Page 15 of Ravenous Prophecy
He grinned at me… and were thosedimples? The way he smirked, I knew I was gone. I knew if he asked me to be one of his ports of call, all I’d be able to say would be, “yes, of course, and would you like Bernadette to do your laundry while you’re here visiting?”
“We need to get out of here,” he said, his hand still warm in mine as he dragged me down the street with him, glancing back, looking for the security that had been fairly useless when it came to defending JA Williams’s property.
I still remembered the sound of impact, the crunch of bones or other important bits when Griffin had hit them, and was that… Was Ienjoyingthe violence?
I let Griffin pull me a few blocks before shaking my head and pulling up short. “We need to work on this right away.”
“Bradley, it’s close to midnight, and you’re… covered in glitter.” Both of his eyebrows shot up, and he reached out, drawing a thumb down my cheek. I flushed hard, my heart pounding. In the crush, I must have been pressed too closely to one of the glamorous partygoers enjoying a night out before it all turned to chaos.
“Yes, well.” I traced my eyes over his face, admiring the sheen of sweat, the way the exertion had only made himseemmorerugged and handsome. “Would you like to come home with me?”
Griffin stared at me, and I swallowed hard. Pull it together, Bradley. What a fool I must seem to a man like him. What an absolute?—
“Sure,” he said finally. “Let’s see Chez Bradley Brooks. I have to warn you, your mom set the bar pretty high for interior decorating.”
“Well, I can’t win against my mother,” I said, realizing that I wasflirting, that he was flirting back. “But I can promise you a very well-hungLive, Laugh, Loveposter.”
Griffin laughed and raised his eyebrow in interest. I hurried to flag down one of the taxis that had converged on the area after the collection of clubgoers had abandoned the Vault.
After giving the driver my address, my ability to flirt abandoned me altogether. I sat awkwardly, hands twisting together in my lap, as the silence in the cab became unbearable. Griffin seemed lost in observation, his focus entirely outside the car. Likely he was busy making sure that JA Williams’s goons hadn’t followed us, but it still felt distinctly like he wasignoringme.
No, this wasn’t some schoolyard or boarding school. I wasn’t being ignored in favor of the more popular boys.
By the time we arrived at my apartment, I’d remembered all the reasons the other boys had excluded me at school and all the reasons I didn’t have to care. I’d also remembered that I waspayingGriffin Gallows, and his ability to like me didn’t matter at all.
Yes, as long as he did his job?—
“This is where you live?” Griffin asked.
“Er.” I looked up, truly seeing the building for the first time. “Yes.”
My apartment was on the third floor of an older downtown building. It was only a few blocks from the magical studies department at Moraira City University, which meant less chance for me to get lost when I was engaged in reading a particularly complicated translation on the way home.
Mother had had fits when she saw the decaying brickwork. And Elaine had simply noted that someone should see to the gargoyles at the top of the building before the poor things went “positively feral, and after that, it’s all bloodshed, Bradley. I wouldhateto see you go that way.”
Father had mostly been concerned with whether he could buy the building before I informed him that I had no interest in owning it. I was going to be renting.
That had induced Mother into another fit of vapors, and then Elaine had to dig out the smelling salts, and that was about the time that I decided I wouldn’t be informing any of them about the starting salary for a magical studies postdoc.
“Huh,” was all Griffin said before gesturing for me to open the front door. I spent an embarrassing amount of time standing in front of the door, trying to fumble my keys out of my pants. Too tight, but when I’d asked Elaine what a person would wear to a club, she’d taken one look at me and simply said “No” before walking out of the room. She reappeared half an hour later with outfits for me and Griffin, extracting a promise not to tell her what we got into. A lifetime later, I wrestled them free, and thankfully my keyslid easily into the front door lock. As we walked in, the motion sensor lights flickered on.
“It’s not that it wouldn’t be nice to live at home,” I said quickly. “Or that they wouldn’t be happy to have me, but I wanted some…”
“Independence?” Griffin asked, and the relief made my shoulders drop. After a row of mailboxes, we arrived at the elevators, and I pressed the call button.
“Yes, exactly.” I waited for him to enter the elevator car first out of politeness.
“Can’t blame a man for that,” he said. “Even if most people would kill to live in whatever cage you feel like your parents have you trapped in.”
“It’s nottrapped. Or, not exactly.” I sighed. I supposed it was too much to believe he’d truly understood. “Have you ever had everything about you known before you even opened your mouth? No, before you even entered the room?”
A strange expression flitted across Griffin’s face, but then, like he was putting on a mask, he covered it with a twist of his lips. “You know, in my line of work, the key isnotto be known. Or if you are, make sure it’s for the right reasons. There was this one time when I met a blind Croatian mage on a cliff, and if he knew one true thing about you, he could throw you off.”
“Did he know one true thing about you?” I asked, even though the answer was clear.
“He knew my hair color, but I knew the switch for his magic catapult, and I knew how to reverse it.” Griffin winked at me. “Trust me, he didn’t like being thrown off the mountain any better than the rest of his victims.”
The elevator doors opened, and I led the way out, keys still clutched tightly in my hand like a lifeline.
