Freaks in the City (6 page)

Nessa knew his type. She had to shut him
down before he could get too hopeful and think he might have a
chance. As if. “Looking for Tyler. Could you get him for me? It’s
urgent.”

Pete failed to hide his disappointment.
“Tyler’s not here right now. He’s at Jaime’s.”

“His girlfriend, right?” Hope she wasn’t a
total bitch or this could get tricky.

“Yeah.” Pete gave her a second head-to-toer
and stared at her chest until Nessa clicked her fingers in his
face. “Got an address?”

His expression turned sheepish. “Sorry. Bit
slow today. Late night.” He turned away to holler for his roommate.
“Hey Chandler. Get your butt out here, dude. Some chick needs
Jaime’s address.”

A guy wearing an eyeball-searing
purple-and-pink-checked shirt overtop bright blue skinny jeans
emerged from the kitchen shoveling something that vaguely resembled
a grilled cheese into his mouth. A burned grilled cheese, given the
sharp smell staining the air.

Huh. These boys were living in the lap of
luxury if they could afford cheese. Nessa had survived on cheap
instant noodles when her tips for the week hadn’t been as good as
she’d hoped. Not that Time-Out customers tended to tip very well at
the best of times.

“Just a sec.” Chandler flicked through the
contacts list on his cell phone. “Here it is. 64 Parkway.” He
fished a pen and a scrap of paper from his pocket and scrawled the
address for her. “’Bout fifteen minutes drive from here. Nice part
of town. Want directions?”

“Yes, please.”

He gave her easy directions, finishing with
a shy smile that still managed to telegraph his appreciation of
what he was looking at without being sleazy. Chandler seemed like a
real nice guy. Pity about the tragic fashion sense.

“Tyler not answering his cell, huh?”

“I didn’t call ahead—it’s a surprise visit.
I just presumed he’d be here.” Nessa shrugged as if to say “More
fool me”.

“We don’t see much of Tyler these days,”
Chandler said.

Pete gave his sweats another hitch so only
four inches of underwear showed instead of six. “If it was me
scored a chick with stellar digs and fancy wheels, I’d be out of
this shithole in a hot minute, too.”

Chandler rolled his eyes ceiling-ward.
“Don’t mind him, he’s special.” He sniffed the air. “Crap! That’s
my grilled cheese. Gotta go. Nice to meet you—?”

“Nessa,” she said. And threw him a dazzling
smile as she left.

The smile vanished as she trudged down the
stairs, cursing her luck. She stuck her hand in the pocket of her
jeans and fingered the cash she had left after paying for the coach
ticket to get here. She considered springing for a taxi… for all of
five seconds. If this “surprise” visit didn’t go to plan, she might
need the money for a motel.

She pressed a fist to her mouth to stifle a
whimper. If this surprise visit didn’t go to plan, she was in a
whole heap of trouble—more trouble than she’d ever been in her
life. And given her track record, that was saying something.

~~~

After his parents’ visit a few months ago,
Jay had been vigilant about appearing as humanlike as possible. She
knew it was illogical but a part of her felt that if she slipped up
and did something extraordinary in front of Tyler it would only
prove Marissa’s point. However Tyler wasn’t anywhere near the
kitchen right now, so Jay didn’t see any reason to bother with the
oven glove. She grabbed the pizza stone from the oven with her bare
hand and placed it on the granite countertop.

“Dinner’s ready!” she called, modulating her
voice so Tyler would hear it from his top-floor studio. She blinked
and uttered a very humanlike snort—the sort of self-deprecating
snort that usually indicated the snorter had remembered something
of significance, and thought himself or herself stupid to have
forgotten it in the first place. The area she’d converted so Tyler
had a place to work on his portfolio and practice his music was
sound-proofed. Even if she screamed at the top of her lungs he
wouldn’t hear her.

She sliced the pizza she’d made, grabbed
paper napkins and plates, and headed for the studio. When Tyler was
in the zone he often forgot to eat. It was one of the reasons she
preferred him to stay over at her place. At least then she could
tempt him with home cooked meals and ensure he ate properly two or
three nights a week.

Jay had always been what humans labeled a
“good” cook. Cooking was simply a matter of combining the available
ingredients in ways that pleased the human palate. It wasn’t
difficult. She’d cooked all the meals when Father was alive but
she’d never “enjoyed” cooking. Now she found herself holding her
breath as she waited for Tyler to take that first all-important
bite of a meal she’d prepared for him, so she could analyze his
responses. And if his eyes half-closed as he savored the flavors,
and he uttered a tiny moan of appreciation, she would release her
breath on a sigh of pure satisfaction… and immediately begin
planning the next meal she would cook for him.

She juggled her burdens so she could open
the door to the studio, and paused on the threshold to observe
him.

Tyler sat on a tall stool, hunched over his
guitar, his eyes half-closed as he strummed. Jay’s enhanced hearing
could detect the faint hum in the back of his throat as he
sub-vocalized the words in his mind, braiding them into lyrics
that, when he deemed them fit for her ears, Jay knew would move her
to tears.

Warmth bloomed in her chest, enveloping her
like a blanket. Her heart beat a little faster, even though she was
not physically exerting herself. And everything in the room
appeared brighter, as though she’d flicked some internal switch
that had instantly upgraded and enhanced her vision.

Jay did not know whether she was capable of
loving Tyler as he deserved to be loved—as a human female would
love the male she’d chosen to give her heart to. But if love was an
overwhelming sensation of wellbeing, of completeness, of
“rightness” and not wanting to be anywhere else in the entire world
but here, in this moment, with this person, then she loved Tyler.
She hoped it would be enough for him.

He glanced up and smiled at her.

Jay’s knees wobbled and she leaned against
the doorjamb to regain her balance. What had just happened? And
more importantly, why?

Her disquiet must have shown on her face for
Tyler set his guitar on the stand and hopped off the stool to
relieve her of the pizza. “You okay?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Jay clutched the
plates and napkins to her chest. It would be very inconvenient if
this strange anomaly spread to her arms, too.

Tyler set the pizza on the sideboard and
pinned her with a serious look that informed her she would not get
away with changing the subject to distract him. “Tell me, or I’m
only going to worry,” he said. “And give me those plates.”

She handed them over. “Very well. My knee
joints went…
funny
when you looked at me. There is no
logical explanation for this physical anomaly.”

Tyler’s brows pleated. “Funny? Funny,
how?”

“Funny as in
weak
. Like they were
incapable of locking into place and holding me upright
anymore.”

“Ah.” He turned away to put the plates on
the sideboard but she caught a glimpse of his lips twitching
upward.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You find this
anomaly amusing.”

He faced her again, and that twitch of his
lips morphed into a full-blown grin Jay could only describe as
cocky.

She tested her legs. Whatever had
temporarily ailed them had passed, so she headed for the padded
bench seat by the window. Tyler reached out and snagged her arm as
she passed.

She could easily have pulled free but
because it was Tyler, because she wanted—needed—to understand
everything about him, she allowed him to tug her round to face
him.

“Knowing I can look at you a certain way and
be directly responsible for your knees going weak? Hell, yeah! I’m
rapt. Smug as all get-out—any red-blooded guy would be.”

She frowned to let him know that so far as
she was concerned there was nothing the least amusing about her
body failing to work as it was designed to. It wasn’t as though she
could seek out her creator for assistance. If anything went wrong
with her and she couldn’t diagnose it and fix it herself, she would
be, as Tyler’s twin Caro liked to say, royally screwed.

His grin faded. “It’s nothing to worry
about, Jay. No need to run a diagnostic. It’s a normal human
reaction. Sometimes humans have that effect on each other.”

He pulled her in close, wrapping his arms
around her and linking his fingers at her lower back like he feared
she might try to escape his embrace. “And just so’s you know, I’m
thrilled to itty bitty pieces that I can do that to you—affect you
physically just by looking at you, I mean. I’d be gutted if it was
all one-sided.”

Jay arched her spine, leaning backward
slightly so she could better observe his face. “What do you
mean?”

“I mean, me being glued to the spot,
incapable of moving, staring at you like an idiot the first time I
saw you. I mean, you opening the front door seconds before I unlock
it and my breath catching and my mouth going dry at the sight of
you. I mean, feeling like the luckiest guy in the entire freaking
world because you chose me.”

“Oh.”

“Just oh?”

“I mean, ‘oh’ as in, I hoped that’s what you
meant.”

His chocolate-brown eyes darkened, the
pupils dilating as she stared into his eyes, into his soul. But she
wasn’t human, didn’t have a soul. She wondered what he saw when he
stared into
her
eyes. And hoped that whatever he saw it was
something real, something he could love.

She entwined her arms about his neck and
tugged his head down to meet her lips. She gave him every
opportunity to pull back, to resist. His lips met hers, and she
truly thought her racing heart would burst from her chest as his
hands skimmed her sides, settled on her hips and pulled her hard
against him. Wobbly knees were nothing compared to this involuntary
relaxing of her muscles and her limbs, almost as though she was
absorbing the heat of his body and melting against him.

When he pulled away, she choked on a tiny
cry of protest. Dazed, she stared at him, wondering at his sudden
alertness.

“Someone’s at the front door,” he said.

A shiver coursed through her. If she’d been
human, she might have labeled what she felt right now as a sense of
foreboding. The sensation was so strong it almost cancelled out the
disturbing fact that she’d been so caught up in Tyler’s kiss she
hadn’t sensed someone approaching her front door. “Let’s not answer
it.”

He tapped his forefinger on her nose. “Could
be important.”

Jay sought a more valid excuse than having a
“bad feeling” about whoever was at the door. “They’ll call again.
Or ring. Our pizza’s getting cold.”

Tyler inhaled, momentarily diverted by the
mention of food. “Mmm. Smells great.”

“It is,” she assured him.

“Okay, you win. We ignore the door.”

The harsh squeal of the buzzer intruded
again. And again.

Tyler sighed. “Persistent, aren’t they?”

She should have shut the door behind her and
enclosed them in the sound-proofed room. Obviously now there would
be no peace until she’d answered the front door. “I’ll get rid of
whoever it is,” she said. “Be right back.”

“I’ll be waiting. Don’t take too long or
I’ll start without you.”

Still distracted by her responses to Tyler,
Jay strode downstairs, flicked the lock, and yanked open the
door.

Oh. She should have used the speaker, for
then she would have been forewarned. Because of all the people she
would least like to see right now—or anytime, for that matter—this
girl would top the list.

“Holy shit!
You’re
Jaime
Smythson?”

“Surprise,” Jay said.

The girl took a step backward, doubtless
responding to the coldness of Jay’s expression and the displeasure
in her voice. “I-I guess you didn’t die in that explosion.”

“Apparently not.”

Pause current thought-thread.

It had suited her purposes for her sudden
disappearance during her farewell party to spark rumors she’d been
a casualty of the mysterious explosion. She had to respect Evan
Caine’s resourcefulness after she’d left him to clean up his own
mess. It would have been no small task to doctor the evidence, and
bribe and bully officials so that reports listed the explosion as
the result of a fire in a meth lab set up in the vacant property.
Most officials involved had seen the sense of turning a blind eye
to the things that didn’t add up—especially when the alternative
was to have it leaked that there’d been a terrorist attack in
sleepy little small-town Snapperton. The other officials had been
discredited or mysteriously developed serious health issues,
doubtless also due to Caine’s behind the scenes machinations.

Resume.

“B-but I thought—”

“You thought
what
?” Jay interrupted,
losing patience with Vanessa’s hesitancy.

Vanessa squeaked. “I-I thought your surname
was Smith?”

Enough. “What do you want, Vanessa?” Jay
asked the question even though she knew exactly what Vanessa
wanted—or rather, who. Chandler’s writing was scrawled on the slip
of paper Vanessa clutched. She had been to Tyler’s apartment,
looking for Tyler.

“Is… is… Tyler there?”

Every molecule of Jay’s being screamed at
her to shut the door in Vanessa’s face. This girl was trouble.
She’d always been trouble. But something in Vanessa’s stance told
Jay the girl would not be dismissed so easily.

Sarcasm was a useful defense mechanism. Jay
had previously used it to devastating effect. “Gosh,” she drawled,
composing her features into a bored expression. “You’re not here to
see
me
? Gutted. You know, what with you and me being such
good friends, and us parting on such good terms and all.”