Page 80 of The Hardest Hit
“It’s Christmas,” said Evan again, sensing an opening. “And vacation. I’ll stop once when we get home.”
“It’s just that...”
“That what?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.
“I actually love every single thing you’ve gotten me. And I love everything we’ve done this vacation. Honestly, it’s the best vacation of my entire life. But when I was growing up there was a whole list of things that good girls didn’t do. And admittedly, I’ve crossed quite a few of those off the list, but when you buy me things I feel like maybe my grandfather was right about me. Maybe I am a... wanton harlot.”She laughed, but it was hollow, like she didn’t really think it was funny.
Evan felt a tightness in his chest that appeared every time she mentioned her family.
“I can’t fix that,” he blurted out.
“I don’t need you to fix it. Just… hear it.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “The idea that someone would say that about you infuriates me.”
“It’s kind of true,” she said reflectively.
“Olivia West!” he said, sitting upright and turning to look at her in the seat.
“Rose,” she said.
“What?”
“If you’re going to use my full name and be that mad, then you need to use the middle name too. It’s Rose. Olivia Rose West. That’s how it’s done.”
“All right. Correction noted. Now you note this: Olivia Rose West, that is not true.”
“No, it is actually. Frequently after you buy me things I want to… um…” She was blushing. She rarely blushed about sex. It was one of the things he liked about her. But in this instance, he found it adorable.
“You want to throw me down on the bed and fuck my brains out?” he suggested.
“Kind of a lot.”
“Well, I don’t want to fix that,” he said leaning back in his seat, feeling smug.
She laughed. “I shouldn’t have told you. You’re going to take advantage of me.”
“I reiterate: repeatedly and as often as I can. Mine’s Alexander, by the way. In case you need to be mad at me at some point.”
“I generally don’t,” said Olivia, smiling at him, before putting her head back on his shoulder. “That’s the problem. I never want to be mad at you, and I want to give you everything you want.”
“I just want you,” he said.
“You’ve already got that,” she said.
He squeezed her hand and hoped she was right.
They entered the Kake Casino through an archway of glass illuminated in blue light. The archway became a tunnel, and the further they progressed the more strange lights moved behind the glass.
Eizo was waiting for them at the casino. Shorter than Evan, with long, purposefully deviant hair that he frequently tied up like a samurai, Eizo enjoyed, and took advantage of, a reputation as one of the most eligible bachelors in Tokyo. He had taken the news that Evan was traveling with a companion in bemusement.
Evan had known Eizo for the better part of a decade, and on every trip to Tokyo, Eizo had done his best to throw a party that would get Evan in some sort of trouble. Girls, drugs, that one time with the Yakuza that cost him fifty thousand dollars—Eizo always tried to push Evan’s boundaries in some way. Evan was not sure what Eizo had planned for the night, but he hoped that Eizo had taken the note that due to the presence of Olivia West, the party had better be a notch down from the usual mayhem.
“Eizo Matsuda, this is—”
Olivia shrieked.
“Evan, they’reVampyroteuthis infernalis!”
