Page 47 of Jay's Silence

A third woman slid between the first two, a tube top of the Irish flag covered her tits. I didn’t remove my arm from Lux.

“I love your shirt,” the new arrival said, her accent clearly not Irish, though I couldn’t place it. She bit her lower lip. “I’m from Australia. Where are you from, and what are we drink’n?”

“Ah…” I trailed off. We hadn’t come up with a story about our origins yet.

“’E’re not drinking gob shite,” Sarah said. “Piss off.”

The woman jerked back. “I thought the Irish were supposed to be friendly!”

“Ye thought wrong.” Orla put her hand on the new arrival's shoulder and gave her a little shove. “Piss off.”

“Get ye hands off me wife!” A man shouted, grabbing Orla’s wrist.

“Get your hand off, my wife!” Another shouted, swinging for the first.

I watched the chain reaction like a kid in a candy store. One, then two, then three at a time joined the brawl. My blood raced. Under my arm, Lux’s shoulders tensed, and scales pressed into my skin through his shirt. His eyes clouded. Rut. While I was fighting my indecision, I forgot Lux was fighting something real.

I knocked back my whisky. “Drink up, and feck’n keep your scales in your pants. Wiggles, our mate, said no shifting.”

The fiddle picked up in volume and speed as one of the fighters punched a server who flew into a group of tables eating dinner.

“Ye gobshite, beating on me staff!” The bartender yelled. He vaulted over the bar and joined the fray.

Lux stood, and I grabbed the back of his neck, forcing him to look at me. “Human. Fists of fecking fury, and that’s it.”

He nodded once, and that’s all I needed. With a roar, I released Lux into a sea of drunken violence and dove in head-first after him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

JAIYANA

Isat cross-legged on the bed in our hotel room with my hands on my knees. The mattress leaned slightly toward Rehan at my front while Og’s body heat sank into my shoulder on my right. The limited daylight from the window had been replaced with darkness, leaving us with budget lighting and mono colors.

It’s like that meme, the one where if you are going to cry, you might as well be crying in a Porsche, only this is a Toyota.

And I’m not crying.

Yet.

“Jay, stop talking to yourself and look at me,” Rehan said.

I pulled myself back to the present, my hands shaking, and I clasped them together in my lap, but I couldn’t look at Rehan or Ogden.

My mates were mad, and it had nothing to do with sex or demons or my missing memories. They wanted something from me that I couldn’t give them.

Instead of dealing with my emotions, I’d told them about my life. Lists of my past lovers spilled out of me, along with professions I’d picked up and discarded as the centuries ticked by. I described to them my favorite house, the tiny two-bedroomtower I’d built in the Swiss Alps. I was an open book. But facts were not what they wanted.

“Jay, I could listen to the stories about your life for hours,” Og said. “And someday, I want to do exactly that. I want to lie my head on your lap and close my eyes and see your adventures as you tell them.”

My heart squeezed at the sincerity in his voice. I believed him. I really did.

“But we’re not asking for stories.” Og cupped my cheek, forcing me to meet his eyes. “We’re asking about you and your thoughts. I want to know how you honestly feel.”

I bit my lower lip, and my heart squeezed. I didn’t want to know how I honestly felt. I knew how this ended. I introduced my lovers to their wives. I helped them build careers that propelled them to whatever future they could imagine as long as I wasn’t in it. Then, I started over. But even that wasn’t new and exciting anymore. Feeling didn’t help anything. It was probably how I ended up in a shitty apartment in Graeagle, desperately trying to find meaning in repetition.

Unless something happened that you can’t remember, and that’s what set off your depression. Who were you dating before Graeagle? Can you think of a name or a face? Where did you live before you moved? What do you remember?

I squeezed my eyes shut. I remembered driving the moving van, but even packing my stuff into it was hazy. Not a single detail came to mind.

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