Chapter Twenty-Four
We love these tropes.
Lyra
“I’m sick,” I answer the door a week after the best date I have or ever will have had.
Leaning against the frame, I squint at the hazy visage of who I hope is Jove.
“I would’ve called, but I didn’t save your number, and a letter wouldn’t have gotten to you fast enough, and I don’t have your address either to drop one off on your porch without risking giving you my germs.” I pull a tissue from the pocket of the robe hanging off my shoulders over my favorite pair of fuzzy pink pajamas, blow my nose, then continue.
“I’m so sorry, Jupie. I can’t go on our date tonight. ”
“Lyra, what the flag?” Jove asks, catching me when I wobble. He hisses as my skin hits his. “You’re burning up!”
I shrug, leaning into the cool comfort of his embrace. “You’re ice,” I mumble. “What blessing.”
Jove curses, then bends, scooping me up. Ah. Yes, much better, for here is his neck, frigid and wonderful. I shove my face into it.
“If you could just drop me off in my fridge, that would be great,” I mutter. “We’ll have to do date night next week.”
His jaw works above me, grinding against my head and making the pounding in it even poundier.
Ow.
“Okay. Okay. This is fine,” he booms, no care for my poor head. “We’ll just pivot. What are the trope options here… hm… He takes care of her when she’s sick, obviously. I can’t leave you like this. You’re pathetic.”
I groan in protest. I’m not pathetic. I’m adorably in need. A damsel in distress. My knight? The deep freezer sitting in my garage, which will surely fight this vicious heat. Oh, how I love him.
“Kidnapping,” he declares. “We’ll do the kidnapping trope.”
Um. No, I do not think we will.
“No kidnapping,” I insist, nuzzling until I find a colder spot to put my nose – his collarbone is particularly wintry this evening, bless all.
“Yes kidnapping,” he retorts, spinning us around in what I can only assume is an attempt to make me vomit. I, miraculously, resist. Gold stars for Lyra Gold. “The girlies love a good kidnapping.”
“The girlies? Again? Who are these ‘girlies’ who love all these tropes?” My hands inch up to his collar, stretching it as they reach inside, desperate for some of the chill my face is enjoying.
He stills, then clears his throat.
“You. You are ‘the girlies’.”
I most assuredly am not. “Don’t think so,” I reply. “Don’t think so at all.”
“You’ve loved it in every Rouge novel it’s ever been featured in,” he reminds me. Rude of him. “And you’re about to love it now. Do you need me to grab anything before we go? Your phone? Purse? Emotional support Diet Coke?”
I gasp. “Those are secret . ”
Can’t a girl have a confidential garage stash of Diet Coke without her best friend announcing it to the world all willy nilly? What is this?
“Oh, sorry, do you want me to grab a kombucha instead?” He gags, and I nearly do too.
No, I really do not want him to grab a kombucha instead. Health drinks are only to be forced down when I am healthy. Sickness is for sodas, which scratch the throat just right and coat them in syrup or sugar or some other soda magic that makes them not hurt quite so much.
“If you get me a kombucha, I’m cancelling my subscription to our friendship,” I inform him, except actually it comes out more like, “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.” But. You know. Same thing, really.
“Diet Coke it is,” he says. “I’ll have Mars pick some up though. No use depleting your stash when I should be stocking it for you anyway.”
Mars? Mars Rogue, going to the store and buying contraband for me? “He can’t do that,” I say, nosing Jove’s shirt further aside in search of new coolness. “That’s illegal.”
He snorts, jostling me as he sets me in his truck. Teleportation is a cool skill to have. I do not know why he didn’t teleport us straight to my deep freezer, though, considering that is where I would truly like to be.
“Kidnapping is illegal too,” I tell him, opening my eyes enough to squint at him through the stinging afternoon light. I regret this immediately and throw my head back with a groan, covering my eyes with my hands. “You’ve brought me here to suffer. Kidnapping and torture. Double illegal.”
“The law is a suggestion,” he replies as his hand slides against my stomach to buckle me in. “The torture will be over soon. I don’t live far.”
I would care about that information if I weren’t so busy dying. And complaining. Lots and lots of complaining.
“It hurts, Jupie. My head and my throat and my whole body. I want to be in my freezer. I want to be taken out back and put out of my misery. I want to be anywhere but in this truck hurtling down the road at top speed and hitting every pothole in the state of West Virginia. You don’t love me anymore, is that it?
That’s why you’ve chosen to do this to me? Is because of hate?”
Jove, for his part, blasts the air conditioner and pats my knee, assuring me that he does, in fact, still love me, and that he is taking me to his house because “it’ll be easier.” Whatever “it” is. My death, I hope.
After one millennium of nausea-inducing bumps, turns, and hills, Jove stops the truck.
“Are we at my end?” I whimper. “Please, let us be at my end.”
“We’re at my house,” he says. “Where you will have an evening of healing.”
Right. Healing. Great.
“You could end this so quickly,” I tell him when he scoops me into his arms again. “You said so yourself that the law is merely a suggestion.”
“Not the one about preserving human life,” he replies, walking us into a much-too-warm house. I peek an eye open, bracing for the blinding light I experienced outside. Instead, I’m met with a soft, cozy glow. Opening my other eye, I use what energy I have to look around.
The house is smaller than I would have expected, considering Jove and his brother’s millionaire status. It’s homey. Warm.
The living room is almost entirely taken up by their couch, where a green blanket has been haphazardly thrown over the armrest, and an enclosure that likely holds Mars’ hamster, Ginger, who I’ve read much about over the years.
An oval coffee table sits in front of the couch holding two remotes and a candle.
Men own candles? All on their own?
“Mars likes fire,” Jove mutters, turning so that I can see the rest of the common area, namely the kitchen, which is better than half the kitchens I’ve seen on TV.
It’s gleaming, modern appliances sparkle so bright it’s no wonder they don’t use the big lights. The reflection would probably blind them with big light power behind it.
In comparison, their worn table looks out of place, surrounded by equally worn seats. A leftover from before they zapped the kitchen into the future, probably.
On a counter running between the kitchen and living room rests a tiny carrot cake, displayed pristinely beneath a glass dome. My mouth waters for the first time in days, the prospect of getting a slice of that cake awakening my stomach more than any soup or cracker has since illness overtook me.
I turn my head slowly, mindful of the toll keeping my eyes open for so long is having on me, but don’t get far. I blink, certain the apparition before me is a trick of my mind. Shocking me, the image does not disappear, not even as I wipe my eyes, convinced it cannot be real.
“Your beverage, dear damsel,” Mars speaks, confirming his actuality. “Chilled to near freezing, as requested.”
I reach out to wrap my hand around the frosty can of Diet Coke he’s offering to me. The minute my fingers are on his, he grins, greeting me with more enthusiasm than I’m able to return.
“Hello, bike buddy.”
I croak what might be a greeting back at him and bring my soda to my cheek, closing my eyes at the relief it gives.
“Wow,” Mars says. “She really is sick.”
“I told you she was,” Jove replies. “I’ll keep her tucked away safe and sound in my room so you aren’t at risk of catching it.”
I miss Mars’ reply, lost in the glory of sweet, cold beauty on my skin. “This is so nice,” I mutter as I’m lowered onto plush blankets.
Jove’s hands slip out from under me, and I move my can to my other cheek. Goodness, so nice.
“I’ll get you some ice,” he says, smoothing my hair away from my face.
I muster the energy to open my mouth, if not my eyes. “There was carrot cake?” I ask, full of hope.
He chuckles. “There’s always carrot cake. You want some, Lyra-love?”
I nod, rolling the can to my forehead. “More than anything.” Well… “Except a freezer. Does your fancy kitchen have a freezer big enough to drop me in?”
“It does,” he answers. “But I will not be dropping you in it.”
“On account of all the hate you harbor for me in your soul?” I wonder.
“On account of my immense love for you. Cryogenic Lyra would just not be the same.”
Right. I’m so sure.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, then his lips are on my forehead, pushing the can out of the way for his kiss. “Don’t throw any parties while I’m gone.”
Yeah, well. Joke’s on him.
I’m a total party animal.