The Trickster's Strings: A Superhero Adventure-Romance (Godsongs Book 2)

by Jax Garren

  Her approval washed over him so hard he almost choked up. It wasn’t his money this time. It wasn’t that he amused her or she thought he was good-looking. She didn’t even know he was famous. She just approved of him.

  He swallowed and tried to keep any roughness out of his voice. “Uh, yeah. A michelada’s not really science. Just, uh”—man, he sounded like an idiot—“just whatever you want it to taste like.” He handed her a spoon and wished it were a better utensil somehow—which was deeply stupid because it was a spoon. But he was giving it to her, so he wanted it to be special.

  She stirred her drink, watching the tomato mixture thin with the lager as a smile blossomed across her face, and he loved her so much. He held up his glass. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” She clicked glasses and took a sip. “Oh, this is good! Sometime you’ll have to teach me how to make these.” With that she grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, looking as at home as he wanted her to, and poured in the queso. “How much is your trainer going to kill you?” she teased. “And what’s the miniature spaceship on the counter?” She held up her hand near the air fryer, as if testing it for heat.

  “French fries. Almost done. That basket comes out.”

  She nodded as if impressed and managed to carry her beer, her michelada, and the queso into the living area. “Well, they’d better be ready soon, or I’m eating queso off my fingers! What’re we watching?” After setting her stuff down, she picked up the wrong remote and hit buttons, changing David Bowie to a piano concerto. “Ack!”

  “Other remote.”

  She picked up another wrong one.

  “Other other.”

  Finally the right one. The fries dinged, and he hid a smile as he dumped them in another bowl while she managed to get the television on, then stared at the remotes again. “All right, Mr. Money-and-Tech, can you get us a TV where I can just say, ‘Netflix,’ and it happens?”

  He picked up the correct remote, held down the voice-control button, and said, “Netflix.” The app opened on the TV. “Voila.” She shot him a narrow-lidded glare as he turned off the music with a grin. “What are we watching? Comedy? Action? Horror?” he read off as he scrolled through movies listed by genre.

  “Not unless you want me on your lap!” she announced, stuffing fries into her face.

  “Horror it is,” he joked, pausing on some awful-looking creepfest that he would never watch.

  “Cool. Not that one, though, it sucked,” she said. “You make good queso!”

  “Mercedes makes good queso. I got it from, uh...” He tried to keep his voice steady as his stomach knotted up a bit. “Seriously? You want to watch a horror movie?” Please say no.

  She snatched the remote from him. “Sure. I’m up for whatever.” She scrolled across the horror movie list. “I had a foster in middle school who loved these. I’ve seen... oh, lords, all of them.” Somehow she managed to stuff more fries in her face while scrolling the TV and patting the couch beside her, which should take three hands.

  Or maybe he was so focused on figuring out a suave way to get out of watching a scary movie he’d missed something. He did plop down beside her and take a purposefully casual sip of his michelada. “I haven’t seen many of these.”

  “Get Out?” He shook his head. “Scream?” More shaking. “Exorcist? Seriously?”

  His face heated, hopefully not enough that she could tell. “Nope.” He pointed to the screen as she flicked past another one. “I saw Sixth Sense. That was pretty good.”

  “Not really horror, though. I mean, scary but not... Wait a minute...” she said, voice full of suspicion as she looked at him incredulously.

  “Uh-huh?” he managed blandly, then poured more beer into his drink. Maybe he could have two beers. Two beers sounded great.

  “Are you okay with horror movies? We don’t have to watch one if you’re sca—I mean, if you don’t like them.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Gauntlet thrown. No way he was going to be chickenshit about a movie in front of Freyja after everything she’d faced—and fought—in reality this week. He settled back casually in the corner of the sofa, wishing he could untie the knots in his stomach as easily as he could force his shoulders to relax, and popped a french fry into his mouth. “No, I’m cool. But if you need it, my lap’s right here.” He gestured to his legs and winked with more douchey bravado than he normally allowed himself.

  Her brow lifted like he’d issued a challenge. “All right.” Without looking at the TV, she held down the scroll button, then looked after she’d lifted her finger. “Nightmare on Elm Street. Classic. Not bad.” She hit play.

  Oh shit. His pulse started to pound with the irrational fear that’d embarrassed him since elementary school—freaking kids watched these. But he hated horror movies. Lyssa had figured that out when he was thirteen and been fucking merciless. This was going to be awful.

  The music kicked in, and oh gods... awful with a score done by synthesizer? Terrifying and offensive.

  When the iconic knife-glove appeared on the screen, Freyja hopped up and turned out the lights, plunging the room into darkness. “Sure you don’t want to sit in my lap?” he asked hopefully. Because that might make this bearable.

  She laughed, easygoing and seeming not the least bit afraid. “I was kidding. I’m not sitting in your lap.”

  Dammit. Did he man up and watch it? Or man up and ask for a different movie? Bravery or humility... he was usually better at the former, but as a teenage girl walked down an onscreen alley she was probably going to die bloody in, he started to think this might be an occasion to try out the latter.

  Freyja plopped down onto the couch next to him and shot him a shy smile. “But if you don’t mind”—she shoved his sprawled legs together, rearranging his position until she could sidle up next to him—“this one scared me a little, so I wouldn’t mind watching with moral support.” Despite her casual laughter, she tensed up as she looked at the screen.

  Her hair smelled good. He draped his arm across the back of the couch behind her. Something jumped on the screen—he was studiously not paying attention—and her hand landed on his chest, gripping his T-shirt as her body crammed up against his side.

  Deciding her bare shoulders were a far better spot for his arm than the couch back, he curled it around her, tucking her closer against him—something he likely wouldn’t get to do with a comedy.

  She glanced up at him nervously, and he caught her gaze. “Is this—” they both started at the same time.

  He laughed, easing some of the tension that the horror movie had caused. “Go ahead.”

  Her usually prim expression turned the closest thing to impish he’d ever seen, and he loved it. “Horror movies are a group activity. You watch them and pile together like screaming puppies. That’s cool with you, right? We can watch something else. I’m not trying to, like, crowd your space or anything.”

  Please crowd my space. We don’t need space. Or rules. Or clothes. “This is cool.” If it hadn’t been Freyja, he’d have thought she was hitting on him, with the way her fingers dug into his chest and her hips pressed against his.

  Her grin turned nostalgic, and she bumped his shoulder with her head. “Every now and then at Holy Book, we, the older teens, would convince them to let us watch one. Those are some of my favorite memories of the place, popcorn and five or six of us piled on a couch shrieking and laughing on a Friday night.”

  No, she wasn’t hitting on him. She was sharing her life with him. He squeezed her tighter as some of his fear eased. He wasn’t going to like the movie, but he’d watch it because that made him part of her good memories. If he got scared, he’d just stick his face in her hair and close his eyes until whatever was happening was over. He took a deep breath. He could do this for her. No, for them. It would be worth it.

  Ten minutes later, despite her earlier protests, his reserved goddess was on his lap, clutching his shirt with one hand and swigging beer with the other as she shouted at the TV screen. For the first t
ime in his life, he was damned happy to be watching a horror movie.

  Chapter 36

  YOU’RE GOING TO GET your ass in trouble, girl. But Giselle couldn’t seem to keep her hands to herself tonight. After the elevator ride up to the top floor of the building, she’d stood for an inordinate amount of time in the small but opulent hallway between the lair and Rafael’s condo, a change of clothes in her backpack, and she’d had the weirdest realization.

  She’d told herself that her relationship with Coyote wasn’t real, that the mask inherently made them fake. But looking at the two doors, she couldn’t deny that he was a helluva lot more real than any rock star fantasies spun by a teenager who needed something to cling to. And sure, Rafael was as sweet and as endearing in real life as he’d been in her imagination—how amazing was that? And if he ever did ask her out, she’d say yes. Of course she would; he was Rafael fucking Marquez, and she liked the real him a lot. He was a good man. But the reality was that they were just friends. Hell, he was sorta her employer now.

  The other reality was she’d used seven dollars of that fifty he’d paid her to buy a new-to-her shirt so she could look pretty for the man who’d gone to Kur for her. Much as letting her guard down terrified her, maybe it wouldn’t be a stupid thing to loosen her grip a little around Coyote and see what happened.

  Maybe the stupid thing would be not giving it a chance. Scary. But the nerves inside her mixed with excitement.

  With that thought catapulting her forward, two hours and a cheesy horror flick later, she found herself on Coyote’s lap. The ridiculous man—who might be terrified of horror movies, which just cracked her up—had french fries between his knuckles, waving them around like Freddy Krueger’s knives as she laughed more than she could ever remember laughing while the credits rolled behind her.

  Despite his earlier nerves—she’d almost taken pity on him and picked a comedy, before he’d made an asshole comment about his lap—he was grinning like he ate horror for breakfast.

  “Wait!” She grabbed his wrist, holding it still so she could eat one of the knife-fries.

  “Hey!” he protested. “There’s a bowl full of perfectly good...” He trailed off as she bit into a second one, and her mouth brushed a little closer to his fingers than she’d intended.

  Face heating, she leaned back to pop the whole french fry into her mouth.

  He studied her face like he had something he wanted to say. “I’m turning the synth off. It’s killing me. Worse than knives.” She was pretty sure that wasn’t whatever he was thinking. He popped one knife-fry into his mouth, fed her the last one casually, and secured her against his torso as he leaned over to pick up one of the ten thousand or so remotes underneath the coffee table.

  A couple button presses and the horror soundtrack was replaced with “I Want to Know What Love Is,” presumably off whatever oldies station he’d been playing when she’d come in. She cleared her throat, suddenly feeling shy. “I didn’t realize you were such a classic rock aficionado. I wish I’d seen your whole show for the Big E.”

  He chuckled at her nickname for Ereshkigal. “I’ll play for you sometime, if you want.” His gaze turned down, like the guy who’d brashly played for a goddess while wearing nothing but a shawl around his ass was somehow nervous at the thought of playing for her. “Did I hear correctly that you play guitar too? We could do a duet. You have a nice voice.”

  Her face heated uncomfortably. “I don’t play like you do. I just figured out a few chords—enough to play a couple songs.” It would be fun to make music with him, if the difference in their abilities wasn’t so damn embarrassing. She really had been wrong about him.

  He bounced a little in that precious, excited-puppy way he had when he had an idea. “I could teach you more if you want. You teach me to punch. I’ll teach you to play.”

  “I think you just described our entire relationship.” She chuckled. “But that would be pretty cool. I’d like to be a better musician. I love music.”

  “I do too.” His hand dragged up and down her arm so slowly she didn’t think he realized he was doing it. But the feel of his hand made her skin feel tight. His gaze traveled to her mouth, and her breath caught.

  She swallowed. “Had a chance to start your song for her?”

  His gaze popped up to hers, like he was paying attention, even if his fingers kept sliding lazily up her bicep. “Yeah, actually. Got a little feedback from a friend, but it’s still a work in progress.” He frowned, suddenly serious. “I plan to talk to Bryn about how to contact... I like ‘Big E,’ that’s a good name. I want to make sure the goddess actually hears it, and that probably means more than, I dunno, playing it to a candle or something. I hope you’re okay with that. I need to get this right, and that means talking to the expert.”

  “Consult away. She’s going to be an amazing resource.” Giselle leaned in to his touch, taking comfort from it. “Ande insisted I give her a little time to adjust before we meet up. But I imagine you seeing her is not going to bring up as many crazy-making emotions.” She frowned, contemplating her next words. “She seems to really like you.” It shouldn’t matter to her what Bryn thought—it wasn’t like they knew each other anymore. But it did matter.

  “Feeling’s mutual.” He tugged on one of her braids. “Missed one.” He’d spent a chunk of the film unplaiting her hair, insisting he needed to keep his hands busy so he didn’t eat all the fries. At first she’d thought he was just making excuses to touch her, then she’d remembered the rock-solid feel of his abs—his real ones—when she’d retrieved the godstone out of his pants. Nobody got those abdominals without hard work and forgoing a lot of french fries.

  His hands made quick work of the last little braid, and she realized she was still sitting on his lap. For absolutely no reason. She should probably get off.

  His lap. Not, like, get off get off. How would she even do that just sitting on his lap? Besides by looking at how beautiful he was, with his thick hair and full mouth and perfect jawline. Oh, and remembering what it felt like to have her hands down his pants and... oh lords, she needed off his lap.

  “Freyja?” He smiled like he could read her mind

  “Huh?” She licked her lips nervously and tried to slide backward. Which wedged her between his thigh and the couch arm.

  “Everything okay?” He looked more amused than concerned, which irritated her because clearly the hot boy realized he was affecting her with the proximity of his hotness.

  Egomaniac. In her head, she told him off—something pithy, like pointing to the giant space on the couch beside him while she asked why he needed all that room. Her mouth, though, said, “We’re not having sex tonight.”

  The teasing smile became a full-blown wolf’s grin, and she hid her face in horrified shame. He said, “Good thing I didn’t put that on my agenda.” But the hungry growl in his voice said he’d sure thought about it.

  “I don’t know why I said that. I mean, I totally meant it. We’re not doing that tonight.” She tried sounding stern as she looked up at him, but he didn’t look the least discouraged. If anything, he looked giddy. “What are you grinning about? I mean it!”

  He put a hand in the air like he was protesting his innocence. “I believe you. We’re not having sex. Tonight.”

  Her mouth went dry as she realized the error in her specificity. “Or tomorrow.”

  “Or tomorrow.” He pulled her back more firmly onto his lap, where she felt surprisingly secure considering the internal freak-out that insisted she eject herself from this situation. “You have an unreasonably low expectation of my patience.”

  “Or this week! Or maybe this month!”

  His eyes lit up even more. “Maybe, huh?”

  Her face was so hot she thought it could ignite the logs stacked beside the fireplace. “You don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m not one of your not-a-girlfriend girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—you do you. And them apparently, lots of thems. But I’m not... I don’t..
. You don’t even know half the things that’ve happened, what I’ve done.”

  Some of the glow dimmed from his expression at that, and he ran a hand through her hair. “When you’re ready—if you ever are—you can tell me.”

  “No, you don’t get it. I’m not easy.” She smashed her hands against her face. “I don’t mean easy like easy to get in bed, I mean easy like...” Her shoulders felt like rocks as her voice shook. This happy interlude with him wasn’t going to go well—it definitely wasn’t going to end well. He was way too put together to put up with her for long.

  He took her hands and kissed her knuckles. “I don’t want easy. I want you. Complicated, slow-as-you-need, horror-watching, bad-guy-punching, crazy-history, queso-hoovering you, partner.”

  She swallowed. Getting in a relationship with Coyote hadn’t been the plan. It was still strange to think of having any sort of relationship with someone whose name she didn’t know and whose face she’d never seen. And while she liked him, a handsome, rich guy sweeping her off her feet wasn’t love.

  And it didn’t change that she really wanted to go out with Rafael if he ever asked.

  Still... Loosen your grip, girl. Give him a chance. He’d earned it. She bit her lower lip, unsure what to say, so she said something inconsequential. “I didn’t hoover all the queso.” They both looked at the near-empty bowl, of which he’d had some. Not much. “Just most of it.”

  He squeezed her hands, his smile in place, but it was nervous—if he could ever be described as less than perfectly confident. He was waiting for her to say something.

  And she needed to. She was so used to telling guys what they wanted to hear. It was safer. But she couldn’t quite lie to Coyote like that. And if he reacted badly, well, then fuck him. She was done shutting up for men. Still, she disentangled herself from his hands. He looked so disappointed as she scooted across the couch, giving herself some distance, just in case he didn’t understand that honesty was a form of respect. “There’s this guy, I’ve known him for a long time—before I met you.” Known of him, anyway. And technically she did meet Rafael first—sort of—in English class. But Coyote didn’t need to know that she was stupid enough to be infatuated with a famous person.