Page 44 of Misadventures with a Duke

I flinch. “Please tell me that’s the movie’s dummy title.”

“Hell yes it is.” She copies my cringe but for different motivation. The woman has always been freakishly good about delineating sounds of the city, a talent that serves us well as she pushes Bastien and me into the bus. Her urgency coincides with a new rise of shouts from up the street. Up which street, I can’t tell. It now seems like Logan is leading cops to us from every direction. Thank God we’re already rolling.

Bastien sticks close as I pay the fare and find us a pair of seats. We fall onto our butts with heavy sighs. Before I inhale again, the man is squeezing my hand with agonizing intensity. I don’t complain. In a lot of ways, in the insanity of this moment, I welcome every painful degree of the pressure.

“Bastien.” I actually deliver a vise grip of my own. He’s zoning out but not in a leave-me-alone way. I see it in his glassy eyes and feel it in the continued sprint of his pulse. “Hey. Desperado.”

He finally snaps his head up. I smile, hoping he knows that it’s not just because of his response to my special nickname. At least not all of it.

“You’re okay,” I murmur. “Look around. Come on, do it for me. Do it with me.”

I tug at him harder, not relenting until both of my hands are encasing his fist at the center of my sternum. I press his knuckles there, compelling him to feel what his nearness does to my heartbeat. How, despite all the crazy events of the last few hours, there’s no place I’d rather be than on the M1 line with his hand wrapped in mine. With his big body pressed close. With his breaths easing as he leans in and utters curious questions in my ear. As I answer every one of them in a matching murmur. Words meant for him alone…

They aren’t afraid of the city burning down because there aren’t any candles in the lights. When the ones over the street turn green, the bus driver knows he can go.

The bus runs on the same kind of power as the lights. A lot of the cars now too.

Yeah, we pay money for raw food. A lot of money, actually.

I don’t know why more people aren’t talking to each other. Everyone’s in a rush, I guess.

And it hits me then that this is the first day, in so many, that I haven’t been in such a rush. When was the last time I sat on a bus—or a train or plane—and simply watched the world go by? No checking texts or working on sketches. No opening my ereader to get lost in another world. Not that other worlds aren’t awesome, but just look at the one right outside my window.

Our window.

The pane that feels reserved for just Bastien and me. Dedicated to our special cubicle of the bus. Our unique moment in time.

A moment that feels over two hundred years old.

I tense up but disguise it as a position shift. Thankfully, Bastien’s too absorbed with his own relaxation game to notice. He does take advantage of my new proximity to snuggle and kiss along my neck.

Now I really don’t miss my texts, messages, and responsibilities.

Well, not in any real sense of the word—except that they’ll help my senses stay rooted in this century.

I mean, this is getting weird.

These temporal disconnects…they’re intense. And terrifying. I wish I could talk to someone about them. But there wasn’t any down time with D at all, and I’m afraid that asking Bastien will have him dragging me to the nearest psychic, demanding Magique to push me aside for her twenty-first century entrance. Now, I’m always up for copious drinks and a trip to Shakti’s Studio for some tarot deck fun, but this is different. This stuff is weirder than the darkening sky outside.

As if high-fiving—or maybe middle-fingering—my musing, Mother Nature lights up the city with a lightning show. A few seconds later, thunder goes bowling up and down the avenues. Umbrellas pop open along the sidewalks, and none too soon. Seconds later, the skies rip open with a true deluge.

I look out into the storm, blasting the heavens and blurring the windows, and silently thank Mother Nature for the dramatic fit. The spring storm comes nowhere close to the thoughts I’ve just been trying to untwist.

And I had to go and get that Zen about shit.

Because as the bus stops at 106th, I already know I’ll be pressing pause on the atmospheric ASMR tracks.

The weather forces a lot of people to get on the bus. A couple of them are elderly women. I know this because we’re close enough to the front of the bus that Bastien rises at once to help them climb the entrance stairs. The first woman receives his personal escort to the seat he’s just vacated, next to me. As I make sure the sweet apple face with purple-dyed hair and matching flowered scarf is comfortable, he’s already carrying a grocery bag for the second woman. But the seat is occupied by someone else. A budding musician, surmising from the drumsticks he’s beating on his knees and the earphones hugging the shaggy sides of his head.

Meaning he sees Bastien but doesn’t hear the distinct De Leon rumble that conveys a glaringly clear message.

Meaning that he also doesn’t understand why he jogs his head up with a yo-bro smirk and receives a daunting glower as reply.

Meaning that when the guy adds a friendly wave of a drumstick and watches Bastien snap it like a twig, he doesn’t hesitate to leap to his feet.

Just like I do.

Because even as Bastien helps the woman to sit, smiling as if everything’s right with the world, I already know it isn’t.