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“What about you and me?”
He cocked his head to the side before his eyes went wide. “Oh, you mean you and me likeyou and me. You’re not my type.”
“Oh thank God.”
“Whoa, now. You’re going to bruise my ego.”
To see a man his size offended by my lack of interest bordered on comical. With muscles like that, he could very well have any man he wanted. I suspected half the muscle was from beating the men off with a stick.
“Of course, we’re still fairly new to town. Local friends wouldn’t hurt either.”
He held his hand across the table. I reached out tentatively, prepared for him to grind my bones into a fine powder. He gave it a shake, almost delicate.
“Nice to meet you, Alejandro.”
“Same to you, Mr. Wall.”
He laughed. For all my worries, a simple chuckle put them at ease.
At least we had something other than EO in common. “About these rom-coms? Did you seeForever My Disaster?”
The man slapped the table, nearly knocking over his beer. He leaned over the table, the excitement barely contained. He definitely loved his rom-coms with that kind of reaction.
“Why did Monica go with him? She should have stayed with Ted.”
I waggled my finger back and forth. “Nope. I’m team Vinny. Those two are going to have adorable babies.”
“If she had been smart, she’d have taken them both. Ladies are into spit roasting, right?”
“I mean, who isn’t?”
The argument continued for the next half hour as we jumped from one movie to the next. Apparently, I’d be watching rom-coms and horror movies in this scenario. Leave it to two gay men to bond over sappy love stories. I realized I could very well be living one now. Was this the beginning of my own rom-com? ¡Cielos! I was going to be annoyed if the scene faded to black when I dragged EO back to my apartment.
Now that I thought about it, yeah, that needed to happen.
10
The subwayof Vanguard City might as well have a welcome mat laid out for villains. The station closest to Midnight Alley hadn’t been renovated in twenty years, and it’d be any day before they condemned it. Between the flickering fluorescent bulbs and the tiles falling off the columns along the platform, it screamed evil lair.
At this hour, the trains were infrequent, and there was a good chance I’d be waiting for the next thirty minutes. That’s about twenty-nine minutes longer than I wanted to be there. Between the muggy smell of decay and the rats scurrying into the shadows, it was almost a guarantee that a superpowered psycho would show and take me hostage.
It wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last.
The digital sign above the platform had the arrival time except that enough of the bulbs were blown that I couldn’t tell if it was twenty minutes or fifty. I considered speeding back through the turnstile and up to the street and calling a taxi. It’d be worth the twenty bucks to not have the hair on my arms standing on end.
A glass bottle clanked against the ground somewhere nearby. I spun about, looking both ways down the long corridor. There were plenty of alcoves for somebody to hide, and the columns casting shadows made for the perfect supervillain entrance.
“Here we go,” I mumbled. I just wanted to go home and crawl into bed. Instead, I was going to be granted a supervillain monologue, a long-winded plan for world domination, and an elaborate plan with far too many holes for success.
“Is anybody there?” The best villains didn’t lure their victims into a false sense of security; they struck whenever it suited them. But the B-rate villains, it was almost as if they had watched one too many cartoons. Griffin had started working on a book about the comical situations created by villains. I’d have to carry a copy so I could hand it out. Vanguard City deserved better villains.
“I guess I’m alone.” When I turned around, there’d be a man standing there, hoping to surprise me. Predictable.
When I turned around, there were only shadows where I expected to see a latex body suit. Could it be my paranoia? Had I been listening to Griffin too long? Maybe his book—
The lights above flared, bursting until only a single bulb remained. I shielded my eyes as sparks erupted from the ceiling. Dammit, I had fallen right into their trap. When I looked again, the shadows moved into the light, forming the shape of a man. He stepped out, clad in a white leather suit and cape. Most suits that showed the eyes or mouth for practical reasons, but he had white fabric covering his face, leaving him featureless.
“White Knight?”
