Shelly Laurenston - Bite Me

“Why are you bringing me anything?”

“It’s what people do when a friend suffers a loss.”

“We’re friends?”

“I just bought you all these baskets, so we better be.”

Vic had always found Livy . . . unusual. Cute. Really hot, when she wasn’t ripping a lion’s scalp off. But definitely unusual. Still, why was she hiding under her desk? That seemed weird. Even for her.

Even worse, when he suggested they were friends, she just stared blankly at him. It kind of hurt his feelings.

“I brought you honey. You could at least pretend we’re friends.”

“Yeah. We’re friends. Just don’t know why you felt the need to buy me baskets of . . . stuff.”

“Because that’s what people do, Livy. It’s called empathy.”

“I’ve heard the word.”

Vic rolled his eyes. “Look, Livy, I know you’re this great photographer but—”

“Oh yeah,” she suddenly cut in. “Great wedding photographer, maybe.”

“What?”

Livy shook her head. “Forget it.”

“Livy, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.” She suddenly dropped down and crawled back under her desk.

Vic, not sure how to deal with this side of Livy, walked around her desk and crouched down so he could see her.

“Do you want to go somewhere and talk?” he asked.

“Because I’m so chatty?”

“No. But I understand that after the loss of a parent—”

“We weren’t close.”

“As you’ve already said. We could still go get some coffee.” He glanced at his watch. “Maybe get lunch.”

“You asking me out on a date?”

Without thinking, Vic leaned back a bit. “No.”

“You don’t have to look so horrified.”

“It’s not horror. It’s confusion. You’re confusing me. Which,” when he thought about it, “may lead to horror. But I simply don’t like being confused. So the horror wasn’t directed at you, so much as the confusion.”

“Well, when you put it like that . . .”

Glad she understood what he’d been trying to say, Vic asked again, “Sure you don’t want some lunch?”

“I’m not really hungry. But thanks anyway.”

“Okay.” He started to stand up, but stopped, remembering his conversation with Dee-Ann. “One other thing . . .”

“Yeah?”

“You up for a job?”

Livy closed her eyes. “Let me guess . . . you need a photographer for your nephew’s birthday party?”

“His birthday’s in June.” Vic scratched his head, again confused. “You do that kind of photography, too?”

“What job?” Livy asked and something told Vic not to push her.

“Remember that woman’s apartment you . . . uh . . . went into last year?” He hated saying “breaking and entering.” That was a felony.

“Whitlan’s daughter? Yes. I remember.”

“Would you do it again if I need you to?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said dismissively, her shoulders slumping.

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s the best job I’ve had offered to me in a long while. So I’ll do it.”

“You’ll be working with me and Shen this time.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain that later. But after I get back.”

“You’re leaving already?”

“Yeah. But staying in the States.” Vic studied Livy a little longer. He didn’t like the way she was acting. But, again, people mourned differently. “So if you need me, Livy . . . you call me. Understand?”

She looked up at him, gave a very small smile. “I do. Thanks.”

He headed out. “I’ll call you about the job when I get back.”

“Okay.”

Vic walked down the hall and met up with Shen.

“I booked our flights,” Shen said, closing up his laptop and slipping it into its case.

“Good.”

“So what did she like?” Shen asked as they headed toward the elevators.

Vic stopped, thought a moment, and admitted, “You know . . . I still have no idea.”

Eventually Livy decided she wasn’t going to get anything worthwhile done, so she crawled out from under her desk, picked up her backpack, grabbed ajar of European honey from the basket Vic had given her, and left her office.

Livy walked home. She didn’t look around like she usually did. Didn’t seek out those images that gave her ideas or had her scrambling for her digital SLR camera. Instead she just walked with her head down and feeling pretty damn sorry for herself.

Livy never had before. She knew a lot of artists who did. Who, no matter how successful or not they were, always felt sorry for themselves. Complained about anything and everything. Made everyone around them miserable. Livy had always prided herself on not being like that. She was too focused on her work. Too lost in her photographs to bother with any of that unnecessary bullshit.

But these days . . .

Still, Livy knew she had to get over herself. Everybody kept trying to say it was the loss of her father, but she knew better.

More like the loss of her career. Her soul.

Dragging now, Livy reached her apartment building. She went up the stoop, opened the door, and walked to the elevator. A few minutes there and down the hallway until she reached her place. She put the key in the lock and walked inside.

That’s when she stopped. She had to. That python had slid right over her feet before disappearing behind a large pile of books she’d placed against the wall a few weeks before and hadn’t bothered to do anything else with since.

Because Livy lived in a building filled with full-humans, she didn’t have snakes in her house. Ever. They could disappear into your walls and set up a nest and the next thing you knew, you’d have snakes all over the damn place.

Livy headed down the hallway until she reached her kitchen. But she stopped right at the doorway . . . and gawked.

“Livy!”

Misleadingly skinny arms wrapped around Livy’s neck and she was hugged tightly. Something that anyone who knew her knew she hated. She was not a hugger. Nor did she like to be hugged. By anyone. Even her mother didn’t hug her.

“What are you doing here?” Livy demanded.

“Don’t worry.” The skinny arms slipped off and went back behind a narrow back. As always, her visitor looked like a little girl. But she wasn’t. “I didn’t break out. I’m here legally.”

“Prove it.”

“Livy—”

“Prove it or I’m calling the cops.”

Feet stomped over to the kitchen table and an already rumpled document was pulled out from the front of a backpack and held out for Livy.

Livy looked at it. A Certificate of Release from New York prisons. Where her cousin Melanie “Melly” Kowalski had been living for the last ten months. She’d been given eighteen months, and why she was out early, Livy didn’t know. But she had a bigger issue.

“Why are you here, Melly?” Livy asked, handing the certificate back to her cousin.

“I need a place to stay. Your mom said you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh,” Livy said. “Okay.”

Then Livy turned and headed toward the front door.

“Hey,” Melly called after her. “If you’re running out, pick me up some vodka, would ya?”

Livy reached the sidewalk outside her building and stopped. She looked around. Didn’t see anything right away, so started walking.

Maybe she could stay over at Toni’s. Because she couldn’t stay at her apartment. She refused to stay at her apartment.

“What is happening to my life?” Livy asked the air. “What is happening?”

As they walked down the full-human airline ramp toward the plane, Shen announced, “We’ll need a good company name.”

Vic sighed. “We’re still not partners.”