Chapter Sixteen #2
Soyer didn’t meet my eyes. “I’m not getting involved in this. I’ll just be making the food.”
“Oh my.” Elias sounded like I’d told him elephants could fly.
“Are you going to come? You don’t have to stay long if it’s awkward or anything.”
I heard a long inhale from Elias’s end. “Oh, I like coming. A lot. But that aside, I’ll make the two fiends who imprisoned me attend your gathering.
If you’d like Kasey there, you’ll have to extend invitations to Vico and his Parisian, and if you’re having Ben over, you must invite Anton.
Rae shall have a plus one, and the plus one shall have a plus one, and honestly, I’d make you invite the other human cook as well, except no one made sure to introduce her to our world, so maybe not.
For her own sake. Who by the devil’s balls is the writer? ”
Soyer groaned. “The regular Amory hopes Ben will date.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll make inquiries. When should everyone arrive?”
I frowned. Elias sounded much too excited about this. “Hey, it’s just a small party for friends, you know. And really just for people who don’t have anything else planned.”
“Mm-hmm,” Elias said. “I will tell them.”
“Four or five for time of arrival. You pick. Can we leave you with this?” Soyer asked. “Can you handle it?”
“Oh, yes. I shall request dispensation from my unfair imprisonment, and it shall be my joy to plan for a successful…small party for friends.”
“Great. Bye then,” Soyer said and hung up, then tossed my phone to the edge of the bed. It left him above me, his body close. He looked right into my eyes. “Hi there.”
“Hi.”
“Can I kiss you?”
I put my arms around him. “Only if I can kiss you too.”
We spent about another hour in bed doing just that, being close and holding each other tight.
Soyer froze some of the delicious breads he’d baked when we finally made our way downstairs.
It was about one o’clock by then, and we were having the stuffed rolls that hadn’t gone into the freezer.
Sunlight broken by clouds cast long shadows, and we were comfortable at his table, sharing a chair to put our feet up on.
Soyer had his spiced coffee, and I was having mine black.
“Where do you want to go? For your kitchen shopping, I mean.”
“I know a place. It’s in the underground.”
I straightened in my chair. “You didn’t say we were going down there again. Way to bury the lede.”
He pointed at me. “Too much excitement. You’d have wanted to go right away, and I’m enjoying having breakfast with you.” He lifted his feet off the chair and stood. “I have a present for you. Wait right here.”
“Huh?”
But Soyer was on the way past the window gallery and toward his office.
Part of me wanted to follow, but he’d asked me to wait.
I racked my brain for anything I might’ve missed, any sort of anniversary that required a gift.
When I saw him come out of his office again, I was starting to get worried and already feeling more than a little guilty.
Soyer had a small box in his hand, but he frowned when he saw me. “What the fuck? Why do you look like that?”
“Uh…it’s my face? I forgot something, didn’t I? I don’t know what though, but I’m sorry.”
Soyer stood there, one hand on the back of his chair. He didn’t look angry exactly, just like someone who wanted to speak to the manager. And I was the manager.
“I swear to every fucking circle of hell or whichever underworld you care to pray to, you are too good for this world, my heart. Too good for me.” He sat heavily.
“There’s nothing you missed.” He held out the little box to me.
It was almost like a ring box, but bigger.
“This is a present for you, no occasion. I still owe you for leaving without a word yesterday, but this isn’t for that. Take it.”
“But—”
“If you don’t want to upset me, Amory, you’ll take this.”
So I picked up the box. It was off-black, heavy, and didn’t look exactly new. It might have been polished to a shimmer once, but now it reminded me of copper that had gone cloudy.
“You don’t have to give me things,” I said while working up the courage to open the gift.
“And you don’t have to kiss me and allow me to make love to you, but you do, so here we are. Stop staring at it and open it. It’s really more of a practicality than a gift.”
I flipped the lid. Suspended on a fancy miniature cushion was a wristwatch.
I didn’t know watches, but I guessed Soyer did.
This one looked stylish, the little hands silver, the face shimmering.
It had more than just the time dial; there was one for days of the month and another for the months themselves as well.
There was a third, and it looked like it was showing the phases of the moon.
In small, elegant lettering, it read Breguet on the watch face.
“This is… Thank you. It’s beautiful. Did you make this?”
Soyer huffed. “No. I saw it, thought of you, bought it.” He reached across the table and put a hand on my wrist while I was still looking at the watch, which was likely worth more than I’d made in the last ten years.
“Listen to me. I always wear a watch like this when I go out to hunt a witch. They don’t like them.
You have felt their magic and know what it can do, but the one thing they can’t do is manipulate clockwork.
It stumps them. Amory, when you look at this watch, you can be certain that what you see is reality. Their magic can’t bend clockwork.”
My mouth fell open. My heart skipped a beat. My vision clouded as the tears came, and I dropped the box with the watch inside on my plate, which was full of crumbs.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Hey.” Soyer was on his feet in a flash, at my side a heartbeat later. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close. “It’s fine. You’re okay, Amory. It’s just a little old watch. You don’t have to cry over something like that.”
“But…this is…this is going to keep me safe.”
He sighed. “No, I’ll do that. This lets you know when there’s magic around you.
Also, I’d rather die a hundred times than have you face another one, but if you ever come face to face with a witch again, they’re not going to like this.
Clockwork works like holy water does for fictional vampires on them, only real.
It repels them. If you ever have to, use it. ”
“Okay.”
“But also, stay the fuck away from witches.”
I chuckled without humor, then coughed because the tears had clogged my throat. “I wasn’t planning on getting close to one ever again.”
“Good boy. Do you want me to put this on you?”
I nodded, realizing my tears had soaked into his shirt. I pulled back and wiped my face with my hand.
“Yeah.”
“Try to stop crying. It’s just a small thing.”
“But it was expensive though, wasn’t it?”
Soyer shrugged. “I bought it secondhand.”
That made me feel slightly better as he fitted the strap around my wrist and made sure that it was snug, but not too snug.
I liked how the watch looked on my wrist, liked how it felt. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at it even once my tears had dried and we enjoyed our breakfast. Much like my necklace or my ring, Soyer had picked this out for me, even if it was secondhand, and that made it special, precious.
“I’m going to take good care of this watch,” I eventually said.
Soyer looked as if this pleased him. “I’m glad, my heart. Really glad.”