Chapter 5
Ellis
Lacey gasps as soon as she spots me, clutching a manicured hand to her chest. I really thought I had lined myself up for a smooth entrance, but she looks genuinely startled. “You’re the vigilante. You saved me last night.”
I can’t help but frown in response. I glance away and run a hand through my hair. “Vigi—no. I’m not . . . in that line of work, exactly.”
She crosses her arms, and I wonder if she’s cold. It is winter, and her dress doesn’t have sleeves. “Right, you’re one of Maestro’s minions.”
“Whaaaaaaat, Maestro? No, I wouldn’t work for thaaat guy,” I backpedal, but wince as soon as I hear myself say it. A smirk tugs one corner of Lacey’s mouth. I shrug and give my wings a stretch. “Alright, you got me. Gotta support the cold brew habit somehow.”
Lacey nods slowly but doesn’t quite laugh at my joke. Then she shakes her head. “There is . . . a whole room of people back there that are dying to meet you.”
She says that like it should mean more to me than getting to know her. I bite the inside of my cheek, listening to the rumble of hundreds of voices inside the museum.
“I don’t do crowds.”
“Evasive. Noted.” She hums. I can see her start to ask another question, but her eyes snag on my wings and the rest of her expression follows, transfixed.
Honestly, if she keeps looking at me like that, I might just give up my life of crime to flex for Ms. Vigil all day, cold brew be damned.
I try not to preen too much under her attention, but the look in her eyes as she watches me is unlike anything else in the world.
Her stare falls into a frown, her brows furrowing. Her shrewd eyes search the roof, the garden around us, alarm creeping into her expression. “If you’re here, then did Maestro—”
“It’s just me, really. Nobody’s crashing the gala,” I say and try to stifle a yawn. I wouldn’t have the chance to wander off if there was something planned. My feet and my wings hurt just thinking about it. After yesterday, I was hoping for a more low-key evening. “I mean, uh, nobody else is.”
Maybe a gala doesn’t count—one look at her, and I realize I’m clearly underdressed for it.
Lately, I’ve really only seen her wrapped up in professional-looking coats with varying levels of puffiness, broadcasting from the street.
I mean, besides last night. I don’t know if I’m really going to count that as seeing her in person, since she was tied up on that ratty old sofa for so much of it.
It’s not my particular spank material either.
That dress is, though.
The satiny black dress that ripples as she moves is wreaking havoc on my pulse. The way the fabric creases and shimmers, outlining the rises and dips of her belly, suddenly I’m all too aware that I’m not doing anything better with my tongue.
She sees me looking her up and down, and adjusts her shawl, shimmying one end down and then tossing it over the opposite shoulder with an eye roll. “Then what are you doing here?”
I try not to grin. “I hang out on a lot of rooftops, obviously. And when I saw you . . .”
“You thought you’d just say hello,” she finishes for me just as dryly, then raises her chin, her gaze narrowing. “How’d you know where I live, yesterday?”
I turn away from her gaze for a moment, running a clawed hand through my hair. “Hazarded a guess. I’ve seen you on Channel 6. Everyone knows where Steel lives, anyway.”
“So, you just know about me.”
“In a very vague, broad sense.”
“And I don’t know anything about you.”
I can’t imagine Maestro would feel very forgiving if I gave too much away to Steel Heel’s girl. Ex-girlfriend, I remind myself again. But she’s still too close to him for comfort. I’m trying to keep it professional and not feel some kind of way about that.
Still, I can’t keep the smile off my face. I gesture at myself, hoodie and gray sweatpants. I only wear Maestro’s flying suit on work nights. “And you want to know me?”
“Shouldn’t I? If you’re going to keep kidnapping me,” she says innocently, and turns toward some generic-shaped contemporary art sculpture in the center of the courtyard. Even from the roof I can see her reflection gracing its glittering black marble, polished to a mirror finish.
I open my mouth to answer her, but whatever thought I had is stolen out of my brain as she lets her bun down in a cascade of silky dark hair by removing a single stick—no, a pencil?
Some kind of makeup pencil is my best guess.
She pulls a little cap off it and starts to line her lower lip.
She rubs her lips together at her reflection on the polished sculpture.
She caps and twists the pencil back up in her hair, and it’s hidden away as a bun again.
I don’t know that I could tell you if her lips are a different color now, I was utterly lost in the moving shape of them, the way her hair fell over her shoulders, the curve of her neck as she swept it all back up.
Then she blinks expectantly at me, waiting for my answer.
“What?”
“What do mean, ‘what’?”
“I mean, what are you, a cop?” I say; it comes out a little too aggressive toward a girl I’m supposedly trying to flirt with. I try not to visibly cringe, but my teeth are all but welded together to keep from saying anything else stupid.
She crosses her arms and pouts like I’ve personally offended her, and God could she get any hotter, really? The way she narrows her eyebrows at me sends blood rushing away from my brain when I need it most.
“I’m a weather correspondent.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re the reason this whole city loves the Steely-est of all fucking Heels.”
Oh God, stop talking.
Lacey was the first person Steel Heel rescued from a mutant attack.
I remember because I was watching her interview one of the experts studying the ooze.
The guy had started sweating profusely, grabbed a vial of some glowing liquid off his desk, and downed it on camera.
He started actively melting onto everything.
They got the whole thing on camera, a reel that Channel 6 News edited together and played for fucking months.
Her cheeks redden. She huffs and treats me to a view of her profile. “I don’t, I mean, I think he was pretty popular before that.”
Did I touch a nerve?
I cross my arms, unconsciously matching her posture. “I mean, before he started rescuing you from burning buildings, I only knew him as the CEO who got into arguments with people on the internet all the time.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m not on social media anymore.”
Oh, thank God for that. Maybe she doesn’t know I tried shooting my shot in her DMs like a year ago.
It had been a joke back at the base that she was my celebrity crush, for the number of times I turned up the volume when she was on, but the unanswered message had been enough for me to recognize the slim chance I had.
Still, finding out that she now had an ass for the ages may have rekindled my interest, in a purely physical way.
Camera angles don’t really show the whole picture, strangely.
I bet that the pair of her thighs together are too wide to get through subway turnstiles.
Her hips quake when she takes a step, and I’d let them smother me if she’d be so kind.
It’s taking everything in my arsenal not to bite my lip and say something stupid, like, “Sit on me, babygirl.”
No, I gotta play it cool. I don’t want to come off like some annoying, overzealous fan. That would be weird.
I stand and turn my back on her, pacing the length of the roof. I feel her gaze on me, the weight of her undivided attention.
“It’s silly, but I’ve got a bit of a crush on you,” she calls out, apropos of nothing.
I nearly lose my footing and slide a few tiles down the roof. Words I would never be prepared for in a million years. I struggle for any kind of coherent response while pulling myself back up to where I was before. “On . . . me. Me?”
She giggles, and I think my heart melts.
I sink down into a deep crouch on the roof and kick my feet out in front of me, propping my chin up in my palm. “No way.”
She twirls a loose tendril of her hair around her finger. “You’re on my conspiracy board.”
Before I can even ask what she means about that, she pulls up an article on her phone, waving it briefly for me to see the blocks of text, before she reads off the byline. “Who would have thought a creature of the drip would have such a strong sense of justice?”
I slide all the way down the roof, to the very edge, mere feet from her. “Creature of the drip sounds like a coffee snob. They don’t even know me.”
“A few of them are trying to name you. Each reporter wants to be the one to coin it. The Midnight Mutant, the Vile Vigilante. Bat-Thing.”
“Bat-Thing,” I mouth, not willing to repeat it out loud. She giggles at my displeasure, and I can’t help but smile back.
I think I’m being hypnotized, because I can’t remember how I came to be sprawled across the roof trim, leaning over to get even an inch closer to her, clinging to the boundary line.
My tail flicks with just a little too much energy, dangling over the edge. Talking to her makes me giddy. If Vin were here, he’d tell me to stop kicking my feet and making heart-eyes at her.
I don’t know what comes over me, but I offer, “Do you want the honors?”
She blinks at me, those large doe eyes with long dark lashes. It casts a spell on me. “What would you like to be called?”
“Sweetheart in the morning, and darling in the evening,” I sigh, watching the wind pick up some loose curly wisps of her hair and dance with them. She looks like such an absolute dream tonight.
I don’t know what kind of reaction I was hoping for, but it’s not what she does. Her mouth tightens, lips pursed. Her reproachful eyes give me the once-over again, assessing.
Maybe I came on too strong. It’s fine, I can still recover, I just gotta be cool. If only I knew how.
Pushing to my feet, I leap down from the roof, wings outstretched momentarily to guide my descent, and this one at least goes smoothly.