Page 5 of A Deeper Blue
He belatedly remembered his trip through the men’s room and realized that crashing into the urinal had left its mark. Now that they were no longer moving, the smell was kind of pungent. He grimaced.
“Yeah, I’ve been downwind for the last hour. It’s a thing.”
He gave a surly nod to show that he agreed.
“Great. I’ll go get a room. You can… stay here.”
He pointed at his throat, and she laughed.
“Yeah, cuz you’d still be here when I got back.” She went away still laughing, and he sat on his bike wondered why the hell it had seemed like a good idea to take her with him. He raised his arm and smelled his shirt. It really did reek. He ought to leave. It had looked like a pretty simple spell. He could probably figure out how to counter it if he had a couple of hours. He looked at the office. He could still smell her trailing through the air like honey threaded through yogurt—sweetness passing through the sour air redolent of gasoline and grimy humans.
He looked around at the strip of bars and surveyed the motel. It was a two-story 1960s kind of thing, shaped like an L with an office at the bend in the building. It seemed as good as any other.
She came back in a few minutes carrying a key on a large ring, swinging it around on her finger. She pointed to a door, and he walked the bike over and parked it in front of the room.
He climbed off and pointed emphatically at his throat.
“Mówic,”she murmured and ran a fingertip along his throat under his beard, and he shivered. The touch was far more intimate than he’d expected. She stepped back, and for a moment, he thought she looked shy. Then she pulled herself back together—her chin came up, and the bravado went back on.
“We’re in number eight,” she said, pointing. The black metal eight had lost a nail and tilted drunkenly sideways on the door.
“My lucky number,” they said at the same time.
He cocked his head at the little witch, who smelled delicious, and grinned. He was back to remembering why he’d wanted her on his bike. And now they had a whole room and, more importantly, a bed, to themselves.
He followed her into the room. It was basic. A king-sized bed with a tired-looking comforter on top, a dresser with a TV, a tiny sink and mini-fridge, and a chair and desk.
“OK,” she said, slinging her backpack down on the bed. “Well.” The bag was a beat-up, well-used-looking piece of equipment. He wondered how long she’d been on the road and where she was heading to.
She took off his jacket and turned around to face him, hands on her hips, sizing him up as if he was an unsatisfactory horse she was thinking about buying.
“My name is Azure,” she said, and he laughed. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s fine. You can use your stage name if you want.”
“Stage name?” Her head tilted to the right, her brow furrowing.
“I don’t really care,” he said. “Call yourself whatever.”
“I don’t call myself whatever. I call myself by my name. Which is Azure.”
“Seriously?”
“Wait, are you implying I’m a stripper? Was that what that stage name thing meant?”
“No?” he offered. This was not going well.
“Strippers work very hard for a living. There is nothing wrong with stripping.”
“I didn’t say there was,” he said.
“Then why did you say it like I should be embarrassed to be a stripper?”
Her eyes had narrowed, and she walked closer. Rafe got the feeling that no matter what he said next, it was going to piss her off.
“I didn’t. I said it like you should be embarrassed to have some hippy-dippy thing like that as your name,” he said, deciding to be an asshole.
“Oh,” she said and shrugged. “Fuck you. It’s my name. Get over it.” The anger that had been hovering like a thundercloud dissipated, which wasn’t what he’d expected. Making fun of her name was on the table, but insulting strippers was off?
