Rohan was back.
5
Rohan Mitra was 6’2” of broad shoulders, lean muscled torso, and a swagger to his hips as they propped against the doorframe. His dark brown hair curled in thick, sexy locks around his ears. It was almost as striking as the combo of his gold eyes and brown skin from his East Indian/Jewish heritage. Less appealing was the enough-arrogance-per-square-inch that left me amazed there was any room for his internal organs.
Thankfully, he wasn’t in full rock god mode, like eyeliner and a smile dripping with killer lyrics and promises he’d be only too happy to keep. No, his quirked lips, worn jeans, and untucked white shirt with its cuffs rolled up to expose strong forearms were more rock god casual Friday. That meant a sliver of my brain was able to keep functioning even if most of it was busy envisioning ripping his clothes off.
Or figuring out the most painful use of my magic on his person.
“You’re sputtering, Nava,” he said.
“It’s just… Did anyone else feel that disturbance?” I jumped to my feet, making a big show of looking around the room, brows knit together. “Like something just showed up where it wasn’t supposed to.” My gaze landed on Rohan. “If this was a movie, this would totally be the point where reality jumped the tracks into a horrible alternate universe and the main character, her hot not-boyfriend, and her dog had to go back in time and fix the original mistake that loosed this irritant upon our world.”
“Too bad you don’t have a dog,” Rohan said.
“That’s easily remedied,” I replied. “But good of you to assume I’ve acquired a hot not-boyfriend.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Ari scraped his chair back. “Hey, Ro. Welcome back.” He stood up and pushed me closer to Rohan. “Here. She’s all yours.”
“Hardly,” I said.
Rohan looked at me thoughtfully. “Can I do whatever I want to her?”
I glared at him with narrowed eyes. “Try it.”
“Define ‘whatever,’” Ari said.
“Geneva convention? Ish?” Rohan rolled his shoulder, stretched out his neck, and generally acted like he’d been upstairs for a couple of hours instead of gone for a month having kissed me, ditched me, then been all famous and not even texted me. On top of that, I blamed his existence for my kiboshed hook-up.
“Works for me. Eat then we’ll resume,” Ari said to me as he left. I’d time machine his ungrateful ass too, if I could.
“Go find someone else to play with. I’m done.” I rapped my fist twice against the table.
Rohan pushed off the doorframe. “You think that’s what I came here for?”
“I don’t presume to think anything about you anymore. I have better things to do with my time.”
“Right. What with the dog and the boyfriend.” Rohan’s voice was quiet. Upon closer inspection, which I couldn’t exactly help since he was only about five feet away, he had purple smudges under his eyes.
My heart gave the pained “awww” indicative of level one stupid girl. I hated myself for caring one way or the other about his well-being. Because more than I’d replayed the kiss this past month I’d replayed the look on his face right after it.
Like he wished he could take the kiss back.
He took a step closer, and I braced myself for his touch, but he didn’t lay his palm tenderly on my cheek.
I didn’t trail my fingers along the ridge of his abs, feeling them clench under my touch.
He didn’t clasp my arms to pull my hands away from my body, holding them fast as he propelled me backward, up against the bookshelf.
I didn’t feel the edge of the shelf grind into my shoulder blades as he pressed me into the bookcase, his body fitted in a hard, long line against mine. He didn’t inch one calloused palm along the delicate skin on the inside of my wrist to interlace his fingers with mine and I wasn’t enveloped in the scent of spicy cologne with an underbite of iron that was pure Rohan.
He didn’t nip the hollow of my collarbone. Didn’t slide his hand along my hip, dragging up my shirt for the heated glide of his skin on mine. And he didn’t kiss me hot and rough, his stubble rasping my skin, his mouth demanding, almost cruel.
I snatched up the paper airplane and winged it at him. It hit Rohan square in the chest before fluttering to the ground. “What are you waiting for? Official orders? We’re over. Finished.” I mimed breaking a stick in half and tossing the pieces away.
The summer Ari and I were thirteen, we’d been on this beach vacation, body surfing, when something soft had brushed across my chest, along the edge of my bikini top. A jellyfish. The coolness of the waves had ratcheted into a burning pain.
My first love bailing on me when my tap dance dreams had blown up had brought that same pain with it. Except more an incessant stabbing than a brief sting. A ten to the jellyfish’s six.
Neither a sting nor a stabbing, that look from Rohan after our kiss had smashed the relativity scale to smithereens.
To be fair, that expression had flashed across his face really fast, and I’d still been in shock from the kiss itself, so I could have been wrong, but the fact that he wasn’t arguing with me now about us being done? That he merely pushed away from me, his steady gait nothing like the whoosh that rocked me as he removed his presence from mine, leaving me bereft?
Score one, for me. It was too bad I was only right about shitty things, but a point was a point.
As soon as he was out of the room, I collapsed against the table, pressing my forehead into the cool wood. I dragged in a deep breath, but couldn’t get the air deep enough into my constricted chest to fill my lungs.
The antique clock mounted on the library wall ticked off the seconds. Saddle the fuck up, Nava.
Why kiss a person if you were going to regret it? Especially given how pushy and cranky he’d been about not getting to kiss me in the first place. And hello? How was kissing me regrettable? I was an amazing kisser.
I yanked the pen out of the mahogany table where I’d jammed in the tip like Excalibur. Even if he did regret it, basic etiquette demanded that he fake an expression of delight after his lips touched mine.
Now he’d returned and there’d been no “I’m back” hug, an “I missed you,” or the grabbing of my hand, dragging of me to his bedroom and banging of my brains out. Which I would not have allowed to happen but damn, watching him beg for it would have rocked. Nope, all that time apart and not even a handshake.
Or a “sorry.”
Had Lily met up with him in London? Were they finally back together?
Scorched, melted pen shards fell to the ground. I kicked them into a pile.
Rohan had found a crack in my highly-fortified shields and wormed his way in, eroding them with our growing connection, then blowing the rubble away with that kiss. He’d capped it all off by giving me the look of regret, effectively turning me into the fallout from his scorched earth policy. I’d spent the past month attempting to put out the fires and salve my emotional third degree burn.
No more.
I gathered up my folder and left, just in time to witness Rabbi Mandelbaum clasp a hand to the side of Rohan’s head. Seriously, was the rabbi staging our encounters for maximum annoyance? “Excellent work in Pakistan.” His eyes narrowed. “We’ll forgive your unauthorized playtime, yes?”
My foot squeaked on the floorboard.
Rohan glanced past the rabbi at me. He didn’t offer an excuse for his side trip. Not to the rabbi and certainly not to me. No, in his unrepentant gaze was the death of my faint hope that the sole reason Rohan had been in London was as some sort of mandated follow up to our Samson mission.
“Nava? You need help with something?”
“No, Rabbi,” I replied. “Everything is crystal clear.” I swept past them up the stairs, done with the she-who-pines-over-unsuitable-guy cliché. There was a veritable buffet of boy options out there and this girl was now all-you-can-eat.
“Stick this on.” I pulled a tiny round adhesive bandage out of my purse and hande
d it to my best friend Leonie Hendricks.
She rolled up the wide sleeve of her funky velvet dress, the motion setting her mass of silver bangles jingling as she slapped it onto the inside of her elbow. “Affixed.”
I stuck mine onto the top of my hand. “Juice box?” I asked, pulling an apple juice from my purse.
“I’m good.”
Ripping out the straw with my teeth, I spat out the plastic wrapper and jammed the straw in the box. I took a few sips, keeping the straw between my teeth. “Try to look altruistic.”
We strolled into the ballroom of the student union building at the University of British Columbia, currently set up for the campus blood drive. A fact gleaned from my dad’s text that had woken me up a couple of hours ago, reminding me to give.
Waving our Band-Aids at the sign-in table like a couple of nightclub re-entry stamps, we walked past the rows of students earning good karma through bleeding. I figured I bled enough on a regular basis for the good of humanity to reap the rewards of blood drives now and then.
“What’s your take?” I asked.
When Leo and I had resumed our friendship a couple of months ago after some idiocy on my part, we’d both gotten the shock of the century. Her at learning I was the first female Rasha and me that she was a half-goblin. I’d stumbled upon her the night I was looking for a demon informant. Leo was it. She had passed on a lot of good intel to Demon Club previously. Though none of its current residents knew of her true heritage.
Well, almost none of them.
I’d had to do some clever dodging to keep my brother from coming with me today as I went to meet with the snitch. Ari hadn’t been thrilled about not coming to meet the informant given he was “in charge,” but I’d convinced him that the snitch only trusted me and his presence would complicate things. Understatement.
A student volunteer came by, spotted our Band-Aids, and stuck a smiling blood drop sticker on each of us. “Thanks for donating.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “Where do we get our meal tickets?”
She pointed at the line-up at the far end of the ballroom.
Leo and I made our way there. “I can’t say off the top of my head which of those demons are in town,” she said.
“In that case…” We joined the line-up and I pulled a folded paper out of my purse. “These are the victims. Any chance you know either of the students on it?” I indicated the names I meant.
Leo blinked. “I do.”
“Brilliant. Who?” We shuffled forward.
She pushed her fall of red straight hair off her shoulder, her face screwed up. “Here’s the thing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Davide Garza? He went to SFU with me.”
“And?” I slurped my juice.
“He was friends with Cole. Harper,” she added, as if I’d somehow misunderstood who she meant.
I stilled, lowering the juice box. “This is where you tell me that you would never have kept in touch with that rat bastard.”
“I would never have kept in touch with that rat bastard.”
“I see.” I gave her my sweetest smile. Which maybe was a bit feral because she flinched.
“Next!” The bored volunteer handed over our tickets for a free meal and beer at the student pub.
I grabbed Leo’s before she could. “I’ll just hang on to these, shall I? Thanks so much,” I told the volunteer and strode out the door, slamming my juice box into the trash.
Leo raced after me, tackling me in the hallway, and smashing my cheek into the wall. She was a pushy little thing. “Gimme my ticket.”
“I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
She planted her hands on her hips and glared at me. “It’s a small campus and when Cole and I run into each other, we chat. It’s polite small talk, not detonating car bombs.”
“Wow.”
“The point is,” she said, “he was buddies with Davide. So if you called him?”
I dropped my head into my hands. As a Rasha, I’d had my fair share of trials. Made sacrifices. Calling my ex might not have been the worst one, but damn, it sucked hard. I allowed myself a count of ten and five deep breaths before I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and punched in the number that I could still reel off three years later. Mostly because the last four digits spelled “cute.”
“Hello?” Cole’s rich baritone had been one of his best features, at odds with his adorkableness. It had always given me a little rush. Still did, though not for the same reason.
I wiped my damp palms on my skirt at this first contact since our horrible blow-up fight when he’d walked out of my life in the waiting room at physio because he couldn’t handle my “dance shit.” Cleared my throat a couple of times. “Hey, Cole. It’s Nava.”
Dead silence except for the sound of a video game on TV in the background. I could picture his owlish blink of surprise behind his glasses. “Hi. How are you?”
“Great. Listen, I was wondering if we could meet up?”
“I dunno, Avon.”
My heart clutched at the sound of his old nickname for me. My name, Nava, backwards that had mutated into Avon somehow. “It’s not about us. I’m doing some work for my dad.”
“Yeah? That’s great. Following the old man into the legal profession?”
“Yes. I am justice system affiliated.”
Leo facepalmed.
“Anyways, your friend Davide? I’m really sorry for your loss, but there are questions about…” Wide-eyed, I mouthed “help.”
“A potential medical condition being missed,” she whispered. Thank you, private investigator bestie.
“A potential medical condition being missed that could have contributed to his death,” I said. “If I could find out a bit more about him, it might mean his family getting insurance money.” Dad always said people were open to talking if money was involved.
“Oh. Sure.”
“Great. Could we meet?”
He paused before answering with a reluctant, “I guess so. You know Beta house up at Simon Fraser?”
“Yup.”
“They’re having a party tonight. Meet me there around nine.”
I mimed shooting myself in the head. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” There was a weighted silence. “It’ll be good to see you.”
“You too.” I hung up, throwing the phone at Leo.
“Scale of one to ten awful?” she asked, catching it before it shattered against the wall.
“Six and counting. For the record,” I handed her a meal and drink ticket. “I hate you.”
She smooched my cheek and hustled off, my misery forgotten in her quest for food. Goblins had extremely fast metabolisms packed into tiny bodies.
Reuniting with my ex at a frat party. If disembowelment wasn’t an option, I couldn’t come up with a better way to spend a Friday night.
When I got back to the chapter house later, I updated Ari that he’d get to spend tonight around two of his least favorite things: Cole and frat boys. Then I headed into the kitchen and switched on the electric kettle to make myself some chamomile tea. Coffee would make me postal and I was jittery enough. 14,200 seconds until I saw Cole again. I stared a point on the tree outside the window to keep my mind blank, filling the infuser with loose tea.
I was assaulted with images of the greatest hits of our relationship, like our endless exchange of notes before the day I found him in front of my locker with a crumpled paper that he’d stuffed into my hand before racing off. I’d had just enough time to see it was a heart with a time, place, and question mark on it, and yell “yes” before he’d disappeared around the corner. He’d popped his head back around, a giant grin on his face, and given me a thumbs up. Or our first kiss in the snow under a streetlamp, after which he’d wrapped his scarf around my neck and I’d floated home. The time we’d ditched school one hot June day and snuck off to the waterslides, laughing and singing only the cheesiest of boy band songs all the way out t
here in his mom’s car.
The whistling kettle snapped me out of my failure of a meditative state. Waving off the steam, I poured the boiling water into my mug, took a sip, and immediately spat it out. The chamomile tasted of lawn clippings and Mother Nature’s pubes.
I fished a bag of berries from the freezer, dumping some in the blender along with vanilla yogurt, orange juice, and ice cubes. I flicked the power on, then broke off a hunk of cheddar, nibbling on it for my protein fix.
While Ms. Clara kept our kitchen fully stocked, being Rasha didn’t come with an on-site chef and I sucked balls at feeding myself. However, with Ari and me on an official mission, I vowed to take better care of my person. There could be no slip-ups on this job.
Thirty seconds later, I flicked off the blender, opened the lid and dipped my finger in. “Un peu plus.”
“You’re mad I didn’t take you to Child’s Play.” Rohan leaned his elbows on the counter, infringing on my personal space. Jeez silent ninja, wear a bell or something.
I took my time fitting the lid on the blender, scrambling to jump from memories of Cole to Rohan’s arrogant assumptions. “Is that the impression you got? Interesting.”
I jabbed the “on” button, my hand on the lid. Staring at him with a customer service smile. No wonder Ari pulled this cool questioning shit on me, because Rohan’s tight expression was intensely satisfying.
Rohan crossed his arms, waiting until the blender morphed from grinding noise to death throe wheeze and I was forced to shut it off. “Nava–”
Face impassive, I let ’er rip again.
Rohan yanked the plug out of the wall, holding the cord hostage. “I think we should discuss what happens next.”
I poured my smoothie into a glass. “Do you.”
“You don’t?” His bland tone made my hackles rise.
My hand tightened on the glass. “As I’m working with Ari now, you’re not my CO anymore. Plus, we’re done, so we don’t have anything to talk about.”
Rohan prowled closer. “I can think of one or two topics.”
I put up a hand to stop his progress, my motion bringing him up short a scant inch from my palm. Did his heart race as furiously as mine? “Such as?”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-3 (Nava Katz Box Set) Page 61