Been a while since I'd smoked, but it felt nice to be reckless again, just for a while. The tightening in my throat, the taste in my mouth, the faint head rush. Very Brady. "Can I take you to dinner?"
"What for?"
"I like food. I like you. Seems like the natural progression of things. You afraid I'll expect you to put out or something?"
"Terrified. But yeah, I guess it's a good day to let you take me out."
"Because it's Wednesday?"
"Because it's my birthday."
"Seriously?"
"I'm twenty-five as of three hours ago." He smirked around his cigarette. "But I'll be whatever age you want, sweetheart."
I kissed his cheek, threw my arm over his shoulders, and started steering him toward my favorite hole-in-the-wall Italian place.
*~*~*
He had a million and one stories about the band: Tyler and his OCD tendencies and preshow group meditation; the guitarist, Franz, and his hilariously crazy girlfriend, the leader of their groupies; Melissa, the drummer-songwriter, and her chain-smoking and nymphomania. Good thing we were tucked away in one of those tall booths like a couple of gangsters in a Scorsese film, or we probably would've been kicked out for disturbing the peace with our laughing.
I liked that he eyed the carafe of house Chianti with extreme suspicion before finally giving in to its charms.
I'd nearly finished my linguine by the time I remembered that he might not be who he said he was. I also remembered that he could very easily disappear if I asked the wrong questions. Priorities arranged themselves, and I asked, "So, really, that's what you do? You're a bass player?"
"Mostly. You've been the victim of both my occupations. Not qualified for much else." He ate faster than me and had somehow torn through a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs without it multiplying on him like a mogwai in water. His birthday tiramisu was already waiting for him.
"You like 'em?"
He shrugged. "I don't hate being a thief, I guess. I'm good at it, and it can be fun. The music, no other reason to do it but love."
"Could get a break. Make it a career."
"Fuck that." He laughed and picked up his fat wineglass. "It keeps me content until the cigarettes finally kill me. Like you said, I wanna go out happy."
Though I'd only downed three glasses myself, this seemed profound. "You guys are good, though."
"We're good at being a rip-off band, yeah. It's a great time, if you want to be unoriginal. You can only get a break by screwing the right people." He gestured with the glass as he spoke. "I like being unoriginal, and I like screwing who I want to screw, so it's not for me. That shit you said, 'To whom shall I hire myself out?' That's exactly what I wanted to hear."
I smiled. "I hardly ever say the right thing."
"You always say the right thing." His gaze dropped to his bowl.
I understood, since he seemed to have the same habit of saying things I liked too. But it still made my throat tighten. I took a drink to clear it. "Can I ask a serious question?"
He looked up through his eyelashes. "You can ask, yeah."
"Why Willoughby Spit?"
"Tyler's a spitter." He laughed with me and made a strange gesture, running one finger over the edge of his dessert plate in a half circle. "Nah, he's straight as an arrow. But there's this place near Norfolk called Willoughby Spit. We drove by on our way to a gig in Virginia Beach once. Thought he was being clever, seeing as it's his last name. You know, Willoughby."
"Almost clever."
"Almost ain't doing." And there was that twang again.
"God save us from almost." I considered asking where he was from, but when I glanced down at the square confection in front of him again, the plate was ringed with frost. I blinked, wondering if the dim light and wine were having more of an effect than I'd realized.
His foot hooked around the back of mine under the table, and he grinned at me, poking his tongue between his teeth. "We can endure anything but mediocrity, huh?"
"Who said that?"
"I dunno. Seems like the kind of bullshit lots of people say to sound clever. Like Oscar Wilde. Or that little fucker Rimbaud."
I laughed and went back to eating, and he tucked into his unusual birthday cake with the enthusiasm of a sugar-starved five-year-old.
Eventually, I got up to hit the bathroom. I was there maybe five minutes—okay, I was making sure there was nothing stuck between my teeth and finger-combing my mop of hair a little, I admit—and developed a plan to let our food settle before I dragged him back into bed. We'd hop in the car and head up to Mt. Washington, check out the nighttime view of downtown, and let him fall in love with my city's lit-up skyline. I got the impression he'd been in Pittsburgh for a while, so he'd probably seen the famous view, but he hadn't been there with me. And hell, I fell in love all over again every time I saw it.
But when I returned, I spotted the tops of two unfamiliar heads in the booth where I was supposed to be: one dark, the other dark and gray. The seats were high, but I could see Brady's eyes. He glanced up like he'd been waiting for me and shook his head once. Then back to the mysterious pair across from him.
Something alien and cold took root in my belly. I advanced, but the alarm in his eyes kept me moving slowly. It helped that he refused to look at me, even once I moved completely into his field of vision. His baby blue eyes were narrowed, fixed on the two men across from him.
One of them—the older man, judging by the roughness of his voice—was saying something about "—anytime. Open arms, Brady."
"Fuck your open arms, Jim. Look, my friend's going to be back any second now, so…" He made a "wrap it up" gesture.
The nearer man leaned forward so I could see his long hair, parted in the middle, the same black-coffee color as Brady's. "You didn't forget how to use your stuff, did you, man?" A definite Southern feeling to the cadence of his words, slathered all over the sound of a smile. "These sleepers castrate you?"
"You came all the way up here to ask me if I know what I am?"
Now the young voice lowered, got hot. "If you knew what you were, you'd be with us."
Brady leaned over the table, planting both palms flat on it. He looked a lot scarier than a punk in a pink shirt had any right to look. His jaw was set so the angles of his face, instead of seeming pretty, were mean and sharp. "Piss. Off."
"Maybe we should wait until your friend comes back," the young guy said. "Show him what you are."
A muscle in Brady's jaw twitched.
I'd had enough by then. I took a step forward—
And the table burst into flames. The plates had been cleared except for Brady's dessert, but it wasn't that or the lone napkin. It was the actual surface of the table, foot-tall tongues of flame licking upward like the goddamn burning bush, orange and white and blue by turns.
The sudden wash of heat over my face, perversely enough, froze me. Either they'd lit a match after surreptitiously soaking the table in gasoline, or there had been PCP in that linguine.
To my deepening shock, Brady only leaned forward, hands still on the table—nearly in the flames. "Knock it off, Mal," he said through his teeth. Fire shadows flicked across his face, lit up his eyes. In that hysterical "nothing makes sense" way, I thought he looked like some lovely infernal imp.
The young guy—Mal?—leaned forward too, and his hand was immersed in the flame. Orange, hot all around him, like his skin was on fire, and he didn't seem to notice. "You used to be fun, man."
The fire wasn't moving. They should both have been lit up like torches, especially this Mal in his long-sleeved jacket. Inexplicably, the blaze seemed to be dissipating in spots; it took me a few beats to realize that those spots were exactly where Brady had shoved his hands into the flames.
I considered screaming or yelling or throwing myself at him and pulling him away, but it was just so goddamn impossible I was halfway convinced of the PCP theory. It all happened so fast, too fast for me to understand. I stood there, enthralled.
&nbs
p; Young guy sing-songed, "How about you knock it off, Brady?"
Brady bared his teeth, and the flames died down, at least on his half of the table. A coating of silvery frost clung to the edge nearest to him.
The flames on the other side turned blue. The surge of heat slapped against my face.
"Someone's gonna see." Brady growled, jaw still clenched. His hands balled into fists halfway across the table, pounding down. "I live here, you—"
The air went translucent in front of him, delicate, sparkling patterns flashing all at once and then gone. It was like flying through a cloud in an airplane: a brief look at heaven, an imagined cold clamminess on your skin, and nothing but crystals left on your window when you're through.
The fire was gone when it passed. Brady slumped back in his seat, head hanging but eyes still staring hard through his bangs. He finished his sentence. "—pricks."
His skin, at least on his arms, had gone so pale that the blue of his veins was evident from where I stood. And Jesus Christ, was that frost on his fingers?
"So you haven't forgotten," the older voice said.
Brady stole a glance over their heads, catching my eyes again. This finally woke me up, but he gave another curt shake of his head.
Screw that. I realized my hands had been clenched the whole time. They were shaking. So were my knees. I hoped to God it didn't show as I came forward.
"Sorry, but this ain't your home. You just…" The young guy trailed off as he noticed me. I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye—unshaven, trendy-tight clothes. Scruffy bastard.
The older man wore sunglasses. Him, I recognized.
The table was unharmed. But the air smelled like a storm, crackling and extreme in my nose, on my face.
Brady hugged himself tight but met my gaze defiantly.
The interlopers spilled from the booth. The younger guy said, "Not gonna introduce us?"
Brady flipped him off. His fingernail was vivid white with frost, glittering.
I turned to offer them the ass-kicking of a lifetime—mind, I was still barely capable of coherent thought—but they were already halfway out.
Brady did about the last thing I expected then. He started shoveling tiramisu into his mouth like someone was going to take it away. "I guess you want to know what the hell just happened," he said around it.
Yes.
And no.
And, "Hell yes."
*~*~*
I forgot all about that silly romantic Mt. Washington plan.
He swore he'd be fine, but a shower would help him warm up faster. When he finished, he emerged from my bathroom scrubbed pink and gorgeous, the dark blue of his veins safely hidden again. His hair lay flat against his forehead, his eyes bright without the usual rings of liner as he stalked into the living room wearing nothing but his obscenely low-cut skinny jeans. Barefoot and long-limbed and still a little bit wet, displaying a fine trail of dark hair that led all the way down his flat belly.
He left his dirty clothes tied up with his belt in a little ball on one of the bar stools, then flung himself down beside me on the couch. Now I smelled my soap on him, but also somehow his own scent. Maybe it was the smoke on his breath. Maybe it was just his skin. My fingers twitched to touch it, to feel it soft from the shower.
It wasn't that I'd been scared for him, even though his arms had been as cold as a block of ice not fifteen minutes before. He'd been so calm about it, so composed, but something was wrong somehow. Like someone had held him up to a light and it turned out he was made of paper after all. Like I could see through him.
From a rational point of view, my reaction didn't make sense. I'm not really a cuddly guy, but all I wanted to do was wrap him up and hold him.
First things first, though.
"Much better," he said.
I handed him a sugar-filled energy drink. He'd said that would help too. There had been a vague and somewhat garbled explanation about energy expenditure and photon manipulation, but since it made very little sense, I'd concentrated on getting him home.
Now my head returned to spinning. A million questions. But which ones were the right ones?
"Thanks, sweetheart." He chugged half his drink and looked around, mostly at the bookshelves lining the wall, then the single candle on the coffee table, then back again. After dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, he said, "I don't feel like I'm in the same world here. Like your universe has different rules."
Funny, coming from him. "What's that mean?"
"It's this weird pocket of reality that's got you all over it. In the books, in the couch, in your bed. Everything smells like you." He leaned forward, put his lips against my cheek, and took a deep breath. Hesitating.
I kissed him. He tasted like citrus, still vaguely cool, but the rest of his body was warm. His hair clung wetly between our foreheads.
He closed his eyes and sighed. "Feels like you."
I reached up and brushed his face. "That bad or good?"
He turned in to my touch. "Good. Safe."
I paused, feeling his eyelashes flutter against my face. A mad butterfly, unpredictable, it could dive and swoop, ascend or descend, and disappear. Or I could crush it by accident with my clumsy attempts to help it.
Save it.
But if he hadn't wanted to talk, he would've gone home after showering, not come out here to kiss me. I asked, "So, now can you tell me?"
"Might as well go the whole nine yards." He sat up straight, took another drink, and threw his legs over my lap. Then he held up both hands. One held the electric yellow bottle, the other was empty, palm facing me. As I watched, a delicate silver lattice of frost crept over the bottle, up and up, like his glass after the show at the Flowers, like his food earlier.
What was happening in his free hand was stranger still. A tiny cloud gathered about his fingers and palm, thin in some places and barely translucent in others. He pushed it forward until it touched my arm.
The left side of my body broke out in goose bumps. It felt like walking through that freezing, high-altitude cloud. "What is it?"
He withdrew his hand, but the bottle remained icy. "There are some people—" He stopped and bit down on his tongue as if rethinking his approach. Then, "We call ourselves awakened. Our brains and bodies work…well, more. We do different stuff like this by manipulating electromagnetic fields. It runs in families."
"You, um, read minds and stuff?" It was one of those moments when I had some idea what to expect yet couldn't quite wrap my head around it once it was out there.
He smiled, but it was crooked and halfhearted. "No, thank God. Some people are pure kinetic—as in, we can either speed up or slow down the molecules in things with it, kind of like, you know, lasers. But invisible except on infrared. That makes for increased heat or cold, depending. Some people do pure electrical energy too—that's wild. Me, I just freeze things. Air included."
"Like Iceman?"
"I wish it was that badass." He snorted and took another drink. "I'm about average, strength-wise, but it wears me out when I have to take on both of them. Better now."
Still unable to completely fathom what I was hearing, I fumbled for something resembling an intelligent question. Couldn't stop staring at his hands, though they'd returned to normal. "Are there a lot of you?"
He chewed at the inside of his cheek, watching me in silence for a few beats. "No. We don't really have worldwide numbers, but we're pretty tight-knit on a local basis. We know each other—families and stuff."
"So, not like Iceman but like superheroes all the same?"
"Sometimes, but that pisses us off. We're supposed to fly under the radar. Sometimes you get good firefighters, park rangers, cops, doctors—things where you can use your abilities without attracting attention." A short pause, still watching me, weighing my reaction—which at the moment was to sit and listen intently. He flexed the fingers of his free hand. "But even then you need to have some extreme control. I'm below average in that department."
"We don't talk to sleepers—that's what we call the rest of you—about it. If it got out, it'd probably end really badly. For us."
"You're talking about it like we're different."
"You're not. Not in any important way. I mean, there are some physical differences, but we're human, I swear."
I smiled. "I noticed."
He licked his lips and sat a little straighter. His fingers warmed quickly in mine. "I know it's freaky at first. But it's really not a big—"
"I've seen you do it before," I said before he could dig that hole too deep. Back off, give him space, let him get comfortable, circle back around. "To drinks and things. I just didn't realize."
"Why would you?" He blew at his damp bangs and slumped again. Long creases appeared along his stomach where he curved in on himself. It was all I could do not to pull him close and trace them, feel him all over again, but he continued, "I shouldn't have done that in front of you, but I'm a lazy bastard."
"Never would've known," I repeated.
He squeezed my fingers, hesitated, then swung his legs off me. "So maybe I should—"
"When you touch me, are you cold on purpose?"
Another flick of his tongue over his lips. "Sometimes. To make it feel, you know, more."
"Yeah. I know."
A twitch of a smile. "Sometimes I'm cold because I used it on something else. It takes me a while to warm up again since I'm not very good at it and I hardly ever notice cold."
"Wow. That's…" I trailed off, unable to find the word.
He leaned forward as if getting ready to stand.
I settled on, "Awesome."
He paused, staring.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know," he said. "I didn't expect this reaction."
"You just told me you have superpowers." My eyebrows rose, as much in amazement at his issues as disbelief that I should ever have occasion to utter that sentence. "What did you expect?"
"Fear. Loathing."
"And here I thought you were smart."
Then, finally, he grinned and settled back into the couch.
Riot Boy Page 5