Adelaide Upset (16 page)

I waited patiently until
it was time to go, knowing that I would be late for work. It wasn’t
until the ride back that I finally asked Francesca for a
favor.

“
Another
one?
”

I didn’t begrudge her
that. After the last one, she was right to be worried. “It’s not a
big deal,” I promised. “I just want you to give something to
Stephen.”

“
What is it?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t
matter what, anything, you decide. Ask him to hold it for you,
like, a loan or something.”

“
Alright,” she agreed,
feeling puzzled. “But I swear, if you pull weird shit like this
during the wedding preparation I’m going to ask my cousin to be the
maid of honor.”

“
Man-shoulders Melissa?
You wouldn’t dare.”

Ben was in the office when
I arrived. He never stayed behind the front desk unless he was
waiting to nab me for being late, which I was by more than an hour.
He blew up, ranting until the steam ran out and then, unbent and
feeling better, he finally went home, earlier than usual I might
add.

Stephen came in some time
later to report that Francesca had stopped by. Apparently she
pulled up to the room he’d been cleaning and honked until he popped
out to see what was what. Waving him over, she handed him a penny,
saying to hold on to it, a loan until she asked for it back. When
he questioned her, obviously finding her behavior odd, she just
shrugged and said, “I’ll be damned if I know what it’s all
about.”

You could say my plan
backfired, but I didn’t admit that to Stephen when he gave me a
gentle but probing look. “What would I know about it?” I asked.
“She didn’t stop to see me.”

After work I downed a
substantial amount of Vicks syrup, closing myself inside the closet
where I could read until I felt its effects take hold.

The warmongers
throughout history were an easy target which I used to search out
demon influence, but through my explorations I discovered their
less obvious presence. It flickered through myth, stories carrying
a germ of truth, the subtlest hint of a demon’s touch. There was
Hades, Greek god of the ancient underworld. It was said that he
‘enriches himself with our sighs and our tears.’ In their effort to
appease Hades, his followers would sacrifice black animals, usually
sheep, and bang their hands to the ground so he would hear them. As
demons were stuck in a realm of their own, with no physicality
about them, their power structure remained in stasis. Their leader,
the one who had separated them from the rest, continued on as the
most forceful figure among them, wielding charisma and clever
plots, while those close to him fell slightly lower on the totem
pole. Hades may or may not have been one such creature. It is
plausible, and I conclude that once he breached the veil, he used
his considerable intelligence to set himself above the most
powerful of men, above even kings, making himself a death deity to
be worshiped by all. There are others. In Hindu scriptures the lord
of death is called Yama, or Yamaraj. He rides a black buffalo while
carrying a rope lasso which he uses to bring souls home. In Irish
mythology the death messenger of the underworld is a banshee, a
fairy woman who will scream to herald the cessation of life. Then
there is the more common grim reaper, and its variant, the black
moth. Such figures are peppered through every time and culture, a
dark being, inhuman and tied to death. The grim reaper is
especially fascinating in that it is represented by a cloaked
figure, beneath which often lies a skeleton. What if the walking,
reanimated corpse had been that of a human, taken over to house a
demon? Such a sight may be the origin of our myths. Although I must
put down that, according to Luitger, a lifeless body is unpleasant
to their ilk in that it offers no sensation and little pleasure to
the possessor, but I cannot say whether that would stop a
demon.

I had stopped reading, a
little creeped out. This was a bit of foreshadowing, though it had
come too late. Anastas was dead either way, but he really should
have paid more attention to his own inference. It would have saved
his niece a heap of trouble, not to mention myself.

I turned the page,
reluctantly prepared to keep reading when I heard some small sound.
I dug my elbows into the wall, hauling myself upright in my rush to
hide the diary. My ears were peeled and the sound came through the
door more clearly, a slight tapping. Demidov’s entry had put me on
edge, and I was half tempted to stay hidden away in the closet as
my last visitor had been hostile, but I girded my loins and cracked
the door.

My stomach seemed to drop,
my mind dizzy with thoughts as I stepped out and carefully shut the
door behind me, willing myself to cross the kitchen. The reckoning
had come, and I wasn’t the least bit prepared. A ruffled
half-curtain clipped the top of the backdoor’s window, and between
its part I could see him. He watched me through the glass, his
knuckles still pressed against the pane.

Lucas was home.

I unlocked the door for
Lucas, using it as a shield of sorts, keeping it between us. I was
never exuberant with my greetings, but I’ll admit, I was downright
awkward just then. I took my time shutting the door, as if the act
required my full attention, and finally, when I knew I couldn’t put
it off any longer, I turned to face him.

He was wearing his green
T-shirt, the one with a tear along the collar. His skin peeped
through, a few shades paler than his arms and face. Francesca would
have disdained this for a flaw, but I liked his tan lines. They
were growing more pronounced under the summer sun, and they
attested to his lack of vanity. But despite the fact that his hands
were always stained with grease, his boots scuffed and worn, Lucas
was what I liked to call well made—tall, firm, but undeniably
rugged. He was not a manicured dandy like Francesca’s immaculate
Conner. No, he was a man, tan lines and all. And he stood, towering
in the center of my kitchen, watching me with those inscrutable
eyes. “You look tired.”

“I drank a bunch of NyQuil,” I admitted.

More silence, it stretched
uncomfortably between us. I had to mention the message, had to
clear the air, I just didn’t know how.

Finally I asked, “When did you get
back?”

“This afternoon.”

Another pause, painful in its length.

I couldn’t take it, the
dam broke, words spilling out as I shifted uneasily. “I wanted to
be mature about this,” I said, thinking of my overreaction to the
picture. “But I don’t think I’m capable of maturity just now, so
I’ll shoot for honesty instead.” I looked him straight in the eye,
wanting to see how he would react. “I listened to the message on
your answering machine.” No look of confusion, and when he didn’t
question me further, I knew that he’d heard it too. “You don’t like
to talk about your family. I get that, I don’t like to talk about
mine either. But skimming over the fact that your trip was pleasure
and
not
business was a bit misleading.”

“I wasn’t sneaking around,” Lucas said. His
voice was rough and low, hinting at some emotion, but I couldn’t
tell if he was angry, offended or impervious.

“
I’m not accusing you of
that, and I’m certainly not suggesting that you would cheat. I
didn’t... I don’t think you ever would, but that’s just it. It
doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you’ll give me a perfect
explanation,” I ranted. “Hearing another woman speak to you like
that—” I broke off, surprised by how my emotions seemed to swim to
the surface and swamp me so easily. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me
it was a wrong number,” I suggested.

“It wasn’t.”

I decided to lay it all
out there. “I’m obsessed with you,” I admitted quietly. “You know
that right? I try to hide it because of the stark difference in our
behavior. It bothers me that I’m always hot to your cold, but the
fact that you want me around, that you let me into your house, it’s
always a surprise. Sometimes I can hardly wrap my mind around the
fact that you’re mine,
my
boyfriend. But when I hear a message like that...
she knows you. Whoever
she
is, she knows you better than I do, which means,
in a way, you belong to her.”

“
Her name is Elaine,” he
told me. “She’s my ex from the picture.”

“Did you stay at her house like she
wanted?”

“No.”

I swallowed thickly. “Did
you want to?”

“No.”

“Alright.” I sighed, but felt not a bit
better. “I’m ready for that perfect explanation now.”

He took a few steps,
pulling out the kitchen chair to take a seat as I hovered near the
door, waiting for the verdict. “Elaine was my first girlfriend, my
first everything,” he said bluntly. “We were young and I was...
different. I’d done some regrettable things and Elaine’s family
didn’t like me. There was a misunderstanding and her family caused
me considerable trouble. The whole thing eventually drove a wedge
between me and my own family. I left and didn’t make an effort to
stay in touch, didn’t try to see them, not for years, but Elaine
always felt guilty. She wanted to make things right, so I agreed to
visit, but nothing good came of it.” He rubbed the back of his
head, pushing the short hair this way and that. “And yes, Elaine
would have slept with me, but I didn’t respond to her attempts.”
His hand dropped suddenly, his eyes clasping mine. “I’m so
disconnected, Adelaide, sometimes I don’t remember how I ought to
be or what I’m supposed to say, but I can see that you’re
miserable. It’s my fault, and for that I apologize.” He took a
breath, pausing as if to weigh his words. “Elaine is still
convinced she can help, but I’ll call her to explain that I’m not
interested. I’ll break off communication with her, because as far
as I’m concerned, Elaine is my past. You are my future.”

I’d never heard him say so
much at one time, and I could feel his sincerity, even if I
couldn’t really feel it. I wanted to melt, but I refused until I
knew...

“
Lucas, I don’t expect for
you to reciprocate my feelings, not entirely, but I want you to
have
some
feelings. I mean, you do like me right?”

He didn’t rush to give an
answer. He took his time, thinking for so long that I grew
increasingly worried. But then he said, “You know you have a scent?
No, not perfume or anything like that, just the smell of your skin.
It’s subtle. I have to kiss you to catch it. When I’m away I
forget, and that bothers me. It bothers me that I can’t remember
the way you smell.”

“
You hurried home to smell
me?” I made sure to convey with my tone that I wasn’t upset, that I
wanted to erase the distance between us.

He jerked upright so fast
the chair screeched out behind him, disappearing as he ate up the
floor in two strides, his figure blotting out the sight. His hands
were possessive, and for once so were mine. I wasn’t shy, I was
sure.

Falling into the wall I let him fix his knee
between my thighs, his body pinning me in place. The T-shirt with a
tear came off, and I went to work on his belt next. Luke stopped me
though, pulling back.

“Don’t,” I whined.

“
I don’t want to stop,” he
ground out, his eyes a pair of burning coals. He studied my face.
It mirrored his own, flushed and hungry. “Alright, if you’re
sure.”

I nodded.

“I have to run back to my place for a
minute,” he said, the words almost a groan of frustration.

“Go,” I said, shoving him at the door. “I’ll
be upstairs.”

But things fell apart the
second he was gone. First of all, the ghost dog appeared, blithe,
carefree, but something of a buzzkill for my libido. I didn’t waste
time searching under the couch for its stash of dog toys. No, in a
moment of lust-fueled madness I opened the silverware drawer,
grabbed a handful of spoons, and dropped them to the ground,
kicking them haphazardly to get the creature’s
attention.

“
Have at it,” I said,
bolting down the hall, through the living room and up the stairs.
But I don’t know what happened after that. The next thing I knew I
was drooling on my pillow and it was morning. Congratulations
NyQuil, you ruined my life.

I mulled over all the
things I would rather do than meet Stephen’s mother, drawing the
line at self-mutilation. Although I freely admitted that getting
crapped on by a bird would be preferable, gross but true. There was
just no stopping it. I was driving in that direction, not quite
nervous, but definitely uncomfortable.

I had rolled over to an
empty bed this morning, no sign of Lucas. Hours of sleep had not
left me feeling refreshed but rather unsettled, so I knew the
nightmares had come, even if I couldn’t remember them. Therefore I
was a bit groggy in my rush to Luke’s, staggering over the fence in
pursuit of evidence. I wanted to make sure he’d really come home,
that we’d talked things out, because if memory served, it was all a
little too good to be true.

But his unopened duffel
bag was marooned in the center of his bed, confirming his return.
I’d pulled everything out, setting aside the dirty clothes to start
a load of laundry. After that I’d wandered through the house, a
meditation of sorts, reasserting myself, trying to take the place
back after that awful message had driven me out. I was insecure
when it came to Lucas, apart from him I never
second-guessed.