Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

He points his water bottle at me, then gestures all around us. “You. It. Going out. Sore note.”

It takes a supreme effort not to roll my eyes at his patronizing tone. “Why do you care, Wyatt? Jealous?” His silence sends a niggle of worry worming through my guts. I yank my hand off his leg, embarrassed that I left it there. He’s probably just feeling some Handler-produced overprotective instinct because I was so sick last week. Sick enough for him to sit by my bed and nurse me through the worst of the fever. Surely I can nurse him through this.

Or at least make it so he doesn’t hurt himself until he’s over it. “Look, why don’t you go sleep it off in my room?”

I offer only because I have the private, closet-sized bedroom. Ash and Jesse share the cramped apartment’s other room. Triads live together, always within close proximity to their Handlers and assigned hunting grounds. Makes life easier. Except on nights like this when your drunk Handler shows up at your doorstep acting completely out of character, and you have to battle the urge to drop-kick his plastered ass to the curb.

My question finally seems to penetrate the fog in his brain. He nods, then sucks down the remaining water in his bottle. It misses the coffee table when he tries to put it down, and the bottle skitters to the floor. We reach for it at the same time. Our heads actually collide with a dull crack that sends white lightning between my eyes.

I give up and let Wyatt snag the bottle. He takes great care to balance it this time, then slithers to the edge of the couch cushion. I scoot closer and drape his arm across my shoulders. “Come on, drunkie. Let’s go.” I wrap my right arm around his waist. This close, I smell the whiskey on his breath and the faint hint of cinnamon on his skin and, beneath it, something sharper. More masculine.

The oddest thought strikes me: Wyatt smells good.

I bat it away and promise to beat the thought to a bloody pulp later. We get a good swing going, and Wyatt finally lurches to his feet. He’s several inches taller than me and a good thirty pounds heavier, but I’m trained to kill goblins and half-Blood vampires in large numbers, and to potentially haul around wounded partners. Supporting him isn’t too much trouble.

His feet drag across the floor as if he’s not quite in control of them. We get through the bedroom door, and then he stops. Just ceases all forward motion, and I feel the tension creeping into his body and shoulders.

“What?” I ask.

He drops his chin, head turning to gaze down at me with a question in his eyes. His mouth opens, and whatever profound thing he might have been about to say is lost in an eye-watering belch.

I can’t help it. I double over laughing, which leaves Wyatt without his crutch. He stumbles sideways until he hits the dresser. I drop to my knees, holding my stomach as deep belly laughs make my ribs ache. It isn’t that I’ve never heard Wyatt burp before, or that I harbor any illusion about his perfect manners. It’s seeing him down at my level—drunk, upset, and feeling the effects keenly—that’s doing me in.

By the time I sober up, my stomach hurts and my legs are cramping. I use the bed for leverage and manage to stand. Wyatt’s staring at me from his perch on top of the dresser—I can’t even fathom how he got up there without falling right back off—legs wide apart, with a peculiar expression on his face.

He realizes I’m staring back, and the embarrassment disappears, shut down and glossed over with perfect calm. Perfect calm seasoned with a dash of that same strange intensity.

“I always knew you had more than one Gift,” I say.

“What? To make an ass of myself?”

I blink. “Well, I was going to say a Magic Giggle-Inducing Burp, but okay.” So he has made a tiny bit of an ass of himself, but I do it on a regular basis. He’s due. And if he’s feeling it now, he’ll definitely be feeling it in the morning. That’s just what I need—us regressing to year one, when I couldn’t follow his orders for shit, and he threatened more than once to send me back to Boot Camp as a living example of what not to be. I finally found my footing with him, so what does he do? He crashes my place in the middle of the night, stone drunk, and then gets indignant about his own behavior.

“Look.” I cross the half-dozen paces to stand in front of him—and right between his parted legs. “Just go to bed, okay? Get pissy with me when we go back on rotation, but right now, I’m off the clock.”

Both eyebrows arch high. His lips part, and he moistens them with his tongue. Prepping an apology, perhaps? Or a simple agreement that, yes, it’s time for bed. I’m certainly ready to crash. Dealing with him lately has been exhausting. He keeps staring, not talking. I tilt my head and stick out my chin—something Ash calls my “Yeah? And?” face. Wyatt finally moves, and it’s to do something I don’t expect.

He kisses me full on the mouth. He has to lean out to reach me, which leaves him teetering on the edge of the dresser. There’s no insistence, no tongue, no touching anywhere except our mouths. A sweet press of his lips to mine, offering hints of whiskey and mustard. It’s nice. I haven’t had nice in … well, ever. Which is likely why I haven’t slapped him yet.

I don’t get nice. I don’t get sweet. I get fast and rough, in a storeroom with a stranger. It’s easier.

This is fucking complicated.

I pull away and take two steps back, his taste still lingering on my mouth. He blinks at me, owl-eyed, and I have nothing in my arsenal capable of comprehending the expression. So stupid me latches onto the first thing that presents itself—self-deprecating humor.

“I said go to bed, not join me in bed. What do you want sloppy seconds for anyway?”

A violent thundercloud darkens his expression. “You’re no one’s sloppy seconds.”

Danger alert. Kiss aside, this entire evening is teetering on the cusp of becoming a full-blown disaster. “I’m flattered,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “but you’ll still be my Handler in the morning—even if you can’t boss me around for two more days.”

He nods, blinking hard.

I lift one shoulder in a shrug, hopefully conveying more nonchalance than I feel. “Besides, we’re all someone’s sloppy seconds, Wyatt.” I’m done talking to him while he’s carrying around so much booze in his bloodstream. I jack my thumb at the bed. “Now, buster.”

Miraculously, he slides off the dresser and lands on his feet. I pull back the worn blanket and top sheet. He sits hard, and the mattress gives a few angry squeaks. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to unlace his own sneakers, I do it for him, aware of his eyes drilling metaphorical holes in my skull.

Task done, he draws up his legs and falls onto his back, the already-beaten pillow puffing air as it’s smashed even flatter. I toss the sheet and blanket across his chest—my version of tucking in.

Wyatt came here in some sort of pain, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask what’s got him so turned around. It was a mistake. The kiss was a mistake. It will be better for both of us if we wake up tomorrow and never mention tonight again.

At the door, I pause to hit the light. The door is nearly shut behind me when I hear him say, “I’m sorry.”

I don’t know if the apology is directed at me or his own disturbed memories, so I don’t reply.

Kismet said to help ourselves to food and clothing, and yet it felt strange to walk into someone else’s apartment. Without the boys—even I was starting to think of them that way, even though all three were anything but—the apartment felt empty. Missing the spark of life that made a place a home.