Page 22

Had the Cheese Cour se at Home

H elena didn’t want to risk taking the train home so she splurged on a taxi instead. The driver was friendly enough, but it was difficult to keep up the innocent chit chat with him while Rafferty huddled, turned away and radiating that wrongness that made the hairs on the back of her arms stand up on end. The only silver lining was it didn’t seem to bother her as much anymore. Unfortunately, the driver kept glancing at Rafferty, and it made her kee p talking.

“Is your boyfriend there going to be sick?” the driver finally asked when they hit the ex pressway.

“No, no, he’s just… not used to this climate,” Helena said, rubbing up and down on Rafferty’s arms as if to war m him up.

“Ah, from the South, is he?” the driver asked with forced cheer, trying to figure out what was happening since there was no obvious reason for his discomfort. “I have cousins who live down in St. Louis…” He launched into another story about said cousins that Helena didn’t listen to, would never remember, and only gave obligatory uh-huhs and ah-yeses whe n needed.

Finally, they pulled up in front of Helena’s door, and even before the car had fully come to a stop, Rafferty opened it and da shed out.

“Sorry. Thank you. Sorry,” was all Helena could say, waving the driver off, letting the app take care of the payment as she chased after her demon while trying to hold the takeo ut boxes.

This was not how she had hoped the night would go.

Rafferty had to wait for her to follow him up the stairs and open the door, but as soon as she had, he pushed through and beelined for her kitchen. As he went, his jacket and tie were thrown over the dining room table, and he hauled off the black shirt, tugging it over his head just in time before his horns made it im possible.

“Rafferty, what’s wrong?” she called after, but he said nothing as he disappeared through the kitchen’s swinging door so hard it rebounded off the wall. It swung back and forth a few times before settling, and in the last pass, she saw his bare back, gray and tall, with wings flexing back and forth rapidly like an angry, defeather ed goose.

Sighing, she let him be, setting the takeout containers on the table next to his discarded coat. Kicking off the beautiful but uncomfortable shoes she had been wearing, she padded to her room and more sedately discarded her own clothes for her bathrobe. There was no sign or sound of Rafferty, so she dashed to her bathroom and started a very hot and welcome shower. She spent a long time standing under the water, letting it bead down on her. If only she could wash her feelings away a s easily.

“I don’t need to decide anything until tomorrow,” she assured herself, trying to put Chris’s strange actions out of her mind as best she could, but the echo of his words hau nted her.

It wasn’t until she came out of her bathroom, swathed in her lavender terrycloth bathrobe and hair up in a towel turban, that she could be distracted from those darker thoughts. Eerie noises came from the kitchen. Discordant sounds that made the hairs rise off the back of her neck and would have given a haunted house a run for i ts money.

“He’s a demon. What did I think he was going to do when he’s upset?” she told herself and went into her bedroom to pull on some comfy pajamas. As much as she knew she needed to go take care of the takeout boxes, like put them in the fridge or something, she just felt exhausted and confused from the night. She couldn’t even make herself go brush her teeth, so instead, she climbed into bed.

But she couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept going over and over again what happened with Chris, buzzing like a hive of bees. While she tried to readjust her pillows to be more comfortable, a gentle knock came at the door.

“Yes?” she called, really loathing to get up out of the warmth of her bed.

There was a pause, then the door clic ked open.

“I brought you the cheese course,” Rafferty said, softly like an apology through t he crack.

“Oh, okay. Come in,” she invited, sitting back up in her bed a bit more.

He pushed the door open, and she saw him carrying a tray. It looked like he had taken one of her cookie sheets and covered it with one of her nicer dishcloths. On one of her new plates was arranged four cheeses, as well as tiny slices of bread spread into an arc on one side. There were also three smaller dishes that she usually used for snacks: one filled with some sort of jam, the other had pear slices in it, and the third had several very tiny pickles. In one corner stood a half glass of w hite wine.

“What is this?” she asked as she stared at a tray with a mazement.

“Like I said, the cheese course,” Rafferty replied, setting the tray before her on the bed where her legs were not so it would stay stable. Even though he was careful, the wine threatened to slo sh anyway.

“But there is more than cheese here?” she said, rescuing the full glass of white wine before it tipped all over her bed. She took a heady sip and set it on her nig ht table.

“The other flavors enhance the cheeses,” he explained and stepped back from her bed, taking a stance beside her with his hands folded in front like a proper waiter. The only problem was he wasn’t dressed like a proper waite r at all.

He was back in his human form. Otherwise, she wasn’t quite sure what to think as he was only wearing the black dress pants and his black button up shirt, but he hadn’t redone the buttons. His feet were bare. It was … quite a picture.

“You sure you’re not an incubus?” she quipped, feeling her chee ks blush.

He furrowed his eyebrow s. “What?”

“Are you trying to seduce me or something?” she asked. “You look like you’re getting ready for a romance novel cover phot o shoot.”

He looked down at himself as if he hadn’t realized it and then shifted on his feet, looking unsure. “I… I don’t have any other clothes. I wouldn’t even be wearing this… but I don’t know. I guess it didn’t feel right to come in without a shirt on at all.” His fingers went to the buttons and did up a couple to pull the shirt closed. That was when she noticed he had torn a couple of them off in his rush.

“What about your cooking clothes?” she asked, cocking her head and making herself focus on his face.

“They don’t really exist,” he said. “They’re just created with the body a s needed.”

Helena took a quick breath in. “Oh no! So you don’t have any other clothes unless you conj ure them?”

“Yes,” he said. “They’re gone now. Basically vanished when I took them off.”

She realized that had to be true since while the shop clerk had brought them a bag for his other clothes, she had no memory of putting them in the bag, and they certainly hadn’t taken them with when they left the clothing store. She hadn’t even noticed.

“Should I go take these off?” he asked.

“No! No, it’s fine. You look good,” then she noticed the twinkling in his eyes. “Oh shut up, you bastard, and sit down.” She indicated the other end of her bed opposite the tray. “You’re going to join m e, right?”

“If you wish,” he said and did as he was bid, taking a spot on the ot her side.

“Okay, cheese course. So what do I do first?” she asked, adjusting the blankets around her legs and focusing all her attention onto the tray.

Rafferty picked up a little card on the side and held it out to her. “They included this in the box.”

“The Four Corners of France,” she read from the top. Beneath it were listed four cheeses:

Northwest—Camembert de Normandie—a creamy cheese like Brie

Southwest—Roquefort de Midi-Pyrenees—a pungent, semi-soft b lue cheese

Southeast—Picodon de Rhone—A goat’s milk cheese that is dry and spicy, but smooth in the center

Northeast—Gruyere de Comte—cow’s milk cheese, mild and slig htly sweet

“The jam goes well with the blue cheese,” Rafferty said while she read. He was already wielding a butter knife through it. As he cut, a strong smell wafted into Helena’s nose. “It’s like Swiss cheese and blue cheese had a baby,” she said, noting the Swiss cheese-l ike holes.

“It’s blue cheese, made properly.” He held out his prepared offering, the cheese spread on one of the thin slices of bread with a bit of the jam tucked underneath in a similar way to how she had done it with the brie and jam.

Instead of taking it from him, she ducked forward and bit it from his fingers. The second her lips touched his skin, there was an explosion of tangy taste in her mouth, soothed by the calm sweet of the jam. “It’s fig,” she said around her fu ll mouth.

“Yes,” he said, pressing his fingers together a moment to rub them.

“Sorry. Did I bite you?” she asked, noting his gesture.

He cleared his throat. “No, I’m fine. I’m just glad I didn’t accidentally steal the memory from you before you got to taste it,” he muttered and moved to prepare ano ther one.

“Actually, I’ve noticed—” she tried to say, but her mouth was too full.

“Do you like it?” Rafferty continued while s he chewed.

She nodded. Before he could offer her another one, she used her free hand to redirect it toward his mouth. He barely got it open in time before the redirect upset the morsel, and her fingers continued to follow until they pressed against his lips. She giggled at her trick, but then went still as she felt the sensation moving from his lips into her fingers. Echoes of the tangy cheese and figgy sweet danced through her taste buds along with the electric sensation of hi s … kiss.