Page 33 of Bent Out of Shade
At first, we didn’t speak at all, listening to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” spill out from the speakers. All I could think of was the infamous scene of carnage in Apocalypse Now, which was hardly a soothing tonic for my already-frayed nerves.
Laurent drummed his fingers on the wheel almost as rapidly as my leg jittered. Awesome. I was tempted to pretend to nap, but that wouldn’t send the right signal for our first date, and his shifter senses would spot the lie in my racing heartbeat and shallow breathing.
He braked hard at a red light, flinging me forward against the seat belt.
“Sorry,” he said. “The car ahead stopped at the last second.”
“No problem.” I pushed a loosened bobby pin back into place. “So, uh, did you get the dybbuk before you came back to town?”
“Yes, though it was a tricky bastard.” He turned right, his biceps flexing. “I heard some kid tried to pull a fast one on you with a fake enthrallment.”
This was more like it. Regular conversation. “‘Tried’ being the operative word,” I said.
Laurent chuckled, and smiling, I rolled down the window and slung my elbow on the door. “Nice weather we’re having,” he said.
“No rain yet. Still warm.” We passed block after block of condo towers being built. “Lots of construction.” My eyes widened. Oh no. We’d invoked the two most clichéd topics any Vancouverite could discuss: weather and real estate. We were one slippery slope away from scoring a hat trick with “hard to meet people in this city.”
Alarms wailed in my head; we were flatlining. Death by small talk. How would we make it through a tasting menu that was at least two hours long?
I cast about for another topic like a drowning person flailing for a lifejacket. Ask Laurent to open a portal to Gehenna so I could sneak in and steal the Ascendant back for the Leviathan? I wrinkled my nose. Best to save that romance killer for another day. Desperate, I leaned forward to fiddle with the radio, when, eyes watering, I coughed, making sounds like a cat trying to cast up a hairball.
“You okay?” He thumped me on the back.
“I think I swallowed a fly,” I said in a strangled voice.
The Wagner ended and a funereal dirge started playing just as Laurent pulled up to valet parking.
It wasn’t an omen.
I was almost positive it wasn’t an omen.
I hopefully inspected the friendly young man in the neatly pressed red vest who opened the passenger door for a hint of fang or a peek of demon horn. Anything to turn this date around and give Laurent and me something to discuss over dinner.
Nada.
Sighing, I got out of the car.
Laurent’s smile had the same strained, slightly queasy quality that Eli had worn when I’d driven him to his double root canal appointment last year. “Ready?” he said.
I gave it fifty-fifty odds that one of us would “use the bathroom”—i.e. flee the restaurant, never to be seen again.
Fingers crossed it was me.
Steeling my spine, I took his proffered arm. “As I’ll ever be.”
The well-heeled crowd looked out of place in the homey restaurant, which was studded with photos of the owners meeting famous actors and musicians who’d come through town over the past twenty years. Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra would have made more sense playing on the speakers than Tori Amos.
We were quickly seated and settled into our high-backed booth, studying the drinks menu with an intensity usually reserved for peace talks.
“Would you like wine?” Laurent said.
“Does a dog like to lick its balls?” Oh God. Where had that come from? I wasn’t even a dog person. Not that the animal was the problematic element here.
Laurent’s eyes widened, a crease once more forming between his brows.
I unfurled my napkin with a violent snap and nodded vigorously.
He called our server over. The celebrity chef must have brought his own staff for tonight, because this guy didn’t fit the ambience of this place either. However, for a beefy man with tattoos and large silver circles inset in his earlobes, he oozed disdain like a waiter in the finest French restaurant.
