Beauty and the Wolf

by Bridget Essex

  But Grim's standing there, all cool and tall and intense and brooding, and how the hell am I supposed to resist that?

  It's been a very long time since I thought with my lady bits. I can hardly believe this is happening; my rational side is screaming choice expletives at me as I hold up a hand and head back toward the kitchen to grab my purse.

  I turn the burner off, just in time to stop the shriveled onions from catching fire. Pam's been eavesdropping—as is her best friend right—so she casts me a meaningful glance when I come within whispering distance.

  “What are you doing?” she hisses as I sling my purse over my shoulder.

  “I'm going to head back to work. To Grim Tower. With... Well, with Grim.” I don't look at Pam but rather stare at the onions smoking in the pan.

  “Yeah, I know. And why the hell would you agree to do that? I thought you had a terrible day.”

  That's when I lift my gaze, surprised by the poison in my best friend's voice. Her eyes are flashing with a dangerous light.

  “Pammie...” I begin, but then I clear my throat, worried that Grim overheard her already. “Keep your voice down—”

  “Bella, you need to listen to me right now.” Pam steps forward, and she's gripping my shoulders with surprisingly strong fingers. I wince a little, but she only tightens her grip, forcing me to look her in the eyes.

  When you really get to know her, you find out that Pam's a jokester. She makes up songs about silly things. She's probably the most positive person I've ever met in my life. She taught me how to be more positive, even in the hardest times.

  But that's not evident as she stares me down now, her face dark with emotion. “Bella, you can't go with her. I...I was wrong to support you in taking this job. I regretted it when I said it would work out, and I should have taken back my words right away. I was wrong, and I'm worried, and I don't think you should go back with her.”

  I gape, stunned. “But...why?”

  Her next words are enunciated with vehemence, with seething hatred: “Because she's a freak.”

  “What?”

  She lets go of me, as if she suddenly realized that she was pinching my skin. I rub my shoulder with a grimace, and Pam's running her fingers through her curly hair. We stare at one another in icy silence.

  She's been my best friend for my whole life, but right now, I feel like I'm looking at a stranger.

  “You don't even know her.” I search Pam's eyes, but they're so full of anger that I have to look away. I shake my head, take a step backward. “You've never spent any time with her. Why do you hate her so much? Why?”

  But we both know that Pam doesn't have an answer for that. She doesn't even try to make excuses.

  “Don't wait up for me,” I say, the hurt obvious in my voice.

  Pam doesn't reply. The hard look on her face only hardens further as she nods curtly.

  “Good luck with the freak.” The words are murmured softly as I move past. I stiffen and realize that, for the second time today, there are tears standing in my eyes. If she'd slapped me across the face, it would have stung less.

  I walk to the door, walk past Grim, who's still leaning in the doorway. She closes the door behind us as I trudge down the hallway without looking back.

  My eyes are swimming with tears, and I can hardly see.

  Chapter 7: The Beast

  If I were in a clearer frame of mind, I might be more surprised by how quickly Grim appears by my side. I'd gotten a good head start, power-walking my way down the corridor, trying to put distance between Pam and me.

  Grim doesn't race to catch up; she's just suddenly there.

  I mean, the lady's kind of ripped, so who am I to question her speed?

  My nerves are so jangled, and I can't help thinking about what Pam said. Because she's a freak keeps playing over and over in my mind like a really shitty earworm I just can't shake.

  I wipe my tears away. My head is a muddle, and so is my heart. I'm frustrated at Pam. Actually, let me be a little blunt: I'm pissed at her. And all of that emotion is creating a big old funnel cloud inside of me, dark and whirling.

  Grim keeps pace beside me, her mouth set in a thin, hard line. She doesn't interrupt my silence. She doesn't even clear her throat.

  She simply walks.

  We don't really know each other, and in these kinds of situations, if you don't talk...it feels a little uncomfortable. But as we walk along and reach my apartment's staircase, I place my hand on the railing and realize Grim's quiet companionship doesn't feel awkward at all.

  I appreciate the fact that she's giving me space.

  Once we get outside, I notice one car parked out front. No one is supposed to park on this side of the street, but Grim is new to Paris; she wouldn't know the rules here. Her car is big and black and pretty rusted. It might be a bit more truthful to admit that it's mostly rust. I glance sidelong at Grim, and that's when she meets my gaze, her mouth quirking up on one side into a wry half-grin.

  “She isn't pretty, but she gets me where I need to go.” Her voice is soft, smooth, and then she inclines her head, her hair sweeping in front of her eye as she leans down and opens the passenger-side door for me.

  I'm still so upset about the argument with Pam that I sit down without thanking Grim for the chivalry. She slides herself into the driver's seat and shuts the door with a strong slam.

  “The door sticks if you don't do that,” she explains companionably before putting on her seat belt.

  I put on mine, too. Or, at least, I try to. I tug at it, but nothing happens. I tug again, and the tiny bit of slack that I had on the belt reels back into the wall.

  “Sorry.” The growl is amplified, and I realize that's because Grim's mouth is right beside my ear. My face flushes as she reaches across my lap and takes the seat belt in her hands, wrapping her long, elegant fingers around it.

  “Like I said,” she murmurs, her lips nearly brushing my cheek, the heat of her breath warming me with a tantalizing exhale, “she's got her faults.”

  Then she performs a strange tug, slack, tug, tug, tug rhythm, and finally the seat belt eases itself out of the wall with enough slack for me to clip myself in. Grim settles back into her seat, but not before her arm brushes against the front of my body.

  “Sorry.” She's averting her eyes, staring at her hands that—for a flash of a moment—are curled into fists in her lap. I feel as if I've just seen something I shouldn't have: a secret. For that second, she wasn't the cool, calm, and collected woman that I've encountered every day for a month, with those careful, closed-off smiles that never reach her eyes. Everything about her is always so sure.

  But after she touched me, she looked vulnerable, self-conscious.

  She flexes her fingers now and takes a deep breath.

  Then she's reaching for the wheel, her face smooth, revealing nothing.

  I try to swallow, realize that my mouth is too dry for that, and make a soft, strangled sound as I clear my throat. Grim is inserting the key into the ignition, and a heartbeat later, she pulls out onto the road.

  We drive for a while in silence. Or, at least, verbal silence. The loud rumble of the engine (I have half a mind to grip my seat every time we go over a bump; I'm not sure the car will make it to Grim Tower without falling apart) covers up the sound of my erratically beating heart.

  I wasn't prepared for how my body reacted to Grim. I was so stuck in my thoughts about my argument with Pam that her intimate gesture caught me off guard. Well, it wasn't even that intimate.

  It was just thoughtful.

  Still, my whole being roared with life as Grim reached across my lap, as her mouth lingered so near to my own.

  Okay, I hate to bring up age—it's just a number, after all—but I'm no teenager. I'm not a time-bomb of raging hormones set to explode. Admittedly, it's been a while since I've done the horizontal mambo, but I'm a grown woman. I can control my urges, my desires.

  I'm not an animal.

  But there was nothing consci
ous about my body's response to Grim just now. It was as involuntary as breathing.

  I risk a glance at my companion. If she's bothered by my radio silence, she doesn't show it. Her face is blank, a mask. God, if she's thinking about anything at all, I can't guess what it is, and that's a bit unnerving to me. I want to see into her, want to know her, want to...

  Well, I guess I want to talk to her.

  I clear my throat again.

  She looks at me, brows raised.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” It's trite, but it's the first thing I think of. Normally, I don't have any problem talking to people. I've gotten a lot of practice at the diner. But my feeble attempt at small talk with Grim goes over like a lead balloon. She stares through the windshield again, shrugging slightly.

  “If it's all right with you, I'm not in a talking mood.”

  “Oh.” My cheeks flush a darker shade of crimson.

  Her words came out as a low growl, because—I'm learning—her voice is a growl, gravelly and husky, a little stern. I can understand not wanting to talk; that's fine. But her tone was unnecessarily sharp, as if she were chastising me for some unintentional wrong.

  Silenced, I think about Pam's aversion to Grim. She's never been able to tell me why she doesn't like her. But maybe the woman's hot-cold nature has something to do with it. I don't know why she just snapped at me. I don't know her well enough to speculate. But her brusqueness really smarted.

  I clench my jaw and look out the window, staring blindly at the streetlights blurring past. In the span of less than half an hour, my best friend argued with me, hatred sparking in her eyes, and then the woman I chose to leave with, the woman I decided to trust, shut me out.

  It's not the end of the world. I'm just a little raw right now, so when we pull up to Grim Tower, I don't even wait for the ignition to shut off. I remove the seat belt and fly through the car door, slamming it behind me as I walk up the sidewalk, shoes clicking. I aim for the apartment building's front door.

  “Bella? Bella, wait.”

  Grim's words do nothing to make me pause. Instead, I walk faster. I just want to get down into the kitchen and do my job, make dinner—whatever “dinner” might entail. And then I can head home, talk to Pam, put that emotional fight behind us. I hate it when we fight. It's so rare... I can only remember about two other times in my life that it's happened.

  It feels weird. And I want to fix it.

  But my current situation, of course, is also weird, and as I reach the entrance to Grim Tower, Grim moves past me fluidly, standing in front of the metal door with her hand resting against it, one brow raised at me.

  I glance back toward the car. It's parked neatly in the parking lot, several feet away.

  “You're...fast,” I manage, folding my arms in front of me. I raise a brow, too. “Please excuse me. I'm trying to do my job.” My words are clipped with forced politeness, but neither of us moves.

  “Bella.” Grim's mouth forms my name, and I stiffen my knees to prevent them from melting at the sound. I'm not a pushover. I lift my chin, pin her in place with my own flashing gaze.

  “I have a job to do,” I emphasize again. I'm a little miffed that my voice is softer, but there's still a cold undercurrent to it.

  Grim doesn't step away from the door, and I don't back down, either, so we're kind of at an impasse. And we're standing fairly close to one another.

  When Grim breathes out in frustration, the heat of her breath gusts over my face. My entire body is tense, but I can feel that stiffness begin to, very gradually, fade. I'm near her again, and when I breathe in, I'm a little startled, because my sense of smell isn't that strong. But I inhale, and...suddenly I'm transported back to a memory from my childhood.

  I'm reminded, again, of the tigress. No, not of the way she smelled, or of the way the zoo she lived in smelled. You know the scent of a zoo: the odor of caged animals, of closeness and sadness, of the grooves in the earth where the animal's feet dig deep with their pacing, of that sour scent of piss and shit—piled up in the corner, removed daily, but the ghost of it always remaining, especially on hot days when the animal just wants to escape the scent of its own body...and will never be able to.

  No, no, she doesn't smell like the tigress. I remember what the tiger enclosure smelled like, and it was wrong, unnatural. My six-year-old self preferred to imagine the tigress in the wild. Because there were plaques on all of the animal exhibits, repeating words like poachers, endangered, deforestation... The plaques also explained how the animals lived in their natural habitats.

  I was young. It was the first time I could read when I'd visited the zoo, so—very proud of myself—I was determined to read every single plaque. I read about how wolves live in packs, and I thought about what that must be like, a pack of wolves traveling together in the wilderness, howling beneath full moons. I learned that tigers are relatively solitary creatures, that they move practically undetected among the foliage, their stripes designed to make them almost invisible to the human eye.

  In the wild, the tiger would smell like rivers. And trees. And fields covered in wildflowers. I'd never been to the tigers' countries of origin and had to substitute what I'd seen of the Vermont landscape—so in my mind's eye, there were mountains, lots of trees and cows... I knew what the mountains smelled like, because my parents took me on hikes. Up there, the air was rich with that scent of ozone and conifer and rotting bark.

  And that's what Grim smells like.

  Like everything green and real and wild.

  As I watch her, and as I breathe in her perfume, I feel the tightness dissolve, my stomach relaxing, my fists unfurling.

  Her mouth, so often set in a hard line, softens. Brazenly, I trace the shape of her lips with my eyes.

  She parts her lips, then, and her mouth reforms a frown. “This way.” It's another growl, two words that hold no sort of choice within them.

  It's true: I don't have a choice. I have to work. Bills must be paid.

  And, sure, I'm attracted to her, but I've often been attracted to women who aren't good for me. Mysterious women just like Grim.

  I remind myself of this as Grim unlocks and opens the door. She holds it for me, sidestepping, her hard gaze pointed toward the ground. Without a word, I move past her into the dim interior. I don't wait for my eyes to adjust; I step into the darkness alone.

  Grim follows after me, though at a distance. My head is foggy, and I can't remember how I got to the kitchen the first time—Rex showed me the way, after all—so I just keep walking, hoping I'll recognize the door when I see it. But when I reach the turn at the end of one of many hallways, I stop and sigh, wincing. I grit my teeth.

  “Could you please point me toward the kitchen?” I don't turn around as I ask the question.

  Grim comes up beside me, sliding her hands into her pockets. It's so quiet that I hear the sound of her leather jacket brushing against her jeans, hear her soft exhale. I risk a glance at her, find that she's watching me carefully. Those torches along the walls have low-wattage bulbs—to add to the atmosphere, I'm assuming—so there is very little light for me to make out Grim's expression.

  I just don't understand her... She went out of her way to offer me this job. And she went out of her way to come to my apartment and apologize for her family. To ask me to come back. But then she shut me out in the car, almost seemed to resent my presence. It doesn't make sense. I prefer it when people are straight with me. Honest.

  I know better, and, still, she draws me in.

  Her eyelids flutter, but she doesn't reply to my question. I wonder if she's searching for the right thing to say. Finally, she turns toward me, her brows furrowed, her eyes stormy, but, still, she doesn't speak.

  I nod once, nostrils flaring. “If you don't want to talk, just point out the way.”

  Her eyes flash.

  Then she folds her arms over her chest and lifts her chin, breathing out. The amber of her eyes is heated, crackling with lightning that never strikes. I try to
hold her gaze, but it's too intense.

  Grim inclines her head toward the left, indicating, I guess, a left turn down the hallway.

  Well.

  That's what I wanted, wasn't it? The direction? But I can't hide my hurt feelings; there are hot tears welling in my eyes, making it difficult to see. I hate that I'm letting her make me cry. I hate that I'm crying so easily today. Head bowed, I hurry away, but I make it six or seven steps before something compels me to turn around.

  Grim's hands are buried in her pockets again, and her shoulders are curved forward, almost as if...in defeat. Her jaw is tight, like her teeth are clamped together.

  Like she's holding something in.

  I've been hurt many times in my life. I open my heart; I let people in... Pam says I'm too trusting. But it's my personal motto to always give someone the benefit of the doubt, one last chance... I keep hoping, keep believing, in the innate goodness of people (except when it comes to Andrew, of course).

  “Grim?” I murmur into the stillness.

  She startles, actually jumps, as if I drew her out of a deep reverie. Her widened eyes lift to meet mine in the soft darkness.

  The words are crowded in my throat: they have to come out; I can't stop them.

  “Why did you come to my apartment?” And then: “Why did you come back for me?”

  She doesn't move, and I don't move, either, but my heart opens up, just a little.

  And we watch one another warily for a long moment.

  “We need someone. To cook for us. We...we aren't good at it ourselves. We forget. It keeps us...human. Good food, I mean.” The words are a jumble, but a careful jumble, as if she chose each one out of a bag containing the English language.

  And it sounds innocent enough. We need someone to cook for us. But...people cook. People cook every damn day, whether they're good at it or not. You don't hire a diner waitress to do it for you.

  But she did.

  There's something more going on here. I don't expect Grim to explain it to me, her employee.

  I straighten a little and shake my head. “Listen, you don't...you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to. It would just be helpful if you weren't sharp. I worked for Andrew for years, and I'm kind of done with tense boss-and-employee relationships. I'm just...not a fan,” I finish weakly. Speaking Andrew's name aloud left a sour taste on my tongue. Despite her gruffness, Grim is nothing like that asshole.