Liquid Lies Page 6

  It might be shameful, but Gwen also wanted to know she was desirable to someone other than the man—no matter how wonderful he might be—the Board chose for her. Maybe a little flirtation in the Primary world might spark something in the Secondary. Maybe it might make her long for the same attention from Griffin.

  But the truth was—as her eyes drifted over Mr. Tattoo’s strong hands and thick arms, and she recalled with a shiver how they’d felt around her—Griffin was far, far from her thoughts.

  I’m sorry too, she texted Griffin back. Then added: Thanks, but no. Raincheck?

  As she clicked off the phone and tossed it into her purse, her hands shook.

  “No,” she told Mr. Tattoo. “I’m staying.”

  SEVEN

  The confirmation threw wide open some sort of invisible door. He set his empty glass on the bar with a bang and swiveled on his chair to face her. He bounced a finger at her purse. “That painting on your phone screen. It’s Ed Ruscha, right?”

  She blinked. Blinked again. He’d mispronounced the artist’s name, but she didn’t care. “You’ve heard of Ruscha?”

  “Is that how you say it? I’ve only seen it in print.”

  “But you know his work?”

  “Shocking, huh? I think that painting’s in the Whitney, in New York.”

  She tried very hard not to gape but didn’t succeed. When she could finally speak, her voice came out all breathy. “I didn’t know that. I’ve never been there.” The strangeness of that didn’t escape her; she’d been to some of the most far-flung cities in the world—Cairo and Helsinki and Seoul—but not New York City, practically in her own backyard.

  “So you’ve been there? Seen it?”

  “Yeah.” When he rubbed a finger across his stubbly chin, the scratching sound drew her in. It drowned out the low hum of the other patrons and the tinny music piped in from an unseen radio. “I remember it because it’s so strange. Odd but great, you know? The big words, the colors. One of those pieces that really strikes you, but you can’t quite figure out why—”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then I read about all the weird materials he uses as paint and I just stood there and stared, trying to see them.” He sat back. “Actually took away some of the magic for me.”

  Her mouth went completely dry. She tried not to bounce on her seat. No one she knew loved art as much as she did. Hell, she couldn’t name a single Ofarian who knew a single thing about art. She didn’t care if Mr. Tattoo didn’t enjoy Ruscha as much as her. Talking about art was nearly an orgasmic experience.

  “Really? But there’s so much to be said in his work, especially through his materials. It’s so simple, but he makes it more complicated.”

  He considered that, frowning, round head bobbing from side to side. “Maybe. But if you’re talking late-twentieth-century artists, I think I like Cy Twombly better.”

  An image suddenly came to her, of what might have happened earlier that morning if she’d actually invited Mr. Tattoo up to her place for coffee. He would’ve ambled around her apartment, mug in one hand, thick fingers of the other trailing over the spines of her bookshelves perfectly lined with art books. Griffin thought the books were a waste of entertainment center space, but Mr. Tattoo’s powerful torso would’ve tilted sideways to read each title. She loved that visual.

  “I…I can’t believe you brought up Twombly.” Oh, God, she was stuttering.

  “Why? Because I know him or like him?”

  Somewhere in the midst of the conversation his hand had crept toward hers. Palm on the wood, he faced her, fully engaged. Something akin to wonder glistened in his eyes.

  “Both.” Her voice turned thin as paper. “I think he’s brilliant. Something about the size of his canvases.”

  He grinned wickedly. “You like ’em big?”

  “Yeah. I guess I do.” Heat started in her chest and spread to her neck. “Where did you see Twombly’s stuff?”

  He pursed his lips, thinking. “An exhibition at the Art Institute in Chicago.”

  “Did you study art in college?” Maybe he was involved in the art world, and that’s what had brought him here.

  There was the briefest of pauses before he said, “No. No college.” Then he ran a hand over his smooth head and mumbled, “Barely any high school.”

  Time to share something that made her a little sheepish, too. “I love art. Might be my most favorite thing in the world. But I never get to go to art museums. Too busy when I travel. I buy books instead. I have close to two hundred.”

  She knew she wasn’t imagining the warmth in his blue eyes. “It’s not the same,” he said. “In person you can follow the brushstrokes, see the globs of paint. For some reason, I like seeing the signatures in the corners.”

  Damn, there went a sigh.

  “Embarrassing confession time,” he said, settling deeper into his chair. “I like to learn. When I’m in a museum, I even walk around with the headphones.”

  She laughed. “I would, too!”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I like the NFL, too. And barbecues. And I’ve been known to buy a swimsuit calendar and a sports car.”

  “Scared I’ll question your masculinity?”

  “Nah. I don’t even necessarily like most of the art I’ve seen.” His hand crept closer on the bar. All she could see was his face, could even pick out a tiny scar under his eye. “But I know what I like when I see it.”

  Even though they’d embraced on the street, the space between them in the bar was tighter, more pressurized. Without preamble, he draped his arm around the back of her chair and rotated it toward him. His long legs surrounded her knees. With one arm on her chair back and the other on the bar, he trapped her in the cage of his attention.

  She sensed his unmistakable hunger. For her.

  After all these years, she finally understood what had happened to Delia, her sister. It must have started something like this. A chance meeting with a Primary man. A smile that made her shiver. An engrossing, surprising conversation.

  Six years ago Gwen had sided with the Board, even though it had almost killed her. She had thought Delia weak for choosing the Primary guy over her own people. Delia had paid for it with exile. And with her water magic.

  The Allure was intoxicating. A tempting, evil drug that could snare you permanently if you weren’t careful. At this point, surrounded by Mr. Tattoo’s sizzling heat, trying it once and then going cold turkey seemed virtually impossible.

  Disobedience had never felt so seductive.

  “I like the way that skirt looks on you,” he said, staring at her mouth. His tone changed. His words changed. They felt like a caress. “And those boots.”

  She took the compliment the way she knew how, by deflection. “Came straight from work. One of those days.”

  That tease of a smile again. “Yeah. It sure was.”

  When the denim of his jeans brushed against the small bare patch of skin between her knee-high boot and skirt hem, she gasped.

  He leaned in, so close his breath ruffled the hair next to her ear. “What’s your name?”

  The rest of the bar dropped away like a trapdoor.

  She turned her head just enough to make out the details of his tattoo. Leaf- and thorn-covered vines twisted around his neck, the tip of the last leaf resting just below his earlobe. She clenched her fingers, resisting the urge to touch it. To touch him.

  Her voice came out in shaky threads. “Gwen.”

  She felt him smile. “Gwen. I’m Reed.”

  Reed nudged her hair with his nose, inhaling. “Tell me more about this Ed Ruscha guy.”

  She chuckled low. “Are you serious? Now?”

  The hand on the back of her chair dropped to her knee. Palm covering the top of her boot. Thumb on her thigh. Fingertips dancing like snowflakes at the edge of her skirt hem. She stopped breathing.

  “Actually, no.” Chin stubble scraped just below her ear.

  She forced herself to inhale. “Good. Because I can’t think.
”

  Reed pulled back enough for her to see his face again. “I really did think about you today. I wondered if what I’d felt this morning was wrong. Misplaced.”

  “I thought about you, too.” For different reasons, but those didn’t seem to matter anymore.

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Where are you staying?” It slipped out before she could stop it. She couldn’t take it back, and she realized she didn’t want to.

  His expression turned heated. “The Four Seasons. Just for tonight.”

  “I hear that’s nice.” And expensive. And a quick cab ride away.

  “It is.” He licked his lips. “Would you like to see it?”

  His voice thrummed deep bass chords in her ears, sending quivers straight to her legs. He tightened his grip on her thigh, and she watched him react to her reaction.

  She’d never wanted to be naked more in her entire life.

  This was it. The one pass granted to her by the Allure. Forgiven only if it was temporary. She knew for a fact that Griffin had slept with a Primary a few months ago, before they’d heard the rumblings in the Board about their match. He didn’t know she knew and there was no reason to confront him about it. Had it been just sex to Griffin? Or had he connected with that woman in the way Gwen connected with Reed?

  No, she would not go there. It would only be sex for her, too. And by the firm, gentle way Reed touched her now, she knew it would be good sex.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I’d like to see your room.”

  The smile he gave her was positively feral.

  Vaguely, she heard the door to the bar opening, followed by the tickle of cool air on her back. Reed’s gaze flicked over her shoulder. The lust in his eyes and the promise in the curve of his mouth vanished. Whatever he saw pulled down a cold, hard wall between them.

  The speed with which he went from seductive to nonchalant made her gasp. When he removed his hand from her thigh, it was like taking away a blanket in the dead of winter.

  “The people I’m supposed to meet are here. Won’t take a minute. Will you wait for me?”

  She nodded numbly.

  He stood. “Told you I wasn’t lying.”

  As she listened to Reed’s footsteps walk away, she considered that maybe this interruption was a blessing in disguise. Maybe her ancestors were telling her that giving in to the Allure was a huge mistake.

  Something started to poke at her subconscious. Something…else. Something other than dirty fantasies and race-driven guilt trips. She couldn’t pin it down. It was a buzzing fly she couldn’t swat. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t concentrate on anything except the phantom feel of Reed’s hands.

  And then she couldn’t hear or feel anything for the great whoosh in her head.

  A new language swirled into her ears and drove itself into her brain. It had to work extra hard; her mind had melted into hormone-engorged mush.

  If she were a Primary, the sound of a foreign tongue would be nothing but background noise, but since she was a Translator, the new sounds solidified into mental building blocks. They stacked themselves. Slid next to and behind one another, formulating correct sequences. New words and cadences and grammar rules formatted in her mouth and in her mind.

  Two people spoke this new language simultaneously, which always made her head ache and her body woozy at first. She gripped the edge of the bar to steady herself as foreign speech hammered its way into her subconscious. Manny came over, concerned, but she waved him away.

  Once the initial shock of the Translation wore off and she released her death grip on the wood, a new set of alarm bells almost threw her off her chair.

  Three things about this Translation were seriously off.

  First, she already knew a few of the words because they were part of the ancient codes used to manipulate Mendacia.

  Second, some deep, dark part of her recognized the sounds. Like she’d spoken them ages ago but had since lost them, and now she was pulling the language out from behind the thickest partitions of her mind.

  Third, this language did not originate here on Earth, and neither did its speakers.

  She jumped off her chair and whirled toward the newcomers. A man and woman. That persistent, buzzing feeling she hadn’t been able to decipher not moments ago? She recognized it now.

  Ofarians knew their own kind blindfolded. Their bodily signatures emanated something that existed above and beyond humanity. It wasn’t a smell or sound; it was a sense. It’s what made them Secondary.

  These two were also Secondary, but they were not Ofarian. How was that possible? No other Secondaries lived on Earth.

  Had David seen them? From across the street he would be too far away to sense their signatures, but had he at least noticed them? Maybe he’d be suspicious and jog over to Manny’s to check it out.

  But then, these two didn’t stand out nearly as much as Reed, and David hadn’t appeared when Reed had walked in. Gwen was on her own.

  The fair-skinned man was taller and thinner than Reed. If it weren’t for his dour expression, the steely, unwelcome look in his eye, and the knotted blond hair dusting his shoulders, he might have been handsome. The woman was tiny, her posture betraying her timidity. She stood with her hands in her pockets, and stray brown hairs dangled out of her ponytail as if she’d slept on it then bolted out the door. It must have started to rain because their shoulders were darkened with water droplets.

  Everything about them told Gwen to flee, to get away as fast as possible. Yet curiosity and fear rooted her to the spot. She had to know who they were, why they were here.

  Why Reed headed straight for them.

  “Is that him?” the woman asked in her language, pointing to Reed.

  “It’s got to be,” muttered the blond man. As Reed reached them, the blond switched to English. “I’m sorry. We were looking for the Mexican restaurant.”

  “It closed five months ago,” said the new kid in town.

  The blond man nodded. “Retriever?”

  Reed’s smooth head nodded firmly. The taller man pulled a small, white envelope from inside his distressed leather jacket and handed it to Reed.

  Gwen realized who they were. And she couldn’t get past them to escape out the front door.

  She wheeled on Manny. “Please tell me you have a back exit.”

  He twisted a bar towel. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry. Just the exit.”

  He pointed. “Back of the storeroom. Opposite the john.”

  She walked fast toward the back, feet smarting in the high-heeled boots and trying not to draw attention by moving too fast. Shoving open the storeroom door, she saw the exit, partially covered by paper towel packages. As she threw the first one to the floor, she heard Reed ask Manny, “Gwen. You seen her?”

  He sounded so calm and focused. Like he had in the alley before busting Yoshi’s leg.

  Manny, bless him, replied, “Hey, man. She left. Leave her alone.”

  Gwen tossed another package and found the doorknob, yanking it with all her strength. She burst out into the alley, fat raindrops smacking her in the face. Behind her, Reed barreled through the mess she’d made in the storeroom. She couldn’t make it around the corner to David in time, and she couldn’t sprint to the street and hail a cab before Reed caught up to her.

  There was only one thing to do.

  Cars sped by the mouth of the alley. A few people hurried past, hands over their heads to ward off the unusual late-September rain, but otherwise it was dark and she was in a dingy alcove.

  She whispered Ofarian words. Her body shimmered, liquifying, and collapsed in on itself. It took extra effort and deep concentration to transform her clothes and belongings, too, but she did it. As a puddle, she pooled around the stumpy legs of a Dumpster. Raindrops splashed into her but did not mix.

  The puddle served as one great big limpid eye, and from it she watched Reed charge into the alley. Head whipping around,
he called her name. By the determined way he took off toward the street, she knew he wasn’t just disappointed to discover his potential one-night stand had bolted. His desperation stemmed from his conversation with the other Secondaries, and the envelope they’d given him.

  She’d been a fucking idiot.

  She moved the puddle over the disgusting ground, oil slicks and hamburger wrappers and used chewing gum sliding underneath her. At the alley entrance she extended a trickle out onto the sidewalk and saw Reed run heavy-footed down the street. A taxi rolled down the opposite lane.

  Ducking back into the shadows, she let go of her liquid form. She was a great beanstalk extending to the sky, the world returning to normal size as her body and clothing solidified. She felt heavy and clunky with retransformation, but there was no time to wallow in it.

  Jogging across the street, she flagged down the approaching cab. “Swing around the corner,” she told the driver before her ass hit the seat. “Stop for a sec in front of the burrito joint.”

  As he hit the meter and did just that, she flipped open her phone and dialed.

  Griffin answered. “Hey, you. You coming over after all?”

  “No. Meet me at my dad’s. Fifteen minutes. Tedrans are in San Francisco.”

  EIGHT

  Griffin clutched the keys to Gwen’s apartment and put a finger to his lips. You couldn’t have paid her to talk at that point. He inspected the door lock and knob, then ran his hands over the jamb. With a frown of concentration, he slid the key into place and pushed the door open. He thrust out a hand behind him, silently telling her to stay in the hall. Obediently, she plastered herself to the opposite wall. The pinch of her feet in her boots felt way better than the flock of butterflies swarming in her stomach.

  Griffin moved through the entranceway and into the main living space, switching on lamps as he went. Her place was minimalist, mostly white. Very few areas in which to hide. When he disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms and out of her sight, she started to bounce on the balls of her feet, anxious. After reappearing and flashing her the “okay” sign, he headed for the kitchen. Gwen rushed inside, shut the door, and bolted it. All energy left her in a single breath, and she sagged against the door.