget who you are, just ask me. Because I will never forget.”
“No, you don’t understand. You are forgetting, and that is worse than me forgetting. Remember what I did to Emil?” The question is a wrecking ball I shouldn’t have set in motion.
“Oh we’re back to that?” His compassion causes me to tremble. This pressure inside me, it’s so big, I can hardly hold it in anymore.
“Emil made his own stupid choices back then. Not to mention how that’s all long past. Look at Zoe and him now.”
“Yes, for them it is. I wish it was for me too—look at how I get when I’m obsessed with someone. You were there. You saw me. When I have it, when the love fire takes over, I’m just its weapon, and I can’t get away from it. I’ve been good for a year. A whole year!”
“And now you’re a werecat?” He angles his head sideways to take me in better, and I crave that kindness, every cell of his Troyness. I’ve only been on tour with them for days, and already I’m consumed with him. How did I not see him on the first tour? Thank God I didn’t see him on the first tour!
“You make it sound cute and funny, while in reality, I’m dangerous. I become something dark and bad, and all I want, all the time, is that person. That one person.”
“Dark,” he repeats, that small wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. “Bad?” A glitter of playfulness floats through his gaze. “I’d like to be the recipient of your bad.”
I swallow my hiccough.
Troy cocks his head, a sharpened squint homing in on me. “Wait. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me, because you’re afraid I’m that?”
“Afraid you’re what?” I ask to gain time, hoping he won’t put me on the spot. My truth is too brittle today, too easy to retch up.
“That I’m the person who makes you burn.”
AISHE
He’s been in my room for ten minutes, and already everything has changed. It hasn’t changed for the better. It’s gone from hopeless to abysmal. Troy doesn’t want to understand—I see it in his eyes. What is it with guys and not getting stuff even when you spell it out for them?
My tears have dried. My apathy vanished. I have a purpose, and that is to see this train wreck to the station without killing any more passengers.
Oh for him it all looks great from the outside. “I like this girl. She’s cool. She’s different.” Oh hell yes, she’s different. He was there! What amount of fucked-up does he need to understand who I really am?
“Can I explain something to you, Troy?”
His gentle stare moves over my features, quietly assessing me.
I clench my thighs together.
“That’s why I came here,” he says, simply.
I lift my hands to my cheeks, cooling them.
“Why are you flustered? It’s just me,” my new obsession says.
“I can’t stop thinking about you. No, that’s not even all of it.” I sit up on the bed in my effort to explain this right. I have to be truthful, completely truthful, in order for him to finally understand. “My whole body is tuned in to your station. That’s what the love fire of my people does to someone like me. It doesn’t let up. Doesn’t give any breaks. It beats in my blood, faster than a regular heartbeat, and if I could see its color, it would probably be as dark as coagulated blood.”
Troy leans back in his chair at the side of my bed, arms folding over his chest. It makes his pecs contour against the t-shirt, and the V it forms causes his shoulders to seem even broader than usual.
“For instance, the love fire just sucked all of that up,” I say, “the way you crossed your arms, frowned—and did you even know that your lips twisted a little as if they wanted to pucker?”
“Yeah?” He touches his mouth, but his surprise isn’t as big as I expected.
“Yeah. But that’s not the worst of it. The worst part for you is that soon I’ll start scheming. I’ll be a bitch to anyone in my way, anyone you try to have a one-night stand with, kiss, anyone you’d like to see because they’re sweet, nice people.”
“You’ll go were-catty on me?” He bites his lip, pink softness giving to ivory, and I can’t take the sight of him right now.
I shut my eyes, pulling myself together. “This isn’t funny, Troy. I could be your worst nightmare. I’m wired this way, okay? The only thing I can do to escape it is to stay away from anyone I click with, and that’s what I’m trying to do for you.”
“For me.” He nods, thinking this over. “And I don’t get a say if I’m ready for a cat shifter in my life?”
“Stop glorifying this. It’s an affliction, and it has a name. It’s called love fire. People die from it in my family. You love until you burn up and die, or until the subject of your love does.” I swallow, suppressing the casualties lingering in their shadowy ancestral gallery, always at the ready for a game of peek-a-boo.
“That sounds a bit fatalistic to me.”
“Superstitious humbug, right? Oh yeah, that’s why I never talk about it.” I laugh without humor. “Well, I’ve seen it firsthand, and it was the reason why I broke free of my people. I thought, ‘What if it isn’t hereditary? What if it’s simply infectious? Maybe I can’t get it if I’m away from those who’ve had it before me?’”
“Can I hold your hand?” His question interrupts my confession.
I know exactly how I sound, like a crazy person, and yet I know for a fact that ours is a real affliction, a mountain of grief to those of us who get it. His stare holds mine, and the hope I saw in it last night is back again.
“Don’t look like that.” My voice quavers, but I let him take my hand. It makes my heart jolt before it settles in, enjoying his touch.
“How do I look?”
“Like there’s something good about this.”
His calm greens drift up from my hand until they meet my gaze. “This affliction you have. This love fire…”
“Yeah?”
“Is there nothing good about it?”
I scoff out a laugh. “Unless you see anything good in burning up and dying, I’d say no.”
“Then...” He strokes the fleshy part of my thumb. “What you call ‘love fire’ I would call ‘heartbreak.’”
My room remains the same while the night runs darker outside the window. It’s securely bolted against the outside world, but a member of that world made his way inside. He’s still here, and he is listening.
He’s making me listen too. There’s so much wrong with him being here and the two of us talking like this, and yet almost
within reach hovers a dream. He makes me taste it, a teaspoonful at a time, and when I refute it like I’m allergic, Troy backs off with a small smile and offers another spoonful from a different angle.
I tell him he’s wrong, that “love fire” isn’t the same as “heartbreak.” He doesn’t believe me. I see this from the small dip between his eyes. It’s why I’m forced to explain the various states of the love fire and their willing and unwilling participants.
While the strong pads of his hand discover the contour of my elbow, he asks me about them, simple questions that make it easier for me to talk. One step at a time, a small one each moment. It is strange that it’s not as painful as I thought.
“So duxia is the state you’re afraid of. No one wants to contract the duxia?”
“Yes, it’s the lovesickness of the mind, and if the lovesick don’t get cured, they reach bruxiante. It’s the burning state of duxia, where the sick at heart gets physically ill too. Some wither and die like flowers without water, their minds first, their bodies following. Others die violently. My sister descended into bruxiante. She almost killed herself.”
There’s quiet incredulity in Troy’s gaze. He hoods it as he caresses my arm. All those months, we toured together. We talked, we laughed, shared board games, breakfasts, and shopping trips.
I don’t blame him for thinking he knew me. In the subtle curve over his shoulder, the way he cautiously leans over the arm I afford him, I read the skepticism of someone born in the west. I understand. I’ve lived here long enough. I would have loved to doubt the existence of bruxiante too.
Never in my life have I talked the way I do now. With my sister, my family, it was always implicit. Why would you lay out the details of something you were born with, the stories, the truths, the feelings, the disease rising around you when it was like fetching water from the well?
“But she made it?” In the tilt of his mouth, I see how he remembers her.
I introduced him to my baby sister and her husband when they came to a Clown Irruption concert last year. Troy saw firsthand the brand of her love-fire happy. Now, my smile opens at the thought of her too, of my beautiful, beautiful sister.