I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.
She was so gorgeous in that black plaid skirt and white silk blouse with her hair in a ponytail, and here I was in jacked jeans, faded band T-shirt, and half-laced shitkickers.
Still, I couldn’t just take her anywhere. After her McDonald’s dig, I had to redeem myself, especially since she’d referred to that outing as our “last date.”
It hadn’t been a date. We both knew that. As well as we knew this wasn’t a date.
But here we were, seated in a booth at a joint called the Hidden Gem, a 1920s speakeasy-themed restaurant in the heart of the downtown restaurant district near the river.
Johann and Flora had said I should take Helena somewhere “nice.” This place fit the bill. But to say I was woefully underdressed would be an understatement. Then again, I didn’t do ties anyway.
“How did you know about this place?” Helena asked in a hushed tone after our waiter brought our drinks—straight whiskey for me and Chardonnay for her.
“I didn’t,” I said, going ahead and tossing back half the amber liquid, which burned hot and bright in the back of my throat, likeI’d swallowed a star. It had been lifetimes since I’d imbibed anything. Still, the sensationwasfamiliar. And oddly, in more ways than one…
Helena’s eyes bugged as she watched me, questions brimming in that gaze. And of course they would. Most of the time we’d been together, I’d been a fucking skeleton. Now here I was shooting high-end bourbon served neat.
Did I have the balls to tell her that was largely because tossing back this searing sweet liquid fire was probably the only thing that rivaled the act of tasting her soul with mine?
Nope. But I could think it.
Thankfully, I’d ordered a double and I had one more swig left to get me through a dinner where I had little interest in the food.
I was going to have to order—and consume—something, though.
Like I’d told Helena, it had been a while. Long enough that I couldn’t remember what I’d tasted last. I never took this form anymore. It took too much out of me. Simultaneously, assuming this long-since-shed guise burdened me with far more than I cared to shoulder.
But sitting with her made the slow creeping-in of my murky memory worth it. At least that’s what I told myself while the shadows of the past remained at bay.
Maybe she was keeping those shadows away, too.
Sources of light did that.
“You just picked this place at random, you mean?” she asked.
I glanced away from the menu that, sparse as it was, still overwhelmed me, and scanned the darkly lit and windowless dining area.
Booths with shining burgundy studded leather seating lined the bare brick walls while matching fringed art deco lampshades hovered above each. Nearby, a bartender garbed in Prohibition-era attire, complete with bow tie and handlebar mustache, mixed cocktails at a varnished bar.
Old-school,Gatsby-style jazz played softly over some unseen sound system.
“It looked classier than a fast-food joint,” I said, “so I thought I’d give it a try.”
“Well, it reallyisa hidden gem, isn’t it?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. Because, if you asked me, the gem wasn’t the joint.
The waiter came back, and when Helena smiled at him, I had to resist the urge to give him a little flick of the soul, too.
Wouldn’t be doing myself any favors if I went around spiritually tasing people because I’d caught some feelings for a Fated that I couldn’t seem to fucking regulate.
I was in enough shit.
“I’ll have a small margherita pizza,” she said, then glanced my way.
Frowning, I peered down at the menu again because now the waiter was looking at me.
My turn, I guess. It was just that, in the last however many decades—centuries—food had become such a foreign concept to me. I didn’t know what anything on this menu was except for the oysters, and I’d had enough of the ocean as of late.
