Love for the Cold-Blooded. Or

by Alex Gabriel

  Nick’s butt did make up for a multitude of sins. As did his everything, really.

  They settled down to eat right at the bus stop, balancing the box on the bench between them. It was a nice bus stop, so Pat felt he was doing okay on the date class meter as laid out by the West Sister Dating Rules. Hey, Pat had even thought to grab a fistful of the traditionally non-absorbent napkins.

  “The toppings are unevenly distributed,” Nick said the second the box’s lid cleared the event horizon.

  Pat stared at him. Nick glared at the offending pizza, completely ignorant of what a loser he was being.

  They’d ended up with a family-sized pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and ham, as well as extra cheese the baking pirate hadn’t charged for (Pat’s charm was legendary). In deference to Nick’s pampered palate, Pat had splurged and ordered the so-called ‘tomato treasure’ sauce, which was two thalers more and featured extra herbs and garlic as well as fresh tomatoes.

  The end result was a pretty yummy pizza that Pat was in the perfect mood for. He ignored Nick’s typically weird-ass objection and dug in, losing himself happily in a haze of cheese and crispy crust. He’d been right — the Pizza Pirates had been an excellent choice.

  He’d already devoured two slices by the time he noticed Nick wasn’t eating, and was instead trying to set the box on fire with his mind. “Dude. What the fuck?”

  Nick dropped the slice in his hand back into the box as though it were a dead rat. “This is an extremely bad pizza,” he announced in a carrying, sonorous manner. The frown he levelled at Pat was accusing, as though he suspected Pat of being in collusion with a horde of pizza pirates trying to poison him.

  It was five kinds of hilarious, actually, and Pat almost choked on a no-name mushroom before he could answer. “Oh my gods, you are such a dick, Nicholas. You can’t go to an all-night delivery service and demand the kind of fancy-schmancy gourmet fare you’re used to being hand-fed by your five-star chefs. This is a perfectly good pizza. You don’t want to let it touch your exalted tastebuds, fine. I like it, so shut up and let me eat it in peace.”

  “I get my pizza delivered!” The indignation in Nick’s tone gave Pat pause; he froze with his latest slice halfway to his open mouth, transfixed by the unpretty splotches of red rising into Nick’s cheeks. “I don’t expect special gourmet pizza, merely something reasonably edible. Which this pirate pizza is —”

  “Your pizza comes straight from your kitchen, where your personal on-duty cook assembles it from the gourmet ingredients prepared by your five-star chef.” Pat snorted in disbelief. “Nobody in the entire city delivers pizza with shaved truffles, nashi pear and smoked duck in under fifteen minutes, Nick. No pizza pirate would pander to your neurotic topping distribution requirements. You do not get your pizza delivered, what the fuck.”

  Nick opened his mouth to deliver a heated rejoinder, but closed it again without uttering a word. The glare he cast down at the partially eaten pirate pizza was accusatory, as though it had personally betrayed him.

  Belatedly, Pat realized that he’d probably betrayed too much insider knowledge. He could still save it, though. “Dude, you’re loaded. You live in a huge-ass mansion with your own helicopter landing pad and private dock at the river. Trust me, your staff does not order your dinner from Pizza Pirates. They don’t pick up your underwear model clones on the street corner behind the train station either, do they?”

  Okay, why had he brought those stupid model clones into this? Pat grimaced and put down his pizza, grabbing several non-absorbent napkins to wipe his fingers on instead.

  Nick had stopped mutely accusing their late-night snack of crimes against humanity and was now frowning at Pat in clear incomprehension. “Underwear model clones? What are you talking —”

  Pat waved his handful of balled-up greasy napkins to shut him up. “Whatever, not the point. The point is, when you want something, you just tell your staff, right? And they’re paid to make sure you get it, and that it’s the best money can buy. They’re not gonna order their billionaire employer’s pizza at the same place a bunch of drunken fratboys do.”

  “I don’t tell my staff, I tell my AI,” Nick protested. “I don’t even have — I mean, of course I have a staff, including a cook. But mostly I order pizza in the middle of the night, and — obviously, my AI simply knows a much better restaurant.”

  Pat was through arguing about this; he never should have started in the first place. So he just shrugged and poked at another slice of the inferior pizza, maneuvering it into position to be picked up and devoured with minimum mess and slippage. It was more than good enough for him, even if the cheese was rapidly congealing in the cold night air.

  The magnitude of Nick’s ignorance about what went on in his own household was a little surprising. But then again, when Pat thought about it some more…

  Rule Number One of being the perfect servant: Make it happen. Rule Number Two: Never question. And Rule Number Three: Be invisible.

  That was it, right there. Part of the entire serving heart philosophy was to stay unobtrusively out of sight. Everything in the principal’s life should run smoothly and be just the way he wanted it, and he should never be made aware of the effort that went into ensuring his every whim was well and truly whimmed. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Pat, but maybe rich people didn’t want to have to say thank you and please all the time or something. Not that this applied in the case of Nick, who was free of the yoke of normal social graces anyway.

  Obviously, hookers — pardon Pat’s language, companions — didn’t have the option of invisibility, but night managers certainly did. Pat should probably high-five himself for a job well done, considering Nick wasn’t even aware he had one.

  “Whatever,” Pat said when the silence grew too long. He shrugged at nothing in particular, mentally closing the subject. “I haven’t exactly eaten a lot of pizza at the kind of restaurant with tablecloths and candlesticks. What do I know, right?”

  “They come in take-out boxes just like this one,” Nick said, tightly. His tone wasn’t accusatory anymore; he’d come around to defensive now. “Most of the time they’re still in the plastic bag.”

  Okay, that really was weird. Pat had assumed the love for take-out trappings was just another weird rich guy thing, but obviously something else was going on there. “Did they always?”

  “Not always, no, but… I wanted to order pizza the way people do on TV.” Nick was hunching forward a bit, fiddling with his barely nibbled-on slice. “It seemed cool. I don’t know why.” A vaguely belligerent undertone swung in his voice, as though he were daring Pat — or maybe the pizza he was still glaring at — to make something of it.

  “You’re ten dozen kinds of weird, bro,” Pat told him, because it had to be said.

  It came out oddly fond, and Nick snorted and threw him a crooked grin. “Says the adult man with the Jaguar couch cover. Anyway, the first time I wanted to order a pizza was before the AI was fully functional. I called the front gate and told security to have a pizza delivered. They did, but it was awful. Worse than this one, even.”

  Pat chewed a mouthful of congealing cheese and herbs while he considered this revelation. What would Assistant House Manager Suze do if her principal wanted the authentic experience of having pizza delivered like a normal person, but didn’t like the plebeian taste of the product? What if, in fact, her principal was a crazy freak who wanted ridiculous shit like mu-ehrs, caviar and six kinds of extinct whatevers on it?

  Not a big mystery, all told. “Alright, lemme guess. Next time, the pizza was still in a box, but hot and fresh and delicious, not to mention featuring all the weird-ass toppings you wanted. And after that, every time you mentioned that you liked the slices larger or the toppings more evenly distributed, the pizza magically adjusted to your whims.”

  “I don’t see,” Nick started, and then didn’t say anything at all for a while. Clearly, he hadn’t just been clueless about astronauts and x-ray vision, but about pretty much
everything that went on outside of his ivory tower of tech, heroism and gourmet midnight pizza.

  “It’s like you’re the alien and not Star Knight,” Pat muttered on a deep, heart-felt sigh.

  “Star Knight doesn’t eat pizza,” Nick muttered resentfully. He wasn’t even looking at Pat, still lost in contemplating the amazing revelation that not all pizza was created equal.

  Pat blinked. “What?”

  “He’s allergic to tomatoes, and he gets drunk on the salt. Last time he accidentally had salt, he told Cassiopeia she looked like a thundercloud that needed to lightning up. Then he left her to her schemes in favor of trying to dance the tango with a weather balloon.”

  “Trying to…?”

  Nick shrugged distractedly. “Apparently it fought him for the lead. At least that’s the reason he gave when we asked him how he’d managed to crash into the Ace Tower.”

  Pat opened his mouth, and then closed it again when he discovered he had no idea of what to say. Wow. Cassie hadn’t mentioned the thundercloud or tango parts — just that Star Knight was an embarrassment who’d once again destroyed half the city because he couldn’t fly straight. It made for a far better story with the salt included.

  “Patrick?” Nick had surfaced from whatever thoughts had been occupying him and was now searching Pat’s face with the wrinkled brow of a particularly worried bulldog. “I probably shouldn’t have talked to you about that. Not that I think — it’s merely…”

  “No worries, man. Who’m I gonna tell, right? I mean, obviously I’m not gonna tell anyone.”

  Hang on. Why had he said that? Star Knight was one of the most powerful hoagies in history, and weaknesses as easy to exploit as salt and tomatoes were definitely not something Pat should be keeping to himself.

  But Nick let out a huge breath, the tense line of his shoulders relaxing once again into a comfortable slump, and Pat couldn’t find it in himself to regret his oath.

  Whatever, Star Knight would just crash into even more buildings than usual if people got him drunk all the time. The Ace Tower had been an eyesore whose destruction Pat couldn’t regret one bit, particularly since everyone had evacuated the thing in time, but Pat didn’t want to be responsible for actually important buildings going the way of the dinosaur.

  Pat crammed his mouth full of one last bite of crust and tomato treasure before ceremoniously slamming the box shut. Nick barely snatched back his fingers in time to avoid trapping them in the cardboard lid, and Pat caught a dirty glance as he stood up to fold the box (pizza remains and all) in half and stick it into the trash can next to their bench. He just raised his eyebrows, giving Nick an unrepentant grin. Someone who wasn’t going to eat shouldn’t have been touching the food in the first place.

  ~~~~~

  Nick was subdued for a little while, but by the time the next bus arrived, Pat had drawn him into an argument on which dinosaur was the coolest. Nick had chosen the super-boring allosaurus (could he possibly be more wrong?), and all he had to say about Pat’s clearly superior choice of the pteranodon was “pteranodons are not dinosaurs”. He even used this really superior, judgey tone. What was wrong with the dude, honestly.

  “Pteranodons are dinosaurs in spirit,” Pat argued. “Not to mention in common opinion. Ask anyone. You’re just trying to deflect the argument because huge flying reptiles with a beak that’s larger than your whole body are about fifty times as cool as boring, plodding old allosaurs.”

  Nick scoffed — no really, he actually scoffed out loud. He topped off this feat of lameness with a really snooty look down the side of his nose. “Not everything is up to popular vote, Patrick.”

  Luckily for Nick, this was when they arrived at their stop, or Pat would have delivered the crushing come-back he’d have been sure to come up with in the next second or three.

  Back at Pat’s place, Nick hovered awkwardly just inside the door while Pat retrieved his shirt, tie and suit jacket. Nick’s odd awkwardness was catching, so Pat went to take a quick leak and throw some water on his face. In the tiny mirror above his sink, Pat’s face was lightly flushed with alcohol and good company. The skin around his lips was rosy and tender to the touch from beard burn, and his hair was an even messier mop of curls than usual. He gave it a quick, half-hearted finger-combing before giving it up as a bad job.

  Nick had changed back into his own stuff when Pat rejoined him in the living room. The borrowed flannel shirt was folded neatly over his arm, and he wouldn’t meet Pat’s eyes when he held it out to him. Nick had really long eyelashes, inky against the skin of his cheeks. He was gorgeous, and Pat still had the taste of his mouth and skin on his tongue, the heady warmth of his harsh, unsteady breath in his ears.

  Should Pat be kissing Nick, or offering to make him a cup of coffee, or…

  Pat nervously rubbed his fingertips over the shirt’s worn fabric. He didn’t have a lot of experience with bringing hot people back to his place. Still, clearly Nick had even less experience with being the hot person brought back to someone’s place. In a way, that was kind of reassuring.

  “Hey,” he said softly, and waited until Nick had raised his eyes to meet Pat’s. He didn’t look shy, exactly; more uncertain. Pat could work with that.

  He reached out to bump one fist gently against Nick’s shoulder. “I had a really great time tonight.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said, with a half-second delay. “Yes. So did I.”

  And then Nick’s cheek was warm and soft beneath Pat’s lips, rough with a hint of stubble. A slight hint of his expensive cologne clung still, overlaid by beer and tomato sauce and the more subtle, natural scent of Nick.

  As he leaned back Pat’s breath caught slightly, for no reason he could easily name. It might have been Nick’s dark eyes or focused attention, or the way he’d tilted his head a little in anticipation of a kiss to the mouth; maybe even the curve of his mouth as it curved into a small, private smile.

  “See you soon?” Pat hadn’t meant to make it a question, but that’s what it came out as.

  Nick nodded with no delay at all. The previously military-straight line of his back had relaxed into a more natural posture.

  Pat reached around him to open the door. Nick didn’t turn around, but backed out into the corridor instead, like Pat was holding a laser on him or something.

  “I’ll be going, then.” Nick was still smiling that tiny, almost secretive smile. He looked like a moron, but tragically, it wasn’t a bad look on him.

  Pat nodded, and entirely failed to close the door. They stared at each other like the matched pair of morons they were for another minute before Nick remembered that he was leaving.

  When Nick glanced back before he turned the corner to the elevator, Pat still hadn’t managed to close the door, and was subjected to a dorky little wave that should have made Nick explode in spontaneous, embarrassment-fueled combustion on the spot. Since it didn’t, though, Pat had no choice but to reciprocate, although he chose the only cool option of fist-pumping.

  Okay, that had been weird. Not the fist-pump — that had been perfectly cool, and so by definition non-weird. No, it was the awkwardness, cheek-kissing and dumb smiling that was giving Pat trouble. Why hadn’t they had sex? Pat was reasonably certain Nick would have been up for it; had probably even been expecting it, seeing as how they’d all but boned in front of half a fraternity mere hours earlier.

  But… it hadn’t felt right, and Pat trusted his instincts. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have liked to have sex with Nick again — duh, he wasn’t stupid, and hadn’t lost his memory either. It just hadn’t been the right time.

  ~~~~~

  Dad called just when Pat was getting up from his morning nap. The connection was bad — it faded in and out constantly, and there was a lot of white noise. Even so, the excitement and enthusiasm in Dad’s voice was impossible to miss. “Your mom’s waking up soon, Pat!” he shouted, words thinned down to a crackling whisper by the connection. “Her old skin has already begun to slough away. She’s going
to be so terrible in her beauty! She’ll need a bit longer than last time since she’s much larger now, but we’ll be ready to roll in a few months.”

  “That’s great, Dad!” Pat didn’t have to shout, fortunately; the sound-proofing in his apartment wasn’t great. “Have you told the others yet?”

  “Yes, and Hell’s assured me everything’s going great at your end — she’s keeping everything running smoothly while both Mom and I are gone. I’m so impressed with how she’s on top of things, Pat. She’s going to be a great challenger in her own right soon.”

  It was impossible to disagree with that, because yes, Hell was amazing, and would obviously try to take over the world one day. Even so, Pat faltered a little at the familiar hint of hope in Dad’s tone; the tiny spark of expectation that maybe, Pat would spontaneously change his mind about everything he wanted from life.

  Pat knew his dad wasn’t disappointed in him. Not really, anyway. He guessed it was just difficult for someone like Dad to truly understand that anything could be as rewarding as being a challenger. He’d probably never entirely stop expecting Pat to wake up one day with an insatiable hunger for conquest burning in his chest.

  “She sure will,” Pat answered, with only a slight delay. “So you don’t need me to do anything?”

  “No, no, Hell has it well in hand. You’re busy with your studies, anyway. Oh, and Cea tells me you’ve picked up an additional job? I didn’t really understand when she explained what it was, though…”

  Pat was going to kill Cea. Slowly. Or at least lock her in the bathroom and blast her for hours on end with the most saccharine, insipid collection of 80s pop he could find on short notice. “Uh,” he said, eloquently. “It’s just — some more stuff for the Andersen Estate. They needed someone to do odd jobs from time to time, run errands and whatever.”