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“I’m so sorry, Lauren.”
Waves of grief radiated off the small woman in his lap, but Gavin stayed still and didn’t alter the way he held her. There was nothing he could do to take her grief away, or even to lessen it, since he didn’t dare try to go into her head.
“I knew it was going to happen today,” Lauren told her mom. “Did he go off to be alone, or did he come to you?”
“His favorite spot of sunshine outside, the little hilltop he loved, so he could watch over the house.”
“Are you going to bury him?”
A pause, and then, “Mordecai is going to help me cremate him.”
“Okay, mom. Thanks for letting me know. I don’t want to see that. I want my final memory of him to be this morning.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
“I know you are. Always. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Lauren hung up, put her face in Gavin’s chest, and let her tears flow. Gavin didn’t know what to say or do, so he just held her and let her cry — and made sure they weren’t disturbed by anyone in the building.
He telepathed Queenie to ask her to text Kirsten to let her know he was with Lauren, so she’d know her daughter wasn’t grieving alone. Later, when he checked his phone, he saw a text from Kirsten.Thank you for having Queenie let me know Lauren wasn’t alone. It helped a little, on an otherwise terrible day.
You’re welcome,he texted back.My condolences for the loss of Smokey. He was an extraordinary pet.
I don’t know what to do with this new version of you, butthankyou for being there for Lauren.
He wanted to argue it wasn’t a new version of him, he was the same Gavin he’d always been, the same vampire he’d been five years earlier, when Abbott had ordered him to abduct and maintain control of the red-headed spitfire. And yet, the world had more joy in it, now.
Rather than argue outright, he merely told her,There’s no new version. Like you, I’d end the world before I allowed harm to come to a single hair on her head.
Nice to be on the same team, then.
Well, he certainly agreed with that sentiment.
* * * *
Lauren was happy to let Gavin drive her car to the coterie house, with her in the passenger seat. She’d led a meeting of the entire cast — daywalkers and vampires, they’d talked about what needed to be done before the big dress rehearsal in a few days, she’d mediated between directors, coaches, and the tech people to polish the transitions, and then she’d left them all to practice and work through the on-stage logistics.
“I love my job,” she told Gavin. “The creation and innovation involved in this part of it, the problems to be solved with so many people working towards the final product, and the responsibility of overseeing everyone’s creativity and bringing it into a single focus. The other stages, it’s mostly just a matter of keeping those shows going. They’re all good, but this show is going to be spectacular.”
“And you don’t know how much I appreciate having someone to handle it all without constantly coming to me for answers. I enjoy popping in and checking on the businesses I own, but I don’t enjoy running them. Zander taught me to hire people who can do their job without needing their hands held, and you’re handling nine theaters without needing anything from me, other than one supernatural issue with a misbehaving vampire, and coming to me was the exact right way to handle him. I know you’ve called my business manager for some budgeting issues here and there, and brought HR in for a supervisory issue, which is the correct chain of command for those things.”
The problem vampire had apologized to Lauren privately, and then made a public apology to those he’d bullied, and he was now one of their staunchest defenders, so whatever Gavin had done had been the right call.
But Lauren didn’t want to talk to Gavin about work anymore. It was time to put theater business behind them and focus on their evening together.
“You know how I would never tell you about sex with Nick, before?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think it’s fair for you to know that he made me safeword almost every time we had sex. I mean, it was never about challenging me to take more than I could, but about…” She was suddenly at a loss of how to explain it. “Maybe about not letting me justdecidewhat I can and can’t handle? Making me face it? Making the line of what I can and can’t handle stay front and center? Because that line has moved for some things, over time, and it’s pretty much still where it started for other things.”
“I can tell by your scent when I’m pushing you too far. I assume Nick could, too, which means he wantedyouto know what was too much, since he already did.”
Lauren’s head snapped around to look at him. Gavin was right, but she’d never thought of it that way before.
“It also helped me feel as if I was in control, a little. Maybe that was part of it?”
