Chapter 6
Vaughn
Sunday night. The bar is full and Robin isn't here.
Knox and Toby are in the armchair — Toby in Knox's lap, Knox's hand in Toby's hair, both of them doing that thing where they exist in their own private dimension and the rest of us are just background noise.
Jason's behind the bar cooking something because Ash is on the couch and Jason almost always cooks when Ash is within a fifty-foot radius, some shifter-caretaker instinct that manifests exclusively as garlic bread and aggressive seasoning.
Silas is in his corner with a book that has a castle on the cover.
Ezra's at the card table pretending to play solitaire while actually watching the game on the TV above the bar.
No Robin.
Robin hasn't missed a Sunday night at the bar since he started coming months ago.
Not once. Not when he had the flu, not when Gordon made him work a sixteen-hour shift, not when he was exhausted or stressed or clearly running on fumes.
Sunday night at the bar is the closest thing Robin has to church, and he doesn't miss it.
I pour myself a beer and take my usual spot at the end of the bar. Crossword out, reading glasses on, pen in hand. Normal Sunday. Completely normal.
"Where's Robin?" I ask Toby, aiming for casual. Missing by a mile.
"Busy tonight." Toby doesn't look up from whatever he's reading on his phone. "Said he might stop by later."
Busy. Robin is never busy. Robin is the opposite of busy — Robin is aggressively, relentlessly present.
He fills every room he enters, takes up space with his voice and his laugh and his ridiculous flirting.
The idea of Robin being "busy" is like saying the sun was "busy" and couldn't be bothered to rise.
I fill in 17 across. RESONANCE. The clue was "lingering vibration" and my brain supplies Robin's cheek against my jaw last night before I can stop it.
An hour passes. I'm through the top half of the crossword and on my second beer and I have not looked at the door. I've looked at the area near the door. I've glanced in the general direction of the door. But I haven't looked at it specifically, which means I'm fine.
"You're staring at the door," Jason says, sliding onto the stool next to me.
"I'm doing a crossword."
"You're doing a crossword while staring at the door. Impressive multitasking."
"Don't you have bread to burn?"
"My bread is perfect and you know it." He steals a glance at my crossword. "42 down is ECLIPSE."
It is. I don't fill it in because I refuse to give him the satisfaction. "I'm not staring at the door."
"Vaughn, you've looked up twelve times in the last ten minutes. I counted."
"That's a weird thing to count."
"I'm observant." He pauses, lowers his voice. "Robin's fine. Ash texted him this afternoon. He said he's staying in tonight."
"I didn't ask you about Robin."
"No, you just look like someone stole your favorite wrench every time the door opens and it's not him."
I fill in 42 down. ECLIPSE. Then 43 across, which I already knew but was saving. "Go cook something."
Jason goes, but he squeezes my shoulder on the way past. Not mocking. Just kind, which is worse.
The evening moves the way bar evenings do — slow, warm, familiar.
Knox and Toby go upstairs around ten, Knox carrying Toby because Toby fell asleep in the armchair and Knox is physically incapable of waking him up.
Jason and Ash leave together, Jason's hand in Ash's back pocket.
Ezra heads upstairs with a wave and a yawn.
Silas finishes his book, marks his place with a napkin, and pauses at the bottom of the stairs.
"He'll come around," Silas says.
I don't ask who he means. "Night, Silas."
"Night."
Still no Robin.
I wipe down the bar. Stack the chairs. Run the dishwasher. Check the locks twice even though I already checked them once. Normal closing routine. The kind of repetitive, physical work that usually quiets my head.
Tonight it doesn't work. Tonight my head is full of Robin lying in the grass looking at stars, saying maybe the performance IS me, maybe there's no real Robin.
His voice cracking on it. The weight of his body against my lion's side, how he curled in without hesitation, how his fingers gripped my mane like I was the only solid thing in his world.
The cheek kiss. Quick and light, his lips warm against my jaw, and then gone.
I flirt with everyone. It doesn't mean anything.
Except it came out like a question.
And I didn't answer. I said "Night, Robin" and I drove away, and now he's not here.
I break at 11:47. Pull out my phone.
What are you doing?
The response comes fast: Washing my face. You?
No, what are you doing avoiding the bar? You're never too busy for Sunday night.
Maybe tonight I was.
That's bullshit and you know it.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. Gone. This cycle repeats four times over two minutes and each cycle takes a year off my life.
Finally: Goodnight Vaughn.
I set my phone on the bar and stare at it. Goodnight Vaughn. Two words that mean "I'm closing this door" in Robin's language, which I've apparently become fluent in against my will.
He's avoiding me. Not the bar — me. Because last night on the overlook he was real, and being real with someone is the most terrifying thing Robin Martinez knows how to do. He showed me the person underneath the performance and now he's panicking.
I know this because I'm doing the same thing.
Standing in an empty bar at midnight replaying the way his body felt against mine in the grass, and instead of telling him — instead of driving to Ash's house and saying it meant something, it meant everything, please stop pretending it didn't — I'm staring at my phone waiting for a text that isn't coming.
We're both idiots. Different kinds of idiots, but idiots nonetheless. Robin hides behind performance. I hide behind patience. Both of us waiting for the other person to go first.
I lock up. Climb the stairs to my apartment. The hallway is quiet — Knox and Toby's room silent for once, Ezra's light off, Silas probably already asleep with his book on his chest. I can hear the building settle around me, the familiar creaks and sighs of a place I've lived for years.
I brush my teeth. Change into sweats. Lie on my bed in the dark.
My lion is restless. Not angry — he doesn't get angry often, that's more Knox's territory — but unsettled, pacing the edges of my awareness the way he does when something isn't right.
He wants to go to Robin. Wants to shift and run to Ash's house and curl around him again and keep him warm until he stops being afraid.
I can still smell him. Vanilla and sugar and something sharper underneath — adrenaline, fear, the acrid edge of a bad night. And below all of that, the real scent. The one I only caught at the overlook, when Robin stopped performing and just breathed. Warm and clean and specific. His.
My phone sits dark on the nightstand.
I should text him again. Say something. Anything. Tell him the overlook meant something. Tell him I've been watching him for months and I know the difference between his performance laugh and his real one and his real one does things to me that I don't have vocabulary for.
But Robin ran. Robin is scared. And pushing a scared person into a corner is the fastest way to lose them.
So I do what I do. What I always do.
I wait.
My lion disagrees with this strategy. My lion thinks I should break down Ash's front door and carry Robin back to the overlook and refuse to leave until he admits the cheek kiss meant something.
My lion is not known for his subtlety.
I close my eyes. Sleep doesn't come for a long time.
When it does, I dream about stars.