Page 41 of Midsummer Phoenixes
But Amory wasn’t talking about the moon or buttons. He went quiet, his jaw working. He wanted to know more about me without being nosy.
I said, “I traveled a lot. You pick up on things.”
“What’s your favorite place? Of all the places you went to?”
“Well, let’s see. I liked the anonymity of London, but it was a disgusting, dangerous place.” That too had been something that—at least a part of me—had liked, and it wasn’t anything that Amory needed to hear. “Salzburg had music and light and cobblestones, but the people… well, they’re all dead now, so I don’t need to tell you how stuck-up they were. Bombay—and I know it isn’t called that anymore—had temples and heat and a thousand types of food I’d never eaten before. Got me sick on more than one occasion.
“You know, I’m not really sure actually. I have seen beautiful places and ugly places. Maybe I need you there with me to be sure.”
“Oh stop,” he said, bumping my shoulder. “You already got me to agree to go follow Caecilius’s trail with you.”
There was a name I didn’t like coming out of my lover’s mouth.
“Yes, but this would be for our enjoyment. Stop looking like you have to make plans or excuses right away. I’m not saying we’re leaving in the morning, I’m saying we’re going to be doing more than the same routine everyday eventually. Okay?”
Amory immediately relaxed and said, “Okay.”
I would use this against him to get him to take time off work as soon as possible.
“…and they said it got lots of comments and people came in hoping to see them—or someone—dance,” Amory was saying as we walked into the foyer of Sundial Tower.
“Nice of them to handle PR.”
He tried elbowing me, but I stepped out of his reach before closing the distance again. “We don’t dance though.”
“Right,” I said, agreeing that there should be no dancing. A brief nightmare image of Amory dancing with Mr. Laptop and Mr. Laptop putting his hands around Amory’s hips popped up in my head. Yeah, that was not happening. “No, of course you don’t dance. Would break the Moonlight’s flair.”
“Exactly.”
The Star-Garbed at the front desk stood as we approached, head lowered. Well. I’d wanted to come back here after the underground and make him squirm a little about the damn sheet. Damn Ella and her cappuccino.
“Sir,” the Star-Garbed said, and Amory stopped, giving the man a friendly smile. That was so wrong. After closing. Amory’s smiles should belong only to me.
“You got it done?” I asked.
The Star-Garbed fidgeted, and fuck. He glanced at Amory once, so typical for a wolf who knew he was in trouble and was looking for support from his pack.
“Oh?” Amory said.
“I asked the house pawn to take care of some laundry while I was out.”
“Oh.” He smiled at the pawn. “Thanks, Jules.”
Here he was, made plain and evident, my greatest weakness and threat to my long and carefully cultivated reputation, even among these house pawns: Amory, love of my immortal life and incorrigibly nice guy. He’d ruin me, utterly.
“Yeah, thanks, Jules,” I said, wondering when my Amory had found the time to inquire after and memorize the pawn’s name.
We rode up the elevator, me knowing full well that I would no longer be able to torture the house pawn with laundry—at least not in any fun way—Amory oblivious. The laundry basket waited right outside my door, and Amory picked it up while I let us in.
“Wow, this is super neat,” he said, flushed, his forehead wrinkling. “That’s last night’s laundry, isn’t it?”
“Stop worrying. It’s just laundry. And yeah, they’re neat house pawns if they want to be.”
Amory lifted a corner of the indeed very neatly folded sheet. “Isn’t this a fitted sheet? I didn’t think it was possible to fold them like this at all.”
“It’s not. They’re Teufelswerk, the devil’s handiwork, made to frustrate every normal person and make them doubt their sanity.”
Amory chuckled as I closed the door behind him. “What language was that?”
