Page 38 of Roma Queen
My face feels flushed as he takes me by the hand and leads me down a wide open entryway into a vast, cavernous, open space. There’s no real transition from one area to the next. One minute we're in the entryway, the next we're standing in a huge open plan loft space, and I am face-to-face with a gallery of expansive floor to ceiling windows.
I was so wrong outside. I said the place was unremarkable, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. From out there, Pasha's home had looked like it would be a smallish one-bedroom apartment, but the architecture of the place is deceptive. The sides of the building are hidden by the trees, but they must fan out to both the left and the right at a twenty-five-degree angle, giving the loft space a wedged shape.
Just as Pasha had told me it would be, the view is spectacular, but I am far more interested in what can be seeninsidethe loft than outside of it. Not long ago I had been embarrassed by my small, poky apartment. It had felt too cluttered and overly full. And now, seeing the stark, bare lines of Pasha's living space and hearing the way my footsteps actuallyechoinside the place, I suddenly find that I'm embarrassed all over again.
There are no real modern trappings here. Sure, in the kitchen there’s a microwave, a toaster, and a kettle. Yes, there is a modest television—a small flat screen suspended from the wall. But there are no phone chargers sticking out of walls, no devices cluttered together, battling for outlet space.
On the far side of the loft, Pasha's bed is neatly made, a huge California king with pale grey sheets. Beyond it, Pasha's clothes neatly hang from a rolling garment rack. A pair of running shoes are sticking out from underneath the end of his bed.
The leather sofa in the center of the room is small, barely big enough for two people, and gives me the impression that Pasha likes it that way, as if by limiting seating space in his home, he can avoid the possibility that there might be more than two people in here at any one time.
On the eastern side of the building, a deep six-foot-wide fireplace has been hewn out of the wall, and a smudge of black soot stains the concrete, rising up the wall. In front of the fireplace, a single wingback chair sits, angled toward the non-existent flames, with a stack of books on the floor at its feet.
The scene paints itself for me without me even having to try and imagine it: Pasha sitting here alone at night in front of a roaring fire with a book in his hand, the light playing over his face as he descends into whatever realm or world has come alive for him on the pages between his hands.
Slowly, I spin around, taking every little aspect of the place in, every little detail, every little element. The place smells distinctly and specifically Pasha. I want to breathe the place in, as if I can absorb it through my lungs and I’ll be able to keep it with me forever.
Beside me, Pasha rubs bashfully at the back of his neck. “I should probably buy a rug or something.”
I try not to laugh. “I'm sure that’d warm the place up a little. I like it, though. It's clean. Minimal.”
“I've been perfectly happy here up until now,” he admits. “Suddenly, I'm beginning to wish I'd made more of an effort to turn this place into a home.”
“What are you talking about? This is homely,” I say, gesturing to the near-empty space. Our words echo, bouncing off the walls, disproving my statement even as I make it. Pasha casts a cool eye from one side of the loft to the other, sliding his hands into his pockets. Always so cocky and arrogant, it's actually entertaining to see him self-conscious for once. “Archie does have more stuff in hisvardothan you do in here,” I tell him. “But it's a welcome change. I'm not going to be walking into any furniture when I'm over here, that's for sure.”
“I guess that’ll serve as a silver lining,” Pasha says dryly. “Wait here. I’ll grab some clothes and I’ll take you back to your place. Better we get back there sooner rather than later. We don’t want to miss any phone calls.”
Why Lazlo decided to choose the payphone outside the Bakersfield as our point of contact, I have no idea. It would have been so much easier if he’d called my cell phone instead. Sure, my number isn’t listed, but the man’s a fucking criminal. I’m sure he could have figured it out if he’d wanted to. By deciding to call the payphone, Lazlo was taking a big risk. There’s every chance I wouldn’t have heard it. An even higher chance that I wouldn’t have answered it. The only reason Ididanswer it was because the shrill, incessant ring tone was driving me to the point of insanity.
Perhaps Lazlo had been counting on that, and he knew I’d storm down the stairs in my slippers and rip the handset from its cradle eventually. The idea that he might have been able to discern this about me, that he might knowanythingabout me at all, makes me seriously uncomfortable.
“I’m gonna steal some of your electricity,” I tell Pasha, taking my cell phone out of my back pocket. With no power and no reception at the Rivin glen, my phone’s been dead for the last sixteen hours at least. I root around in my bag until I locate a charger cable and then I set it to power up in the kitchen. It’s going to take a while for the battery to charge sufficiently to turn back on, so I pace over to the huge windows and stare out at the city.
I wasn’t born here. I haven’t lived here very long. Honestly, the city doesn’t even really feel like my home, even though I adore my life here. As I look out over Spokane, I realize that there’s a disconnect somewhere. Some part of me that can appreciate this view and admire it from afar, but has little interest in heading toward or immersing myself in it. There’s a part of it I simply don’t understand and never will. Like a piece of contemporary art hanging on a gallery wall, I look at the city, the cool mid-morning sun glancing off countless high-rise tower windows in the distance down by the river, and I can appreciate its master strokes. But I wouldn’t hang it from the windows of my own house on the hill.
I try to imagine what view Iwouldhang in front of these windows, if I could choose it, but… the only thing I can see when I try is a reflection of Pasha, standing behind me in the glass.
“You miss New York?” he asks quietly, sweeping my hair back over my shoulder, exposing my bare skin. What had he said the Roma people called vampires when he was teasing Shireen the other day? AStrigoi. Yes. That’s what he looks like, so pale, his hair so dark, his eyes full of an intense fire as he dips down and kisses me gently in the crook of my neck.
It’d make a lot of sense if he reallywasa vampire. It would at least explain how he can so easily read my mood and guess at my thoughts so accurately. There’s no way he could have known what I was thinking just now, and yet he still asked me about New York.
“No. I don’t,” I tell him. “I— I—” My eyelids shutter, my eyes rolling back in my head as he kisses me again. The heat of his mouth on my skin is so fucking dizzying, I can barely form thoughts around the sensation. I melt into him, my body loosening and falling slack as Pasha takes hold of me by the hip, sliding his other hand around me and up my stomach. It’s then that I feel the hard length of his erection pressing into the small of my back.
“Oh,fuck, Zara. IknewI was going to want this.”
“What? What do you want?”
“I want you naked and pressed up against these windows,” he growls into my ear. “I want to see the outline of your tits every time I stand here in the morning and watch the sun rise. I want your hand prints marked in sweat on every single fucking pane of glass. Take off yo—”
BOOM!
I react in slow motion.
Pasha doesn’t.
His arms are around me, tight as a vise, and he’s lifting me…
…spinning…
