Page 25 of Tell Me Why
She laughed.
“I’ve never been that type,” she said, and he nodded.
“But I am,” he said. “You aren’t going to mess that part up. So… try it on and see how it feels.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ve got to say, for as high-stakes as this is… it feels too easy.”
He shook his head
“I wouldn’t bring you into this unless I had a good plan on how to get us in and out again,” he said. “Becauseintendingto get tangled up with Keon again is… unacceptable. But don’t be surprised when itisn’tthis easy. Stay sharp, stay close. Expect to fight our way back out, at some point.”
“There’sthe Tell I know,” she said, and he laughed.
“Keeps you from asking how I’m still alive,” he answered. “Here we go.”
The club was dim.
Clean.
Clean like you couldsmellthe clean on it, not just an absence of offensive smells.
Metal and glass and ceramic, with a cement floor, they were working with a relatively understated theme that Tina liked quite a lot.
There was a wide, designated dance floor - currently packed - and bar tables around it on the main floor, and then a second floor, a full-round balcony looking down at the dance floor, with more and larger tables where people were sitting and drinking and talking.
Tell escorted Tina up to the bar, his hand in the middle of her back, and they ordered, Tell making eye contact with the bar tender in a casual but meaningful way that Tina didn’t know howto read, then they went upstairs, leaning against the rail for lack of open tables.
“You are welcome to dance, if you want to,” Tell said, and she shook her head.
“Not… now,” she said. “I don’t think I’m…” She motioned down at the swirl of bodies down there. “Aloof enough to be one of them.”
He laughed, looking over his shoulder.
Tina could hear the footsteps, too, but looking made it so that it wasn’t surprising that Tell had known that the man was coming to talk to them.
“We’ve got open seats, if you want ‘em,” the man said.
Tell looked at Tina, reading her opinion, then nodded.
“Sure,” he said. “We can sit for a few minutes.”
“You meeting people?” the man asked.
Tina wasn’t sure if there were vampireshereor if they justhad beenhere, by the faintness of the scent, but it was a regular place for them in some small numbers.
“New to town,” Tell said. “Feeling the place out. Might yet go somewhere else.”
“Oh, no,” the man said. “You came to the right place.” He was looking at Tell’s clothes, his face, seeing… whatever it was that social animals read off of such things, and he grinned. “Come meet the crew.”
The girls wore spaghetti tanks and short shorts with boots, and the men were in button-up-and-collar plaid or polos with their jeans, and everyone was actually remarkably friendly for strangers.
Tina might have sat with them all night, but Tell was true to his word and rose perhaps twenty minutes later, giving the table a cool farewell before putting his arm across Tina’s shoulders and walking away from the stairs, toward a slightly darker, quieter part of the balcony.
Oscar.
Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.
Tina rarely hadreasonto use Tell’s name out loud, unless she was answering his phone, but somehow, now, her tongue was itching with it.
