Bibbi cleared her throat as she continued to knit. It was the loudest “I told you so” I’d ever heard. Now what did I do? Hawk and I might be nothing, but that didn’t mean I wanted Gillian to touch him. I’d just gotten rid of one, and now I had another? Although, to be fair, Gillian was a far cry from the evil depths of Belinda.
“There’s nothing between us.”
Bibbi made a choking sound so loud that Gillian leaned forward to look at her. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, fine. Jabbed my finger with my knitting needle.” Bibbi held up her middle finger. “See?” She went back to knitting as if she hadn’t given Gillian the bird on purpose. Did they even do that in Xest, or had Bibbi seen me do it?
Gillian looked at Bibbi’s tangle of knitting in her lap, assuming she was just incompetent.
“You’re good with my interest, then?” Gillian asked.
Had there been a couple of moments between me and Hawk? Yes. But a couple of kisses weren’t exactly a marriage contract, and no one deserved to know what kind of past or not past we had.
“Sure.” Now I was ready to choke, and for no good reason. Hawk and I weren’t even on speaking terms. How could I not be good with her pursuing him?
Bibbi leaned forward, so she could see past me to Gillian. “You think he’s interested in you?”
“I don’t know. He did offer to have me live here.” Gillian sat a little straighter, letting a dreamy smile tease her lips.
“Yeah, I mean, I guess that makes sense. He let me stay here too, but I work here. He let Oscar stay here, but he’s friends with him. Bertha, I guess she’s married to Musso. I heard him inviting a few other people, but I can still see how you’d imagine that was something special. It’s not like he’s invited all of Xest to stay here, after all. Just ten or twenty of us.”
Gillian’s eyes dropped to her cocoa.
“Oh, I hope I didn’t discourage you. I’m sure he likes you. I mean, he likes a lot of people, but it might be different with you.” Bibbi’s tone was every bit as sweet as Gillian’s had been. We were all in danger of diabetes if they didn’t cut it out.
“Yeah, well, I think I’m going to head to bed,” Gillian said. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Wish I could stay up with you, but I have to get up early to run my business, after all.”
We watched her walk from the room.
Bibbi let out a disgusted sigh. “It’s bad enough she’s going after him. Can’t she at least chill out and be real about it? Even when I was scared of you, I didn’t act that fake.”
“By the way, you had no reason to be scared of me. I just want to clear that up.” The image of her sitting at my table might’ve soured my mood slightly, but I’d held back pretty well.
“I wasn’t scared because I thought you were mean. I was scared because you could do things and I could tell I’d stepped on your toes. I was aware that you weren’t always in control of what you did. What if you turned me into a toad by accident and no one ever figured it out and I had to live the rest of my life in a swamp?”
“There are no swamps in Xest that I’m aware of.”
“That’s clearly not the point of this conversation.” She was back to using her knitting needles to knit.
“I wouldn’t have left you as a toad. I would’ve gotten help. I was never that out of control.”
“Not what I’ve heard, but my point is, things might’ve gone bad and I still didn’t act as fake as that one does. This night has just wiped me out.” She stood, her chewed-up knitting in her hand. “Are you going up or staying downstairs? I can help you upstairs.”
“I’m good. I can walk when I try.” It might’ve hurt like someone was stabbing me repeatedly in the leg, but I could. I’d hobble up later of my own volition when no one would witness it.
“All right. If you’re sure.” Bibbi looked at my leg a few times before finally leaving.
I waited until the place got quiet before I tried to stand. I sat right back down again, pulling a throw blanket over me. In the morning, I’d pretend I’d fallen asleep by accident.
There was a tickling feeling of something with a sharp edge lightly running along my leg, up and down, around it and again. A whispered voice that sounded something like Hawk but not.
I opened my eyes a sliver to see black claws grazing my skin. I looked up further to see a familiar monster.
“What are you—”
One clawed hand moved in a hovering motion over my body. He kept speaking words I didn’t understand as the weight of relaxation made me feel like I was sinking deeper into the couch, my eyelids getting heavier.
19
I woke in the back room right as the sky became tinged with light, feeling like I’d slept for a week. I sat up, stretching. Maybe a month.
The room was cozy and warm, too. Someone must’ve come in and refueled the fire.
I stood up, and then immediately lifted my bad leg so I didn’t put more weight on it. But I already had and it hadn’t hurt. I cautiously lowered my foot back to the floor, leaning hard into it. Still good. I made it halfway across the room and still no pain.
I tugged up my pants leg; the swelling was gone. It must not have been that bad. Who needed Hawk? All I’d needed was a solid night of sleep.
I made my way to the stash of cocoa supplies brought over from Gillian’s shop. Beside it sat one of the tea blends that was okay. It had somehow tasted much better before the cocoa had taken up residence beside it. Now it seemed to have a bitterness it hadn’t before, an acidic opening note with a lingering blandness that didn’t quite satiate.
So would it be tea with no strings? Or the most amazing cocoa I’d ever tasted but feeling beholden to the she-demon with every sip, the woman who wanted my—boss. Business associate. Whatever.
I was listening to Bibbi too much. This was ridiculous. Had I gotten so much in my head that I couldn’t enjoy cocoa without getting crazy?
I had the unfortunate timing of reaching for the cocoa as Bibbi walked over. She looked at my hand on the cocoa, as if I were holding a container of gasoline that would light this place on fire.
“It’s cocoa.” I wrapped my hands around it firmly.
Don’t put it down. This is insanity.
“Sure. You can tell yourself that, but we both know better. That’s blood cocoa.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head back, giving me a look of superiority never seen before on Bibbi. She wore it pretty well.
“You mean like blood money? Because I don’t think there’s blood cocoa. I think there’s plain old cocoa that no one died for.”
“As far as no one dying for it? If you regard your standards in a rotting pile as no damage done, then sure, I guess that’s true.” She continued to stare, watching me with that look of judgment.
“You’re getting crazy. You do know that, right?” And so was I, because I’d had the same debate internally minutes before she walked in. I’d decided I was crazy, but that was before she’d stared at me, making me wonder if she was right. I didn’t want my standards to be in a rotten pile. That sounded absolutely horrible.