The Awesome (9 page)

“Uh huh.”

“If he’s a bad lay, steal the beemer on basic principle.”

“I’m leaving now, Mom.”

When I emerged from the house, Ian climbed from the car and smiled, heading towards the passenger door to hold it open for me. He’d forsaken the basketball jersey for an untucked button down shirt, black jeans, and a pair of sneakers so white they had to be new.

“Hey.”

“Hey” was still only a three-letter-long greeting, but at least it wasn’t “’Sup”.

“Nice car,” I said, climbing in.

“Thanks. It’s my dad’s.”

“My mom might mug him for it. Just a warning.” He smirked and headed around to his side. I reached for my seat belt and winced when my back spasmed. The cut didn’t gape or ooze, but it definitely liked to remind me that it was there and sucking whenever I moved.

To Ian’s credit, he noticed my discomfort. “You okay?”

“Yeah, went on a hunt and got a war wound last night. It’s sore.”

“Need a hand with your seat belt?”

I hated admitting it, but I was pretty sure I did. I offered the buckle to him. He was careful not to tug too hard as he clicked it into place. When it neatly bisected my left boob, he went to adjust it, then thought better of it, like I’d mistake his help for groping.

“Thanks,” I said, suppressing a smirk.

“No problem. You okay to, like, go out or...”

“Oh, you’re stuck with me for the night whether you like it or not.”

He glanced at me, the corners of his mouth dropping. His fingers raked through his hair. “I’m not stuck. I wouldn’t have asked you to hang if I didn’t want to.” I wasn’t sure if I’d sounded that sarcastic or if he was that sensitive. It could have been a bit of both, which meant this date was screwed from the onset and I’d have been better off staying home and eating popcorn with Mom. Hoarders was on, and they showcased crazy cat ladies.

I am so bad at this.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean... crap. We’re not out of the driveway and I’m being a bitch,” I said.

“Nah. I think we’re figuring each other out. We should have done that before, at the party, but—” His face flushed, tiny brushes of color creeping across his cheeks. “—except I was stupid. I’d like to start over if that’s cool.”

If starting over meant we got past the walking on eggshells bit, I was all for it. The only problem was we’d have to pretend the other night hadn’t happened to accomplish it. I needed the other night to happen, or at least, I needed it to happen again. Hopefully he wouldn’t clam up on me and get prudish because he thought that’s what good guys did for girls they’d wronged. The last thing I needed was to wave my panties above my head like a flag and for him to tell me he respected me too much to consider sleeping with me.

I didn’t know how to say those things without admitting the full truth that I was only out for the bang, and I wasn’t up for making both him and Julie think I was a psycho hosebeast either. Instead, I said, “Yeah, sure,” and forced a smile that would have done a used car salesman proud. He took that as his cue to pull out of the driveway, his arm drizzled over the back of my seat.

“I hope you like Mexican food. Julie picked a place downtown.” My treacherous brain immediately skittered back to Mom’s horrible fish tacos with their slimy green insides. I must have made an inadvertent ‘ugh’ noise, because Ian shot me a worried look. “I can call if it’s not okay. I think there’s a steak place across the street.”

“No, no. It’s okay as long as no one orders fish tacos. Seriously. Those things are nasty. Like, uber nasty.”

“Who eats them?”

I glanced at the dwindling reflection of my house in the BMW’s side mirror. “My mom, but she’s uhhh... special. So that’s no surprise.”

“Special? Like snowflake special?”

I laughed before I could stop myself; I wasn’t sure if he meant to be funny. The poor guy could be asking an earnest question, yet I assumed he meant, ‘Is your mom dumber than pig crap?’ If that wasn’t the case, all the night’s progress was out the window and I’d have to apologize for alienating him with my dearth of social skills. Again. Fortunately, a smug smile played around his mouth. He’d meant it, the jerk. Cute jerk, but jerk all the same. “I’m telling her you said that.”

“She’s a hunter too?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t,” he said. “I don’t want to die.”

“Nah. You’re safe. Janice is harmless.”

“Is she?”

“Sure.”

For the most part.

Sometimes.

Maybe.

W
E WENT TO
a restaurant on the east side of town. It only seated twenty people and wasn’t much in the way of atmosphere, but from the moment they brought out their homemade salsa and tortilla chips, I was in love. The food was amazing, the company was good, and wonder of wonders, Ian had no problem talking when there weren’t huge groups of people around.

“How’s Liam?” Julie asked right after the main courses arrived. I’d gotten chicken quesadillas, Julie and her date John—the big guy she’d used as a human mattress at the party—got taco salads, and Ian pretended to order fish tacos before getting himself some fajitas. I’d kicked his foot under the table for the fake-out. He grinned.

“Good,” Ian said. “His tour’s over in four months.”

“Sweet.” Julie turned to look at me. “That’s his brother, my older cousin.”

“Ah.”

Ian motioned at his chest. “The fifty-eight on my shoulder was his football number. I got it inked when he left for the Middle East. He’s got my b-ball number in the same spot.”

“Ian’s parents are such hippies they took him to get his first tattoo. They’re as weird as Janice,” Julie said, grinning as she dug into her dinner.

“No one’s as weird as Janice.”

“Janice is your mom, right?”

I nodded and guzzled my soda, immediately regretting it when I felt the world’s biggest burp gurgling up from the depths of my stomach. Somehow I managed to swallow it, but not before I envisioned Uber Belch bursting from my mouth and disgusting everyone in a twenty yard radius. Ian would run out of the restaurant like someone had stabbed him with a fork, and I’d be left alone, thumbing for a ride home.

Not good. From there on out I drank only water.

“Yeah. She hates people calling her Mrs. Anything, and if you do she’ll... “

“Wet Willy you,” Julie finished with a shudder. “I remember the first time she did it to me. It was so freaking nasty.”

“Yeeeeep. Welcome to Life With Janice. We should have our own reality show.”

Conversation drifted after that, from Ian and John’s basketball schedule to Julie’s new job at the grocery store, and inevitably, to hunting. It felt weird to talk about it so openly, especially with strangers, but it was liberating, too. It wasn’t a security breach to say what I did aloud. At least, Mom never told me we were supposed to keep it quiet, and all you had to do was look at her gear to know what she did for a living. It was more that talking about monsters made a lot of people uncomfortable, like we aired out society’s dirty laundry. Sure, some people wanted to rant about it, mostly about how monsters shouldn’t have any rights even if they followed DoPR protocol. Those folks gave us a lot of ‘Atta Girls’ for putting our necks on the line for the ‘good of the world’—which my mom quickly corrected with “you mean fat paychecks”—but most people shied away from the subject. Monsters were scary, and our existence proved that they had every right to be scared. It tended to stifle conversation.

The awesome thing about hanging with people my own age was they didn’t have enough sense or cynicism to hide from the topic. It was interesting to them. Sure, they all pictured me like some Blade knock-off, but I dispelled what myths I could, and told them about some of my better cases. I also made sure I included the less-glamorous side of our trade, like ectoplasm spooge baths and bitey pixies. By the time dessert came around, I’d talked so much I’d gone hoarse. I didn’t intend to monopolize the conversation; they just asked a lot of questions that didn’t have simple yes or no answers.

Julie’s fork hit the table and she peeked at her cell phone for the time. “Damn. I was hoping we’d sneak in a movie tonight, but it’s way too late. Some of us have school tomorrow. Unlike you, you slacker.” She stuck her tongue out at me as she grabbed for her pocketbook.

“Hey, I might have another car key gnome. I hate those bastards. They bite, too. Why does everything bite in my job? It’s worse than animal control.”

Ian smirked and started to sling his arm over my shoulder, but at the last second he remembered my back and settled for stroking along my bicep. I glanced up at him, he smiled down at me, and before I knew it, we held hands. For a couple seconds, I forgot that I’d only agreed to go out with him out of guilt and desire for The Sex. Somewhere along the line he’d ceased to be a dong-on-legs and graduated to actual person status.

“Time to head home?”

“Sure. It’s early yet if you wanna come in and hang out or whatever,” I said, feeling my face go hot. “Janice is there, though, so warning.”

“Sure. Cool.”

Julie noticed my blush, giving me a huge smile. “So cute. We’ll see you guys soon. Call me, Maggie. We’ll get together next weekend maybe?”

I nodded and walked back to the BMW, wishing I could stuff her ‘cute’ right up her pert ass. As I climbed into my side of the car, waiting for my date to strap me in like a two-year-old in a car seat, I had one of those epiphanies that took me by surprise. It turned out Janice, for all her flaws and idiosyncrasies, knew what the hell she talked about every once in a while. Life was too short not to go on dates, and this date had been awesome.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
T WAS RIGHT
around this point in my life I realized that making plans of any type invited fate to crap all over them. The failed deflowering should have been the first clue, the Plasma visit the second. Inviting Ian back to my house to hang out in my room was absolutely the third.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock when his car rolled up my street. He took his time getting there, which was okay with me. It meant we got to talk about all sorts of stuff, like his brother’s deployment, what his parents did in Sedona (my initial assessment that they were licking cacti for spiritual growth was not that far off the mark—they’d been holed up in some sweat house for a ‘purification ritual’), and what I missed and didn’t miss about high school. Everything went well; we were compatible despite having almost nothing in common. Everything was peachy keen leading up to my triumphant return home.

And then it all went to Hell.

The lights were off through the entire house, yet all of Janice’s vehicles were in the driveway, so she was home. Mom was a night owl, and the idea of her hitting bed before three in the morning seemed improbable. The shades were drawn—definitely weird—and there was a car I didn’t recognize parked at the edge of our lot, the back bumper straddling the line to our neighbor’s property. As far as I could tell it was abandoned, no one lurking on the inside, but it was so dark outside, I couldn’t be sure there wasn’t someone crouched in the backseat.

“Slow down,” I said, my voice whisper soft. “Park across the street.”

“Everything okay?”

“No. Something’s wrong.” Ian eased onto the sidewalk. I jerked my seat belt aside, cringing when my back screamed its displeasure. I scrambled out of the BMW, nearly falling on my butt in my haste. The car’s door slammed shut behind me, far too loud for comfort, the thunderous clap echoing down the street.

“Do you want me to...”

“No. Stay put.”

‘Stay put’ apparently meant ‘vacate his vehicle and follow me into my yard as I jog towards the house.’

“Maggie, wait,” he hissed. “What’s wrong?”

“The vampire job from yesterday. We nuked some elder’s first born. Go back to the car. I don’t want you getting killed.”

“No! I’m not going to let you go in there alone if it’s dangerous.”

“Don’t have time for this chivalry crap, Ian.” I pulled out my keys to unlock the van, sliding the back door open and fumbling for a couple of silver blades that I strapped to my wrists. Mom’s crossbow was in the house, which meant I was stuck with the auxiliary stuff. I snagged a few water balloons and a wooden stake, wedging it into the waistband of my jeans.

“But you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“You can’t buckle a seat belt!”

As much as it sucked to admit it, he had a point. But he was cannon fodder, a victim waiting to happen. He might as well be the token slut in a horror movie with a sign that said ‘Me First’ hanging around his neck. But what else could I do? I could barely move my arms, and the heavy artillery was all inside. I was low on ability, lower on supplies.

I tossed him the water balloons, glad he was quick enough to catch them before they exploded on the gravel driveway. Maybe he wouldn’t be as useless as tits on a man after all. “Fine. Stay behind me and have your phone out and ready to dial 911 if it goes bad. No talking in the meanwhile, and if something comes at you, chuck those. They’ve got holy water in them.” I slunk my way toward the house, keeping to the darkest recesses of the yard. Ian followed a few steps behind, surprisingly quiet for a man whose feet doubled as skis.