CHAPTER 9
Bunny
All week, Alain and I have been dancing around each other.
By mutual agreement, we’ve decided not to discuss the future and the destinies that might separate us—or keep us together.
But while I’m glad that we can communicate about not communicating, nothing helps the constant roiling inside me as time ticks down.
I’m going to have to make a choice that could change my entire life, provided he makes the same choice.
Otherwise, I’m back to slinging coffee, looking for a slay job, and pretending I’m an actress.
And if he does make the same choice, I can’t imagine how it would all work.
How can he guard the cathedral and be with me? I can’t sleep on the roof. Can I?
More than anything, I’m going to miss curling up into him.
He’s become my totem, my good luck gargoyle, my comfort.
Each night, he comes to my room. He kisses my lips, now, which is a bigger deal than it would be for anyone else.
And he kisses like he wants to imbibe me, like he’s so starved for me that he might gobble me up whole.
And then he brings that hunger between my thighs and gives me orgasm after orgasm. But he won’t actually fuck me. He says that if he kisses and fucks, he might just as well fly me to a deserted island and stick me in a cave, because that’s how possessive he’s going to become.
Is it terrible that I want to push him to it? I mean, there could be worse things than having to live with him in a remote location for the rest of my life.
Somehow, I manage to restrain my worst urges. I exhaust myself with laps in the pool and planning his birthday surprise. What do you get a billionaire gargoyle who can buy a small country and has seen it all? Done it all?
Luckily, internet videos, along with his insistence that I think about trying out new creative outlets so I better understand what I might want to do with my life, have given me a clue. I’ve become just a tad obsessed by grazing boards.
And so, I’m going to make him a grazing board, one as beautiful as he is.
Because I love him. I didn’t want to, but it’s pretty hard to miss what I’m feeling.
When I’m with him, I’m content. For the first time in my life, I can relax, even when we’re out being seen and photographed together by the paparazzi.
Even when we’re watching cooking shows on television, reading books side by side, or just hanging.
He doesn’t expect anything of me. He doesn’t force me to practice fighting techniques.
He doesn’t insist that I read up on Kinds and how to kill them. He just lets me be… me.
Only, that almost makes it worse because I’ve never had a chance to find out who I really am. I was told I was a slayer. I fell into acting because my high school friends were doing it. And I sling coffee for rent money. Finding myself seems like the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
Only one thing is harder: not being with him, because when we’re parted, even for a couple hours, I feel like a huge chunk of me is lost.
Today, I drove with him to his office so I could slip out to the fancy Manhattan delicatessens while he meets with world shakers, but popping out to the store on my own is a lot harder than it should be.
First, there are reporters everywhere and they’re all interested in me.
I was raised to avoid notice, to sneak in with the herd in order to pounce from a position of anonymity. Well, that plan’s been shot to hell.
“Miss Winters, Miss Winters, tell us how things are going with Mr. D’Ange. No ring on your finger, I see. Are there plans?”
“Yes, and you’re disrupting them. Now, go away.” I try to slide around the arrogant reporter, but another seven just take his place.
Fine. I use the heel of my hand to blast a camera out of my face, causing it to hit the wielder in the nose.
“Oops, sorry. Your camera touched my face. Just trying to not be assaulted. Hope that didn’t hurt.
” I kick the shin of another and wince, pretending I stubbed my toe as I move, move, move towards the waiting car.
I punch the next guy in the family jewels and keep sliding through.
Maybe he’ll think it was one of the other reporters?
Before I have to lay them all out, Jean-Luc shoves his way through to me. Using his greater bulk, he wraps me under him and proceeds to knock reporters aside like they’re bowling pins.
“You have talents, Jean-Luc,” I say, once we’re both safely in the car and pulling from the curb, leaving a strobe-light effect of camera flashes behind us in the gray September sky.
I miss North Carolina. The sky would still be a summer-blue right now. The heat would see me wearing a light tee-shirt and cotton pants. I might pull on a cotton sweater just to pretend it feels like fall. I’d be making the same pumpkin spice lattes that I drink at Alain’s, though.
Downside of the metro area: it’s rainy, cold, and my hair… I swear my hair is frizzing.
“Right. Here we are. First stop.” Jean-Luc pulls along the curb, ignoring the screaming signs that say no parking. He unsnaps his seatbelt.
“You can stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“No can do. Mr. D’Ange insists I stay with you at all times.”
“Mr. D’Ange is an overbearing, overprotective mother hen, and he’s not going to hear about what I’m doing today until after his birthday is over, okay? If you need to lie to him, go ahead. That or stay here, because I need this to be a surprise. Please.”
Jean-Luc makes a zipping motion over his lips. “But I’m still going with you.”
Once he escorts me out of the car, we stand in front of an ordinary facade with a green-striped canopy.
“Best Italian fine grocer in all the city,” he says, gesturing. “They’ll have every specialty item from Europe, even France. Is that what you’re planning? To buy him cheese? Because there’s a little cheese shop…”
“Nope. I’m making him a grazing board. This should be fine.”
I mentally count the dollars left on my credit card. This is probably going to take all of them. And… my supposition proves correct. We walk in the store and I’m immediately hit by a display of luscious looking olives. Hefting the palm-sized jar, I gasp as the price smacks me in the face.
“Twenty-five dollars? Are you kidding me? What is that, a dollar an olive?”
Jean-Luc shifts his gaze to the side, and then throws it around the store. “You know I have a business credit card, right? Mr. D’Ange won’t care if you charge it to him.”
“But I’d care. What kind of birthday present will it be if he pays for it?”
Jean-Luc looks around again. “Look, I know a place in New Jersey. European importer. The owner is kind of grumpy. He chases off those he doesn’t like, so you’ll have to play nice, but if you want to try it…?”
“Is it less expensive than this place?” I carefully put the jar back, cognizant that if I move wrong, an entire glass pyramid is going to fall and leave me in debt for the next century.
“Much less. I’ll drive you home directly afterward since we’ll be on that side of the bridge. No sense crossing the Hudson again. Mr. D’Ange can fly back after his meetings. Honestly, he’d prefer that. Stretch his wings and all.”
Home. Like it’s my home, too.
My stomach creases with a want I can’t satisfy. Not yet. Maybe never.
“Guess you know what he is.”
Jean-Luc nods. “I used to live right across from the cathedral while I tried my hand at being a mime. My aunt’s apartment.
I couldn’t have afforded an inch of it. Anyway, I was there to watch Notre Dame burn.
I saw this gargoyle, The Thinker, you know, but in a different position.
He was in the center of the square, stone, but hunched over like he was grieving.
And then, bammo, he wasn’t stone anymore.
He launched himself up into the air. It was four in the morning, but I ran out into the square to see him making crazy loops.
When he noticed me watching, he came down, we talked, and he bought me breakfast. I’ve been with him ever since. ”
“You sound like you’re loyal to him.”
“Very.” There’s a warning in his voice.
I like it. I like that Alain has support.
“No French accent, though.”
“I grew up in New Jersey. Your boyfriend followed me when I returned from my time abroad. He had no one else.” He pauses. “I take care of him. I taught him how to navigate the metro area. He’s very… trusting.”
Tears prick my eyes. “Noted. And… thank you.” Because… yeah. I love Alain. I want him to have friends.
The drive to New Jersey takes about forty minutes, even though it’s only ten miles away. The moment we enter the store, I check the price of the produce that’s arranged in bins along the righthand side of the plain cement wall.
“Seriously?” I mutter, picking up a string of ripe cherry tomatoes on the vine. At two-dollars a pound, there must be an error. In Manhattan, a similar strand cost four times as much.
“Told you it was cheaper,” Jean-Luc smirks.
He eases up beside me with a small carriage.
“Are you going to cook, too? Alain—er, Mr. D’Ange—loves cassoulet.
You could use the tomatoes in a side-salad, I guess, though the French usually stick with simple lettuce and dressing for salads.
Do you want me to teach you how to make mustard vinaigrette? ”
“Yes. One day.”
If there is a one day.
Wow, I’m spiraling.
I pull myself back together and force a smile. “I can’t actually cook, but I’m good at making things look pretty. Do you think Alain has cupcake trays in his house?”
“I’m sure the kitchen is fully stocked. Mrs. Carmichael will help you find whatever you need, so long as you don’t get in her way.”