Page 77 of The Rut in the Road

He smiled again, noticing me looking. “You like what you see?” He flexed a little.

I frowned at him, not understanding why he would ask. “You know I think you’re attractive,” I pointed out.

He laughed, making me frown more. “People generally prefer to be told they’re ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’ or ‘gorgeous,’ not ‘attractive,’’ he told me.

“Why?” I wanted to know.

He shrugged, walking over to where he’d left the backpack that he almost always brought with him—a change of clothes, toiletries, that sort of thing. I’d wondered more than once whether or not I should ask him if he wanted to leave some of that here. He pulled out the small bag he kept all of that in, then paused, leaning against the door frame. “Because ‘attractive’sounds clinical,” he replied. “Saying someone is ‘sexy’ sounds more… enthusiastic.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then I think you’re sexy.”

He laughed again. “You can’t just say what I told you to say,” he told me. “Then it feels fake.”

I’d finally figured out that he was teasing me. “If you can’t tell that I think you’re beautiful—” I started.

Oddly, he looked surprised. “You think I’m beautiful?” He sounded almost shy.

Now I was really confused. “Of course I do,” I replied. “And how is that any different than saying you’re sexy?”

His cheeks had gone dark. “It just… is,” he half-mumbled, then left the bedroom, presumably to shower and brush his teeth and so on.

I dragged myself out of bed, despite the fact that I didn’t have to be at work until two. I’d worn my boxer shorts to bed, but the air was cool enough that I didn’t want to be mostly naked, so I grabbed Raj’s shirt from the floor and pulled it on before following him to the bathroom.

He was brushing his teeth, the door left open, and he looked over at me when I padded up to the door.

Then he choked on a mouthful of toothpaste, coughing and spluttering for a few moments before giving up and spitting into the sink, rinsing off both the brush and his face. “You—you’re wearing my shirt,” he said, a funny expression on his face.

“I—should I not?” I asked, suddenly worried that I’d offended him.

He set down the toothbrush, then took the two steps he needed to wrap me in his arms, breathing in against my hair. “You definitely should,” he replied, his voice a low rumble as his hands slid up under the hem of the shirt.

“Because you’re just going to take it off me?” I asked him, teasing.

“Because,” he half-growled. “I like you smelling like me.”

He pulled me against his body, and I could feel exactly the way in which he liked me smelling like him. “You’ll be late to work if you keep going,” I warned him.

“Yeah, well, fuck work,” he grumbled into my neck, following the pronouncement with a lick from his tongue.

“Are—are you sure?” I asked him. After all, I wasn’t the one who had to go to work.

His answer was a growl as he pulled the shirt off me, followed by my shorts, and then pulled me into the shower with him.

13

He was exhausted—whichwasn’t really a surprise, given that it was November third and he’d finally emerged from the state of semi-hibernation he’d fallen into around eight in the morning the day before. And since Mason had been asked to give a lecture at William and Mary—something he claimed to find amusing, but which he knew made Mason rather nervous, although more, he suspected, because of what he was afraid people would think about his green skin and fangs than about the content of the lecture itself.

I set the vase—paintedwith a Mexican-style pattern that was probably, knowing Ward and Mason, authentic—into one of the big plastic crates, this one with a wide piece of tape on the side that readDía de muertos.

There were several more in addition to this one—about a dozen—for each of the upcoming gigs. Each one also had a list taped to the lid of what needed to go so that we could pre-prep everything that we had plenty of, like sage and candles, even though there were some things that would be reused, like the company’s single crystal ball.

I’d asked Ward why it was that we even had one, since they didn’tdoanything, and he’d just rolled his eyes and replied that sometimes the trappings were just as important to the success of a gig as the things that actually summoned or controlled the dead.

I didn’t really understandwhypeople might want meaningless trappings, but I trusted that Ward knew his business, so the crystal ball went into the crate that was going with Beck and Mason tonight. Ward would need it tomorrow.

I’d gotten a little distracted thinking about Raj and had forgotten that I needed to keep my focus while I was packing up as much as possible so that our transitions between gigs would be less rushed. We were all going to be exhausted, given the fact that most of us kept normal business hours, but Halloween-season parties that requested séances absolutely did not. Tonight, for example, we were scheduled until one in the morning.

In about thirteen-and-a-half hours.