Completely Smitten Part 37

Munin grumped and slid onto the floor as if all his bones had turned to water. A familiar yes, but a real dog too, with all of a real dog's traits. His human was talking gibberish, so he had clearly decided that he didn't need to listen.

And, frankly, Darius was getting tired of listening to himself. The Fates hadn't treated Ariel fairly. They had tampered with her in order to get to him, and that wasn't right. He didn't care if they were what pa.s.sed for law among his people. They had misused it, and at great cost to Ariel.

He put his finger to his lips. She could kiss, though. The way he had felt when she touched him, when she put her hands alongside his face, her thumbs and forefingers around his ear, her hands spread down to his jaw, had sent tingles through him.

He had never wanted that moment to end.

And the moment he had that thought, he had ended it. He had been stealing from her ever since he met her. Her kisses, her focus, and now her love.

It wasn't right.

And he was going to put an end to it.

He looked at Munin. Munin gazed up at him from his wrinkled puppy brow, the picture of dejection.

"If I go see the Fates, will you promise not to trash the house?"

Munin didn't move. Darius took that to mean that Munin wasn't promising anything.

"Do you have to go out?" Darius asked. "We can tend to your needs real quick before I leave."

Munin continued to stare at him.

"Of course, you need a collar." Darius snapped his fingers. A red collar with a name tag appeared around Munin's neck. Darius bent down and double-checked the tag. All the information was correct. "We could just leave you tied up in the back yard."

Munin whimpered. This dog wasn't even two months old and he already knew how to tug heartstrings.

"You don't want to come to the Fates. They're capricious, and they're probably mad at me, and they might just take it out on you."

Munin closed his eyes, as if the thought pained him.

"Tell you what," Darius said. "I'll spell a doggy door into the garage. If you need to use the facilities, you can do it out there. We can rinse off the concrete. Deal?"

Munin sighed.

"I'll take that for a yes. I won't be long, I promise."

Munin sighed even louder. Darius had to get out of there quickly or the puppy would manipulate him into making an unwise choice. No creature should visit the Fates on his first day as a familiar. Especially when his human's history with the Fates was so very bad.

If something happened to Darius while he was with the Fates, he would make sure they took care of Munin. It was the least he could do.

He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and then clapped his hands together. As he vanished, he realized he was making his first trip to see the Fates in more than four hundred years.

Somehow, Ariel found herself back in front of Quixotic. She didn't remember much about the drive. She kept replaying that horrible scene in the kitchen over and over again in her mind.

Maybe she really didn't understand men. Maybe she didn't know them at all. She had thought Darius had enjoyed the kiss they shared in the mountains, but he'd let her go to bed alone, and when she'd awakened the next morning, he had disappeared.

That behavior had made sense when Andrew Vari had explained that Darius was irresponsible. But Vari wasn't. He was a good, kind man who must have pretended to enjoy that kiss and then realized he couldn't take it any longer.

He had tried to tell her. Tried to keep her from going too far. She should have realized that he wasn't interested when he didn't understand who she was talking about. When he hadn't known he was the one at Quixotic who'd captured her attention.

She had thought he was just humble. And maybe, just maybe, she was arrogant enough to believe that no one else had been interested in him the way she had, so of course he wouldn't know such interest when he saw it.

But no. He hadn't looked at her that way. He saw her as a nice woman, a co-worker, someone he would support like he supported the other employees at Quixotic. And she had gone overboard--first with the dog, and then with the kiss.

He was polite enough to keep the dog, but the kiss had probably been too much.

It had been too much for her too.

She opened the car door and got out. The air had grown even colder, and she could see clouds peeking over the tops of some of Portland's taller buildings. It would rain by evening.

This day already seemed too long by half.

She pushed open the gla.s.s doors. The familiar smells of Quixotic--garlic and wine and freshly baked breads-- threatened to overwhelm her. The restaurant was full. The clink and jangle of gla.s.ses and silverware was the underpinning of a hundred conversations. Jazz played softly in the background.

Waiters moved through the tables carrying trays. Busboys worked at being invisible, and the new afternoon hostess gave Ariel a nervous smile, just like Ariel must have the first time she saw Sofia come in on a day off.

Ariel smiled back at her and made her way through the aisles between the tables. She hoped Blackstone was still there. Her right hand had clenched into a fist.

She couldn't come in here again. She couldn't face Vari again. She had embarra.s.sed herself in front of him one too many times.

Ariel pushed open the kitchen door and stepped inside. The subtler scents of prime rib mixed with the sharp smell of cayenne and olive oil. One of the chefs was making a spicy dish on the top of the stove while another carved the prime rib over in the corner.

Blackstone was leaning against the counter, talking on his cell phone. His head was bowed, but she could see a soft expression on his face, one he reserved for only one person--his wife Nora.

As Ariel let the kitchen door swing shut behind her, Blackstone looked up. His expression changed, and she remembered what Vari had said about Blackstone not caring for any other woman.

Vari had been right. Blackstone and his wife were a perfect match.

Ariel wondered if she would ever find hers. Maybe she was one of those people who was destined to go through life alone.

Blackstone hung up the cell phone and gave Ariel a puzzled glance. "Everything all right?"

His voice carried over the din in the kitchen. The staff looked at her, but she couldn't meet any of their gazes. She kept her eyes on Blackstone, because if she looked anywhere else, she might fall apart.

"Can I talk with you in private?"

"Sure." He slipped his cell phone into his pocket. "Let's go to the office."

He led her down the hallway and opened the office door. The office was such an uncomfortable s.p.a.ce, so long and narrow, with no windows at all. She wondered how he stood it.

If only it weren't the height of the Sat.u.r.day lunch hour. If only the restaurant weren't so busy. They could sit in the main area and talk like civilized people, instead of being crammed into the back, in a room too small to hold all of her emotions.

He held the door for her. Ariel stepped inside and immediately went to the back. She wanted to be as far from him as possible.

"What's wrong?" he asked again.

"I'm really sorry," she said, and marveled at how her words echoed Van's. "I'm going to have to quit, effective immediately."

"Quit? Why?" Blackstone looked concerned. "What happened between you and Sa--Mer--Andrew?"

All the nicknames the man had. She had forgotten that. It seemed strange, like so many things about him. "I just made a fool of myself one too many times."

"The dog?"

Her smile was small. "The dog. The missed lunch. The misunderstandings. I'm apparently the queen of misreading signals."

"Signals?"

She shook her head. "Long story."

"What can I do to convince you to stay?" Blackstone asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I really can't face him again."

"I don't think he'll want to hear that. He cares about you."

"Oh, I suppose he does in his own way. But not the way I want him to."

Blackstone frowned. "What do you mean?"

She held up a hand as if she were warding off his words. She didn't want to talk about this at all anymore. "It doesn't matter. He feels one way, I feel another, and that's all there is. We can't work together. Not after today."

"Did he keep the dog?" Blackstone leaned toward her as he asked the question, as if her answer meant everything. She had no idea why he cared about the dog now, when earlier the dog had annoyed him.

"Yes, of course," she said. "But promise me you'll call me if he decides he doesn't want the dog anymore."

"I promise." Blackstone sounded confused. "I think we could work out some kind of schedule where the two of you wouldn't see each other."

"Thanks," she said, "but no. I'm sorry to leave you in the lurch like this. I know you've been having trouble with the staff lately."

"We go through phases like this," he said. "Usually around Halloween. I didn't expect it in March."

She wished she hadn't gone as deep into the room. It was time to make her exit, and she wouldn't be able to do it gracefully.

"I owe you so much for taking me on," she said. "I'm sorry it didn't end better."

"I'm not sure it's over," he said.

She sighed. "I am," she said.

Darius arrived in a dark room that smelled of chocolate, wine, and perfume. A light flickered on a far wall, and it took him a moment to realize that someone had mounted a movie screen there.

Gregory Peck stood before a pack of people, a faraway look on his face as he stared at Audrey Hepburn. The black-and-white film was crisper than any Darius had ever seen.

The three Fates were sprawled on the floor. One of them was hugging a pillow and crying. The other two leaned against her, staring at the film with rapt attention.

Darius cleared his throat.

"Shhh," one of the Fates said. He couldn't tell which one in this darkness. "It's almost over."

"He can't leave her," the crying woman said.

"He's not leaving her, stupid," said another Fate.

"She's leaving him," the third Fate said.

"Nooo." The crying Fate raised her hand. "I'm changing it."

"You don't have to," Darius said.

"Shhh." The Fates shushed him in unison.

"Really," he said. "You don't. Richard Curtis answered 'Roman Holiday' with his film 'Notting Hill'. Of course, by 1999 Gregory Peck was too old for the lead and Audrey Hepburn was dead, so they had to make do with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts--"

"'Shhhh!!!'" the Fates said again.

Darius sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the film, which he had seen a dozen times. It was one of his favorite movies, although he'd never admitted that to anyone, and he could recite the lines with the characters.

He used to watch it to remind himself that not all romance was about happily ever after. Sometimes romance was about happily for the moment.

He should have remembered that with Ariel. He should have taken the moment, and the future be d.a.m.ned.

Darius shook the thought from his head. He couldn't change the past. He glanced around the room, his eyes finally getting used to the near-darkness.

Heart-shaped boxes of chocolates littered the floor. A carton of Ben and Jerry's--a large carton--was tipped on its side near a table. Pillows were piled high behind the Fates, and in front of them were several blankets all bunched together, as if they had been used.

Empty bags of popcorn littered the other side of the room. The crying Fate was wearing bunny slippers that were so big, they obscured the bottom part of the film. She was outlined against the screen--they all were, their faces in shadow. He couldn't make out who was who.

The scene was nearly over. Audrey Hepburn would say her famous last lines and the scene would end, and then the words THE END would appear. There wouldn't be a five-minute long list of credits like there were in modern movies. In the old days, the credits were a single sheet, usually up-front.

The Fates had huddled even closer. The Fate to his right reached into a box of chocolates, stuck her thumb in the bottom of a piece, and inspected it to see if it was a kind she liked before popping the chocolate in her mouth.

"This isn't right," the crying Fate said again. "How can anyone think this film is romantic?"

"Shhhh!" one of the others said to her.

"He's dreamy," said the third Fate. "Don't you think he's dreamy?"

"Dreamy" was a slang word that had gone out forty years ago, but Darius didn't tell them that. He was irritated that they were making him wait. He had something important for them to do and they were pretending to have a sleepover, complete with footie pajamas and bad food.

"It's the voice," said the crying Fate. "That part 'is' romantic."

"Shhh!" said the second Fate.

And then, mercifully, the film ended. It flipped through an imaginary projector and made a whipping noise Darius hadn't heard in decades. The screen went white, sending light through the room.