Going Nowhere Page 10

  “Really,” she crooned and started moving toward me with a glint in her eyes I did not like.

  The way her mood swung made me slightly nauseous, and I wasn’t sure what to do.

  “I love lesbians too,” Grandma Hazel said happily. “Or,” she added thoughtfully, “I think I do. I have never met one before.”

  Grandma was watching the vampire curiously. Rafael was laughing.

  This was not good.

  “What’s your name,” the girl murmured as she stopped in front of me.

  “Kitty,” I wheezed out.

  “So, pretty-kitty… you love lesbians?”

  I didn’t. Or, to be honest, I didn’t really care. Love who you want was my view, so I hadn’t thought much about which team anyone I met batted for. I took a deep breath and decided to get to why we were there instead of debating my feelings about homosexuality.

  “I’m looking for a thing a friend of mine might accidentally have dropped when he visited this fine establishment a few days ago and if you just let me take a really quick look we’ll leave like a wisp of gray smoke before you can say Saskatchewan or something equally long and difficult to pronounce which you can pick yourself while we pop upstairs, if we may?”

  “Huh?”

  “Thank you!” I squealed and smiled as happily as I could because I was also a little freaked out. “Saskatchewan,” I added and moved toward the stairs.

  Grandma Hazel followed me, but Rafael stayed with the women who by then looked like a group of… well, groupies.

  We only had one room left to look in when heavy steps echoed in the hallway.

  “I know you,” a female voice said.

  I turned and watched a short, stocky woman with arms that were a little too short for her bulk.

  Oh, great. Another troll.

  “Hey,” I said with a smile. “I don’t think we’ve met bef –”

  “You destroyed my brother’s life,” she yelled and increased the pace with which she was approaching us.

  I looked around frantically, hoping to find an escape route that hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier. Grandma Hazel was moving behind me, and then the troll hit my gut. I went down immediately. The troll roared something, there was a crackling sound, and then the goddamned woman on top of me went limp.

  “Grandma,” I wheezed out.

  “Hurry,” Grandma Hazel urged. “I don’t know how long a stun gun will keep her down. One more room and then we leave.”

  She’d come prepared, apparently.

  There was no sight of the ring, and I was ready to give in when the troll burst through the door. She tackled me, and before I knew it, she was sitting on me.

  “Charge, charge, charge,” Grandma muttered, and I heard a frantic clicking but not the crackle from before.

  “Can we talk about this?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I tried to wiggle my way out from under her bulging behind when I noticed a glint of gold under the bed, right between the mattress and the slats. Slowly, I stretched an arm out, but I couldn’t reach the ring.

  “I can meet with your brother,” I offered, and tried to slide closer to the bed. “See if I can help him.”

  “No.”

  Damned troll.

  “A-ha!” Grandma yelled.

  There was another crackle, and the stupid woman went limp again. I pushed her off me, rolled halfway under the bed to grab the ring, and then we were running down the stairs.

  “We have to leave,” I yelled and didn’t wait to see if Rafael, Grandma or the troll was following.

  The front door to the first, and hopefully last bordello I’d ever frequented was thrown open as we turned onto Seventh Street and I waved in a way I hoped was friendly at the lesbian, a group of happy women and a very angry troll.

  “Excellent,” I said and tried to adjust my clothes and hair at the same time as I wiped a glob of troll-mucus off my cheek before Rafael noticed it. “Dinner now or…”

  I trailed off when my eyes met Rafael’s.

  “Shower,” he drawled out. “My place.”

  “Fantastic,” Grandma chirped. “I need to recharge my little thingamajig.”

  “You do that, Hazel, and I’ll help Kitty clean up and get her into one of my tees,” Rafael murmured.

  He’d help me get into one of his –

  Eek!

  ***

  “Rafael kissed me,” I said and put the bowl of cookie dough down with a thud.

  “Of course,” Elsa murmured and leaned back with a groan. “I’m never drinking lemon juice again.”

  “Could have been the vodka,” Joel grunted.

  “This is true,” Elsa conceded.

  I murmured a few words and waved my hand to close the spell.

  “Ho-ly-shee-it!” Joel exclaimed, wide-eyed and with a grin spreading on his face. “I knew there was a reason why we were friends, Hibiscus my witchy darling. Knew it. Knew –”

  “Shut up,” I muttered.

  “Thank you,” Elsa sighed.

  They had apparently had a blast without me while I was out and about with my grandmother who kept stun-gunning trolls and Rafael who insisted on kissing me, which was the reason I’d waited two full hours before showing off my newfound skills in hangover removal.

  “What should I do?”

  “Learn more spells,” Joel said.

  “I’m such a slut,” I groaned. “Perhaps there is an anti-slut spell.”

  “You’re not that slutty,” Elsa protested, which wasn’t incredibly reassuring. “Was he good?”

  “God, yes.”

  She grinned at me, and asked, “Better than Jackson?”

  “I don’t know,” I squealed. “Different. He did this thing with his tongue where –”

  “Oh, for the love of just about everything, Kitty,” Joel barked out. “Don’t. Just… don’t.”

  “I need to focus on something else. Something that isn’t the two morons and their ridiculous kisses and muscles and tongu –”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Joel said loudly and put a palm in my face. “Don’t wanna know.”

  “The amulet,” Elsa said.

  I stared at her, and as always, she’d applied reason to the problem at hand. I’d simply focus my energy on finding the Azdjakzian amulet. I wouldn’t have time to go on dates. No time for kissing.

  There was a soft buzz, and I glanced down on my phone. I had a message from Jackson.

  “Aha,” I said, and added haughtily. “I wish I could respond to Jackson, but I can’t because I’m busy finding an amulet.”

  “Kind of rude to just ghost him, though,” Elsa said.

  She had a point, so I moved my thumbs over the screen.

 

  I thought that was a pretty mature message.

  “Babe.”

  I jerked around and watched Jackson Vik-Hansen walk around the corner with his phone in his hand.

  “What?”

  “Unless you want to see your grandmother arrested for unlawful use of a stun gun, I suggest you make the time,” he said with a grin.

  “Buh.”

  I wish I could have come up with something brilliant.

  Or even articulate.

  “Exactly,” he smirked. “Wednesday. My place. Second base.”

  What?

  “Second what?!”

  “Second date.”

  “No. You said second –”

  His crooked grin went straight to my belly, and the explanation of what he’d said came to a screeching halt. I was pretty sure I was also both wide- and wild-eyed.

  “Oopsie,” he murmured and leaned down until his face was all I could see. “Freudian slip.”

  “Um.”

  “I’ll grill. We’ll have a few beers. Sit on the rickety porch for a while.”

  That actually sounded nice.

  “Okay,”
I heard myself say breathily.

  “Okay,” he echoed. “Gotta go. There’s been a break-in at the pharmacy and being the newbie, I get to interview the senior citizens who might have been in the vicinity.”

  He walked off, and I watched his backside as he did, telling myself that I didn't ogle his ass. Much.

  Right. I could work at Tiaso’s, date two men and look for an amulet at the same time, couldn’t I?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Happy B

  I could not work in a biker bar, juggle two men and find an amulet at the same time. Not when I also had grandparents like mine.

  Grandpa Hunter was the assigned chaperone to my porch and grill date with Jackson, which would have been fun since he usually was hilarious, albeit in a way that mostly made you feel you’d entered a somewhat dirty twilight zone.

  Instead of being his usual self, Gramps sat down on the edge of the porch and spent the next hour staring into the forest. He mumbled things every now and then and alternated between counting something on his fingers, and sighing. Then Jackson asked him if he wanted grilled rib-eye and Grandpa Hunter said no.

  He. Said. No.

  A wolf saying no to rib-eye was a dying wolf, everyone knew that. They even used it instead of expensive blood tests over at the healthcare clinic.

  We rushed over to him, and he explained calmly that he needed to cut back on the calories, and that he had eaten spinach accompanied by a bowl of grated carrots mixed with pieces of orange to ensure his iron levels were adequate. I had no clue why anyone would make the absolutely horrific decision to mix oranges into grated carrots, so I worried more than usual about Grandpa Hunter’s sanity, which was saying something about my level of unease.

  It took a while, but Jackson managed to convince Grandpa that he wasn’t overweight, mostly because he wasn’t, and once we'd gotten three hearty steaks into his system, he seemed to feel better. He was still mostly quiet through the rest of the evening, although that could be because he slept most of it, curled up on a blanket in a corner.

  Jack and I were back on my parents’ front porch, and I had explained to him that I didn’t want to be kissed, something he ignored completely when Grandma Hazel walked out in a tight leather dress and fishnet stockings. She wobbled on her black platform shoes, and I closed my eyes, hoping that she’d be back in her usual flouncy, wide, hippie-dresses when I opened them again.

  She wasn’t, but she should have been because her skinny knees were not what they had been in her youth.

  “I’m going to class!” she chirped happily. “Made friends with the girls at the triple-P and they’ll teach me. Silenus says I’ll make millions if I just learn a few basic moves.”

  Oh, God.

  I deciphered that immediately. Grandma had somehow befriended the hookers at Pussy-Pussy-Pussy, they’d teach her to pole dance, and my goddamned boss had offered her a job.

  “The troll-woman might not want you there,” I tried, hoping to avoid the disaster I saw approaching like a freight train in the night.

  “She’s the one who will teach me,” Grandma said.

  Yish. Grandma Hazel with her skinny-wrinkly knees and elongated cleavage, getting undressed while humping a pole was not a sight I wanted to see. Since the troll was about as broad as she was tall and had a behind the size of Montana, I could easily picture the pole disappearing in her butt crack, never to be found again. It was not a sight I wanted to see either.

  “But the stun gun?” I asked, desperately.

  “She says it tickles. Bought one for herself.”

  Jackson’s arm around me tightened, which plastered me even closer to his muscles, and I had been pretty darn close already before.

  I felt his belly quiver, but his voice was completely calm when he asked, “Do you need a ride, Hazel?”

  Had he just offered to drive my grandmother to a bordello, in a get-up that made her look like she worked there? Or, as if she’d worked there four hundred years ago, at least.

  “I bet on you,” she murmured. “Rafael’s butt is cuter, and you really should rethink that ponytail because it makes you look silly. Still went with my gut and put a lot of money on you. Now I know why.”

  Without another word, she wobbled off toward her pink car, stumbled, but managed to open the door at the same time so when she fell, she landed in the driver’s seat with a small, “Oomph.”

  “You bet on him?” I yelled. “Who else is in on the betting?”

  She waved and closed the door. I tried to wrestle out of Jackson’s grip and run after her, prepared to chase the car all the way down the mountain to get an answer from the old biddy. Unfortunately, he was a lot stronger, and also bigger than me, so all I managed to do was get myself picked off the ground. Then he sat down on the porch swing, placed me on his lap and went back to ignoring my request that he didn’t kiss me.

  “The douche-angel’s ass is not cuter than mine,” he mumbled between kisses.

  “I like the ponytail,” I said, mostly because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate my thoughts about their backsides.

  Jack had buns of steel, but Rafael’s behind was a piece of art.

  His head jerked back, and when his eyes narrowed, I put my hands behind his neck and pulled him down toward me.

  “You should not kiss me again,” I murmured.

  And he did.

  ***

  I told Silenus I’d quit if he hired my grandmother as a pole dancer. He told me that if he didn’t hire her, someone else would.

  That shut me up.

  Then he shared that she’d work one shift per week, and that shift would be Tuesdays between noon and noon-fifteen.

  The simplistic brilliance of his plan was enough to make me grin, and then I went about my business selling beer and shots. Wee-the-weasel was there, and he just shrugged when I told him I was too busy and wouldn’t go after the amulet. The goof stopped by and collected his wedding ring. I got the agreed wad of cash and tried unsuccessfully to split it with Joel and Elsa.

  Al was nowhere to be seen which turned out to be since the Bears MC were on a road trip and had invited him to tag along. Why anyone would want to go on a road trip with a bunch of guys on kids sized dirt bikes, I did not know, but they were apparently down in Salem and wouldn’t return until later. I put a third of the reward for the ring away and hoped Al would be good with the split.

  I counted my savings when I got back home and realized that it would be a stretch, but I still had a chance of making the deposit for my apartment. An image of me on my couch eating cereal straight out of the box flashed in front of my eyes, and I fell asleep trying to figure out if it was nirvana or a nightmare I’d seen.

  I slept like I usually did, which was deep and dreamless until a soft voice woke me up.

  “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…”

  I stared straight into Jackson’s laughing eyes. What the hell was he doing in my bedroom at that ungodly hour?

  “Happy birthday, Kitty,” he said and brushed his lips over my cheek.

  I had forgotten my own birthday. Mom usually did, so Janie always compensated by celebrating me more than anyone else, but she hadn’t said a word. I suddenly realized why Elsa had insisted we’d go out for dinner that evening, and why Silenus had changed the schedule so I’d be off. Jackson handed me a gift-wrapped present, and I smiled. He really could be so adorable, I thought.

  He’d bought me a thong.

  A bright red thong made out of lace and absolutely nothing else, and goddamn him, it was the right size too.

  I held it up with both hands and wiggled it as I said sweetly, “I’ll wear it tonight.”

  “What are –”

  “Happy birthday to –”

  My family stopped singing quite abruptly, which could have been because of Jackson sitting on my bed, but I suspected it was more related to the red garment I still held out for the world to see.

  I tucked it under my pillow immediately.

  “C
haperone!” Dad roared.

  “I’m here,” Grandpa shouted from the front porch, which was outside and also downstairs.

  Dad took two steps and leaned out through the open window which Jack must have climbed in through.

  “You can’t be a goddamned chaperone down there.”

  “Okay,” Gramps shouted back. “Coming up.”

  “Too late,” Dad grumbled. “Happy birthday,” he added sourly and threw a present at me.

  It was heavy and hit me in the belly hard enough to push all the air out of my lungs.

  “Biff,” Janie said quietly. “Let’s restart.”

  She walked out of the room, and the tone of her voice made it clear that arguments would not be appreciated.

  Then they sang again, I opened my presents and answered texts from Joel, Elsa, and Silenus.

  “Guess the angel forgot,” Jackson smirked as he was ushered out of the room by my father.

  “He’s taking me out to dinner tonight,” I smirked right back.

  I did not tell Jack that Elsa and Joel had planned the evening, or that Rafael had invited himself without knowing it was my birthday.

  “He’s –”

  “Guess I know what I’ll wear,” I added sweetly.

  ***

  It turned out that Rafael had figured out what the occasion was, and he brought a present too.

  The small acorn was made of steel, and the intricate details were incredible. A sturdy ring was attached to its top.

  “It’s for when you get your place back,” he said calmly and added, “Put your key on the ring.”

  Okay, that was nice. Useful, pretty, and sweet.

  And boring.

  “Thanks,” I said chirpily.

  “I know,” he said. “Not sexy. But, Kitty. Get up and go to the restroom.”

  I blinked. How the hell had he known I needed to go?

  A couple of steps away from the table, a soft voice murmured, “You forgot me.”

  I froze and turned slowly.

  “What?”

  “Keep walking,” Rafael said.

  Elsa and Joel were watching us with identical looks of confusion.

  “Hey! Kitty, you forgot me.”

  I turned again, and again slowly.