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T he flimsy door creaked loudly behind them as Rebecca and Maxwell stepped into the lobby.
The shifter’s nostrils flared with his darkening scowl, and a low growl emanated from deep in his chest. “I do not like this.”
“Well, if staying low-key and off the radar is still a priority,” she told him, “this is what we get.”
“We could have found something better.”
“You know what? You just stand there looking pretty and let me do all the talking, okay?”
He paused and turned the scowl onto her next. “You don’t think I can get us what we need?”
“Oh, I know you can. But intimidating civilians while you do it isn’t exactly at the top of our priority list right now. And I definitely wouldn’t categorize it as keeping a low profile.” Rebecca playfully nudged his arm with the back of her hand. “But if it really bothers you that much, I’ll let you get the next one.”
“What bothers me is the smell,” he growled.
“See? That’s exactly the kinda thing that’s gonna make us stand out here. Just hang back.”
Rebecca hurried toward the lobby desk, forcing herself not to scan the room like someone on the run who didn’t want to be found.
She knew Maxwell was already doing that behind her.
She prepared herself to smile and act like any other regular person about to make this exchange.
But when the woman behind the desk greeted her with a jerk of her head, loudly smacking the enormous piece of chewing gum between lips coated in garishly bright red-orange lipstick, smiling just felt too much like a chore.
“What do you need?” the woman asked, tucking strands of poorly dyed black hair behind her ear and twirling a pen between fingers decked with way too many cheap rings.
Rebecca couldn’t help but stare at the streaks of green on the woman’s fingers left by so many pieces of cheap nickel. “Just a room.”
“How long?” the woman asked, smacking out each word with her gum.
“One.” Now Rebecca stared at the woman’s lips. Did she have any idea how much noise she was making?
The woman rolled her eyes and typed with agonizing slowness across an ancient keyboard connected to an equally ancient desktop computer. “Number of guests?”
“Two.”
When the woman looked up from the keyboard, she found Maxwell standing in the lobby, and her eyes widened before she shot Rebecca a pert look. “How many beds?”
Rebecca hadn’t booked a motel room in a while, but she didn’t remember any of them requiring answers to this many questions.
“Doesn’t really matter,” she said, trying not to fidget. “Whatever you’ve got.”
“Uh-huh…” The woman smacked her gum, stared at Maxwell for an inordinately long time, then rolled her eyes again and typed some more.
Waiting for the receptionist to do her job with such agonizing slowness made Rebecca instantly antsy.
Was the lady taking this long on purpose? Or had she just never touched a computer before?
The tingling sensation across her skin when Maxwell slowly crossed the lobby toward her didn’t help. She tried to send him some indication through their connection that she wanted him to stay back, if that was even something she could do.
Either way, it didn’t seem to work.
The computer let out a choking, sputtering whir as it fought to process the request.
Maybe Rebecca should have picked something a little less off-the-grid, where employees actually took their jobs seriously.
But she’d already insisted this was the best place for them at the moment, and she couldn’t back down from that now.
Or Maxwell would be telling her, “I told you so,” first.
“Here.” The woman finally turned away from the computer to grab a physical key from the small group of them hanging on pegs along the back wall. She tossed it across the counter toward Rebecca. “Fifty bucks for the night.”
Then the woman’s gaze settled on something over Rebecca’s shoulder.
Maxwell.
Because even without turning around to look, she knew he was standing right behind her.
Ignoring him, Rebecca rifled through the duffel bag she’d picked up during their last stop at the Goodwill, among other things, and pulled out a wad of cash.
The woman behind the counter widened her eyes as she watched Rebecca count out the money. But when that money went on the counter, the receptionist hardly seemed to know the payment had been made.
She was staring at Maxwell again, her eyes widening even more as her gum-smacking grew to a fevered pitch.
Then the shifter stopped right beside Rebecca, silent and brooding and completely unaware of the fact that his decision to remain protectively at her side, even during the least dangerous interactions, affected the very obviously human civilians who saw him.
The receptionist fixed him with what she probably thought was a coy smile and shifted her weight to one side, jutting out her hip. “What brings someone like you all the way out here?”
Seriously?
“Road trip,” Maxwell growled.
The woman’s eyelids fluttered as a visible shudder rippled through her, followed by an airy giggle.
Blue Hells, this was ridiculous.
“There’s your fifty,” Rebecca said, nodding at the cash on the counter. “We good?”
“Uh-huh…” The receptionist just smacked her gum and stared at Maxwell, not even bothering to pick up the cash, let alone count it.
Maxwell turned away from the counter, and the woman behind it looked like she would either faint or crawl over that counter to leap after him.
Rebecca snatched up the key and leaned forward. “Just FYI. You got a little something there you might wanna take care of.”
When the woman finally stopped ogling the shifter, Rebecca bared her teeth and pointed at them.
The woman instantly pressed a hand to her mouth to swipe at the lipstick smudged across her teeth, without the use of a mirror, and Rebecca left the counter to march back across the lobby.
“Let’s go,” she muttered as she passed Maxwell, and he followed her back out through the creaking door without a word.
Only when they were outside again in the parking lot to scour the long stretch of the motel’s ground-floor rooms for the one they’d been given did he say anything else.
“Why are you upset?”
“More like annoyed, really.” She glanced at the key with three numbers shallowly etched into the wooden block attached to the key ring, the ink inside them nearly faded—108.
She kept walking.
“Because the place you chose does not meet your expected standards?” Maxwell asked, gazing around the parking lot. “It certainly does not meet mine.”
“You know, I wasn’t totally sure about it when the guy at Gino’s made me repeat the order three times before finally getting it right. Or when the chick at the Goodwill kept having to start over punching in the numbers because she was shaking so badly. But that awesome little song and dance back there just fully convinced me.”
Rebecca stopped at the door marked 108, the cheap brass numbers nailed there hanging askew.
“Convinced of what?” Maxwell asked.
She shoved the key into the door lock and paused to look over her shoulder at him with a brief scan of the empty parking lot for herself. “That you plus humans does not equal keeping a low profile. And that could be a big problem for us.”
He offered no reaction, standing there with his brooding mask of surly apathy covering any other reaction.
Rebecca turned back to the door only to find the key sticking in the lock.
“So from now on,” she added, jiggling the key and the door handle to get them unstuck, “if any humans are involved, Hannigan, I’ll handle the interaction. And you can stay in the car.”
“To be that much farther from you should a new threat arise in the process?” he muttered behind her. “I don’t think so.”
“Do I have to make it an order? Because if that woman in the lobby has any friends, she’ll be telling them all about the man she couldn’t stop staring at who just stood there and growled like some kinda animal.”
Dammit, did this key even go with this room?
“Humans pose no significant threat,” Maxwell rumbled. “Including her.”
“Except for the fact that they talk way more about weird things they see and can’t explain.” Rebecca grunted when the sticky key finally turned in the lock with a grinding pop, and she yanked it back out again.
“So until we know where we’re going next,” she said, turning the doorknob, “it’s safer that neither of us stands out to anyone. Wherever we are.”
Though she would have bet none of the humans who’d noticed Maxwell could have recalled or described anything about the woman with him. If they’d even noticed her at all.
The door squealed loudly when she shoved it open.
“Are you expecting many more necessary human interactions?” Maxwell asked.
“Not at the moment.” She stooped to pick up the duffel bag at her feet. “Never thought you and I would be checking into a motel room together, either, so there’s that…”
She hauled the bag strap over her shoulder and headed for the open door, but Maxwell stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and another growl.
“Let me clear it first.” He didn’t wait for permission or any response at all before slipping past her into the room, immediately inspecting every dark corner, dresser drawer, and inside the small attached bathroom.
Rolling her eyes, Rebecca counted to five, then walked into the room and swung the door shut behind her with a louder bang than she’d intended.
At the sound, Maxwell burst back through the open bathroom door, scowling. “I said I would clear it first.”
“It’s a human motel, Hannigan.” She tossed the duffel bag on the floor. “What kinda traps could possibly be waiting for us? Look. We’ve got a tiny bathroom. A dresser that’s about to fall apart. A seriously outdated TV that wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t even turn on. And…”
She paused. “One bed.”
That last observation hung in the air between them for a few seconds, then Maxwell cleared his throat and slowly emerged from the bathroom. “We cannot be too careful.”
Realizing she’d been staring at that one queen-sized bed, for which she’d paid a whole fifty bucks, Rebecca blinked quickly and swallowed, “Or, in a place like this, we could just call it overkill. You hungry?”
“Not particularly.”
“We should still eat something.” Turning away from the bed, she scanned the room and suddenly realized this was the first time she and the shifter had stood together in any kind of bedroom. Or at least any room where a bed was present.
She didn’t want to think about that anymore.
“Food’s out in the car,” she said. “I’ll be right—”
Maxwell shot past her in a flurry of clomping footsteps, reached the door first, and opened it. “I’ll get it. You stay here.”
Then the door closed behind him, and Rebecca was left there to wait.
She wasn’t quite sure why he seemed so on edge in every human-run place they’d visited around the city today, but it seemed best to let him play out his Head-of-Security bodyguard duties anyway.
Besides, something told her that until Rowan showed up and they finally headed off for that prophecy, things would remain tense, on edge, and slightly awkward, no matter where they were.
She turned slowly, and her gaze fell on the queen-sized bed made up quickly and sloppily, the bedspread wrinkled, and wondered if she should have specifically requested a room with two .
R ebecca watched Maxwell eat his first, second, and third piece of pizza with a scowl ever-present on his face, nostrils flaring the whole time. Only when he reached for his fourth from the box did she break the silence.
“Is there something wrong with the food that I haven’t picked up on yet?” she asked, glancing at the half-eaten slice in her own hand.
Maxwell shot her a quick look and murmured, “Not particularly.”
Then he took another enormous bite and chewed silently.
“Then why do you look like someone’s forcing you to eat a plate of worms?” she asked. “I think it’s actually pretty decent.”
“It’s nothing,” he muttered with visibly great effort, swallowing and staring at the thick, greasy slice. “It’s fine. Just…not my favorite.”
Rebecca laughed. “You grew up just outside Chicago, and you’re not a fan of deep dish.”
“Not a fan of pizza .”
“What? Who doesn’t like pizza?”
Maxwell stared at the thick layer of cheese without expression. “Me.”
Then he bit off almost half the slice and still looked miserable.
“Seriously?” Rebecca set hers down on the napkin beside her on the floor and gaped at him. “Then why are you eating it?”
“This is what we have,” he said. “And I’m hungry.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before we got the pizza?”
“You told me to stop at Gino’s East,” he replied blandly.
“Well I wouldn’t have suggested it if I knew you didn’t like it…”
“It’s food.”
“It’s not just food when you look like you’re being tortured while eating it, Hannigan.”
He swallowed his bite, paused, then looked up at her from his seat on the floor across the half-empty pizza box. “This is not the first time I have ignored my preferences for what was best at the time. Nor do I imagine it will be the last.”
Puffing out a sigh, Rebecca stared at her own slice in front of her.
He wasn’t going to budge on this one, was he?
And who didn’t like pizza?
The instant flush rising in her cheeks and the burning tingle accompanying it told her he was watching her again.
“Fine,” she said, pretending she didn’t feel all of it. “Next time we go out for food, you pick the place.”
“Unnecessary.”
“Not when I have to sit here watching you choke it down and hating every bite while I’m trying to enjoy it.”
When he looked sharply up at her, his silver eyes flashed. “Should I move to that corner on the other side of the bed so you won’t have to?”
She glared at him.
But then the facade of Maxwell’s stony expressionless broke, and he snorted.
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Are you screwing with me?”
“I would never,” he muttered.
Watching him, she lifted the pizza for another bite, paused, then lowered it again before asking, “Do you really not like pizza?”
“ That is the truth.” Then jammed the rest of it into his mouth.
“Noted. No more pizza.”
They ate the whole thing anyway, the steep silence in the motel room broken only by the constant sound of chewing and swallowing or Maxwell chugging down a bottle of water halfway through.
And when the food was gone, that silence remained.
Then it seemed nothing they’d been through together had ever been as awkward or uncomfortable as sitting here, alone, with nothing else to do for the time being.
They’d already gone by the Nexus vault to pick up more emergency funds and a few other odds and ends. They’d replaced their clothes and picked up a few other necessities and creature comforts at the Goodwill. Something about where they were now, though, felt more off, more tense, than anywhere else they’d been.
Apparently, lying low at a motel and waiting for word from the Blackmoon Elf didn’t lend itself to a whole lot of conversation. Even when they clearly had plenty of time for it.
Or maybe it was the fact that they’d stopped at a motel to share a room for the night with one queen-sized bed.
Probably a combination of both.
And neither of them had any idea how long this silent stasis of waiting for Rowan with no other missions or field ops or emergencies to fill their time was going to last.
After cleaning up the empty pizza box and napkins and double checking that everything else they needed was still in the duffel bag, Rebecca found herself wishing they had something else to do.
They’d had more than enough to discuss during their walk through the trees and had finally found the time to touch on it all.
But now, everything was different.
Had they really already run out of things to talk about now that no pressing emergency existed?
Was this just as insufferable for him as it was for her?
They took turns in the shower, which only made this more uncomfortable and surprisingly tense when Rebecca felt his every pacing footstep across the motel room, from where she stood in the shower with the bathroom door closed, and she didn’t know what to do with herself when they switched and she waited for him.
She sat on the bed once for comfort’s sake but immediately scrambled off it when it occurred to her that he might see it as a suggestive invitation, and that certainly wasn’t what she wanted.
Or was it?
Probably, yes, but not like that. Not here.
And why was she thinking about this now and worrying herself over it for no reason?
It wasn’t like she’d spent every single night during her few centuries of hiding on Earth completely alone.
But none of those one-night stands with passing strangers had ever wound her up this tightly.
Because she hadn’t cared about any of them. That was why.
With Maxwell, it was different.
And so fucking complicated…
So she sat in the room’s single armchair badly in need of a new upholstery job, slumped her forearms over the scratchy armrests, leaned back, and closed her eyes.
She hadn’t really slept in days, and even the lumpy armchair provided enough comfort and rest for her to start drifting off so she could catch up on some of it.
But then the bathroom door squealed open, and Maxwell walked out, towel-drying his hair with one hand.
Rebecca immediately opened her eyes.
At least he’d put clothes on first.
He glanced her way, leaned back into the bathroom to hang up the towel, then walked slowly around the room with a sigh. When his gaze landed on her again, she almost squirmed beneath it.
“Did something happen?” he asked.
“What? No. It’s just… I don’t like waiting.”
“Clearly.” He could have gone to the bed, or if there’d been another chair, he might have sat in that instead. But Maxwell stood by the open bathroom door, as silent and emotionless as a shifter statue, and said nothing else.
If they kept going like this, it wouldn’t get any better, would it?
Or maybe they just needed more than a few stolen minutes of sleep at a time.
Rebecca closed her eyes again and hoped that was it. Just a little more sleep…
A loud, muffled buzzing ripped her out of the space just between full alertness and drifting off, and she forced her heavy eyelids open as Maxwell pulled his cell phone from his pocket to answer the incoming call.
“Hannigan.”
Rebecca closed her eyes again and had to start all over trying to relax.
“Yes. That is unknown at the moment. Unlikely. Hold on.”
The next thing she knew, he was clearing his throat right in front of her.
Rebecca grudgingly opened her eyes.
“It’s Nyx,” he said, holding his phone toward her.
Frowning, she took the phone and pressed it to her ear. “Nyx?”
“Hey, Knox. Sorry to bother you, but, uh… Well, Zida said you and Hannigan went out to handle some important stuff, which is cool and all. I get it. But I really think we need to talk.”
Uh-oh.
This did not sound like a break from constant emergency interruptions.
This sounded like it was about to get bad.