Diaries of an Urban Panther

by Amanda Arista

  His long lashes began to flutter and I pulled my hands away quickly, folding them together on my lap.

  Chaz opened his brown eyes and looked up at me.

  “You’re naked,” he whispered, in sing-song voice.

  “You’re funny,” I said as I helped him to a sitting position.

  He reached up the back of the head and came away with blood on his fingers as well. “Not good,” he muttered.

  “Do we need to go to a hospital?”

  “Nah,” he countered quickly as he began to stand.

  His knees nearly gave underneath him, but I was able to catch him. Extra strength really came in handy sometimes. And I felt extra strong. Nose was on overtime as I caught a full whiff of Chaz’s sweat and blood.

  “What’d you do to them?” he asked, looking around at the three guys on the ground.

  I had to focus on walking, on the rocks in my foot, anything that wasn’t the hard line of his body pressed up against mine, to get an answer out. “I dunno. But they’re still alive. And I seem to be scratch-free.”

  “Wow,” he breathed. “Remind me to send a thank you to the sensei.”

  Slowly, we wove through the alleyway, looking very suspicious as a girl in obviously nothing but a man’s trench coat and an injured companion emerged from a darkened alley onto the night street arm in arm.

  Chaz’s finger shot out and I nearly missed what he was pointing at. My shoes. I did take them off. I made sure he was stable for a moment, leaning him up against the brick wall and went to retrieve them, having to pick gravel out of the soft flesh of my foot before I slid the shoes on. I immediately felt human again.

  I also took a moment to make sure that my borders were back. I easily slipped back behind the protection and went back to Chaz. Protected behind my walls, his body wasn’t as hot against mine.

  “Why did they attack us?” I asked in a low voice as we walked out onto the sidewalk to seamlessly join a crowd of people. They shouted jokes to each other and their merriment only increased the shadow of our recent struggle as they covered our exit.

  “Maybe Haverty was ready to bring you home,” Chaz whispered as they passed.

  “What?”

  Chaz just shook his head, which surely made it throb. His face winced in pain as we made our way back to the parking lot.

  “Let’s go to my place,” I suggested. There I knew would be a first aid kit and a place clean enough to use it.

  He didn’t protest and even handed me the keys to his precious car.

  “This is a big step,” I said jingling the keys. “Are you sure?”

  “Shut up and drive,” he grumbled, but I saw a small smile play on his lips before the pain in his ribs made him crumple again.

  He was quiet in the car, looking out at the night’s skyline. I just drove. After having my first official attack and first official offense, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk. It’s something else when you realize that you are the power out on the streets, after so long of just being a nobody. That you are a force to be reckoned with, with your fists and not just your words.

  He was still a little shaky as we got through the front door and the oddest thought crossed my mind, which made me chuckle as I threw my keys on the foyer table.

  “What’s so funny?” Chaz said as I shuffled him into the living room.

  “You’re not going to believe me,” I smiled as I went to the kitchen to get my first aid kit and wash my hands.

  “Try me,” he responded, plopping down on the couch.

  I came back out into the living room and sat gently on the edge of the couch next to him, making sure that the trench coat hadn’t exposed anything. Being this close to him made my hands shake and my skin warm. But maybe it was just the adrenaline in my system.

  “You’re the first man I’ve had in my house,” I confessed.

  Chaz chuckled softly.

  “What?” I prodded playfully as I opened up the gauze and the peroxide.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why not?” I asked hoping that if we kept talking about my painful love life, he wouldn’t pay attention to the fact that I was about to put peroxide on a very deep gash on the back of his head.

  “Because you’re funny, and tall, and smart.”

  “But my friends are pretty,” I countered.

  He winced loudly as I dabbed the wound with the white gauze. I winced with him and tried to blow on it. Talking must have helped with the sting as he continued on with the conversation.

  “Why should that matter?”

  “I don’t know. But when we are at a bar, guys are buying drinks for everyone but me. You did. Technically you bought a drink for Jessa first.”

  “Do you go anywhere else to meet . . . new people?”

  “Didn’t you know? That’s why I was in the alley way that night I was attacked.”

  Chaz laughed and I finished wiping off the dirt and gravel embedded into his scalp. It had to hurt but he was taking it pretty well. I could see his fists clench on his lap when I hit a particularly sore spot.

  I continued talking as I still had some work to do. “And now what am I supposed to say to Mr. Right. Hi, I’m Violet, I’m an Aries, and I go wild once a month.”

  “Try. Hi, I’m never going to be able to finish a conversation with you because I’ve got six million people that go before me.”

  “You win.”

  I couldn’t tape the stupid gash because it was in his hair and I didn’t want to wrap cloth around his head. The only thing I could think of was a cap to keep the wad of bandages in place, which I excused myself to go get.

  Half an hour later, he was resting on my couch after a few Advil and a cold beer, which I had forgotten I even had in my fridge. I was showered and dressed in lounge pants and a zippered sweater and curled so tightly in my favorite chair I thought I might actually break something.

  He looked comfortable lying on my couch in his suit pants and a light gray North Carolina undershirt. “So are we going to talk about what happened tonight or not?” he asked before he took a long sip of his beer.

  “I’d rather not.” I wrapped my arms around my knees. “I’d rather discuss your obsession with college T-shirts.”

  He looked down at his shirt. There were a few blood spots down the front I tried to ignore. “Some people collect shot glasses from the places they visit, I collect T-shirts.”

  “You’ve been all these places?” I remember Harvard, Stanford, and now North Carolina. “You get around.”

  He just looked over at me with a raised eyebrow. “Just like you get around what really needs to be talked about.”

  I bounced out of the chair and started cleaning up after my horrible patch-up job. Nervous feet don’t stay still.

  Chaz fought a smile and licked his lips. “I was referring to the fact that you were able to shift when you needed to.”

  I had, without the meditated breathing or Iris watching over my shoulder. I picked up the last of the white bits from the coffee table and jammed them into the plastic bag I’d grabbed earlier. “I guess I did.”

  “Told ya you were the right girl,” he smarted as he took another sip.

  I rolled my eyes at his assuredness and headed for the kitchen. I grabbed the horrible smelling trench coat. I already had plans to burn it in some cleansing ritual I was sure Chaz could get his hands on. But I noticed a weight I hadn’t before in my desperate attempt to get out of it and into something that smelled like it had been washed this century.

  Putting the trash on the table, I held the coat at arm’s length and carefully patted down the sides. Who knows what I might find in the pockets? Doggie treats? What was left of a tennis shoe? Because a wallet with an address would be just too easy.

  “Whatcha got there?”

  “Something’s in the pocket.”

  Chaz looked over the top of the couch with a deep furrow between his brows.

  Grimacing with the thoughts of the sludge that might be in the po
cket of this coat, I slid my hand down into the left side pocket and my fingers brushed a moist paperback.

  Dropping the smelly coat to the ground, I looked at the book. It was an almanac. A wet soggy almanac. Nothing special. I thumbed through the pages and found one dog-eared page towards the end. I tried to ignore the obvious pun.

  As I opened to the page, a picture of me slid out. It was a candid Polaroid in the front of my coffee shop. I shivered. That opened up a whole other can of weird.

  Chaz’s warmth chased away the slimy fear crawling up my arm as he stood just over my shoulder. “What . . .” His question dropped off as he pulled the Polaroid from my fingers. “Well, I guess it’s official.”

  “What? They can’t afford digital.” I looked up at him. I needed some of stalwart strength by proxy.

  “You’re on his radar.”

  “I’m guessing that beating up a pack of wild dogs probably wasn’t exactly under the radar.”

  “I’m guessing those mutts were Haverty’s. He’s testing you, Violet. He’s finding your weak spots.”

  “I’m guessing that there is way too much guessing going on right now and not enough sleeping.”

  Chaz’s eyebrow rose sharply.

  “Whoa there boy. You’re on the couch.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes, and went straight for the coffee already brewing. It was the good French roast with a stick of cinnamon in the filter. The smell of coffee and pancakes had pulled me from my restless sleep.

  “Good morning,” Chaz greeted as he flipped pancakes on the grill.

  Finger up between us to stop any further notion of human speech, I poured myself a cup of coffee, put in my two sugars, and a splash of milk from the jug in the fridge. Then I took a long warm sip and leaned against the counter. “Morning,” I managed.

  Slightly amazed or slightly still asleep, I watched mesmerized as he flipped the most perfectly round pancakes. Did I even have pancake mix in my cabinet? There didn’t seem to be a box anywhere. In fact, the kitchen looked cleaner than it looked last night. Oh God, could he be a morning person?

  Bandages gone, the only remnant of the wound itself was the funky way his hair stuck out in the morning light. Still in the undershirt, he’d traded the suit pants for an old pair of sweatpants I’d dug out of the back of my dresser.

  “Did you know this is the first meal I have fixed in probably three months?” He gave me a wide smile as he flipped another perfect golden circle without even looking.

  “Show off,” I whispered. “Those look good.”

  “I thought you were a coffee-only girl.” He kept his voice low, pointing the spatula to my usual morning breakfast held tightly in my hands

  “Turns out a girl can’t live on caffeine alone.”

  Chaz chuckled and put a heaping pile of pancakes on the breakfast bistro set in the sunny corner. I slowly moseyed around the small kitchen space and got the syrup, again, that I didn’t know I had. Even managed to pour a cup of coffee for him.

  “Thanks,” he said as he sat down in the puddle of morning light.

  Chaz didn’t waste any time, pulling two pancakes off the top and drenching them with syrup.

  Slowly, I sat across from him and watched him eat. He had an amazing amount of gold in his hair in the morning sun. Guess I hadn’t noticed since we had more of a sundown relationship. A relationship where I knocked people unconscious to protect him. And vice versa.

  Eventually, he looked up at me with a guilty look. “What? Did you want me to wait?”

  I shook my head. “No. Your head looks a lot better this morning.”

  “Feels better,” he smiled before he completely filled his mouth with a forkful.

  I still wasn’t a breakfast person but I managed to cut up a few of the perfectly fluffy pancakes and push them around my plate with puddles of syrup running trails around the Corningware.

  “So what’s the plan for today?” he asked.

  “Work. I’m two days late with my part of a script rewrite. And I’ve got three blurbs due yesterday.”

  “What about last night?”

  I shook my head. My brain hadn’t shut off after I’d tucked him in on the couch and I went up stairs. Even the second hot shower that rinsed away the residual smell of sewer water didn’t calm my brain. I spent most of the night thinking up what to do next. Hence, the desperate need for coffee this morning. “Ever think running is what they are expecting? They are going to be looking for two scared people running out of town. They’re not going to be looking for a screenwriter and the gardener?”

  Chaz stopped chewing and just looked at me.

  “Well, I don’t want you to get too far away if I’m wrong and you seem like you’d be handy with a weed whacker for protection and lawn care?”

  “How do you know that?” he protested.

  I just raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

  His shoulders slumped, his eyes dropped to his plate. “I might have something to do,” he grumbled before he swallowed his cheek-full of pancake.

  “I’m sure you do,” I said as I playfully took a sip of coffee. “But what would those Powers of yours think if you let me get kidnapped.”

  “Fine.” His response was simple and casual. “On one condition.”

  And here was the catch.

  “I want a story.”

  “It’s a little early. Maybe after coffee.”

  He shoved another forkful of pancakes in his mouth and then asked, “The picture on the mantle. I’ll mow your lawn for the story of the woman on the mantle.”

  My mouth fell open and I felt the blood rush from my face. I shook my head.

  Chaz finished chewing and took a swig of coffee. “I’m ready when you are.”

  I shook my head again. I wasn’t ready for this; I wasn’t ready to tell anyone really. My skin goose-bumped with fear.

  He leaned across the table and the golden in his eyes danced. “Just tell me who she is.”

  Watching him, I knew that this was a test. Some sort of cosmic test. Like what happened last night was some sort of a test to see if little Violet Jordan was strong enough for something.

  “She’s my mother.”

  The churning sensation in my midsection lessened when Chaz leaned back in his seat and smiled. “You look just like her.”

  He stood up and put his plate in the sink.

  “Seriously?” I asked as I turned around in my chair as he put the rest of his cooking utensils in the sink.

  “Could be twins. Mower in the garage?” he asked as he headed out the back sliding glass door to the garage.

  I sat there for a moment, slightly confused. There wasn’t any crying. No painful backlash, not that I really knew what I expected. But he now knew more about me than anyone.

  I shook my head. Stop postulating, Violet, and get to work.

  My second floor office overlooked the lovely street I lived on. I could sit there and type all day and be happy as a kitten. And watching Chaz mow the front yard of the fourplex without a shirt on wasn’t hurting my mood any. So I’d just gotten myself a yard man. Unless there was some sort of underwear modeling emergency.

  Staring out the window, lost in all the other types of emergencies the modeling field might have, I nearly missed Jessa’s BMW pull up in front of my house.

  I jumped up and watched as she sauntered past Chaz as he took a long swig of water from the bottle, ignoring the woman trying to be noticed.

  I ran downstairs and opened the door before she even had a chance to ring the bell. “Jessa, what are you doing here?”

  “Now I see why you work from home so often,” she said taking one long glance back at the new gardener.

  “Yeah, guilty,” I said with a quick smile as I stepped behind her, shuffling her into the house quickly and closing the door.

  “What are you doing here?” I repeated,

  “A client gave me these, thought you might like them,” she said as she hande
d me an unopened bag of Godiva chocolate-covered espresso beans.

  “Thanks Jess. Why don’t you have a seat?”

  I sat down opposite her on the couch in my living room. Had to be a record for me to have two houseguests in one twenty-four-hour period. “So how have you been?”

  Jessa kept looking around the place, inspecting it. “Great. You’ve been pretty hard to find lately.”

  “Working on this new project.” I lied. Didn’t like the taste it left in my mouth. I’d never lied to Jessa about anything. Never had a reason to until that stupid thing in the stupid alley.

  “What’s it about?” she asked, seeming interested. But she was more interested in the reflection of the glass surface of the coffee table.

  I just shrugged. “Have to wait and see.”

  Jessa waved it off with her hand. “By the way, you look great. A glow in your cheek. Did you finally find a diet that worked?”

  “I’ve been running.” It wasn’t really a lie. Wasn’t like I could tell her that when I run, it fulfills one of my primal urges and helps me keep control of the panther that sleeps within my chest. But I thought that may be too much information for such a causal visit.

  Jessa stood up and looked around with a little nod, her long ponytail swinging around her shoulders.

  I thought she was going to move for the door. I thought she was going to leave and go back to her side of the world, back into her niche on the non-weird side of my life. I really didn’t want to explain the insanely hot gardener mowing the lawn outside. Hadn’t had enough coffee yet today.

  “What’s that?” Jessa asked innocently as she walked in front of me and to the other side of the couch.

  Her manicured hand reached under the corner of the couch and pulled out a white button-up shirt.

  My heart immediately stopped in my chest as I watched frozen as she unfolded Chaz’s shirt from the night before and held it up before her. The blood spatter was dark across the crisp shirt and I could see the shadow of it from the other side.

  “What’s this, Violet?”

  “Nothing. Just an accident.”

  Jessa dropped the shirt to her waist, from the air between us, keeping it clenched in her little hands. “When did you start wearing Calvin Klein?”