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“Yeah! Like that! Where the hell am I supposed to—”
He broke off for the second time, when a fan of fat bills appeared in front of his face, like magic. His eyes crossed; my own narrowed. Not at the bills, but at who was holding them. And then smirking slightly when they disappeared, into the pocket of the khakis now clambering into the truck’s wonky cab.
A moment later, Frankentruck went belching and burning around a corner and I was left staring down with Louis-Cesare.
“We could have handled that,” I pointed out.
“But why waste time?” Tonight he was in a green pullover that looked knitted, but shone like silk. It changed his hair almost to red and his eyes to aquamarine, the same startling hue as his father’s, which wasn’t fair. Like the jeans, which fit him like a glove but didn’t fit the old-world bow he managed to execute flawlessly.
I scowled at him.
“I went to the house,” Louis-Cesare said. “I was informed you were here.”
“So you decided to stalk me?”
An eyebrow raised.
“I decided to see the show. I hear it is quite something.”
The words were mild, but there was a definite challenge in those blue eyes. He knew we weren’t here to see the damned show. Any more than he was.
To be here already, he’d have had to be awake well before sunset. And while a master at Louis-Cesare’s level was perfectly capable of daywalking, it was still unpleasant. Not to mention burning through power like nobody’s business. There was absolutely no reason for him to have been up and about that early.
Except the obvious.
“And it had to be tonight.”
“Is there a reason it shouldn’t be?”
Yeah. A whole list of them. Which I might have enumerated, except Olga took that moment to step heavily on my foot. And heavily for a troll is no joke. I gasped; she simpered.
“Good show. You come.”
Louis-Cesare smiled at her, and kissed the hand she regally extended. “What an excellent idea. I’d be delighted.”
And so the whole sorry lot of us went to see the show.
Chapter Twenty-three
Ray went to see his buddy, and the rest of us went to get tickets. Olga splashed out on box seats, probably because the Mormons wouldn’t fit in the regular ones. And I guess she wanted to keep an eye on the boys so they didn’t get too trigger-happy too soon, so she squashed them all into the same box.
I watched it worriedly.
I hoped it had good struts.
Louis-Cesare and I had the box next door to ourselves. It should have been fairly romantic, with a cute baby chandelier overhead, sparkling like diamonds against rich brocaded wallpaper, the kind of moldings they don’t make anymore, gilded and two feet high and carved to within an inch of their lives, and enough red velvet to outfit Olga’s entire family. But not under the circumstances.
I shifted a little in my seat, so I could get a better view of the curtain over the stage, which had yet to be pulled back. People were still finding their seats, so I guessed we had a while. Great.
Louis-Cesare came over and sat beside me, so I got up and sat on the front of the box. He’s six foot four in his socks, so I didn’t get opportunities for a height advantage very often. When I did, I took them.
He didn’t say anything, just watched me with curious eyes.
Curious, beautiful eyes, and damn it! I needed to pick a fight, prick that famous pride, get him to go away and stop dogging my footsteps until I could figure out the latest curveball life had chucked at me. Which should have been easy, because fighting with people was what I did best. Except where he was concerned, because he didn’t fight fair.
My family got cold and cutting when we fought, like normal, dysfunctional people. We sulked, we avoided one another, and when confronted we lashed out with stuff that had been over for centuries in some cases, because if you’re not hitting below the belt, are you really trying?
Louis-Cesare did not.
