Fate nodded.
Knox’s eyes darted to mine and the lines of his mouth softened. He gave me a nod of acknowledgement, which I returned. His attention went back to Fate. I wasn’t insulted. I wasn’t the one who’d called him out and made beef with him.
“You wanted to talk?”
“Shit is about to hit the fan. You plan on helping out or getting in our way?” Fate crossed his arms in front of him, ankles doing the same. Yeah, he really wasn’t worried about this Knox guy at all.
“I think there’s a bit more to discuss. Don’t you?”
I leaned my head back on the chair as I eyed Knox and answered the question for Fate. “It’s the only question that matters.”
Fate’s gaze met mine and something flickered.
I looked back at him. Yeah, I get it now, my look said. After months of Harold, I’d better. After the last few weeks, I knew. None of us had a cheat sheet or syllabus that laid out what was coming but you didn’t need a textbook to tell you that when the winds started picking up, a storm was on its way. This one was promising to be a real doozy.
We needed to know what type of person Knox was before it hit full force. There were three categories of people—and I used that term loosely—two types were okay. One type had to go. He would either help and fight with us, not help but stay out of the way, or be a hindrance.
Knox’s eyes went from Fate to me, and I could see the opinions forming there, wondering just how deep our relationship ran. He’d eventually hear the tales and I didn’t care. I guess that was one good thing this office and my coworkers had done for me. I’d lost almost all my ability to feel embarrassment. The only thing that mattered was which type of person would he turn out to be.
He rocked back on his heels. “From what I know, I’m prepared to help at this time.”
That hit about a seven on the lame answer scoreboard. Maybe it was a little cheesy but I’d hoped for something a little closer to “I know what’s going on and I’ve got your backs,” instilled with even the tiniest amount of passion, maybe?
Fate was staring at me with the same expression he’d had downstairs after my Harold meeting. I rolled my eyes. I was quickly realizing that silent I told you sos were just as annoying as the out loud varieties.
Hell, at least Knox had ended the unwanted conversation I was having with Fate. And, I could ride this lame horse right out of here and avoid the tail end of discussing the finer points of perfume.
“Knox, let me show you around,” I said, getting up heading toward the door before he could think of declining.
“Thanks.” I could see him visibly rethinking his opinion about Fate and I.
I wanted to pat him on the back and say, “Good luck figuring us out, because I certainly can’t.”
Fate’s eyes narrowed with annoyance and a promise of tracking me down later. I silently replied with a, so sue me. It was an expression that he liked to pull out often and it hadn’t gotten any less irritating with use.
His eyes narrowed even further.
I smirked, pulling out another weapon from his arsenal.
He shook his head and grunted.
I tallied a win for my column.
Knox scooted in front of me to open the door and then his hand reached out in my direction, like it wanted to land on my back. It dropped before I could make out its true destination. I nodded at him to go into the hall first, since I didn’t like being corralled. For all I knew he thought because I was a transfer I needed help walking or something crazy.
I shot a final look back at Fate as Knox exited first to see Fate’s eyes on the guy’s back. Wow, he really didn’t like this guy.
I closed the door on Fate and Knox and I walked down the hallway. Then I started counting down the seconds, thirty, twenty-nine, twenty…
“You two a thing?” he asked ahead of schedule.
It wasn’t a question I was prepared to answer, even for someone naturally good on her feet. The fact that I knew it was coming didn’t seem to help much. Awkward didn’t become less so because you got prior warning.
“What kind of thing would that be?” I said, shooting for ignorance.
“Enough said.”
Maybe Knox wasn’t so bad. He’d agreed to help and now here he was, taking the hint. Have to love a person who knows when to shut up. It was almost like he was human.
It made giving him the most rudimentary tour of the building I could get away with not entirely horrible. I was positive he didn’t need it though. He’d known where Fate’s office was before I’d known he had one. He should’ve given me the tour.
But that wasn’t why I was doing it and not why he was going along with it. We both sized up each other’s measure as he was pretending to size up the halls.
With that in mind, I felt very little guilt when I gave him the bum’s rush at the lobby door. I shook his hand and went my own way.
Chapter Four
“There are some people who would like an official introduction.”
The apples fell out of my hands as Paddy’s voice came from beside me when there’d only been a pile of pears a split second before. I turned to look at the old man. His fedora hat sat low on his brow and the cane he carried was looped around his arm, useless as ever.
I was grateful he’d decided to appear. Hearing bodiless voices, even if I was certain they existed, was still disconcerting. You never knew when that one last push of crazy, which was flying my way almost daily, might thrust your brain into a spiral of mental illness.
As far as falling apart, I was hanging in there mentally but the body wasn’t holding up quite as well as it used to. I had a part of Paddy in me, whatever he was; it would sure be nice to know. The fact that if I didn’t gauze and tape up the tattoo on my hip every day, I’d glow like a bug zapper on a starless night, left some glaring questions. The pain that woke me in the middle of the night was a little easier to ignore, at least during the day.
I sometimes wondered if going along with Paddy’s plan had been akin to eating a special brownie and not knowing it wasn’t made by Betty Crocker until after it was digested.
“Who would these people be?” It would be nice to place blind trust in Paddy but there was no one I trusted that much, not anymore, and especially not the brownie baker.
Well, maybe there was one.
“You know who. My people.” He reached into my cart, grabbed a Granny Smith and crunched down on it.
“People?” I raised a single dark eyebrow and nailed him with my, and now let’s hear the truth stare I’d perfected during my days as an attorney.
“Let’s not split hairs.” He patted my hand, the one that was closest to him.
The look had worked wonders on clients. Not so effective on beings of the Universe.
I grabbed a bunch of bananas and placed them in my cart and then skirted around some women arguing in the aisle, who looked like they were going to break out into a brawl at any moment. It sounded like someone had taken the tomatoes the other considered theirs. It wasn’t just the teens; people from every age group, every socioeconomic level—basically everyone—was acting strangely.
“Why do I want to meet these people? I’m not looking to expand my current circle of acquaintances at the moment, considering the limited pool I’ve been delegated to choose from. I’m sure they’ll understand.” I’d met enough nonhumans for an eternity, and if the world didn’t go to shit soon, that’s how long I might live.
Eternity. That was a really long time. How many birthdays could you have before they didn’t matter anymore? After a couple hundred, would I even keep count? Was there even a point to counting if it wasn’t to calculate the years to old age? A futile exercise to help guess how many years were left using an equation that proved wrong so often.
Paddy grabbed a chocolate bar as we turned down the baking and candy aisle. How good would chocolate taste after I ate it a thousand more times?