Chapter 30 Helena
I should not be turned on by any of what had just happened. At all.
But God I was.
As Grim drove down Third Street, The Judge’s now-familiar rumble reverberating through me, I gripped the sides of the leather seat and tried like heck to ignore the subtle vibrations of the vehicle, the gentle tremoring of that powerful engine as it rattled up my bones and teased all the parts of me that he’d just lit up like bumpers in a pinball machine.
“Peter… seemed okay, but I… he…” I shook my head, rephrasing the question. “Did… you kill him?”
“Just for a second,” he grumbled.
I gaped at him—and at myself, galled. Because why was that hot, too?
“Can’t you get in trouble for that?” I asked.
“At this point,” he muttered, “it’s in for a penny, in for a pound, Hart.”
Hart?
That was new. And more distant than I liked.
He kept his eyes on the road, that white patch of hair swept back above his pierced ear, darker strands teasing the collar of his bad-boy jacket. The aroma of him, filling the cab, had my memories bouncing from one moment of closeness to the next and back again.
I’d never been high in my life. Never until now. And oh my God, this car.
The ceaseless rumbling of my seat made it all the harder to wrangle my imagination away from wandering beneath his clothes. And picturing those strong and sinewy, ring-lined hands all over me.
I cleared my throat when a sobering thought allowed me to get a handle on myself.
“Is this… a business call?” I asked him. “Reaper Man?” I added after a beat. He did a double take at me, and I shrugged because turnabout was fair play. “That’s what I called you in my head before I knew your real not-real name.”
“I’m not here for your soul, if that’s what you’re asking,” he replied, which had me relaxing a little. “I think you’d know if I was.”
He had a point. This was the first time he’d come to find me in my world ahead of any disastrous event. It was also the first time he’d approached me in his burn-the-world-down-and-me-with-it, hot-as-magma, sizzler human form.
I should roll down the window. Maybe I had a mint.
Who was I kidding? Neither of those things was going to help.
“I thought… I wouldn’t see you again until it was time,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, “I thought so, too. Who the fuck was that piece of shit?”
“I work with Peter,” I said. “We have… a history. I shouldn’t have told him you were my boyfriend. I’m… sorry. It was the first thing that popped into my head when he asked about the car, and…”
And maybe I wished it was true.
“He’s not going to try bothering you again,” Grim assured me.
“Is… he going to be okay?”
“You told me not to hurt him,” Grim said.
“Right before you slammed him into a Toyota and rubber-band snapped his soul.”
“He’s fine.”
Fine? I didn’t think so. But maybe I also, just this once… didn’t care.
Peter had behaved poorly enough to deserve stern words at least.
I’d gotten a few from Grim myself…
And a few more interesting ones said about me.
Relax, she likes it.
As Grim’s rebuttal from earlier swirled through my mind, I shoved my knees together, gripping the seat even harder. Because he was right. I did like it. And I’d liked it even more when he’d told Peter I liked it—being told what to do. Bossed around. By him…
“What’s the matter?” asked Grim, oblivious to my current struggles, my mounting strife. My boiling blood. Would he notice if I turned on the AC? “You want me to slow down or something?”
Yes. No…
“Why are you gripping the seat like that?” he demanded. “Are you afraid?”
No.
Yes…
“Where… where are we going?” I asked.
“I’m only taking you home,” he said. “I just… needed to ask you something. I thought the parking lot at your work would be a neutral space.”
“You have my phone number,” I said as he pulled to a stop at a red light, my words earning a scalding glare from him.
“Look,” he grumbled, “I didn’t mean to scare you by showing up.”
“I’m not scared,” I murmured. “I’m just… curious. About what made you decide to stop by in person.”
“Yeah,” he said, “well, I’m curious about a few things, too.”
Oh, so he was going to avoid the question, huh? Interesting…
“Like…?” I probed.
“For starters?” he asked. “Why would someone like you ever waste your time on a guy like that? Was that the dipshit you went to the costume party with? You said you work with him, but I don’t get it. Is he your ex or what? And did he fucking call you Leaflet?”
My face burned and I sank in the seat a bit. Because it was a cringey pet name, wasn’t it?
The light turned green, and he hit the gas again—clearly bothered.
A small smile touched my lips, and then I turned my attention forward, eyes on the familiar roads as he took every turn like he’d driven this route to my apartment a hundred times.
Like he really was my boyfriend…
Was Grim interested in my relationship with Peter because he was genuinely curious… or could it be he was jealous? Why did I want to pretend it was the latter…?
“Peter and I were together… yes,” I said.
“We weren’t official for very long before he called it off.
I found out recently that he lied and possibly, I’m still not sure, cheated.
There were red flags but… I overlooked them.
I guess I wanted to believe in my idea of Peter instead of the person he kept showing me he really was. ”
“Why?” he asked again.
“Because I’m starting to realize—too late, I think—that I have a bad habit of believing the best of people.”
Grim got quiet. Then, without warning, he pulled off into a strip mall, and then into a parking spot in a deserted patch of the lot.
“That’s not a bad habit,” he said before throwing the car into park and killing the engine.
“Why are we stopped?” I asked him in the swelling silence.
For a long time, he didn’t say anything, and my anxiety grew. Especially when he just kept staring forward like that.
“That guy back there,” he said at last. “Is he the reason you stop yourself from smiling sometimes? Or why you’re always apologizing for nothing?”
I frowned, a zing of fear shooting through my heart. At being seen.
Especially by him.
I opened my mouth to answer but my voice, as it so often did when I seemed to need it most, fled.
“Is he?” Grim pressed, turning to look at me, those eyes cold in hue but not angry, or judging. Instead, he seemed again to be sincere in his curiosity.
“I…” Gosh. What could I say? Maybe I didn’t even know the answer. Peter had made me feel small more than once, but… he wasn’t the only one. I was a lot for some people. Most people, it seemed. Except for the kids.
“I scare off most guys,” I blurted out.
Grim’s brow furrowed even more, his confusion deepening.
Up came my hands to help me explain. “I just say things sometimes, and I’m also a little clumsy but, well, you knew that.
And I make jokes that people groan at. But…
you knew that, too. I like weird, off-putting things like bright colors and big earrings that match but don’t—like a soda and popcorn, or a flower and a bumblebee?
I make voices for all the characters when I do storytime—accents and everything.
That can be a lot—I can be a lot—and I guess I just don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable or mad or both, but no matter what I do, I just…
seem to do that without trying anyway. If… that makes sense.”
He turned his gaze forward again, eyeing the strip mall across from us.
After another several seconds, he spoke.
“You ever think that might be a them problem and not a you problem?”
I blinked at him.
“I don’t run into many people like you,” he added when I didn’t answer—because I was still considering the possibility of what he’d said. “Which, if you think about it, is saying something. You… give off this energy. Even the fucking bird sees it.”
“Pluto?” I asked, perking up. “And what do you mean? What did he see?”
“Your… light,” he said, summoning another blush to my cheeks.
“But it’s not just the fact that you… glow.
I don’t know how else to describe it. Being around you.
It’s… like when you hear a song that’s really good.
A song that you can’t deny is good. And if people don’t like it—or say they don’t or pretend not to or whatever while they try to turn it down or off—it’s not because the song is bad.
Deep down they’re just pissed it’s good.
And because it’s not their song. It’s yours.
And listening to it reminds them of how their own song can’t compare. Or outright sucks. Because they suck.”
A small smile touched my lips. Dare I call him sweet again?
“I think I get on some people’s nerves,” I said. “And if I’m a song, I’m not for everyone.”
“See,” he said, leaning back in his seat, an arm draped over the steering wheel, “I think they get on their own fucking nerves. And being around you just reminds them of that. So they shoot the messenger, try to contain you by dumping their shit on you instead of following your lead and figuring out how to play their own song better. My advice? When it comes to your song, turn that shit up for the people who do like it. And everyone else? Fuck ’em. ”
My heart swelled and I had to fight the urge to launch myself at him—for, like, the tenth time. More than that, I wanted so badly to believe him. That there wasn’t anything wrong with me, and that I wasn’t the one messing everything up all the time by being too much. By being… me.
“E-even if my song is like… a Taylor Swift song?” I asked.
His gaze remained forward, though those deep blues narrowed.
I gritted my teeth and cringed internally, waiting for the fallout. But then he said, “Honestly, she’s got a few good ones.”
Gasping, I clasped my hands together, joy lighting up my face.
“I said a few,” he grumbled, leveling me with a “don’t get excited” glare.
I giggled, clapped, and pattered my feet on the floor mat, delighted that he liked at least three of her songs. That’s what “a few” roughly translated to, right?