Chapter Fourteen
Like London, I had little trouble falling asleep. I was drained emotionally, mentally, and physically. I prayed the briefest of bedtime prayers, snuggled against the warmth of London’s bare back, and tumbled headlong into sleep.
I dreamed, and at first they were just dreams, a jumbled up mish-mash of disconnected thoughts and images. At some point, though, the dreams changed, becoming more vivid and coherent.
London and I kissed, and I felt an unpleasant stinging all over, like my whole body had just regained circulation and was experiencing pins and needles. I looked down and saw tiny flames dancing over my skin. I heard a woman laughing, an evil, sinister sound, and when I turned toward the laughter, I saw Julia, her charred skin a harsh contrast against the white of the wedding dress she wore. She waved a massive pink plastic wand, and my skin began to burn.
I woke with a start. A soft, low voice made shushing sounds in the dark room, and a rough hand brushed over my forehead and stroked my hair. I let myself be comforted, sliding back toward sleep, and then all at once I was wide awake.
Who the hell was petting my hair? London—and the other boys in the band, for that matter—might have musicians’ calluses, but the roughness of this hand was different. It was the sort that comes from years of manual labor, like gardening or working on cars.
“It’s just me,” a familiar voice said, as if he’d heard me wondering. “Go back to sleep.”
“Ashe? What are you doing here? And how did you get in?”
“I figured you and Stretch could use a friend right about now. Looks like I was right, too,” Ashe said. “Now, you go back to sleep so I can. The rest of your questions can wait until morning.”
I wanted to protest, but a sense of serenity rose up to wash away my concerns and curiosity. I recognized the feeling as a more subtle version of London’s calming trick. If I had never experienced London’s version, I might not have even noticed that Ashe was using magic on me. He was good.
I slept, this time without nightmares, and when I woke, I found Ashe dozing in the chair by the bed. As much as I wanted answers, I wasn’t rude enough to wake the man. I left him and London both sleeping and went about getting myself awake and dressed.
One of those cup-at-a-time coffeemakers sat on top of the mini-bar, and for half a second I was tempted to brew myself a mug. The thing looked like it belonged on the set of some kind of sci-fi movie, though, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could figure out how to use it, especially after the fitful night’s sleep I’d gotten. I decided to skip the coffee and see what the mini bar had to offer. Cursing the powers-that-be who had apparently never heard of Dr. Pepper, I settled for an overpriced bottle of juice. I contemplated the snack selection for a moment before remembering that we were staying on the concierge floor of the hotel. Surely there was a lounge somewhere with better food.
I wandered down the hall to the lounge, lingered over coffee and pastries, and wandered back to the room with a steaming Styrofoam cup in each hand. Ashe was awake, and he had figured out the coffee pot, though he was swearing a blue streak under his breath about the tiny cups and the small-batch brewing. He looked up as I stepped into the room, his attention focused on the huge cup of coffee in my hand. I handed it over without a word, and he flashed me a smile that gave me a glimpse of the handsome devil he must have been in his younger days.
“I didn’t know if you or London would be up, but I figured if you were and I came back with only one cup, I’d be in a world of trouble.”
“That you would have,” Ashe replied, taking a cautious sip of his coffee. “And I think you have enough trouble without borrowing any more.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said as I took a seat at the little two-person table.
Ashe sat down across from me, both hands wrapped around his cup. “London called me last night, to tell me what happened.”
“How much did he tell you?” I wanted to know.
“More than he should have, that’s for sure. I reminded him three times that cell phones aren’t real secure, but he just kept talking. He was fairly well rattled.”
“Well, duh,” I said. “Wouldn’t you be if you’d found out your ex was a crazy evil sorceress who’d kidnapped your best friend’s girlfriend?”
“I already know all of my exes are crazy, and about half of them are evil. Even a couple of sorceresses, as you call ‘em, in there. But that’s not the only thing that had him worked up last night.”
I turned my cup in my hands, staring at it without seeing it, trying not to remember. “I know,” I said at last. I glanced at London to make sure he was still asleep, which he was. I kept my voice low just in case. “He tell you what he did to her?”
“I’m guessing you mean the pyrokinesis.”
“So he did tell you.”
“He did.” When he didn’t say anything else, I raised my head to meet his eyes. “How do you feel about what he did?” he asked then.
I opened my mouth to ask Ashe when he’d become my shrink, but something held me back. Instead, I took a sip of my coffee while I thought about how to answer. “Satisfied, I guess. And sorry that he has to deal with it.”
Ashe raised an eyebrow. “Not afraid? Not worried he won’t be able to control it, the way he can’t control the rest of his magic?”
I shrugged. “It was creepy as hell, but then all this magic stuff is. And honestly, it never occurred to me that he might not be able to control it. Should I be worried?”
“Not about the pyro, no.”
“Good to know. The projecting emotions thing is bad enough.”
“It’s a pain in the ass, for sure,” Ashe agreed. He looked me in the eye. “But we’re getting sidetracked. We were talking about what caused London’s freakout last night.”
“We pretty much covered that—crazy ex-girlfriend, check; crazy flame magic, double check.”
Ashe shook his head. “Girl, just how thick is that head of yours? You’re missing a couple things.” When I just sat there looking confused, Ashe explained. “The crazy ex-girlfriend tried to kill you, for starters. If anything had happened, to you or Dylan, it would have been because the ex was trying to get to him.”
“It’s not like that’s his fault.”
“Fault doesn’t matter much to guilt in a situation like that, and I think you know it.”
“Well, yeah.”
“You also scared the hell out of him when you went blank.”
“Went blank?” I asked. Then I remembered how numb I’d felt after my meltdown. “Never mind, I figured out what you mean. I think I was going into shock.”
“That’s what I told him. Told him what signs to look for, but he refused to go near you so I ended up repeating it all to your friend Brian.”
“Yeah, I think I kicked off the whole freaked-out thing with my own meltdown,” I admitted. I drained my cup but didn’t throw it away. I needed something to occupy my hands.
“He told me about that, too. But I think he saw it in a whole different light.”
I looked up from the design I was etching on the cup with my thumbnail. “What do you mean?”
“Let me ask you a couple of questions first, and then I’ll explain. That okay with you?” When I nodded, he forged ahead. “When you woke up in middle of the night and realized I was here, what happened?”
I gave him a look that said I thought he was nuts.
“I know I was there, Elizabeth, but I want to hear it from your point of view.”
“You were petting my hair like my mom used to do when I was little. You told me to go back to sleep, and that you’d answer my questions when I woke up. And you did that emotional-projection thing to help me stay calm so I could sleep.”
“Now I want you to tell me about what happened between you and London when you got back to your hotel last night.”
I blushed and went back to staring at my cup.
Ashe laid his work-roughened hand on my arm. “Nothing to be embarrass
ed about. Sex happens. Sometimes even to us contrary old bastards.”
I laughed, the sound loud in the still room. I glanced over at London, who didn’t even stir. I laid my hand over Ashe’s on my arm and answered his question. “One second I was standing there, watching London fight with the room key and trying not to think too much about everything that had happened with Julia, and the next second he touched my hand, and I suddenly wanted him so much I could hardly see straight.”
“Could you feel him projecting, the way you felt my magic?”
I thought about it for a minute. Had I? No, I hadn’t. “I didn’t feel anything, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t it?” Ashe asked, cutting me off. “Can you not tell when his emotions are bleeding all over you?”
I remembered the wet-blanket feeling from the night before. “Well, yeah. Sometimes.”
Ashe smiled at me. “Now we’re to the explaining part,” he said. “The short version is, you can sense it when the emotions being thrown at you disagree with your own emotions. For example, calm versus worried. It might not always be clear that there’s an outside influence. Sometimes you just sense it as a kind of cognitive dissonance. Are you with me so far?”
I nodded, casting back in my mind trying to remember everything I’d felt, good and bad, when I’d been alone with London the night before. There’d been a lot of that dissonance Ashe talked about, but not a bit of it had anything to do with the desire I’d felt for London.
“What happens if the emotions being thrown at you mirror what you’re feeling?” I wondered aloud.
“It tends to intensify your feelings. You don’t want to get into an argument with London while he’s this out of control. The anger will ricochet between the two of you, getting stronger and stronger until one of you does something you’ll regret.”
“Like set fire to someone?”
“Could be. Though I don’t think that’s what happened with the ex.”
“Okay,” I said. “Is there a point you’re trying to get to with all this?” Ashe looked at me like he couldn’t believe I’d just asked that question. “I’m serious. You said you’d explain what you meant about me and London seeing my meltdown in different lights, or something like that, right? Can you just stop leading me around in circles and tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”
Ashe set his cup and mine aside and took my hands in his. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“London thinks your meltdown, as you call it, was because you had a really big bout of that cognitive dissonance, and he’s partly right, I’m sure. But he also thinks it’s all about the sex.”
I frowned, letting his words roll around in my brain. It took a while for them to sink in, but when they did, I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes. “Are you saying...does he think...”
“He thinks you two ended up in bed together because his feelings overrode yours.”
It was an effort to speak around the lump in my throat. “He thinks...he thinks he...” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say the word.
“He thinks he accidentally used his powers like a date-rape drug,” Ashe finished for me.
The tears that had been threatening spilled down my cheeks. No wonder London had been a train-wreck. Between setting fire to his ex-girlfriend and thinking—mistakenly—that he’d raped the girl he’d been flirting with...
“You told him he’s wrong, right?”
“I didn’t know for sure, until I talked to you. It could have been true.” He let go of my hands and got up, coming back a moment later with a box of tissues for me. “I’ll talk to him when he wakes up.” He looked toward the bed as London rolled over in his sleep. “Looks like that’ll be soon. You best make yourself scarce. Keep everyone else away, too. He doesn’t need any distractions if we’re going to make any headway by tonight.”
“Headway with what?”
“Shielding. The nitwit is insisting on playing their concert tonight, so I’ve got less than half a day to get him trained well enough to even half-ass protect himself.”
I stared, stunned. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Afraid not. His buddy Adrian tried to talk him out of it, but he’s got a bug up his butt about it. Speaking of which, Brian’s got a bug up his ass to put you girls on the first plane anywhere but here. I tried to talk him down, but I’m not sure how far I got. Don’t let him push you girls into leaving. You’ll be safer here.”
I started to ask why we’d be safer in Orlando, near Julia-the-clinically-insane, but Ashe cut me off. “You need to go, little bit. We’ll talk more tonight.”
He didn’t give me much chance to argue, herding me toward the door. I managed to snag my cell phone and backpack, and then I was on the other side of the closed hotel room door wondering what to do next.
I stood in the hallway for a few minutes before knocking on the door to Dylan and Brian’s room, hoping I wasn’t interrupting anything. The door flew open, and Dylan stood in front of me, jaw set and eyes flashing.
“What?” she snapped. Her expression softened when she realized it was me, and she said, “Oh. Sorry.”
“Everything okay?” I asked, peeking past her to see a stormy expression on Brian’s face. Apparently I had interrupted something, after all, but a fight was not what I had been expecting to break up.
“Yeah,” Dylan said, stepping back and waving me inside. “But it’ll be better if you tell me you have some money I can borrow. Or maybe a credit card? I’d like to have actual clothes to wear.”
“What part of broke-ass college student have you forgotten?” I asked, setting my backpack on the floor near the door.
She sighed and just stood there, looking lost.
Brian stepped up behind Dylan and wrapped his arms around her. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her,” he said to me.
I suspected I knew what the two of them had been fighting about. “Let me guess—Brian offered to buy you clothes, and you flipped out on him.”
“I did not flip out,” Dylan all but snarled.
“You’re still flipping out,” I pointed out. I watched the two of them for a minute, Brian obviously grateful to have Dylan in his arms even if she was mad at him, and Dylan trying to hold on to her irritation in spite of being wrapped up in his embrace. “I know how important your independence is to you, Dylan, and I know where it comes from, but you’re being a bonehead.”
Dylan laughed, unconsciously resting her hand on Brian’s forearm. “Bonehead? Really?”
“It was the first synonym for ‘dumbass’ that popped into my head. And it definitely fits. Dylan, honey, you don’t have to let him buy you the spring line from Prada or anything, but let him put some decent clothes on you. The homeless street urchin look is so 1990s Seattle.” They both laughed, and I was pretty sure I’d won the argument for Brian, but my mouth seemed to be stuck in overdrive. “Hey, you can always make it seem more ‘fair’ by buying smoking hot and ridiculously uncomfortable lingerie.”
“Sounds like a fair trade to me,” Brian chimed in.
“Dream on.”
“Damn.” Brian turned his head to press a kiss against Dylan’s temple.
Dylan sighed and pulled away a little so she could look at Brian. “Will you at least agree to let me pay you back?”
“You’re going to insist aren’t you?” Brian frowned and nodded. “Okay. Fine. You can pay me back.”
“Why do I not believe you?”
“Dylan,” Brian said, tilting her chin up so he could look her dead in the eye. “I promise you, if it means that much to you, I will let you pay me back.”
Dylan nodded and stepped forward to hug him, not letting him see in her face how much his promise meant to her. But I could see Brian’s face, and I knew that he knew. He held her for a moment longer, and then fished out his wallet.
Half an hour later, Dylan and I were in a taxi on the way to a nearby mall. No one wanted Dylan going alone, and Brian had a
ll the pre-show rigmarole to deal with, so I volunteered for the shopping expedition. I would have gone along anyway, not only to advise but also to find a few things for myself. I was out of clean clothes, I had no idea when I’d be going home, and I doubted the hotel had self-laundry. So I’d shell out a few bucks for necessities and hope for the best.
At least that was my plan.
Somehow Dylan, who usually didn’t give two-tenths of a damn about dressing up, got bit by the fashion bug. I suspected it had something to do with wanting to look nice for Brian, even though Brian cared more about the woman inside than any fancy window treatment. We girls are dumb like that. And somehow Dylan’s desire to look cute translated to my needing to dress up as well. Safety in numbers, I guess.
Dylan insisted on paying for the outfit she had talked me into buying, and she tried to pay for the rest of my purchases as well. She’s not the only stubbornly independent woman around, though. I had chosen only what I felt I could afford, and I wasn’t about to let her charge my clothes along with hers—particularly since I had a feeling Brian wouldn’t let her pay him back for my clothes, as a kind of revenge for letting her win the money argument to begin with.
We didn’t do as much damage as most girls would do if they were given access to a boyfriend’s high-limit credit card. We’d spent a lot of time living paycheck to paycheck, or worse, and hadn’t broken the habit of cautious spending. Still, we managed to rack up a fair amount of debt in the hours we spent shopping. Malls are dangerous for just that reason.
Tired and laden with shopping bags, we grabbed a late lunch at the food court, and then made our way back to the hotel. Dylan got us up to the concierge floor and back into Brian’s room with the key he’d given her. He was nowhere to be found, and Dylan borrowed my phone to call and check on him.
I stretched out on the bed while she went onto the balcony to talk to Brian. When she came back, she curled up beside me and gave me back my phone.
“The boys are revamping the set list on Ashe’s orders,” she said. “Something about emotion and rollercoasters. There was a lot of background noise.”
I thought about it for a minute. “Ashe is trying to give London a crash course in controlling his empathy, but I guess he’s got the boys working on a backup plan.”
“Ah. That makes a little more sense,” Dylan replied. “Anyway, he said Ashe will come find us closer to show time and escort us down to the venue, if we want to go. He actually said that—if we want to go.”
“Like, A, we’d miss the show and, B, we’d be okay with not being able to keep an eye on them?”
“Boys are dumb.”
“Amen, sister.”