I helped my groggy boyfriend sit up. He cracked his back getting up from the linoleum, but he wasn’t mauling me so I guess the drug had run its course. That was good. The bruise on his face from my punch, less so.
What was the appropriate greeting in this situation?
He rubbed his jaw. “Your training is working.”
“We gonna talk about this?”
“And say what?” His gaze was pure challenge.
That everything I’ve been scared of is true. That you’re rushing us, investing yourself because you need a purpose, and I need us to take things one day at a time because this is all so new and I care about you so much and I don’t want us to crash and burn like Cole and I did. That I don’t want to end up crying in the middle of the street because you only loved the idea of me. “Are we still good?”
Rohan blinked. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? What I did…” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t me.”
Except it kind of was. “I know.” My voice was tighter than I’d intended it. I softened my tone as I added, “And I’m sorry for clocking you. I didn’t feel like I had any other option.”
“I appreciate that, but you sidelined me twice because you decided that the best way to protect me was to keep me out of the fray.”
“What would you have had me do?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was as full of anger and resignation as mine had been. He exhaled, pushing to his feet. “Any useful evidence downstairs?”
Good talk.
“I haven’t checked yet. I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
“No time like the present.” Rohan glanced at the shattered basement door, his expression unreadable, then headed downstairs.
I stepped over some tangled plastic tubing on the basement concrete floor lying next to an overturned chair. Ro pointed to two containers on a metal table. One was a thin, glass vial minus the Sweet Tooth label that held the familiar pink crystals. The other was a plastic container like the sterilized ones they gave you for urine samples. The seal had been broken and it held a clear liquid with pale streaks of blood floating in lazy twists.
Rohan picked it up and walked over near the spot on the ceiling that the oshk’s secretion had hit when I’d attacked it. Cotton-candy scented clear liquid had dripped on the floor. “Do you see another sterilized container?”
I sorted through the wreckage until I found one that the oshk hadn’t crushed. Rohan collected the liquid and sealed it up.
“Don’t get any on you,” I said. “With all your issues and the drug in its purest potency?” I mock-shuddered. “I know I’m irresistible, but you were precariously close to Fatal Attraction territory there. Boiling bunnies. Yikes.”
Rohan raised his eyebrows.
“Too soon?”
That earned me a ghost of a smile. “I’m astounded you held off this long. Besides, my focused, passionate nature–”
“You mean your willingness to obsess?”
“I mean, my absolute commitment and perseverance has served me well. Landed me record contracts, tricky demon kills. You.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Too soon?”
I laughed and swatted him.
We found a trash bag to dump lab wreckage into, taking that and the three containers with us: the vial with the crystals, the blood-streaked liquid already sealed up, and the new clear secretion we’d collected. We dropped the containers off at a twenty-four hour courier service, expedited to a Rasha-owned lab in New York where they could analyze the substances and see if, as suspected, we had a match between the oshk secretion and Sweet Tooth.
My stomach rumbled, so I pulled into a diner that was almost full with a brisk breakfast rush, snagging the last tiny booth in the back. My anger had faded, leaving only hunger and exhaustion. The blueberry pancakes I ordered were light and fluffy with fat fresh strawberries slices on top and a heaping dollop of whipped cream. The bacon was extra crispy.
Rohan’s veggie omelet, no cheese, looked very healthy.
“Healthy isn’t leprosy. It’s actually the opposite,” he said.
“Who said a word?” I drizzled melted butter on my pancakes.
“You did.” He nudged my leg. His expression of fond exasperation was so familiar and welcome that the vise around my chest loosened.
I held a forkful of strawberry-adorned pancake at him. “Live a little.”
He leaned in for the bite, sucking whipped cream off my fingers. “I’m not denying the appetites that matter.”
Two could play this game. I slipped off my shoe and snuggled my toes onto his dick. Keeping my eyes on my food, I fought a grin, massaging until he got hard. So, like ten seconds.
Under the table, he grabbed my foot. “Enough,” he growled.
I motioned our waiter for more coffee. “Think Candyman screwed the oshk over in some drug partnership? That demon was pissed.”
Rohan added some hot sauce to the last third of his omelet. “All I care about is that Leo said the oshk was a Unique and we’ve eliminated the source of the Sweet Tooth.”
The analysis would conclusively confirm it, but the chances were high that the drug was off the street forever. Candyman still needed to be apprehended, but we’d put him out of business. I clinked my mug to Rohan’s. “We make a good team.”
“The best.”
If we both injected a bit too much enthusiasm into our words, maybe that was okay.
With hours until we’d hear back about the Sweet Tooth analysis, we decided to crash so we could hit the ground running finding Candyman. Drio wouldn’t be back until tomorrow and depending on what he’d learned from Golda, we’d need a strategy around that as well.
We made one quick pit stop at the cemetery in Vancouver–not the Jewish one, where cremation was forbidden–to meet the Rasha-friendly employee there and burn the trash bag of busted-up lab equipment, and then it was bedward-ho.
I slept okay for a while but a text from Sienna on my burner phone on behalf of Dr. Gelman woke me up.
Esther has a promising lead on the bindings. She’ll be out of isolation today if you want to come by. Before I had time to yawn, let alone compose a reply, another message sailed on in: For whatever unknown reason, your last visit cheered her up.
I added Sienna to the list of people who were never going to be a fan.
I snuggled back under the covers against my furnace boyfriend, but, hard as I tried, I couldn’t fall back asleep again. My promise to Ari to go see my mom weighed on me. I’d let my resentment toward my parents, especially Mom, fester for years and could have easily gone another decade, but I kept seeing Gelman wasted by cancer.
I heaved myself out of bed with a huff and snatched up some clothes.
“Where you going?” Rohan mumbled from under the pillow he’d stuffed on his head when my phone had gone off.
I popped my head out of my sundress. “To see my mom.”
He pulled the pillow off and cracked one eye open. “You want me to come with?”
I rumpled his hair. “Best if I don’t have witnesses, but thanks.”
He flopped over. “When you get back, we can Skype my parents.”
I whacked him in the head with his pillow “Not funny.”