“No, I mean ‘comes with the territory’ of being a woman.”
Cyrus pursed his lips, slowly nodded. “Yeah, I see that.”
“But you know how it is. You got your own problems in your own territory.”
“That is also very true.”
“I really appreciate your help tonight. I think I could have gotten away from him on my own, but maybe not. It’s that ‘maybe not’ that I’ll be thinking about when I wake up at three a.m. Glad you were there. Søren is, too.”
“Glad I’m in his good graces. Hope I stay there.”
“You’re fine. He’s cool.”
“Is he?” Cyrus asked. “We been spending a lot of time together. And he’s already got to share you.”
Nora almost said that she had to share Søren with someone, too, but she bit her tongue. What happened between Kingsley and Søren was nobody else’s business.
“He’s not jealous of you, I promise,” she said.
“I guess if he doesn’t trust you by now, he never will.”
“Søren? Trust me?” She blurted out a single, sarcastic “Ha!”
“What? He doesn’t trust you?”
“If by ‘trust’ you mean Søren has full faith in me and can sleep at night knowing that I will not do anything stupid or dangerous, then no, he doesn’t trust me. He’d be insane to trust me.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
“He doesn’t trust me, but he accepts me. And I’ll take that over misplaced trust anyway.”
“Paulina trusts me,” Cyrus said. He said it simply but deliberately, and those three words said what a thousand words didn’t have to say.
“I’m not going try to seduce you,” she said. “Even if you are cute.”
“Fuck, I am not cute.”
“I’m keeping that tuxedo pic in my spank bank.”
“Go away, Queenie.”
“Night, Cy.”
Nora appreciated that Cyrus didn’t drive away until she was safely inside her house.
Paulina was a lucky lady.
Nora changed out of her insane tit-boosting bustier and into a comfortable black bra and tank. The skinny jeans she tossed aside for red lounge pants. She went out back in her slippers, through the off-street alley to collect Gmork from Kingsley’s backyard. He followed her back home, wagging his bushy black tail behind him. She fed him, gave him fresh water, and found her dog brush to tackle his coat. She had him lie on a large towel in front of her on the living room floor.
“Good boy,” she said as he lay still and let her run the brush through his wiry coat. “I wish all boys were as well-behaved as you are. Then again, we did cut your balls off. Maybe that’s the secret to making men behave. You think?”
Gmork batted his tail against the floor, and she laughed.
He held still while she brushed him—it was his favorite thing. Just as she started in on his right side, however, Gmork tensed up. He leapt to his feet so fast that Nora had to scramble backward to get out of his way.
He didn’t growl.
What he did do was trot over to the front door, sit down, and wag his tail. He only ever did that when Juliette stopped by with Céleste.
What would they be doing here at eleven on a Monday night? Nora jumped to her feet just as the bell rang. She hurried to the door and opened it.
A woman was standing on her front step, in the little sliver of streetlight that broke through Nora’s oak tree.
Her hair was tied back up a red scarf, her lips full and lush, and her eyes…her eyes were dark. Nora shook a little when she saw them. Earthquake eyes.
The woman spoke in a warm and steady voice. “I heard you were looking for me.”
Chapter Twenty
Cyrus found Paulina at her kitchen table, textbook open in front of her and a cappuccino in hand. She still had work clothes on—gray skirt, white blouse. And there it was, after eleven already.
“Oh, that’s not good,” he said from the kitchen doorway.
“You’re telling me.” She looked up from her book and grinned tiredly at him. He walked over to her, and she laid her head against his stomach, arms around his waist. Cyrus squinted at the small print in her book.
“‘A theory of social cognitive development of the adolescent brain under stress…’ Baby, you don’t need coffee. You need cocaine to get through this.”
Paulina swatted him on the ass, which Cyrus didn’t mind one bit. She pushed a chair out for him with her foot for him to sit down on next to her.
“It’s interesting,” she said. “Sort of.”
“You got a test?” he asked.
“Paper, due Friday. It’s almost finished. And then only five more modules until master’s degree numero dos.” She raised her hands and waved them in praise-the-Lord fashion.
“Two master’s degrees,” Cyrus said. “I’m marrying a genius.”
“You know it, Daddy.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m thinking of getting my hair done like Einstein. Get it dyed all white and gray, stick it up like I stuck my finger in a light socket. What do you think?”
“It’s almost October,” he said. “You could be Bride of Frankenstein with hair like that.”
“And you’ll be my Frankenstein?”
“I ain’t going anywhere in public with you looking like that.”
She swatted him again—his arm this time—then sat back in her chair, laughing. When she reached for her coffee on the table, Cyrus picked it up and held it out of her arm’s reach. She reached for it anyway.
“Uh-uh. No more. It’s past your bedtime.”
“Give it…please…me…” she pleaded, begged, whimpered. Pitiful.
“No, ma’am.” He sat the coffee cup behind him on the table where she couldn’t get to it.
“Ah, so mean.” She slumped in her chair like a grumpy ten-year-old who was about to get sent to bed without supper.
“You said you’re almost done. Bedtime for beautiful girls.”
“Fine, fine. But tell me about your night first. You kinda smell like you had a time of it.” She sat up again, prim and proper, took his hand, met his eyes.
“I was on Bourbon Street. Remind me not to do that again.”
“Don’t do that again.” She poked his nose.
“Thank you.”
“What’s going down on Bourbon Street tonight?”
“Trouble,” he said. “Not my fault. Didn’t start it. Might have finished it, though.”
Her eyes widened. She blinked.
“Now I’m awake. Tell me.”
He told her, starting with Doc who couldn’t keep his lips off Nora’s hands. Then Mister Pasadena who was, probably, right that minute, in the ER getting his foot put in a cast. And finally, the vampire and the witch.
“So,” Paulina said, nodding, “typical night in Nola?”
“I wish you could have been there, baby. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. That tiny little white girl broke the hell out of that boy’s foot. Just STOMP and boom, kid’s limping for life.”