by Lena North
As if they'd heard him, they walked into the hotel next to the coffee shop.
“That was Benny's wife,” I said.
“What?”
“Benny. He's at Tiaso's every night, sobbing in his beer about how his soon to be ex-wife is cleaning him out in their divorce.”
“Is everyone crying in that place?”
I thought about it and shook my head.
“Not everyone,” I said, but felt a need to be honest. “Although a surprisingly large number of bikers seem to be very in touch with their emotions.”
“Yikes.”
You could say that again.
“Come,” I said and got up. “Benny is really sweet. Great tipper. We'll just take a peek next door.”
The hotel looked nice enough, but they had their hourly rate listed next to the reception, which I guessed would bring their Yelp-rating down a notch. Or two. Or maybe not.
“Heey,” I chirped to the young man half asleep behind the counter.
Great. A regular.
His eyes snapped open when he saw me, and even more when he noticed Elsa.
“Can I do you?” he asked.
“What?”
He cleared his throat in a way that sounded mostly like a squeak, swallowed and without taking his eyes from Elsa, he murmured, “I'm sorry. What can I do you for?”
“A million bucks wouldn't be enough for that, bud,” Joel grunted.
“God, I'm so sorry. I meant, what can I do for you?” the poor dude said hoarsely.
“Which room did you give the couple who just walked in?” I asked.
He swallowed again, visibly.
“I'm not allowed to tell you.”
Joel leaned forward and put his finger on the computer screen for a second. Having a widget friend was so fricking awesome.
“I didn't mean it like that,” I said. “We'd like to check a room out, see if we want to rent one.”
“Um,” the man said.
“I'll stay here while you go and do that,” Elsa crooned and peered at the poor receptionist man-boy through her lashes.
He immediately gave me a key and said, “Room four, upstairs,” in another squeak.
Joel and I continued to the third floor, and he pointed at the room the couple would be in. I pulled out my phone and slammed my fist on the door a few times.
When the door swung open, I quickly snapped several pictures.
Then I realized two things.
They were both naked.
And the man was a troll.
“What the hell are you doing?” the man-troll grunted.
“Sorry,” I said. “We'll just go.”
He lunged at me, or my phone, but I turned and ran down the stairs with Joel at my heels.
“Get that camera!” the woman wailed, and I heard heavy steps behind me.
I saw the receptionist's wide eyes as I sprinted through the entrance but didn't stop. I did not do this on account of the naked troll coming after me at an alarming speed.
Three blocks up the road, he was still pursuing us. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that he was closing in, but accidentally lowered my gaze and got an eyeful of his lack of undies, so I squeaked and turned forward again, increasing my pace. His breath indicated that he was rather close to having a heart attack, but he was also a troll, so I knew he would never give up. He'd just keep going like a goddamned Duracell-bunny.
“Take this,” I wheezed and threw Joel the phone. “Go left, I'll go right. He'll follow me.”
Joel nodded, and turned around the corner, disappearing down the side lane as fast as his long legs could take him.
I kept running but I'd never been one to exercise much, and I was running out of steam. Since Joel had gotten away with my phone, I decided to stop and try to reason with the naked idiot.
The stupid troll ran right into me, and I toppled over. He did too, and we suddenly rolled around on the sidewalk. I tried to get away, but being a troll, he was also slippery, so I lost the fight almost immediately. He ended up on top, and I tried to move which unfortunately made him do what trolls usually did.
He sat on me.
I flailed my arms and legs, cursing profusely, but he didn't move.
“Babe,” a deep voice said next to us suddenly, and I stopped moving.
Well, crap. What were the odds?
“Is there a reason a naked troll is sitting on you?” Jackson Vik-Hansen said.
I could hear laughter in his voice and closed my eyes.
“No,” I mumbled.
After that, my situation improved. Under the threat of getting arrested for indecent exposure and assault, the troll caved in and left us with a glare and a t-shirt Jackson got from his car. It was too small, and his sagging butt was visible beneath it when he lumbered off. I heard an older lady squeal when he rounded a corner, so I guessed it was too short in the front as well.
Yuk.
“What are the chances of you not telling Daddy about this?” I mumbled as I adjusted my clothes, trying to not get slime on my hands.
“Depends.”
I froze.
“You gonna let me buy you a beer?”
I straightened and stared at him.
“You're blackmailing me into a date?”
“Totally,” he said with a grin and a wiggle of his brows. “So, are we going out Saturday, or what?”
“I'm gonna have to go with; or what,” I said haughtily.
Then I marched off, and it would have been a fantastic exit from an incredibly uncomfortable encounter if I hadn't slipped in a what probably was a small glob of troll-mucus.
Jackson was laughing loudly as I crawled back up on my feet, trying to pretend that I didn't have my ass in the air and something both icky and sticky in my hair.
“Take a shower, babe. See you Saturday,” he called out after me as I rounded the corner.
Well, shit.
Chapter Six
Date-night
It was Friday, and I had the evening off, and I had the evening off because I'd offered Silenus that I'd work the next night, which incidentally happened to be the Saturday when Jackson Vik-Hansen expected me to drink beer with him. Which I wouldn't. Because I would be working.
Ha.
My Friday-night plans mostly involved a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and a movie where the main characters were idiots who misunderstood each other repeatedly but still kissed in the end.
I had a hate-love-hate-rinse-repeat relationship with chick-flicks that I was sure wasn't entirely healthy. I kept watching them, even though I groaned into a pillow for a significant part of the movie. Regardless of the level of groaning, I always sob-smiled as the happily-ever-effing-after unsurprisingly materialized in the end, feeling a little like when someone scratched me gently behind my ear.
Soothed. Comfy.
I'm part canine, what can I say?
I'd watch the movie with Grandma Hazel, who had offered to bring vodka. I wasn't sure hard liquor would go all that well with cookie dough, but one should try everything once, and it might, so I'd accepted the offer and told her to just keep it quiet around Dad who thought I still drank Virgin Marys. He thought I was one too. Not a Mary that is - the other thing.
“Hey, babe,” Jackson said as I exited the house in a pair of yoga pants and one of Dad's black flannel-shirts, which really was the perfect outfit for dough-bingeing.
And vodka drinking, in my experience.
I yelped and glared at him.
“You have cologne.”
“What?”
“You have some smelly stuff all over your neck, Jackson.”
“Too much?”
It wasn't actually. I'd thought the scent I sensed had come from Dad's shirt and had cheered his deviation from a lifelong obsession with whatever-shit's-on-sale which usually was Old Spice.
It had hidden the scent of Vik-Hansen, though, hence the yelp.
“Are you ready?” he asked when I didn't reply.
“
For what?”
“Our date?”
I stared at him, and while I did this, my father stepped through the door.
“Hello, son. Good to see you here, and on time too. Excellent. Excellent.”
I turned to stare at Dad instead, wondering if someone had slipped something into the coke he'd had with dinner. Or perhaps exchanged the mushrooms on his pizza for something slightly more exciting than champignons.
“Why do you sound jovial?” I asked and narrowed my eyes.
“I don't. I don't. Why would I?” Dad rambled happily. “Can't I greet my daughter's suitor on the porch in a friendly way?”
My what? He… what?
“Yoo-hoo,” Grandma Hazel shouted and approached us from the guest cabin, crossing the gravel rather gingerly since she was teetering on high heels. “Jackson. So nice to see you, son. And on time too.”
“What's going on?” I asked, when they simply stood there, beaming at me.
Yeah, okay, Jack wasn't exactly beaming because he was not a beaming kind of guy. He was grinning instead. Crookedly.
“We're going on a date tonight instead,” Jackson informed me. “Talked to Biff, and he said you had to work tomorrow.”
I turned my gaze to find him suspiciously blank-faced. Especially when one considered the humor in his eyes and how his tee moved a little around his belly which meant he was holding back laughter, but barely.
“Dad,” I snapped. “I had a small incident with a troll. He was naked, and he sat on me, and Jackson is using that to blackmail me into a date.”
There. Cookie dough and movie-night; You may commence.
“Oh-ho, son,” Dad said, still in that weird booming voice. “Sneaky. Snee-kay-yay indeed.” He turned to clap Jack on the back hard enough to kill any non-shifter, and added, “I might even say…”
Oh God, no, I prayed when he trailed off. Not a stupid dad-joke. Not now. Not ever.
“Sneaky like a wolf!”
Dad and Jackson laughed loudly, although Jackson did it mostly because of the look on my face. I was sure of this because the joke was so seriously unfunny there was no need for him to tilt his head back and laugh that way. It also made him look way, way too good.
“That wasn't funny,” Grandma said.
“I think it was,” Jackson said and winked at me. “Ready, Kitty?”
“We're totally ready,” Grandma Hazel chirped.
“What?” Jack said, and his head snapped around so quickly toward her I wondered if he might have given himself a whiplash.
“You know how it works, son. Way of the wolves,” Dad boomed. “Chaperone.”
Yeah, that had totally been the way of the wolves. Like a thousand years ago.
“But -”
“You wouldn't try to take advantage of my young, innocent daughter, now would you?” Dad asked Jack, and the boom was gone from his voice.
“Not at all, bu -”
“Excellent!”
And there it was again. Boom. It might even have been louder than before.
My hysterical laughter was unfortunately taken as me agreeing to the date, and before I got a hold of myself, I was in Jackson's ginormous truck. Grandma Hazel was in the back, but she scooted to the middle and spent the ride leaned forward, chatting about everything from the weather to how Jack's grandmother really needed to stop giving me the evil eye.
Which she totally did, and it creeped me out, hugely.
Jackson gave in halfway into town, which was two minutes after we left Dad's property, and started chuckling. He still did when he parked the car. As we were in the process of getting Grandma Hazel out of the vehicle, another familiar voice called out.
“Kitty!” Grandpa Hunter came lumbering, without underwear on his head, luckily. “I told Biff I'd be happy to keep an eye on you youngsters.”
He beamed at me so happily that I heard myself saying, “That was nice of you, Gramps. Maybe next time?”
Jackson barked out laughter, which Gramps took as gratitude.
“Absolutely! We're having a karaoke night at the community center. You can come then,” he said as he started walking again. “Have to go, hot date.”
While we watched, he pulled out a baseball cap which he placed on his head facing backward. It was a little too small, so yeah. It looked kind of ridiculous.
“Karaoke night,” Jackson murmured. “Won't that be fun, Kitty?”
I was about to start walking back to my parents' place when he deftly ushered us into Bubba's, which was the combined bar and post office in the village. He got me a beer without asking and handed Grandma Hazel a margarita.
Then we sat there, sipping our drinks in uncomfortable silence. I was sure as hell not making it easier for him, so I looked at the photos on the walls as if I hadn't seen them ever before. Which I had, and often because most of them were photos Grandpa Hunter had donated to add what he called, “Local color.”
More like local lunacy, I thought when I spotted one I hadn't seen before. There was a group of old geezers in it, all holding one hand by their heads, thumb in their ears, and in the other, they held what looked like small shiny balls.
“So, Kitty,” Grandma Hazel murmured between margarita-sips, apparently thinking that it was time to do her chaperone duties and get the conversation going. “What does a troll-penis look like?”
Jackson promptly snorted beer out through his nose. Some of it sprayed over the table, but most ran down his jaw, and he was so stunned he didn't even wipe it off.
I put my own beer down slowly and tried to figure out how to respond to that.
A weak, “What?” was the best I could come up with.
“Well I've never seen one,” Grandma said innocently.
Jackson silently picked up the paper place-mat that was supposed to protect the table from Grandma Hazel's margarita and used it to wipe himself dry. It was red and green, and it left colored pieces of fuzz all over his face.
I decided not to tell him that.
“Let's not talk about that,” I said to Grandma, who sank back in her chair, the picture of hurt innocence.
The silence stretched out again, and Grandma could apparently not let go of her curiosity.
“Just tell me, Kitty. Is it bigger than a wolf-pe -” she cut herself off when I snarled, and Jackson put the beer back on the table with a thud. “Okay, okay. No need to be testy. I'll just have to find out for myself.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
“It isn't bigger,” I muttered.
“Really?” she squealed.
She was suddenly eyeing Jackson in a way that made me wonder what else would come out of her mouth, and he saw it too.
“I bought a house,” he said abruptly.
“A what?”
“A house.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
I looked around the room, and he started laughing.
“In Nowhere. Just outside town, other side from your parents. Fixer upper.”
Understanding dawned.
If there was one thing my father liked more than the thought of his only daughter moving back to Nowhere and settling down, it was renovating the shit out of just about anything.
This meant that Biff Brown had taken one look at Jackson Vik-Hansen, ex-jackass who now was a police officer and the owner of a fixer-upper, and yelled, “SON-IN-LAW-MATERIAL!”
Hopefully, he had either yelled very, very silently or in private. Perhaps he'd held it in until he was in the rest roo -
“I was there,” Jack murmured.
“What?” I asked, hoping to God he hadn't read my thoughts.
“When he yelled, babe.”
Our eyes met, and he grinned.
And he looked good doing it.
Crap.
Chapter Seven
Jesus
“I'm working,” I said into the phone and listened to the sounds of silence my mother produced while she processed this simple sentence.
Okay, so I wasn't exactly
working, but I was on my actual way to Tiaso's when Mom called, and I took that as fate sharing with me that I could avoid having an extended conversation with her, something that never ended well. At least, never for me.
“Working?” she said in a way I found slightly insulting because it wasn't my first job.
It was actually my twenty-third, but that was entirely beside the point.
“Yes,” I said, and added, “Mom, I'm so sorry, but I really have to go.”
I'd gone for syrupy sweet and figured my voice had hit just the right note.
“You wouldn't lie to me, Hibiscus?”
“Of course not, why would you think that?” I asked.
I was totally lying to her, but she didn't know that. It was also every daughter's responsibility to lie to their mother at least once every day, wasn't it?
“Maybe because I'm standing next to your car?” she asked, and I turned my head slowly to look straight at the Az' crotch.
“Yikes,” I squealed and whipped my head around to the other window so fast I dropped my phone.
Yes. There she was.
I rolled down the window and smiled politely at her. The politeness wobbled a little when I saw her eyebrows. They were only half grown back, so they were stubby, and it was not an attractive look.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “Look, I really have to go. I start working -”
“Step out of the car,” she said.
I stepped out of the car.
“Hello, Hibiscus,” the Az said and raised one brow.
It looked really ridiculous, mostly because I'd had an urgent need after downing four cans of Fanta when I was six and ran into the bathroom to find him practicing it. I'd laughed so much I'd had to change my underwear, something he had been less than appreciative about. Both the panty-change and the call he had to make to his butler to ask him to tell their housekeeper to send one of their maids to mop the floor.
“Hello, Aïdan,” I said sweetly.
His mouth tightened in anger, but honestly, if he didn't want to be called, “A-ee-dan,” he should remove the diaeresis mark and spell his name Aidan like a normal person.
“Have you talked to your grandmother?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” I said because I had indeed talked to my grandmother many times in my life.