AllFreeNovel
Share Us
THIRTY-FOUR
"That'd be the pizza," Alethia called. After a week of accepting grocery deliveries, she figured Stan could manage meeting the pizza guy without scaring the shit out of him again. Though if he did run into problems, now she'd bound her ankle up in the support bandage that had arrived in the most recent grocery delivery, she could probably hobble out there in time to help. It wasn't half as nice as being carried around by her demon protector, though.
By the time she did reach the kitchen, Stan had a box in his hands and the pizza guy was gone.
"So everything went fine?" Alethia asked.
Stan stared at the box in his hands. "He wanted to thank me. Apparently, they have a competition in the pizza store for the strangest thing to happen on a delivery. The winner gets free dinner. He delivered your order tonight in the hope that he could get a second free dinner."
Alethia couldn't help but laugh. "So did he get a second free dinner?"
Stan drew himself up. "Not from me, he did not! I seized the box from him and slammed the door in his face before he could think to take it from me! This is your dinner, not his, and I told him so!"
Poor Stan. A week in the future and he still had a lot to learn. At least he hadn't scared off the pizza delivery guy.
Alethia reached for the box. "So, should we eat?"
Stan lifted the box high above his head, out of her reach. Then he wrapped his other arm around her waist. "Not until we get there." Then he whirled her around, wings flaring, and all Alethia could see for a long moment was darkness, until they popped out in the wintry night air, with Stan's wings flapping on either side of her. The road below was a long way down.
"Stan?"
The last time he'd flown with her, she'd been very drunk and in pain. She really wished he'd given her a chance to down a bottle or two of vodka before flying with him again. Worse, he was arrowing upwards, spiralling...oh shit, she was going to be sick...
...or not, as her feet touched a flat rooftop, high above the rest of the city. Alethia dropped to her knees, expecting to hit concrete, but instead she landed on...a picnic blanket? She'd recognise that tartan pattern anywhere. Her mother brought this blanket to every picnic since forever.
"Stan?" she said, more softly with a lot less panic than the first time.
He spread his arms wide, and his wings fanned out behind him, making him look huge. "You said you wanted to go on a date, with dinner and dancing. We have pizza and beer and a space big enough to dance, though I may need your help with the music, as I don't know how to make it work." He set the pizza down on the blanket, beside...
"Is that my laptop?" Right beside the portable speaker. She'd only used it in front of him once, while doing some research and there'd been a video she'd wanted to show him, in case it jogged his memory, but it hadn't.
"You should probably eat first, before the pizza gets cold."
He'd stopped calling pizza one of her strange foreign foods, but he still eyed it suspiciously as she took a slice.
Alethia smothered a smile. You could take the Regency man out of the past, but you couldn't make him eat in the present. Pity. He'd probably like pizza, if he ever actually tasted it.
"I'm not sure I should have much of the beer. I'm unsteady enough on my feet as it is. Dancing drunk will probably end with me twisting my other ankle, so I can't walk at all."
"Trust me. I won't let you fall."
Even as the logical part of her screamed that Stan was a demon, therefore this had to be a lie...she believed him.
"So how do we do this?" she asked, looking up at him.
"Well, if you will make your laptop play the right music..."
"Oh. Right." Alethia opened her laptop. "And the right music would be...?" She was pretty sure she had a playlist with the Time Warp, the Macarena, YMCA and Single Ladies on here somewhere, but she didn't think Stan would know the right moves for any of them.
Stan blushed. He actually blushed. "I...only know one dance. We learned all of them at school, because some of the students were minor gentry who might need them one day, but I only remembered the one, because it was the one that I hoped one day I'd get to dance with...the woman I'd marry."
Worried she'd have to scour the internet for Mozart or Beethoven, or worse, she raised her eyebrows. "So what's the name of this magical courting dance you dreamed of doing?" Silently, she begged whatever powers of the universe that were listening that it would be something she'd at least heard of.
"It's...scandalous. It's probably too forward of me to ask you to dance it with me, but after the films I saw on your TV, I hoped..."
"Unless it's a naked conga line with a bunch of strangers, I'm pretty sure I'll agree to it, Stan," Alethia said.
He straightened his shoulders and raised his head. Almost...defiant. Like a man a head taller than her and built like he was actually feared her reaction. "All right. I would like to dance the waltz with you."
