Page 11 of After the Fade, Vol. 1 (Asheverse: B-Side)

Flint and Tinder: Emmett and Jim attend a faculty party together.

“I hate parties,” I said as I checked myself in the visor’s tiny mirror. I looked jaundiced in the weak yellow light, and my hair was shit.

“You love parties. I seem to remember hearing about the parties you used to throw. Usually followed by a list of students who were being suspended.”

“I like parties where stupid people drink way too much and do stupid things, and I get to sit there and laugh because Donovan is pounding Westin’s face in for looking at Layton’s ass, and Taylor is puking into a Tupperware container because she’s, quote, ‘allergic to tequila,’ and there’s definitely, at a bare minimum, an awkward hand job happening under somebody’s coat.”

Jim was giving me a look.

“What are the hand job odds tonight?” I asked.

He flipped the visor up like that might be the end of the conversation.

“Why can’t we be the good kind of age-gap couple?” I asked. “Why can’t we eat dinner at five, and then you fall asleep with your bib still on, and I steal all your money and get cornholed by a string of increasingly ’roided-out pool boys until one of them murders me and pawns my watch?”

Jim didn’t sigh or pass a hand over his face or anything. Because he was Jim. He adjusted my collar and said, “You look very handsome.”

“Of course you’d say that. You’re afraid I’ll leave you for a younger man.”

“We only have to stay an hour, and then we can go.”

“The ’roided-up one is going to choke me to death with his thighs.”

Jim pulled me in for a quick kiss and said, “Thank you for doing this.”

I rolled my eyes. But then I kissed him again.

It was an old Victorian house on a street of old Victorian houses, and the cold came whistling down like a knife. I should have worn something more than a white button-down and dark jeans, but I was trying to go for conservative and minimalist and respectable. Those were important traits when you were substantially younger than your partner and you were attending the faculty Christmas party and meeting his colleagues for the first time.

Fortunately, we only had to stand on the porch for a moment before a girl in a white button-down and black pants answered the door. She was holding a tray of canapes, and she smiled as she welcomed us inside.

When I tried to sneak back to the car, Jim caught my arm.

“I look like I’m one of the catering staff,” I whisper-shrieked as he drew me into the house. The girl with the canapes had continued on her way, and for a moment, we were alone in the foyer.

“No, you don’t.”

I stared at him.

Jim lasted about five seconds before he touched his throat and looked away, which was slightly mollifying. It was nice to know I still had it.

“You don’t look like the catering staff.” I could hear the effort in Jim’s voice, how hard he was trying. “In the first place, you’re wearing jeans—”

“Stop.”

He put his hands on his hips. The grandfather clock (because of course this house had one) ticked restlessly. Words soft, Jim said, “Okay, we can go.”

“No.”

“It’s fine, Emmett.”

I groaned. “No.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“No, no, no. We’re already here. And you look so fuckable.” And he did: the boyish part in his strawberry-blond hair, that perfect jawline, the way his blazer set his shoulders and arms on display. Everything about him down to his shirt printed with tiny Christmas trees. “I’m going to be a good boyfriend. I’m going to make sure everyone sees that grooming one of your students to become your sexual partner has lifelong benefits.”

Jim’s eyes got wider and wider with that particular sentence.

I smirked.

He sounded like he was being strangled when he said, “Emmett.”

“Just keeping you on your toes, dear,” I said as I kissed his cheek and headed deeper into the house.

The party was already in full swing; it looked like the entire faculty had showed up. The old Victorian had a lot of little rooms instead of one big living space, and each little room was decorated with a different theme: the sugar-plum fairy room, the gingerbread room, the Santa’s workshop room. The last one was a little disturbing. The elves wore shockingly revealing jumpsuits and had a lot of suspiciously shaped tools, and I thought they were about one whip and St. Andrew’s cross away from Santa’s BDSM dungeon. Somewhere, a simmer pot was simmering, filling the air with the fragrance of citrus and clove and pine. There were too many people, and although the house had seemed comfortable at the beginning, now it felt stifling.

People stared, of course. If I’d been somebody else, they would have stared because I’m way better looking than Jim, and I was clearly out of his league, and the polite thing to do would have been to assume I was an expensive sex worker. (Okay, fine: Jim was out of my league.) But because I’m me, they stared at the scars. They tried not to, but they couldn’t help themselves. To be fair, half my face was scars, so it wasn’t exactly easy.

Jim introduced me to men and women, and I smiled and nodded and asked polite questions. The conversations settled into familiar routines: gossiping about colleagues, or complaining about students, or telling stories about parents. One poor woman told us that she was still fielding questions from one father about whether she had a litterbox in the classroom (no, she did not, but the man was sure she did because Fox News had told him so). People stopped staring at me—or they didn’t stare quite so much. Jim’s arm felt easy around my waist, and I was surprised when I burst out laughing as the woman finished her story by telling us that she’d put a bag of clumping cat litter on her classroom wish list.

Some of it, I was willing to admit, was the wine, and after a while, I had to excuse myself to find the restroom. I was making my way down the hall, checking doors, when hands settled on my ass and squeezed.

I spun around. The man was sixtyish, red nosed, and to judge by his breath, swimming in eggnog. He blinked owlishly at me as though his eyes weren’t quite focusing, and then he let out a gusty, “You look quite fine,” as he pawed at my crotch.

I batted his hands away. I should have been shocked or horrified or appalled, I guess, but the unreality of it made me want to laugh. The best I could manage was “Hey!”

“Do you know who I am?” The words were thick and slurred. He wobbled and then almost crashed into me. He caught my belt with one scaly hand. “I am the head—” He hiccupped. “The headmaster. And that means, tonight, I’m your boss, and you’d—you’d better do what I say.”

The catering staff, I thought. These stupid clothes, and he thinks I’m part of the catering staff.

I opened my mouth to say something, to try to explain, but before I could, two things happened:

I caught a whiff of burning wool.

And the headmaster screamed.

He stumbled back, spinning, and I caught a glimpse of his suit jacket—which had caught fire at the hem. Jim was there a moment later, beating the flames out with his hand. Enthusiastically. The poor headmaster stumbled around, staggering into the walls, shrieking, as Jim beat his ass red. Jim kept going even after the flames were out, but I figured that was a safety protocol.

The poor headmaster had to be carried upstairs to lie down. As he was hauled up the stairs, I heard him moaning, “My derriere.”

Jim looked at me.

I looked at Jim.

“Something to say?” Jim asked.

“Did I ever tell you,” I said, “I love parties?”