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“Do not fret much, Ms. Monroe humans have made a habit of excusing away things they cannot understand. They will simply think something was wrong with their machine. And if it were witches, well they would not be surprised.”
“And if it doesn’t work out so perfectly?”
“We kill them,” he said, nonchalantly looking over the garage. “Are all the vehicles yours?”
I thought about telling him the truth, but since he was such a pain, I decided to have a little fun. “Yes, of course,” I said with an uppity air, lifting my head a bit. “I’m a wealthy and important person among humans. Someone would even say I’m like their queen.”
His eyes widened, and he took a step back and bowed. “Forgive me, your majesty—”
“Stop that!” I quickly pushed him up to stand straighter as another car entered the garage.
“Did you give that human permission to drive one your vehicles? Or has he stolen it, which is why there are people watching, your majesty?” he questioned, already moving to where the car was going to park, and I had to hold on to him for dear life, gazing up at his face.
“I was kidding. It was a joke. I’m not the queen of anything. I’m an art conservator and restorationist at The National Gallery of Art.”
“Ahhh…so you were lying to me.” The corner of his lips tugging up into a smile, and there was a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Ms. Monroe, I may not remember the last century, but I was not born so brief ago that you could fool me.”
I tried to let go of his hand, but he held me closer to him again, his arm snaking around my waist. “In this century, women do not take kindly to men touching them without their permission.”
“You grabbed me first if I recall.”
“I let go.”
“It seems unfair that you are able to grab me at your leisure, while I am prohibited from doing the same,” he replied, releasing me.
Again, I stepped back and took a deep breath I didn’t need just so I could explain. But before I could even get out the words, a woman walked by, talking loudly on her phone. She looked us over, mildly interested as if we were beneath her, our dingy, dirt-covered clothes making her powerwalk in her Channel boots.
“I swear, I need to move. They let just anyone in here now,” she whispered under her breath, wrapping her unnecessarily gloved hands around herself, speaking into the earpiece of her phone.
“Let’s talk inside,” I said to Theseus, cracking my jaw to the side before walking to the elevators behind the woman on her phone.
This same woman had closed the elevator in my face before, and I was sure she had left a note on my car when I had first moved in. When I stepped closer, she clenched her Gucci purse to her side and muttered goodbye on the phone, hanging up when the doors opened.
“Have you lived here long?” she asked, not to me, but to Theseus behind me as I stepped onto the elevator.
Theseus glanced down at the woman, and for once, his face was solemn. But even more than that, he was cold. His eyes narrowed as he looked down at her with indifference. “I do not see why that is any of your concern.”
“Huh…” she scoffed in shock at how he’d spoken to her but swooned at his accent, too.
Trying not to grin, I pressed the button for my apartment on the eighth floor, and she pressed the button for the seventh. None of us spoke, but as we watched the elevator pass each level, the soft music played from the speaker, in which I noticed Theseus had taken an interest. It was only when the other woman had gotten to her floor and stepped off that she turned to say something.
However, I spoke up first. “Sorry about that, we have nosy neighbors here. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t such snobs.” I gave her my best smile before pressing the elevator doors closed.
The look on her face was hilarious, and I wished I could tell her I knew she was the one behind the note, but I had a feeling I’d run into stuck-up Suzy again and let it go.
“She has unsettled you before?” Theseus questioned as we rode up another level.
“No,” I lied, stepping out onto the grey-blue carpeted hallway. My door was the last, taking up the corner of the building. When we walked up, he peeked down at my rather girly, flower-covered welcome mat, the only one in the hallway. But I didn’t say anything, not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I remembered the condition of my place.
“Are you not going to enter?” he questioned.
“It’s just a bit of a mess,” I muttered, pushing open the door, and it was just as I remembered.
My wooden floors were covered in text and notebooks. Tacked onto my emerald-colored walls were unfinished sketches and plans I had intended to get one day, as well as a few unfinished quotes I had been painting on to the walls from my favorite books. There was minimal furniture outside of a dark-pink velvet couch, some throw pillows, and a fake white-marble coffee table that sat on top of a Turkish rug. With unnatural speed, I ran toward my bedroom door and threw my coat as well as my bag inside before closing the door and looking at him.
“Thank you for inviting me into your home; it is lovely,” he said with a trained politeness that felt very…un-American.
“It’s messy but thank you.” I nodded. “I don’t have a lot of visitors. In fact, I rarely have visitors.”
