Superheroes Anonymous (15 page)

“Yeah, they're . . . a thing.” He tilted his head, considering something I couldn't understand, and shrugged. “Vicki's a big girl. She can handle him.”

I closed my lips over a lasciviously crude remark.

In a normal city, Guy's rent would have been through the roof. Not that he'd have a problem with that, seeing as he had probably come into an inheritance that would make even the most miserly of bankers goggle. His place would have been one of those artsy apartments, ones that seemed real only in movies where you wondered how two poor twentysomethings could afford such a space.

It was an open, two-­story area. A sort of sitting room was shoved toward the back beside a wall of windows, but the dominant feature of the room was a large, olive green training mat. Nearby was a set of weights and barbells, and a punching bag. “Sam uses this space more than I do,” Guy said.

“Aren't you and War Hammer supposed to be extremely strong?” I eyed the denominations on the barbells with interest.

“Davenport's got ways to make us normal if we want to work out like regular guys. You know, temporarily.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Sometimes it feels good to just let loose and lift some weights.” Guy shrugged. “Sam's got a lot of frustration. I have . . . no, had. I had my fair share of it, too.”

I gave him a sage look. “You hated Angus as much as I did, didn't you?”

“He's such a jerk. Anyway, bedrooms are on the second level,” Guy went on, leading me out of the training area and gesturing at the spiral staircase. He headed into a kitchen area, with a huge fridge, an indoor grill, and at least three sinks. They even had a prep sink.

“You cook?” I asked, surprised to see so many chef's tools on the counters. “I thought, being Bookmans, you guys would just have maids or cooks. You know, hired help.”

“We did when we were kids.” Guy smiled. “But I hate having too many ­people around. When I first came into my powers, I was always hungry. Kind of like you now. Only I've always been a picky eater. So it was either hire a chef, battle it out at the cafeteria, or learn to cook.”

“Let me get this straight.” Surreptitiously, I ran a fingertip over the bread-­dough mixer and checked it. No dust. “You can cook, you're built, you spend your spare time saving damsels in distress, pulling kittens out of trees, and helping little old ladies across the street. And you're telling me you're not secretly a robot? I don't think you exist.”

He laughed. “I've never helped a little old lady across the street in my life. Geez.”

“You didn't deny my robot accusation,” I pointed out.

“Want a water?”

“Sure.”

He opened the fridge, pulled two water bottles out, and tossed one to me. “Trust me, not a robot.”

I narrowed my eyes at him over the water bottle. “Prove it.”

With a shrug, he yanked up his sleeve, and I saw a three raised lines of scarred skin just under his shoulder. “Robots don't have these.”

“Clever ones might. And by these, do you mean—­” I reached out and poked him. “The muscles or the scars?”

His grin was surprise and delight rolled into one. It lit up his face. “If I have to be a robot, I'll be a clever one. There are worse things to be.”

Like radioactive, I thought, but Angélica had assured me that that had worn off . So I grinned back at him and dropped my hand to my side. “I don't really think you're a robot.”

“And I don't really think I'm all that clever.” He ducked his head, still smiling. “But we all have our own battles to—­”

Sensing something I couldn't even describe, I tensed. And less than a split second later, a voice called, “Hello?”

Guy gave me an odd look before he turned. “Hey, Sam. We're in the kitchen if you want to join us.”

I looked up to see someone coming down the spiral stairs. When he came fully into view, one of my eyebrows shot up.

Sam Bookman was like a finished version of his brother. Where Guy was built along slender lines, Sam was brute
presence
. A Cubs T-­shirt strained over a heavily muscled chest, showcasing arms as thick as tree trunks. While Guy's hair was burnished and coppery and sort of feathered around his head, Sam had a burnished blond buzz cut. They shared the same long, aquiline nose, though.

“Gail, this is my brother Sam. Sam, you remember Gail.” Guy gestured at each of us in turn with his water bottle.

A corner of Sam's mouth tilted up. “I fished you out of a dumpster once.”

“For which I will be forever grateful to you,” I said immediately. “Especially if you never mention it again.”

Sam gave me a full grin this time and headed toward the refrigerator. “She's cute,” Sam told Guy, as if I weren't standing right there. Guy at least had the sense to shoot me an embarrassed look. “Any trouble on your patrol last night?”

“No, and I'll talk to you about it later. Want to see the upstairs?” The latter was directed at me.

“Sure.” Though from where I was standing, there didn't look like there would be much to the upstairs. The apartment was totally . . . Guyville, I decided, as Guy led me up the stairs. Solid, muted colors without any frills dominated, and the weight-­lifting setup definitely said that two bachelors lived there.

“And, here we are on the second level,” Guy said. In the kitchen, Sam opened the newspaper and sat down with his orange juice, as though it were very early morning instead of the middle of the afternoon. “I won't bother you with Sam's room, he's a total slob. My room's this way.”

I narrowed my eyes at his back as I followed him. “It's not going to be covered with stalker-­type pictures of me, is it?”

He bit his lip again. “No, but that's because I'm awful with a zoom lens.”

“Ha,” I said. I hadn't known he could be funny, but I really, really liked it.

Guy inclined his head in a little bow and pushed open his bedroom door. Before I could see inside, though, he stopped in the middle of the doorway. He turned quickly, putting us face-­to-­face. “On second thought, never mind. Let's go out and do something. I can maybe see about getting you a topside pass for the evening.”

I squinted up at him. “Must be bad.”

He propped an elbow against the door and attempted an innocent look. “What must be bad?”

“Whatever it is you're hiding from me. Sam's not the only slob, is he?”

“I, er, it's not that, exactly.” Guy scratched the back of his neck. Standing as close as we were, it was exhilarating to breathe in his comforting scent. Blaze's scent. “It's just that, well . . .”

With a shrug, he moved out of the way and let me get my first full look at his bedroom. Since I knew he was watching my face, I didn't let my jaw drop or anything. Really, I didn't need to worry. I'd seen worse messes. Just clothing—­and he always wore such
nice
clothes—­thrown this way and that on the floor, shirts over the back of his desk chair and the recliner in the corner, where I imagined he'd tossed them when he'd stripped. The bed was a rumpled pile of green sheets and a dark blue comforter.

“I haven't made the bed since . . .” Guy winced. “Ever, really.”

He hurried into the room ahead of me and began to scoop things up, tossing them toward the corners. “If I'd known I'd be having company, I swear I would have cleaned.”

“You saw my apartment when you came looking for me,” I said, wanting to cringe when I remembered that I'd thrown at least three or four bras over my own desk chair. Oh well. The man had seen me in the tattered threads of a pink teddy. There had to be a line. “There's no need to clean on my behalf, Guy.”

“Still.” He dumped the pile in his arms into the corner and looked at me. “It's kind of a moment.”

“Why is it . . . oh.” I caught his meaning just a little too late. It was a big moment, having me here. Knowing who he was and somehow standing in his bedroom.

Guy cleared his throat. “Yeah, so . . . this is it, really. Your gift.” With a snap of his fingers, he hurried across the room. The desk seemed to be the cleanest space in the room, which meant he either used it the most or the least. I couldn't tell. He picked up a small white box. “I almost forgot. Here.”

When he held out the box, I tilted my head. That looked like . . . “A phone?”

“New line coming out next month. I got you one of the first ones. Jeremy mentioned you were going a little stir-­crazy without any contact with the outside world, so I figured I'd help you out.”

Before I could reach out and take the box, though, I drew my hand back. The Universe phone was one that had always been out of my price range by quite a bit. I'd known Guy came from a wealthy background—­his father was probably worth more than the GNP of several third-­world nations put together—­but it really hadn't occurred to me until just that moment.

Guy's eyebrows drew together. “What's the matter?”

He had put a little green bow on top of the box, the same color as his uniform. It was such a silly little detail, and I stared at it. “It's kind of expensive,” I said.

He gave the box in his hand a look, as if he was puzzled to still see it there. “I guess? I didn't really look at the price tag.”

But I just shook my head.

He sighed and wiggled the box. “Remember the time with Dynamo-­Lad?”

It took me a second to remember. The kidnappings had begun to meld together into a montage of supervillains in bad costumes spraying spittle when they yelled in my face. “Was he the psychic who tried to hypnotize me?”

“With your phone, until I smashed it. Just . . . I don't know, consider this a replacement.”

I remembered now. I'd been walking alone on a hazy night in June, and Blaze had swooped in from out of nowhere, snatched the phone out of my hand, and thrown it forcefully at a brick wall sixty feet away. It had shattered into bits of metal and plastic, and I'd come to realize that I was standing in the middle of the street in my polka-­dot pajama pants with no memory of how I'd gotten there. Now, I fixed him with a look. “This phone is a lot fancier than the one you smashed.”

“Consider it interest.”

“Guy.”

“Look.” And he set the phone on the desk so he could cross his arms over his chest again. I was beginning to notice that he only did that when uncomfortable. He leaned against the desk, which put us on a more even height. “You don't owe me anything if you take the phone. It's not—­you and me, I've never viewed us as a reciprocal thing. You've never been, and you never will be, in my debt.”

“I don't know how you can say that to somebody whose life you've saved as many times as mine,” I said. “I kind of feel like I'll always be in your debt. I wouldn't be here without you.”

“And you wouldn't be here either if I'd been a little faster getting to that ‘L' stop and had stopped Sykik myself.”

I bit my tongue before I could tell him I'd relived that memory while on Dr. Mobius's operating table. Sykik, who'd had anemic look of a skinhead with a terrible mohawk, had been my first meeting with Blaze, and I suppose with Guy as well. I hadn't started at Mirror Reality until a month or two after that little near fiasco on the tracks. “You knew he was there? How do you always know?”

“Police scanner.” Guy refolded his arms. “I have a system where—­actually, it's not important. I wasn't fast enough that day, and Sykik fixated on you and sent your image to a bunch of local villains as retribution.”

I rocked back on my heels. “So
that's
how it happened? I thought it was . . . something else.”

“Like the media said, that I was in love with you?” Guy shook his head hard. “Not that—­not that you're not great, you really are, you're—­” He took a deep breath and I watched him actually count to five right there in front of me. His cheeks seemed a little pink. “It was just a vindictive little—­little
pissant
trying to get back at an innocent citizen. You were in my territory, and you kind of became my responsibility, but Gail, you don't owe me anything. I don't want you to be in my debt.”

I could feel my cheeks heating up a little, too, though I hoped I wasn't blushing. Inwardly, I had to marvel. I had become a supervillain target because of a thrown beer bottle. Not an epic superhero romance. I'd just pissed off the wrong dude, and he'd exacted a petty revenge that had disrupted over two years of my life.

“I think I need to sit down,” I said.

In a blink, Guy was across the room, pulling me toward the bed. I sat down before my knees gave way; warily, he sat next to me.

“So it was all Sykik,” I said. “Just . . . being a little bitch.”

“You know villains. They're all secretly twelve,” Guy said.

“That was it? This was all over a beer bottle?”

“Was that what you hit him with?” Guy surprised me by letting out a chuff of laughter. “I've wondered, but there wasn't, um, exactly a way I could ask. You've got amazing aim.”

“I played softball back in high school, a million years ago.” I rolled my right shoulder once, almost reflexively. A beer bottle, I thought again. It hadn't been a secret grand romance, which was honestly disappointing. It had been kind of an ego boost to think that maybe all of these situations were happening because I had a superhero secretly in love with me.

Vanity, thy name is Gail.

“Hey,” I said, finally putting it all together. “Guy. When you said you didn't get there fast enough . . . have you been blaming yourself for this all this time?”

He was quiet for a long time. “You ended up in a lot of really bad situations.”

“If they weren't my fault, they definitely weren't yours, either.”