Silas
“Tell you what,”Elmore says, gesturing with a Scotch in one hand. “I remember when Route Thirty-Nine was nothing but farms, all the way down the valley, and the only stoplight in town was the one at Main and Caroline. Every summer we’d leave the house in the morning and not come back ’til dinner, running wild. No video games. No reality TV.”
He pauses and looks at the knot of people around him, like he’s waiting for impressed murmurs. They come, and he looks pleased, the portrait of a magnanimous white man bestowing his wisdom upon younger generations, and doing it without a single gray hair moving out of place.
I murmur some sort of approval noise, because I’m supposed to, but next to me Nakamura—Kat, dammit, Kat—is dead fucking silent, staring ahead like she’s some sort of creepy statue and not a person, tense as a suspension bridge.
For at least the fifth time in thirty minutes, I fight the urge to kick her foot and tell her to smile. Or speak. Or, I swear to God, just blink. There’s no point in her being here if she’s going to make all my coworkers think I’ve kidnapped her and threatened her family.
“Hear, hear,” my colleague Pierce is saying, because his primary skill is assholery. “To the good old days.”
He says it with a smirk and a glance at Elmore, because it’s common knowledge that Elmore’s not far from retiring and it’s common presumption that Pierce and I are the favored candidates for the promotion to partner in his place. Pierce is handling this knowledge by shoving his nose so far up the boss’s ass it’s a wonder he can breathe at all.
I’m handling it by lying about my relationship status, so I probably don’t have a leg to stand on. Elmore smiles indulgently at Pierce, then shakes his head gently, and here comes another mini-speech.
“Family used to mean something,” he intones. “Nowadays, it’s only about what we can get from each other…”
I look at Nakam—at Kat again and wonder if she’s got an on switch. She’s managed to look the part—black cocktail dress, heels, black hair in a low bun, sparkly earrings that dangle above her shoulders and brush her neck if she moves her head just the right way—but she may as well be a robot for all she’s helping the situation. Jesus, at least a robot would be programmable. I could probably get her to say nice to meet you or yes, I’m Silas’s girlfriend if she were a robot.
Elmore’s still going, so out of desperation I finish my drink and put one hand on her back.
To her credit, she doesn’t scream or jump or punch me in the face, just looks over at me like she can vaporize me with a glance. I press my hand to her back a little harder because she’s wound so tight I’m afraid she’ll snap her spine, but she doesn’t relax. She keeps giving me that look from behind glasses and bangs and a thick swipe of eyeliner that ends in a point so sharp I think it could make me bleed.
My attention snags there for a moment, like it’s caught. That same clothing-on-a-thorn sensation as yesterday, and then it’s gone, Elmore is wrapping up whatever story he was telling, and I clear my throat.
“I think I need another drink,” I tell Pierce and Elmore when there’s a break in conversation, holding up my glass as if for proof. “You want anything, babe?”
Under my hand, her back muscles tense even more, steel cables against my fingertips.
“Martha assures me the 2014 Château de Marmotte Écarlate is excellent,” Elmore says.
“I think I’ll come with you, babe,” Kat says, and lo and behold, she nods at the group. “Lovely to meet and talk. Very pleasant!”
Maybe she is a robot. Jesus.
We turn away and walk toward the bar at the other side of the room, my hand never leaving her back. If this were a normal house, I’d probably call it a living room, but Elmore’s place is a spectacularly ugly new-build mansion, where everything is in the wrong proportion and then they slapped some columns on the outside to give it that look of grandeur. I’m sure this room has some other name, with its expensive, uncomfortable sofas and chairs I wouldn’t dare to sit in.
“Refill?” I ask, holding up the bottle of white wine without quite looking at her.
“No,” she says, and shakes her head, and the earrings sway and bump into her neck. My attention snags there for a blink of an eye, and then I refill my own glass. Take a sip as she stands there, statue-like, no movement except those earrings, staring at the backlit liquor cabinet full of things to be discussed rather than drunk.
“You can relax and pretend to be human,” I tell her, after a moment. I’m trying for levity and probably failing. “No one’s gonna bite.”
Kat doesn’t answer. I look over at her, only an inch or two shorter than me with heels on, and get back an unholy, unnerving glare.
“What?” I grind out, keeping my voice low so no one can hear.
“Fuck off,” she says matching my tone exactly.
I face the liquor and take another drink.
“Jesus,” I tell the aged rum.
“That’s your advice?” she goes on, voice low but cutting through the background noise like a scalpel. “Relax?”
My temper surges, quick and hot, roughshod over everything else. A dust storm fit to blot out the sky.
I focus on the rum and take a deep breath, hold it a moment, exhale. Let it settle. Unclench my jaw.