The marathon urination gave me a chance to catch up on the scrawled graffiti. In neat red ballpoint above the toilet paper holder, someone had written: You’re a solid 8. Underneath that in pink glitter pen it read: Fuck that. I’m a 12½. A sentiment I applauded. Red pen then chimed back in with: Your ego certainly is. To which glitter had replied: All women are a 12½ out of 10. At least.
Black sharpie rounded out the exchange with: *fist pump* Sisterhood.
If I was going to be stuck in a cubicle peeing like a crazy person, it was nice to be in one with a compatible philosophic leaning and not “all girls be bitches.”
Someone else had drawn a wishing well in the center of the stall door. Responses alternated between lewd comments carved into the wood, initials drawn inside hearts, and requests of cash, designer clothes, and Hamilton tickets. It was all very silly, which was why I almost didn’t add the tiny snowflake to the bottom of the list.
I flushed the toilet and exited, bladder de-stressed. Though I had to wave my wrist in front of the tap’s motion sensor about seventeen times before I activated it. Damn things never worked properly for me, and I kept feeling like I was a dead person or a ghost. Two women entered as I was lathering up and I peered at their reflection in the gold gilt-framed mirror. “Christina?” I squealed.
“Nava! Where’ve you been, girlfriend? Campus is so boring without you. I have no one to ditch class with on mental health days.” Chinese-Canadian in her mid-twenties, Christina rocked a purple pixie haircut, a sequined one-piece romper, and an astounding example of cat eye eyeliner. When I attempted that look, I always came off as an Amy Winehouse drag queen who’d been crying while singing “Love is a Losing Game.”
“Oh, you know. Life.” I rinsed off my hands, tearing off some dead tree from the dispenser. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Nava.” The woman next to Christina, her blonde hair scraped into a straight ponytail worn low on her head, gave me a brusque wave. I doubted there was a sports bra under that swank suit jacket, and her pencil skirt failed to resemble the nylon workout pants I was used to seeing her in. She’d changed, but her presence was still a giant ugh.
I fumbled the toss of my paper towels, barely making the garbage can. “Naomi. You look–”
“Like she has a stick jammed up her white ass,” Christina said.
“Different.”
“I’m articling now.” Naomi brushed some imaginary lint off her navy lapel. “That’s a position in a law firm.”
She knew damn well that my dad, Dov, was a law professor at the University of British Columbia, since she’d had him for half a dozen classes. Clearly not much had changed besides the clothes. I jammed my hands into the pockets of my loose black trousers before either of them could see the spark of electric magic that jumped out of my fingertips. “You’re doing bitch work for the actual lawyers. Mazel tov. What are you two up to tonight?”
Christina held up a vial filled with tiny pink crystals that glinted in the light. “Sweet Tooth. Perfectly designed to give you the all-night euphoria of every lush depravity you can think of. Want in?”
“No, thanks.” There was only one thing I craved these days and it wasn’t some new drug. I rummaged in my small backpack purse for my hair clip to twist my sweaty locks into a loose chignon (and give Ro better access to kiss his way down my neck) when I noticed Naomi staring. “Yes?”
“Nothing.” She turned away, reapplying her sheer lip gloss. “You said we were going for a drink. One drink.”
“I lied,” Christina said. “You wouldn’t have left work otherwise.” She uncorked the vial releasing a burst of cotton candy scent. “One night to cut loose. ‘Life at Full Tilt,’ remember?”
Ten bucks said Christina was fighting a losing battle. Naomi was buttoned up so tight, cracking Level Fun required a set of lock picks, a tire iron, and some WD40. I patted my hairdo, waiting for their debate to end so I could get Christina’s new phone number. Reconnect now that my life was a bit more stable, which funnily, even with the demon hunting addition, was true.
“I’ve got to finish up some research for a court appearance.” Smug tone, nose in the air, Naomi hadn’t lost her infuriating knack of making everything she did sound sooo verrah verrah important.
“Minor court appearance,” I muttered. She was articling, not trying grand jury cases.
Christina tapped her finger against the vial a couple of times to dislodge powder from the sides. “Shut it, or I’ll key both your cars.”
I mustered a smile. “All dropped.” Christina had always been good at follow-through. “Hey Chris, I don’t have your current–”
“The lawyers are fast-tracking me to making associate. There’s every expectation of me making partner in record time.” Naomi ducked her head, her voice dripping with false modesty. “I don’t want to mess any of that up. I can’t. This is too important to me. Sorry, Chris.” The longing glance she shot at the vial was quick, but I caught it.
I dug my nails into my skin. Here, I’d do my one good deed for the night. “It’s okay to relax every now and then.”
“I’d imagine you’d know.” Naomi turned away from her reflection to peer at me with bullshit sincerity. “Still on a break from school?”
Between the annoying men I hunted with and my mother, Naomi was amateur hour. My smile stayed in place. “I’m in the security business,” I said. Savior of humanity, me.
“Like mall cop? Good for you.”
Okay, so not so much savior of all humanity because if a curupira was trying to suck her brains out right now, I’d totally point out the best spot to dig in.
My smile widened, teeth bared.
Christina muscled in between the two of us, smacking my hip in warning. “You can finish all your lawyer work tomorrow.” She dumped half the crystals into her hand. “This shit is like the best fuck and best chocolate all at once.”
“Careful Nava doesn’t steal it.” Naomi popped the cap back on her gloss.
“Jesus, Naomi, get over it. I didn’t steal Sean. You weren’t dating him or even sleeping with him.”
“I spent every weekend with him and I liked him.”
“You spent every weekend with all of your weekend warrior group. Besides, it’s not like his flirting was subtle. If you’d had a problem with us leaving together that night, you could have used your words.”
“As if you’d have listened.”
“Enough.” Christina held a hand up. “Naomi is an uptight bitch and Nava is a party whore. Have I settled it?”
“Like Nava limits the whoring to one area, but sure.” Naomi wiped a trace of gloss off the corner of her lip.
My magic slid through my veins, whispering sweet nothings like eviscerate her. “You don’t know anything about me, Naomi, so shove your little digs up your ass.”
“I know what I see.” She sniffed primly. “At least I have goals.”
“Big deal. You exchanged flinging yourself off cliffs for flinging yourself into work. Real growth. Christina, gimme your new number.”
She held up a finger and waggled the vial at Naomi. “It’s not addictive and there’s no hangover. I’ve done it a couple of times already so yes, I do know firsthand. It’s also way less dangerous than the shit you used to pull and you won’t have weird bruises to explain to your uptight firm. Merely a fun night that leaves you revitalized and ready to scale those lawyerly mountains. There, I’ve destroyed your objections, counselor.” She licked the drug off her palm. “Plus, it tastes like cotton candy.”
Her PSA over, she reeled off her phone number.
The second I had it, I dropped my phone in my clutch and snapped the clasp shut. “Excellent. I’ll call you. As for you, Naomi, I’m going back to my boyfriend and forget you exist.”
Naomi actually snorted. “Who’d you steal this one from?”
I gave her an icy smile. “Keep running on that hamster wheel. Maybe if you go fast enough and achieve enough, no one will realize you have absolutely no persona
lity. Just an addict, held together by insecurity and rage, desperate for a rush to make you feel alive.”
Christina gasped.
Aw, shit. My eyes darted away from both their faces, my fingers fiddling with the diamante clasp. This was what happened when I let things fester. Spewage and emotional carnage.
“Fuck you. You have no idea how hard I work.” Naomi’s voice trembled.
Calvin Harris’ “This Is What You Came For” came on and I flinched at the memory that came with it. Christina, myself, and a few others had gone back to the apartment she shared with Naomi near campus to chill. That song had pulsed on low through the speakers and the air was fogged with the sweet smell of pot.
It was the time of night when people got cozy and shared past experiences. I’d been telling them about my Lincoln Center debut back in high school. The whole room had been silent except for me and that song, and yeah, the shine of admiration in their eyes had eased the constant sting of hurt a bit. Tap had been such a sad topic for me during that period, and it had been nice that night to remember the highs and not just the lows.
Naomi had burst in, eyes bright, loudly retelling some craaaazy adventure she’d just had. Like, the last one had been insane, but this one? She’d nudged me to the side so she could sit next to Christina, except there wasn’t enough room on the couch so she ended up half-squashing me instead. She’d sucked all the air out of the room, totally disrupting our mellow vibe and killing my tale. I’d never understood why everyone not only indulged her spotlight-hogging, but was so charmed by it.
Keeping my mouth shut since speaking out against her was pointless, I’d reached for the joint in the ashtray and lit it.
Naomi had waited for me to inhale. “Geez, Little Miss Gimme. Never enough with you.” This from the woman who had literally just interrupted herself mid-story about BASE jumping. Flinging herself off buildings, slacklining it across canyons, yes, it was cool, but she was such a hypocrite accusing me of being extreme.
Her crew called themselves the Full Tilt Gang for fuck’s sake. Half the stunts they pulled were done illegally, so her moral high ground was built on quicksand.
Christina had shot me a sympathetic smile but the others had snickered unkindly. Not ten minutes ago they’d thought I was the coolest person alive, and here Naomi had totally turned them against me. Naomi had smirked, taking her friend’s arm and monopolizing her in conversation, my existence forgotten.
The same way she now clutched Christina’s arm, not so much possessively as in defeat.
My gut twisted. I’d fired off a lot of smart remarks in the past, but my comment to Naomi now had been a bitch too far. I didn’t want to deliberately hurt others anymore. I was doing good in the world.
I wanted to be good in the world.
“Naomi, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bringing up the past. But you do deserve a night off,” I said. “The earth will continue to spin. The lawyers work you to the bone and in return you get no interesting tasks, no praise, and no life. Besides, you’re ridiculously smart. I’m sure you can knock out the items on your minion list in record time. Do this stuff, don’t do it, but enjoy yourself tonight. Normal is important.”
Naomi snatched the vial away from Christina, rolling her eyes. “I don’t need you to tell me how to have fun. I trademarked that shit.”
So much for my genuine, heartfelt attempt at being friendly, Bellatrix.
Christina squealed and clapped her hands while Naomi licked up the crystals. In her excitement, she failed to notice that when Naomi tossed the vial out, there was still some left at the bottom.
A cautious good time on the menu, then. Whatever worked for her. As for me, I waved bye to Christina, catching the door and shouldering past a group of chattering women spilling in.
Rohan waited for me at the end of the short hallway leading to the restrooms. His lopsided grin soothed my fraying edges.
“Hel-lo,” Christina said, having followed me. “I could ride that boy into next week.”
“Words spoken by many a woman with working eyeballs,” I said. “Yup, he’s all the catnip. But he’s also more than just a hot body.”
Christina gave me a searching glance. “You know this how?”
“That’s my boyfriend.”
Naomi’s mouth fell open as she stared at Rohan. “No way. He’s dating you?”
To be fair, his moss green shirt emphasized his broad shoulders and leanly muscled, V-bod. It was like his East Indian/Jewish genes had convened a summit at his conception to negotiate for maximum incredible. He was magnificent, but for me? His humor at 2AM blending me smoothies that he named after our demon kills–the Tezcatlipoca Mocha Blast was my fave–the effort he’d made getting to know Ari and Leo, and the steadfast belief in his convictions even as he helped me dig deeper into the Brotherhood, were even more attractive. I respected the hell out of him.
“Way, baby.” I said. “We don’t match, but we go.”
Rohan crooked a finger at me and all three of us sighed.
“I underestimated you,” Naomi said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “In more ways than one.” I hugged Christina goodbye with mutual promises to see each other soon and headed for my guy.
Rohan slung an arm around me, glanced back at the women, then kissed the side of my head. “You okay?”
I leaned into his steady comfort. “Perfect.”
The opening notes of George Michael’s “Freedom” kicked in and he tugged me onto the dance floor, squirming past the other dancers into the center. He caught me around the waist, singing into my ear about roads to Heaven and Hell as we grooved to the music, all rolling hips and sinuous arms.
I was lightness and air, anchored to this mortal plane by the rasp in Rohan’s voice and the gentle bite of his fingers through the thin fabric of my tank top. I caressed his cheek and he nuzzled into my hand. “Did you get yourself happy, Snowflake?” I asked, referring to the lyrics.
“I did. I am.” Still, when he sang along about freedom, the insistence in his voice was more than emotive karaoke.
“Is that what it felt like to leave the band? Like you got your freedom?”
He pulled me to him, making me ride his hard thigh in the dirtiest of dancing. Cuntessa de Spluge was in Heaven. “I thought all heavy conversations were banned tonight,” he said.
“Yes. Heavy conversations pertaining to current Brotherhood-witch shit are banned during date night,” I confirmed, my hips in a slow, syncopated slide with his.
“But prying into my past?”
“A total go.” My breath quickened, a spark low in my gut bursting into flame.
“Nice try. Pool?” he asked as the song ended, taking away my happy motion ride.
“You callous bastard.”
He leaned in, his lips brushing my ears. “I want you desperate for me.”
“Your arrogance isn’t doing it for me.”
“Yeah, it is.” He waggled his eyebrows at me in exaggerated fashion.
I shot him the finger and sashayed off the dance floor.
We passed Naomi, currently the filling in a boy sandwich. She’d shed her jacket, leaving her in a lacy camisole. Good time evidently unlocked. Christina smiled at her from outside the plastered-together bodies, but her expression was a bit strained. I didn’t blame her. Naomi had gone from “no” to “wheeee!” in record time and she’d been known to ditch Christina when there were more interesting–or dangerous–things around to play with.
I raced off ahead to snag a pool table, practically flinging myself bodily over it until Rohan caught up. I handed him a pool cue. “Answer my prying now. Was it a relief ditching Fugue State Five? You ever wish you had that back or some new version of it?”
Were you going to run away soon?
His expression turned distant. “Sometimes… It felt like I was living with a noose around my neck. Writing music, even performing again, it wouldn’t be like that. I wouldn’t be like that.”
“What changed?”
Rohan had always had a dark side, which had gotten worse with the twin fallouts of fame and the demon murder of his cousin Asha. His personal demons had been front and center pretty recently on our mission in Prague and only intensified on his gig in Pakistan, so I doubted he was suddenly a paragon of mental wellbeing, but I nodded.
He bopped the tip of my nose. “Don’t worry, Sparky. I’m not going back down any dark roads.”
I wasn’t convinced of that either. Not given the single-minded focus Rohan had shown in unraveling the mystery of what certain Brotherhood members were up to these past few weeks. But that was part of tonight’s ban on serious Rasha topics, so I pushed those thoughts away.
Maybe I was overthinking things. Besides, I needed my full concentration to kick his ass. Rohan was exceedingly competitive.
The hour grew later, the music faster, the crowd drunker. Despite being jostled yet again by a stray elbow, I sank three balls in rapid succession. I chalked my pool cue, eyeing the eight-ball. “Need a safe word, baby? Because when I sink this and obliterate you for a second game, it might be more pain than you can handle.”
Rohan slid his palm in a teasing glide along my belly. “Try me.”
“My favorite dare.” I positioned my stick slightly off-center, and with a satisfying crack, sank the eight-ball. I handed Rohan my pool cue. “Does it chafe? Be honest.”
He snapped both our sticks back into the mounted wall rack. “It’s a little raw, not gonna lie.”
“Good. I want you to feel it in the morning. Remember who owns you.” I smacked his ass, laughing at the mock-scandalized expression on Rohan’s face.
He caught my wrist, tugging me up against him and nipping my earlobe. “Isn’t this where you’re supposed to minister to me and take away the sting like a good girlfriend?” His voice ran over me like rivulets of honey.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 85
