“Angelica watches over us down there when we need her to,” Nell said from her place up front.
Cristian’s shoulders tightened and his head dropped. Atlas wanted to reach out to brush a hand over his shoulder, to check if he was okay, but there wasn’t a chance. Nell carried on as though she hadn’t said anything upsetting. She opened up a door, leading them into a large open room.
Patched chairs, rickety tables, and other miscellaneous furniture were scattered throughout the space. Two fridges chugged in a corner of the room. Cristian crossed to the first and set down his bag, so Atlas took up a place by the second and copied Cristian’s movements to unzip his own.
“I got what I could,” Cristian said to Nell, but Atlas lost the rest of the conversation when he saw what the duffels held. Underneath the reusable cooling packs were carefully packed blood bags.
Blood. Cristian was bringing Nell and the other vampires in this building enough blood to sustain themselves without having to go out. It must have been from the surplus he talked about.
Atlas wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. What had he done by aiming the Wharrams at the clinics Cristian visited to pick up food for these vampires? It wasn’t difficult to see the ripples. Mary had been killed when she went out to hunt. How many others had been forced to go out to feed because Cristian’s drop-offs stopped? And how many had been lost to strigoi or dawn while they were out there? He’d been wrong...so, so wrong and he couldn’t even apologize about it. Cristian was better than Atlas had known, so much better, and the way he joked and teased Nell even though she couldn’t even remember who he was and kept calling him the wrong name made the guilt inside Atlas twist and tighten until he could barely focus on transferring the bags into the fridge.
“Artie?” Nell’s voice broke him from his thoughts. The older woman sat at one of the chairs, her arms clasped tightly around her, watching Atlas with concern. She looked from him to Cristian. “Artie, is your Atlas all right?”
“I’m fine, ma’am,” Atlas promised Nell. He looked to Cristian for backup and tried not to ogle at the way the denim clung to him as he crouched at the fridge, transferring bags with the speed granted from familiarity with the task.
“Leave him, Nell,” Cristian said without looking at either of them. He stretched to grab the last of the blood bags out of the bottom of the duffel and the fabric over his thighs strained—
“Oh,” Nell said, with a sniff. Atlas flushed with embarrassment from being caught and returned to the task at hand. Nell kept talking. “That’s much better. Atlas, darling, you should look at Artie more often. How lovely. Burned sugar and salt and now what else—?”
“I’m sorry?” Atlas asked.
Nell glanced away from him to Cristian, as if he would answer her, but he didn’t. He knelt there with the fridge door open, empty duffel bag at his side, staring at Atlas like he’d never seen him before.
“Close the door, Artie, or you’ll waste all the cold,” Nell reminded him.
Cristian closed the door and swallowed hard. “Sorry. And Atlas is fine, just like he said.”
“I know that now. Can’t you smell—?”
“Of course,” Cristian soothed. “This isn’t the first time.”
“Ah, to be young again,” Nell said.
What the fuck did that mean? Was there something more to smelling him than noticing his shampoo or cologne? Suddenly nervous about what exactly Cristian might be able to scent on him, he announced, “Let me just finish putting these away and we can head out.”
Cristian nodded and finally moved, rising in a fluid, graceful motion that somehow ended with him flipping the empty bag over his shoulder like it was a designer jacket instead of a dusty mess. Atlas finished stuffing his fridge with the bagged blood and stood, grimacing a little at the pull on his scars when he pushed up from the floor. “Ready to go, Mr.—Artie?”
“I guess so,” Cristian said. He gave Nell a hug. “We’ll see ourselves out. You stay here and have some dinner.”
“No wandering off,” Nell said, hugging him back. “I remember. You worry too much, Artie.”
“I worry the correct amount. And please eat something,” he said. “You’re getting thin again.”
Nell waved him off. “I’ll eat when I’m good and ready.” Atlas was surprised when she folded him into a hug as well. She released him faster than she had Cristian, and gestured toward the hall. “Now, get back home. Tell Ioana to bring her cards next time. Betsy and I want to teach her whist.” She smiled at Atlas. “So glad you finally stopped in. Make an honest man of him, will you? A mother worries, you know.”
“I’m trying, ma’am,” Atlas agreed easily, though he wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. “It was nice to meet you too.”
There were more vampires up and about in the halls as they headed back toward the front entrance. Word must have gone around that the fridges had been restocked. Cristian kept his head down and kept walking, quietly evading any thanks that could come his way. He didn’t speak again until they were back at the car, tossing the empty bags into the trunk. Cristian closed it up and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “So...that was Nell.”
“It was nice to finally meet her.”
“Do you want to go for a walk?” Cristian asked, tilting his head toward the dilapidated sidewalk running parallel to the river. Back in the riverfront’s heyday, it must have been a beautiful place to walk. Now, it was another reminder of an era. Atlas wondered if Cristian could remember what it looked like before, if those overlays of the past ever got stuck in his mind. Cristian read his wandering thoughts as hesitation. “A short one, I promise. I’d like to see if there’s a sign of anything sniffing around. And we could talk.”
Talking meant he’d have time alone with Cristian, away from the house, away from whatever persona Cristian felt he had to put on in front of others. Because the man he was here, with Nell, was the Cristian Atlas suspected existed underneath the fancy clothes of business meetings and the faked debauchery of Rapture. This man was not at all what he appeared from a first impression. This man could convince Atlas to change his mind. Had convinced him.
He would probably regret this, but agreed anyway. “A short walk.”
Cristian nodded, kicked at a clump of weeds growing out of the cracked pavement at Atlas’s feet, and turned, leading him on toward the river. It granted Atlas too-tempting a view of strong shoulders nipping down to a lean waist, of those perfectly filled out jeans, and God help him, he wanted.