Page 57 of Night's Reckoning
He kept this eyes closed. “How is this my issue?”
“I’m usually not bored when we’re working together.”
“Not true. You’re very easily bored,” he said. “And you’re easily amused. You’re on a boat, Tenzin. Go swimming.”
“I hate the water.”
“Then go fly where no one can see you. Play dodge the seagull. Haven’t you been tormenting Cheng? Isn’t that enough for you?”
She didn’t answer him.
Good. Ben didn’t really want to hear about Cheng, even if Tenzin wasn’t sleeping with him. Not that she slept.
She asked, “Are you going back to New York?”
“What?” Ben opened his eyes and saw her sitting on the bench under the window. Her legs were folded underneath her, and she stared at him with unwavering focus.
She asked again. “Are you going back to—?”
“I heard you the first time.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
“Are you?” he asked.
“I planned to go back.”
“When? A year? A few years? A dozen maybe?”
“I hadn’t decided yet.”
“That’s kind of the problem, Tenzin.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “I don’t have a dozen years to hang around waiting for you.”
“You could.”
“No.” He sat up all the way and rubbed his eyes. “I couldn’t. Even if I was a vampire, I wouldn’t sit around waiting for you to make a decision for twelve years.”
She leaned her head against the wall and stared at the ceiling. “You’re impatient.”
“No, I’m just not a sucker.”
A fine line formed between her eyebrows. “I don’t know what that means.”
He stood and walked to the small basin where he’d set his bottle of water before he’d fallen asleep. The sky was dark outside his porthole, but the air was still warm. He bent down and washed his face before he dried it and then grabbed his water bottle.
“That means that everyone humors you and lets you do whatever you want because they’re all afraid of you, Tiny.” He gulped down two swallows of water. “I’m not afraid of you. Maybe when I met you I was too young and stupid to realize you were scary. Maybe it’s just something about who we are together. But I’m not scared of you.”
“Not everyone is scared of me,” she said. “Giovanni isn’t. Cheng isn’t.”
“Yes he is.” Ben chuckled. “Don’t kid yourself, Tenzin. Cheng is as scared of you as anyone is. You both pretend he isn’t so it doesn’t get weird.” He drank more water. “And Giovanni isn’t actively scared of you, but he still gives you a wide berth.”
She snorted. “He does not. He criticizes me all the time. Remember when he forced me to take that sociopath test?”
“Remember when youkilled one of his servants?”
