Freaks in the City (8 page)

Tyler threw her a look that he hoped
conveyed his disgust. “Not everyone chooses their significant
others based on their bank account balances, Vanessa.”

Did it still rankle to have been dumped in
high school because he couldn’t afford his own car? Yeah. Guess it
did.

“True,” Nessa said. “But being poor blows
chunks. So if the person you hook up with is loaded, all the
better, I reckon.”

“I’m sure you do. Not that anyone would ever
guess that about you after the way you ditched me for Matt. And
Matt for Shawn.”

Nessa at least had the grace to flush pink
at his not-so-subtle jibe. “Yeah. Well, more fool me, I guess.
Look, all I’m saying is no one would blame you for, you know.”

“Hooking up with Jay because she’s obviously
loaded?” Tyler’s sweeping gesture encompassed his surroundings.
“Jesus, Vanessa. You’re some piece of work. To set the record
straight once and for all, Jay came looking for me. She found out
I’d enrolled at Appleton, and tracked me down there before I
transferred. I haven’t moved in here permanently and I don’t let
her pay for everything. So back the fuck off with the shitty little
digs and insinuations.”

He pushed away from the doorway and strode
over to her. He got right up in her face, grasping her chin and
forcing her to look at him. “And if it crosses your mind it might
be kinda fun to suggest to Jay I’m only interested in her money,
I’ll kick you out on your ass so fast you won’t know what’s hit
you. You got that?”

She wrenched her chin from his hands,
hunched her shoulders and hugged her middle. “Yeah. I got
that.”

Jay had entered the room on catlike feet and
startled them both when she said, “Dinner’s ready. Come grab it
before it gets cold.”

Tyler backed up and slung an arm about her
waist. He nuzzled her cheek. ‘Thanks for baking extra pizza.”

“When it comes to pizza, you don’t share
well with others.”

He laughed and squeezed the intriguing
indent where the curve of her hip met her waist. If Jay had been
ticklish that would have gotten a really good reaction. It sure had
whenever he’d done the same to Nessa. But Jay wasn’t ticklish—or
not in any place he’d yet discovered.

“Right on,” he said. “And I especially don’t
like sharing
your
pizza. It’s far too good to share.”

“Is there somewhere I can wash up?” Nessa
asked, her too-bright tone shattering the moment.

“Bathroom’s across the hall,” Jay said. “And
don’t worry about walking in on Tyler. He’ll use the en suite off
the main bedroom.”

Was he imagining that ever so slight edge to
Jay’s voice? Like she was… staking her claim. Uh oh. He hoped
Nessa’s visit would be very short.

“Thanks for everything, Jay.” Nessa ducked
her head, hiding behind her hair again. “I mean that
sincerely.”

“I hope so.”

Nessa stood. Jay gave her a head-to-toer.
“Tomorrow I’ll give you some cash for clothes and other
necessities. You can borrow some of mine in the meantime.”

“I promise I’ll pay you back.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Nessa blinked. “O-Okay.”

Tyler didn’t exactly drag Jay from the room,
but it was a close thing. Sheesh. This was like living some dumbass
sit-com where the poor schmuck of a leading man got stuck living
with his current girlfriend and his ex, and both of them made his
life hell. The situation might be good for a few laughs on the big
screen, but Tyler wasn’t laughing.

“I don’t trust that girl as far as I could
throw her,” he heard Jay mutter as they negotiated the stairs, his
arm still slung about her waist and his hip bumping hers.

He leaned in to whisper, “Which, being a
super-strong cyborg is a reeeally long way—maybe even into orbit,
right?”

Jay gave a credible snicker. “I could see me
breaking world records with her.”

“You think she’s got an agenda?”

“I
know
she’s got an agenda.”

“So why let her stay?”

She nudged him with her hip as if to
emphasize what she was about to say. “There’s a saying: Keep your
friends close and your enemies closer.”

“Ah.” Tyler mulled how to broach the next
subject without looking like an overprotective idiot. It wasn’t
like Jay couldn’t look after herself. “Speaking of keeping people
close, mind if I stay over while Vanessa’s here?”

Jay gestured with a hand to indicate they
would be eating in the living room rather than using the kitchen’s
breakfast bar. “I’ll be most unhappy if you jump her when my back’s
turned.”

Tyler’s heart lurched and his stomach tied
itself in a big knot. Surely she couldn’t think that was the
reason? Shit. A big stinking cartload of it. He grasped her wrist
and whirled her to face him. “I would never cheat on you, Jay. I
hope you know that.”

She searched his face, her
too-blue-to-be-human eyes boring into his. “I do know that. Just
like I know that if you decide you can’t be with me anymore because
of what I am, you’ll inform me.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“You say that now, but—”

“I want to stay with you. Not just in your
house, but in your bedroom. Like we’re a couple.” He scrubbed his
fingers through his hair. God. He was making a mess of this. “I
mean, I
know
we’re a couple, but we aren’t
living
together living together. We’re more like, ah, roommates. And I
don’t want Vanessa getting—”

“The wrong idea.”

He nodded.

“You can sleep wherever you like,
Tyler.”

What he’d asked—what she’d agreed to—hit him
like a big-ass punch to the solar plexus, leaving him momentarily
breathless. This was big. This was monumentally frickin’ huge.

“Are you sure you’ll be comfortable sharing
a bed with me, Tyler?”

How to put this? He wanted to be there to
shield Jay if Nessa noticed there was something “off” about her. He
wanted to keep an eye on things in case Nessa pushed Jay too far
and Jay pushed back and stuff got… out of hand. And he wanted to
take his relationship with Jay to the next level—the next “human”
level, that is.

God—and perhaps only Jay’s creator—knew how
far Jay was capable of evolving. And Tyler wanted so badly to find
out that sometimes it was all he could do to hold off and take a
step back and let things proceed at their own pace. It wasn’t just
about sharing her bed, it was about sharing her life. It was about
finding out whether they could function as equals when she was
superhuman and he was ordinary. It was about discovering whether he
could ever be part of her future. Or whether they were both
dreaming and hoping for the impossible.

He was saved from having to respond when
Nessa wandered into the living room, the words, “Something smells
good,” on her lips. He didn’t know whether to be relieved as all
heck he wouldn’t have to reveal what was in his heart, and risk
saying it wrong and screwing things up, or POed that it was still
all bottled up inside him.

“Jay’s cooking is to die for,” he said
quickly, and felt a little less overwhelmed when Jay rewarded him
with a smile.

“I’ll grab some sodas,” she said. “What do
you like to drink, Vanessa?”

“Diet Dr. Pepper,” Tyler said without
thinking. He ground his teeth and gave himself a mental kick. Way
to go, dude. Way to rub your girlfriend’s face in the fact you can
still remember what your ex likes to drink. His gaze slid to Jay,
searching her expression for a reaction.

“I don’t have diet,” she said, staring right
at him and giving him nothing.

Damn, he hated when she went all impassive
on him like that, like she’d slipped on an inhuman mask that hid
her real self from the world. From him.

“Regular is fine,” Nessa said.

“I’ll get them.” Tyler made a sit-down
gesture to Jay, and retreated into the kitchen, relieved to have a
few moments to get his shit together. The sooner this nightmare was
over, and Nessa was back on her feet and gone from their lives, the
better.

~~~

Jay glided down the hall and paused outside
the door to the guest room. She could hear Vanessa’s deep, even
breathing. The girl was either asleep or doing an excellent job at
faking it. Jay turned the handle and pushed the door, using just
enough force for it to swing noiselessly open. The hinges of this
door tended to squeak if it was opened slowly.

She flicked her gaze over the lump in the
bed.

Vanessa had changed into one of Tyler’s old
t-shirts and pulled the comforter up to her shoulders. With a
slight adjustment to her optics, Jay could see that Vanessa lay on
her side. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, cheek cradled in
the palm of one hand. The other hand was curled into a fist and
pressed against her breastbone. If Jay had been human, such a
childlike pose might have provoked a sympathetic response, but all
she felt was….

What did she feel?

She analyzed her responses. The chili-hot
burning in her lower gut, the dull ache in the muscles of her jaw
from clenching it too tightly. Anger. The sporadic chills that
stroked her skin, making the fine hairs on her arms and nape stand
up. Suspicion and distrust. And what of the sharp little pains that
stabbed her heart, whenever Tyler paid attention to Vanessa? That
was more difficult to define.

It both fascinated and disturbed Jay that
Vanessa’s presence could affect her physically like this.

She padded into the room, her bare feet
almost silent against the floorboards. She placed the armful of
clothing on the tallboy—a pair of sweats, a couple of t-shirts, a
warm hoodie, socks, panties, and an exercise top that Vanessa could
use as a bra.

Vanessa’s discarded clothing lay at the
bottom of the bed. Jay resisted the temptation to rifle through the
pile and check all the pockets. Vanessa had done nothing to earn
such treatment, not when all Jay had to go on was intuition and
groundless suspicion—human feelings she couldn’t rely on when there
were no cold hard facts to back them up. She would do some digging
and see what she uncovered before she took action.

She slipped from the room and headed for the
main bedroom.

The shower was still running in the en
suite. The beginnings of a smile twitched her lips. Tyler certainly
liked to take his time in the shower.

The smile died before it could be fully
born, morphing into something pensive. She liked having him stay
over. She’d wondered whether he would ever ask to share her bed.
And the electric thrill that had coursed through her when he’d
finally made that request reminded her of the time she’d thrust a
finger into a live socket—purely for research purposes of
course.

So far as Jay knew, that thrill meant she
wanted
Tyler in her bed, tucking her in close to him and
holding her through the night. But wanting didn’t take into account
the practicalities, chief being that Jay didn’t use her bed for the
purpose of sleeping.

The first time Tyler had stayed the night,
after he’d turned in she had continued on with the activity she’d
been involved in at the time. She’d heard him roaming around and
been unconcerned when he’d wandered into her office and found her
testing out a new program she’d written. When she’d asked, he’d
explained his insomnia was part of his creative process. If he was
in the throes of writing a new piece, the music inside his head
demanded his attention and he would feel compelled to move and pace
the floor. When, inevitably, the confines of his bedroom became too
restrictive, he would wander the house. And then he’d paused,
expectantly, obviously waiting for her to confess the reasons for
her own wakefulness.

Jay had blamed her apparent sleeplessness on
wanting to test an improvement for the program she was writing.
She’d concluded it would only emphasize her inhumanness for him to
discover that in truth she didn’t require sleep at all, so now she
only rarely pulled an all-nighter when he stayed over. Usually she
would climb into her bed and spend a few hours either reading,
watching TV, listening to music on her iPod, or surfing the Net on
her laptop. She could do these activities in the dark, and when it
came to watching TV, with the sound turned so far down it would be
barely audible to a human. She chose these activities because they
were normal things humans did when they couldn’t sleep.

But what was she to do now that Tyler would
be sleeping in her bed, with her, expecting her to sleep like a
normal human would do?

To maintain optimum performance levels,
Jay’s “rest” requirements were a once a week period of what she
termed
downtime
to recharge and update her systems. Though
she had accessed numerous studies about human sleep patterns, she’d
never observed a human sleeping for an entire night. So, to ensure
she mimicked human sleep she decided she would enter a
quasi-downtime state.

The water shut off in the shower. Jay felt
her limbs twitch. Her heartbeat quickened. The blood in her veins
seemed to… to… fizz. And she abruptly realized she was pacing the
room.

How strange. Was this combination of
physical responses anticipation?

She locked her muscles, forcing herself to
still as she cocked her head, listening. Tyler was brushing his
teeth. It should not be considered intrusive of her to enter the en
suite. For a human, brushing one’s teeth should not require
privacy. She strode to the en suite and paused, unsure, and not
appreciating the sensation. Should she knock? Or would that be
deemed too formal, considering this was
her
bedroom?

Toothbrush in mouth, Tyler yanked open the
door and then turned back to the washbasin. When he’d rinsed his
mouth he glanced up and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. “I
heard you lurking. Don’t let me hold you up. Just gotta floss and
I’m done.”