Liam Davis & The Raven

by Anyta Sunday

  Quinn picked up the dishtowel with a thin laugh and tossed it into the sink. He suddenly appeared right beside me, prying the bread from my fingers. “Why eat if you’re going out on a date?”

  “We’re just doing a movie. Then she wants to help out with ideas for my column.”

  “Your column? That’s your idea of a date?”

  “Well, yeah. We’re going to Jell-O Fight Night just off Fifth. So right now”—I snatched back the bread and popped it in the toaster—“I’m hungry.”

  Zing!

  The toaster spluttered and sparked and I jerked my arm back.

  Quinn swore and pulled the plug from the socket. He twisted me toward him with a tight, panicked grip on my forearms, checking me over carefully. “Are you okay?”

  I swallowed. Blinked. “Have I ever told you you’re better than a cat?”

  Quinn’s lips contorted into a grin that he proceeded to smother and turn into a frown. His hands moved to my jacket and pinched at the V just above the first button. “Jell-O Fight Night? I thought you wanted some muscle at your side when you went to party?”

  “Somehow Jell-O Fight Night doesn’t sound all that intimidating. If you were a mop and a bucket, I might have taken you along.”

  “In case you change your mind, I’ll be a phone-call away.” His fingers slid to the buttons, undoing them one at a time.

  I let him. I liked watching the slight shake of his hands as he drew his fingers over the material, knuckles scraping gently over the shirt underneath. I shivered at the loss of the touch when he pulled back. “Wear it undone.”

  “Thanks for the tip. When are you meeting the cheese tonight?”

  He looked at me blankly for a moment, then twisted toward the fridge and opened it. “Yeah, Cheddar. He . . . uh—I mean, we—are meeting soon. What movie did you say you’re going to?”

  “It’s that student documentary, Played With. Lost. At the campus theater.”

  “That’s a coincidence,” Quinn said, pulling out some lettuce and tomato and moving to the chopping board. “We were planning on seeing that too.”

  I tilted my head slowly. “This isn’t you getting jealous, is it?”

  He laughed so loudly I had to rub my ears a little. “Nah, just a coincidence. And . . . since neither of us have any pathetic crushes on one another, you won’t mind if we’re there too, right?”

  I rested against the bench and passed him the bread when he gestured for it. “Right. I just didn’t pick you for the documentary type,” I said. “You or the cheese. But since you are, would you mind giving me a lift?”

  Quinn prepared sandwiches, cutting them neatly down the middle. “You know who might mind? Cheddar. Let me just give him a call and see how he feels about it.” He passed me the plate of prepared sandwiches and darted off to his room.

  I stared down at the plate, a solid weight in my hand, just as Quinn was a solid weight in the apartment. I could get used to this. With a smile, I moved to the table and ate.

  I sat close to the front of the small, almost empty theater with Hannah, who was a bouquet of smiles and laughter next to me. Behind us somewhere were Quinn and Cheddar, but I gave them their privacy by not looking back.

  About halfway through the documentary, I slipped my hand over the arm separating our chairs, and nudged Hannah’s pinkie. I whispered, “Maybe we should—”

  Hannah pressed her hand against mine, threading our fingers together. Clammy and stiff, but warm too. Reassuring, somehow.

  Well, yes, the kiss with Quinn had been better. Comforting and spiced with little electric thrills. But holding hands was hardly a fair comparison. I’d never done that with Quinn. Maybe kissing Hannah would be just as good.

  Colored light from the screen flickered over Hannah’s face, softening the sharp profile of her nose and highlighting her full lips, stretched into a nervous smile. She peeked at me from the corner of her eye. “What?” she mouthed.

  Again, I whispered in her ear, “May I kiss you a second?”

  She faced me, teasing her bottom lip with her front teeth. Cute as a bunny, to pen a fitting phrase. Yes, cute flushed cheeks, sweet smile, nice eyes . . .

  I cupped the side of her face and leaned in to kiss her. Her lips moved shyly against mine, but her breath puffing out was warm and smelled like cherry-flavored bubblegum.

  Pleasant. Fine. Okay.

  Where was the static? The strange moment where I skipped a breath? The promise of cocooning warmth that came from a bigger body?

  I tried the kiss again, searching for something else perhaps I’d missed the first time. I threaded my fingers through the back of her soft hair, loosening it from the hair-tie. She danced delicate fingers up my arm to rest lightly on the curve of my neck.

  Our mouths locked awkwardly and a slither of tongue over my bottom lip just made it feel wet.

  “Hmmm,” I murmured. A sudden silence in the documentary emphasized the sound.

  She squeezed my hand and drew hers away. “Let’s give it to the end of the night to be sure.”

  “Maybe it’s the angle,” I said. The time? The heat? The fullness from Quinn’s sandwiches? The need to urinate?

  “Or not,” she said with an apathetic shrug and smile. To the point. Factual.

  “Or not,” I agreed.

  I excused myself and sidled out of the row, passing the only other person in there besides my party and Quinn’s.

  I’d just finished relieving myself in the bathroom when the door swung in. I caught the action in the reflection of the mirrors to my left, and was buttoning up as Quinn sauntered in. At first he must have been looking at me, but then his gaze met mine in the mirror.

  There was something almost predatory as he kicked his way across the room.

  With a slight shiver, I turned to the sink and pressed down on the faucet. Antiseptic soap scented the air. “How do you like the film?”

  Quinn stood behind me, keeping eye contact through the mirrors. “I don’t.”

  I shrugged. “I wish I could comment more constructively, but I’ve been oblivious to the screen. This dating thing is more challenging than I thought. It’s like an equation I’m not schooled enough to solve. The angles, the timing, the—”

  “Fact she’s female?”

  I nodded. “Maybe that, too. I tried to kiss her but all I could think about was how much better it was with you. How I could feel it in my toes. How even just remembering makes me itchy.”

  Quinn stepped closer, his chest rising as he took in a deep breath.

  I asked, “Do you mind giving us both a lift to Fifth?”

  His chest deflated, and his gaze darted from the mirror to the urinals. He started running a hand through his hair.

  “Looks good,” I told him, drying my hands.

  “Cheddar thinks so too.”

  “Then the cheese has taste.”

  Quinn almost grinned, but something held him back. Maybe the fact he needed to piss and hadn’t yet because I was standing around. Some men were shy that way.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” I said, slipping past him to the door. “Are we good for the lift?”

  “It’ll be a tight fit. Cheddar’s coming home with me.”

  “I’m taking that as a yes.”

  Jell-O Fight Night.

  Well wasn’t this a pretty sight?

  A ten-foot, rectangular paddle pool lay lengthwise in an empty living room. Tens of students surrounded the pool at a wide berth, watching two women in jeans and T-shirts wrestling in ankle-deep putrid green Jell-O.

  The party smelled of beer, citrus, and cheap thrills.

  Hannah pressed closer to my side, scoured the scene, and shook her head. “I need a drink.”

  Alone in a crowd of cheering guys, I reached for my notebook and pen.

  A guy in a tank-top and running shoes hollered from the corner of the room. “If your number is called out, please make your way to the pool. Seventeen and twenty-three, you’re up.”

  My gaze vee
red from my notebook to the fifty-seven that’d been stamped on my hand, apparently for entry to the curved fishbowl of numbers.

  Well. They could forget that. No way in a hundred years would I expose myself to such crass ridicule.

  Was this the type of thing Jack and Jill found fun? No wonder my columns were a disappointment if this was the type of cut-rate angle readers sought.

  Flyers were pressed against my chest and I clutched the pile on reflex.

  “Take one, pass it on,” someone said. I awkwardly shifted them to Mr. Buzz-Cut next to me and resumed note taking.

  Hannah pushed her way back through the thickening crowds, her hair loose, spilling over her shoulders and snagging on horny guys as she squeezed free.

  She handed me a large, plastic shot glass of red Jell-O. “I tried them all. This is the best flavor.”

  Tried them all? I glanced at her semi-diluted pupils, jamming my notebook and pen under my arm while I took the shot glass and sniffed. “How many flavors were there?”

  “Five.”

  The raspberry shot burned my throat. “Five?” I spluttered. “Why would you do that?”

  “Look, I know this isn’t going to work out between us, so I just want to be drunk when I hear you say it.”

  Her cheeks flushed and she downed the other shot, a squirt of liquid dribbling down her chin and plopping onto her turquoise shirt. Hurriedly, she wiped her mouth clean. “Guess I’m drunk enough to hear it now. Go.”

  Cheers roared around us, and in a quick glance through the narrow gaps between heads, I caught sight of a tangled trio in the pool. Some intoxicated guy had thrown himself into the mix.

  I set my empty shot glass down on a nearby windowsill, rubbed my brow, and aligned my glasses proper. “I was curious if it would work out with us, but you’re right. I’m not romantically inclined toward you.”

  “Right,” she said, setting her glass down too. “Yeah. Me neither.”

  “You’re still the girl I want to share my mints with at Scribe, though. And I hope—” My voice faltered and a nervous shiver had me shifting my weight. “I mean, when we’re not too busy, I’d like to go to the movies with you again. Or eat lunch, or—” I laughed at myself for the sudden fear that gripped my stomach. What if she said no? “I’d like to replace my office friends with real ones.”

  The host yelled, “Numbers fifty-eight and sixty! You’re up.”

  Hannah glanced at the back of her hand as she wiped her palms over the thighs of her jeans. “Fifty-eight. That’s me.”

  She veered toward the center of the room, threading though the sweaty, anticipatory crowd.

  I snagged her sleeve, and she looked at me over her shoulder. “Don’t do it.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never done anything just for the heck of it, Liam. I want to have a life. At least, I want to try new things before I dismiss them.”

  I frowned. There was certain logic to that.

  “Besides,” she said, backing toward the kiddie pool, “you can use me as your angle. You could call it Letting Loose after Lectures.”

  She pulled off the small beaded bag she wore and stripped to her undershirt. “That’s all you’re getting from me, guys,” she said, kicking off her shoes and chucking them into a pile at the side of the Jell-O pool.

  I opened my notebook again and scribbled some more, although this time my pen didn’t move as swiftly and I kept shifting positions, searching for something comfortable.

  Hannah was pitted against a bear of a guy who’d been pushed into the pool by his chuckling friends. With a thick crop of brown hair and a light beard, he rested his hands on his hips and blinked thick lashes toward his opponent. He threw his friends a hard look and leaned his hulking frame forward.

  “Sorry about this,” he said warmly. Then to Trainers Guy, “This is hardly a fair fight.”

  “Luck of the draw,” came the shrugged answer.

  “But she’s half my size.”

  Not quite true. She was two heads shorter than he was, but that put her in the range of normal and him in the league of giants.

  Hannah straightened and snapped her gaze to his. “That’s presumptuous.”

  He quirked a brow at her. “What’s presumptuous?”

  In answer, Hannah deftly grabbed the loops at the waist of his jeans and hauled him forward.

  He budged a fraction in the thick Jell-O, while Hannah slid violently forward. A muffled groan escaped her from where she had face-planted into his chest. “So it’s all muscle, then.”

  Giant Guy grinned, his cheeks dimpling deeply. “And I don’t want to use it against you. So how about falling to the pit for three seconds, eh?”

  Hannah scowled and shook her head. Her gaze sought mine and she said, “I want you recording this, Liam. Every detail. Every plea to let him go.”

  Amongst the murmuring chatter of the crowd, I re-gripped my pen.

  Giant Guy snorted. “You’re funny.”

  “Let’s see who ends up laughing,” Hannah said, and sank her fingers into his armpits and wriggled.

  “Ga-ha, stop it!” Giant Guy rolled his arms back, the swing of his arms sending him off balance and launching a half-stride slip.

  Hannah doubled her effort.

  Whallomp!

  Giant Guy over-corrected and ended up on his ass, pulling Hannah with him.

  She wasted no time to straddle him and continue attacking his armpits with rigorous tickles.

  “Stop, stop,” he cried out between tears of uncontrolled laughter.

  “Fall back into the pit for three seconds,” Hannah said, pushing herself hard against him in an effort to force him back. “Then I’ll stop.”

  He gave a pathetic attempt to shove her off, but it exposed his armpits more, and he ended up surrendering quickly, much to the amusement of his friends and the crowd.

  In her eagerness to get out of the pool, Hannah slipped and crashed once more into the slippery giant. His arms circled her waist, steadying her. “Careful now, my pride’s been shot enough tonight. Can’t have you tackling me to the ground twice.”

  She laughed, looking up at him. He smiled down at her, his eyes crinkled.

  I carefully ripped out a piece of paper from the middle of my notebook. When they clambered out of the pool, I handed it and my pen to Giant Guy.

  “What’s this for?” he asked, grabbing it with slimy fingers as Hannah awkwardly jerked putting her shirt back on.

  “That’s what attraction looks like.” I gestured to the paper. “For you to give your number to Hannah.”

  He raised his meaty brow. “And you are?”

  “Liam Davis. Reporter for Scribe.”

  “Just give it here,” Hannah said, snatching the pen and scribbling something on the paper. She curled a finger around one of his belt loops and, when he came forward, slipped the paper into his pocket. “In case you ever fancy eating Jell-O with me again.”

  “I didn’t really eat any Jell-O, you know,” he said, grinning as he slipped a finger inside his pocket.

  Hannah laughed. “Yeah, you ate it all right.”

  With style and grace, and a playful smile, she took my arm and steered us out of there.

  As we crossed the threshold into the cool night air, a flyer stuck on my shoe. I shook it free and the yellow paper fluttered down a few steps toward the path. Written in large letters across the top was Have You Seen The Raven?

  I picked it up, Hannah leaning against my shoulder to read it too.

  “Someone really doesn’t like The Raven,” she said as I scanned the flyer again and looked back at the lit Victorian house behind us. Hannah was right.

  I folded the flyer and stuffed it in my other pocket. We ambled to the corner of Fifth and Walnut.

  “Thanks for the evening,” she said.

  “You put yourself out there,” I said, hailing her a taxi. “Seemed like it worked for you.”

  “Yeah.” She curled an arm around my neck and, with vodka Jell-O breath, she pecked the side
of my cheek. “Jack and Jill are such dicks,” she said, “Of course I’m your real friend, Liam.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The light in Quinn’s room leaked from the slit at the bottom of the door. I slipped out of my coat and suit jacket, and toed off my shoes.

  I rubbed at a splotch of dried, crusty Jell-O on my thigh. It wasn’t the best idea to turn up to the Jell-O party in my suit. But never mind. I’d stick them in the wash.

  Movement came from Quinn’s room, and I sidled closer to the wall that he shared with the living room. I only heard silence, so maybe Cheddar had left already? That, or they had very quiet intercourse.

  I swallowed the sudden dryness in my throat, and almost immediately followed it up by banging on Quinn’s door.

  “Liam?” Quinn asked, pulling the door open.

  One glance told me he was alone in the room, and I shifted my gaze back to him. His worried frown quickly disappeared, and he casually leaned against the doorjamb in nothing more than a pair of sweatpants.

  Goose bumps didn’t scatter over his skin like the last time I’d seen him shirtless, but his nipples were stiff and redder than I remembered, though it could’ve been the light.

  A finger curled around my chin and lifted it. “My face is up here,” Quinn said with an amused smile.

  “Are you serious about Cheddar?”

  “Why?”

  “I might be gay,” I said.

  “You just figured that out, smart guy?”

  “I need more proof to ascertain it’s true.” I walked forward, pressing my palm against his warm chest. His hairs prickled my skin and sent electric beads of excitement up to my elbow. “Cheddar?”

  A delicate blush streaked Quinn’s cheeks and his boxed ears lifted a fraction. His large hand cuffed mine, pressing firmly, as if to keep me right where I was.

  “Cheddar’s a friend of mine,” he said quietly, his green gaze burrowing into mine and sending all the blood I could spare right to my groin. “A friend who played decoy tonight.”

  “Decoy?” I asked, my body leaning toward him.

  He bent forward, holding his nose just far enough from mine that it felt as if our noses were touching, even though they weren’t. “I really hated that documentary.”