Ward #6
“Now, now, now,” Miles said with a grin, adjusting his vest unnecessarily. “I offer several affordable services for the average person. Well, affordable for the quality I give, and the ideas I bring to the table. I’m sure we could work something out.”
The look in his eyes told me just what ‘working out’ he had in mind. “I take it you’ve got your measurements? Or do you wish to keep undressing him with your eyes?”
“I was undressing him to redress him. My goodness, the possibilities. He has a gentleman’s face,” Miles said with a little sigh.
I waited a few heartbeats before he shook himself with a little noise and clapped his hands.
“Well, you should have the tux by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have someone drop it off for you, so please be awake, Ward.
I do not need that thing sitting outside your door after I’ve worked on it.
Security or not, I simply don’t trust anyone. ”
“I will strive to do my best,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Thank you as always, Miles. It’s always an interesting time when you’re around.”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course it is,” he said, wiggling his pinky at Arlo. “Do give some thought to my offer, won’t you? Bye, boys, try not to get into trouble...or at least not any trouble that would damage the clothes.”
“We’ll do our best,” I said dryly, amused as ever by his constant, frenetic energy. “Do you require an escort to the door?”
“No, no, no...well, unless my latest muse wants to join me,” Miles said slyly.
“Miles, stop harassing the man,” I said with a sigh.
He gave me a knowing look. “Want him to yourself to harass? As if you haven’t already...and I’d be sorely disappointed if you hadn’t.”
“I have been well and thoroughly harassed,” Arlo assured him, and when I gave him a questioning look, he gave me a small smile and a shrug. I chose to take that as he hadn’t minded the harassment.
“Fine, fine, fine,” Miles said with a sigh. “I’ll be on my way. Do take pictures for me, Ward. I would love to see him dressed in finery. As I’m sure everyone who sees him will enjoy it. Nothing quite like a good set of clothes to make the man.”
“You have my word,” I told him with a bow of my head. That was enough for him because my word was not something I offered lightly, and we’d had a working relationship long enough for him to know that.
“He is...certainly energetic,” Arlo noted once Miles had all but skipped out of the room.
“You can say he’s exhausting, you would not be the first, and as long as he’s alive and dealing with people, you aren’t going to be the last.”
“I can see he would be exhausting for some people.”
“But not for you?”
“The key is not trying to keep up with him. You won’t exhaust yourself that way.”
“True,” I said with a sigh. “But...he is actually a genius at what he does. And he wasn’t kidding; he does offer services that aren’t terribly expensive. He doesn’t make a big fuss about it because people tend to comment.”
“What sort of thing? Affordability?”
“We still live and breathe in a world where people of his fame and skill are meant to cater only to those who can afford it; the higher the price tag, the more prestige people attach to it. He’s never said it, but I’m quite sure he charges people like me as much as he does because not only can I afford it, but it adds prestige in people’s minds.
At the same time, he has a soft spot for the everyman.
In the fashion industry especially, that sort of soft spot should be reserved for charity, not for reasonable prices that ‘dilute’ the grandeur of his art. ”
“A little like you then.”
I glanced at him, surprised. “Nothing like me. I haven’t an artistic bone in my body.”
“Perhaps, but you seem aware that’s up-charging you for a task he wouldn’t have charged me nearly as much for, and you accept it with grace.
You appreciate his work, not the prestige attached to it.
Just as you appreciated the quality one of the workmen was willing to put into your bathroom.
A company, I noticed, that did not come from whatever elite phone book you have access to.
And it is only a guess, based on Olivia, but your party had ‘normal’ people, not just the rich and famous.
You aren’t humble, but you’re not afraid to encourage those humble origins in others, even appreciate it. ”
“Hmm, should I ever lose my senses and go into politics like my mother wishes, I should bring you on as my public relations manager. You have a knack for spinning positive light around me.”
“I speak on what I see, not what I can fabricate.”
“Even better, when the positive spin has a foot in the truth, it’s even more likable.”
“Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom? He seems quite good at what he does, but there was some sort of...perfume on his hands that has stuck to mine, and I need to rinse it off if I can.”
“Well, if he got it anywhere else, feel free to use my shower,” I said with a smirk. “I can promise there are no cameras in there to worry about.”
He gave me an amused look. “I think washing my hands will suffice.”
“You saw it on the way in,” I told him with a chuckle. “And you can’t hold it against me. Having the chance to have you naked in my home was too good to pass up.”
“Of course,” he said as he walked past me, speaking before disappearing around the corner. “Mind you, no one ever said there wasn’t still a chance of that in the near future, just not in that way.”
Hmm, I would need to remember there was a lot more to Arlo than met the eye.
For someone who did a damn fine job of presenting a respectable, well-controlled face, there was a lot more going on under the surface.
At the very least, I could say I was sure he was into me, but he was far better at flirtation than I thought.
He was good at finding the right carrot to dangle from the right stick, that was for sure.
It was only a minute after he’d gone into the bathroom before I heard a couple of thumps, one heavier than the other, followed by a word I wasn’t even aware he knew, let alone used.
“Arlo?” I called, worrying as I walked toward the bathroom. The door opened, and he stepped out.
“You may want to call your building manager,” he said, holding up what had once been the soap dispenser. In his hand was a singed and cracked glass bottle, the contents leaking everywhere, including his hand and the bathroom floor.
“What in the fresh hell happened?” I asked, staring at the bottle and then catching the look on his face. “Jesus, why do you look all... bug-eyed?”
“An electric shock gets my attention quite quickly,” he said with a huff, shaking the container. “I picked this up to look at it, and without thinking, I used it to bump the faucet to get water flowing. Lucky for me because the handles are hot.”
I blinked, trying to understand what he was saying. “What? How the hell is my bathroom sink live?”
“I believe you’ll have to take that up with your building manager, who will have to take it up with the electricians who came in here to deal with the wiring,” he said. “The dispenser took the brunt of the shock, but there was more than enough almost to knock me down.”
I stared at it, and then up to his face. “I...yeah, that would get anyone’s attention...did you call it a cunt?”
His eyes widened slightly. “If it should ever transpire that you meet my mother, do me a favor, and never tell her that word left my lips. I can’t remember the last time I heard that word, let alone used it.”
“Well, getting shocked when you’re trying to wash your hands will make the most gentlemanly individual remember some choice curses,” I said with a frown, taking the bottle and setting it on the counter.
I looked, and while there were some scorch marks on his hand, there didn’t seem to be any damage. ..that I could see. “Are you okay?”
“My heart rate has gone down, and there’s a slight ache in my fingers, but no real damage,” he said, flexing his injured hand.
I stared at the faucet. “How did they even manage that? It could have killed you.”
“And probably would have if I’d touched it directly,” Arlo said dryly.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I frowned. “I was in there earlier. I gave my face a rinse and everything. Wait, I didn’t turn the light on.”
Arlo looked at the light switch and then down at the faucet.
Raising a brow, he flipped the light off, and my eyes widened when he reached out and flipped the water on before I could do more than make a strangled noise and lunge forward to stop him.
Yet he touched it without a problem, and the water flowed.
“Hmm...to once again borrow your phrase, interesting,” he said with a sigh. “It seems the blessing of my curse has shown itself.”
It took me a moment to understand what he was saying, mostly because I was still recovering from how boldly he flipped the water on despite the damn thing having almost killed him minutes before. “What, your...death thing?”
“As I said, death happens around me, but never to me. In fact, things like this tend to happen to me a lot around certain people.”
“What certain people?”
“My family mostly, but that’s probably because I’ve been around them more than anyone else. But the people I work with at the funeral home as well. It’s as if the death that follows me gets directed away from them and toward me, but since it doesn’t want to kill me—”
“You...what? Get near-death experiences instead?”
“Essentially, yes.”
“So you’re saying this supposed curse targeted me, but for whatever reason, it got distracted and almost killed you instead, but remembered it couldn’t kill you.”
“That’s one theory. The other is that for whatever reason, the curse doesn’t touch some people, but at the cost of my having to take a less lethal version of whatever targeted them.”
“Right...of course. Uh, in any case, I will make that call...immediately. And perhaps I’ll bring in a team of my own to look things over to make sure there aren’t any other death traps around here for either of us.”
Arlo looked amused. “You don’t believe me.”
“I’m not one to believe in curses, bad luck, or anything. From the sounds of it, you were nearly killed, and I don’t want to take any chances because I might have the same—”
“Luck?”
“Shut it.”
Arlo chuckled. “Hang around me more, and you’ll become a believer. And since I took the shock instead of you, it seems that whatever force is at work in my life thinks you should be around for a little longer.”
“How...comforting.”
“I doubt that.”
I huffed. “You’re right, I don’t find it comforting.”
He snorted. “Well, there’s a bit more excitement for the day. That said, I should be going. I have dinner with a couple of my younger brothers, and don’t like being late. Should I stop by here tomorrow to get the tuxedo?”
“I can have Miles have his people drop it off at your place if you wish to get changed there,” I said. There was no point in having him come here if he preferred to get ready at home after work. “You’ll have to send me your address. I can have you picked up there at around eight.”
“That works for me,” he said, smiling and squeezing my arm. “Thank you for the…interesting time. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“You will,” I promised, apropos of nothing. “A question…”
He stopped. “What would that be?”
“That woman, Olivia,” I broached, wondering if it really was apropos of nothing or if she had been living in the back of my mind since the party and the conversation with him over the phone. “Do you know her last name?”
“Offhand, no,” he said, tilting his head.
“When you find out, could you let me know?”
He stared at me. “Technically, I should mind telling you. You made a valid point that I probably should have told you what I did about her.”
“Of course,” I said quickly, knowing it would be easy to find the information but unsure why I wanted to know in the first place. “Don’t mind me, I’m thinking aloud.”
“Hmm, I can’t see the harm in telling you,” he said, looking at me so thoughtfully I had the urge to squirm.
“That works, I said, quickly changing the topic before he asked questions. “And don’t forget to text me your address.”
“I won’t, “ he said with a small smile. “Take care.”
“Always,” was all I could say as he left the room. I couldn’t hear him moving through the penthouse, but I heard the front door close behind him, leaving me in a cloud of scented soap from the destroyed bottle and the unpleasant, acidic odor of burned plastic from the electrical short.
Which reminded me I needed to text Miles once I had Arlo’s address, and also call Paul, the building manager.
He and I already needed to chat about one of the nosier, big-mouthed tenants in the building, and now this shoddy workmanship from a team he had brought in was all the leverage I needed to get what I wanted.
Which might be enough to stop me thinking too hard about being on my knees in front of Arlo, hands gripping his thighs and feeling—
Well, it would keep me busy for a while anyway.