Page 28 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Florentine

B rice has been silent since we left the castle, and it feels weird.

I shouldn’t complain though, because him being silent means he’s not antagonizing me for once.

But it also makes me think of my dream and really, I shouldn’t.

Maybe that cold shower I took before getting dressed wasn’t enough.

I thought it would be enough.

But when I saw him in his casual clothes, I realized I was delusional.

Because the man cleans up so freaking well. There is absolutely no way in hell I would tell him though, but it still made me—still makes me—hot.

I also realized I needed a different outfit and since I have been eying that very dress for a while, I decided to order it.

I heard his holo vibrate. I know that he knows I bought it with his money, but I really don’t care.

He could have told me that we were going out and not just eating in the dining room, I would have looked for other outfits—that might have been less expensive—but it was the only dress I could think of and I panic-bought it.

Sue me.

Now I feel like maybe I went overboard, but there is no way I’m going to let him find out.

He hasn’t commented on it yet, so I’m just going to pretend it’s all perfectly normal.

Very adult behavior of me, truly, I think to myself with sarcasm.

We arrive at the restaurant, and Brice holds the door open for me.

I walk before him and I’m surprised by the small size of the restaurant and the cozy atmosphere. I don’t know why but I was expecting the man to like high-end restaurants, and I thought we were going to eat in one of those posh restaurants I’ve never had the money to try.

Am I disappointed? Maybe a bit, but then I remember how tired I am and how I don't know how to behave when I have this level of exhaustion—what? You thought it was new? Nah, I have no self-respect for my sleep schedule—and I concede that it might be better to be somewhere no one is going to give me side eye because I have my elbows on the table or because I’m not using the right fork or spoon.

“Thanks Franck,” I hear Brice say to someone at the back of the restaurant.

“You know that I will always be open for you, Brice,” an older man who approaches us answers.

If he’s human, he’s probably in his sixties, sports a big salt-and-pepper mustache that hides thin lips and he has dark brown eyes that are almost completely hidden by wrinkles that show off how much he’s smiled in his life.

It takes me a minute—and I’ll blame it on the sleep deprivation—to realize why the man said that he would always stay open for Brice.

The restaurant is empty.

I look at my holo and realize it’s ten thirty-six in the evening and the restaurant was probably about to close and yet Brice asked its owner to stay open for us.

He didn’t rush me either.

This evening is so very confusing for me but I still don’t comment on it.

Franck sits us at the back of the restaurant on the opposite side of the kitchen in the quietest part and lights up the menu at the table before returning to the chair that is positioned next to the kitchen entrance.

That's when I finally look at the menu. Pizzas. We’re at a pizzeria.

My stomach grumbles and I'm ecstatic that we didn’t go to one of those fancy restaurants because I could eat an entire cow right now—maybe not literally obviously, but the idea is that I’m starving and those bite size plates wouldn’t work tonight for sure.

Everything looks fabulous, and it takes me longer than I thought to finally settle on a choice. Four cheese pizza, because cheese is the solution to everything.

“What did you do to him to keep the restaurant open?” I ask Brice.

Maybe I didn't like his silence as much as I’d like to think after all.

“He used to be the castle‘s cook when it belonged to the birds. He saw me at my worst,” Brice says before adding. “I didn’t free him, but he got freed when Elhyor’s team rescued me and my men, so he always says that without me he would still be serving the evil angels.”

“So he thinks you’re some kind of hero and you let him think that?” I say. I’m not even sure if I wanted this sentence to be a question, but in the end it sounds more like an affirmation. One that is definitely not flattering for the man in front of me.

“I don’t let him think anything,” Brice answers with a bored tone.

“He knows I’m not the one who freed him and I don’t usually bother him outside of opening hours.

But, I don’t know if you noticed, it’s quite late.

Most restaurants, if not all of them, are closed, and no one is in the kitchens in the castle at this time either, so I didn’t have a lot of choices if I wanted you to eat a proper meal. ”

He adds a pointed look at the end of his sentence just to make me feel like I’m being petulant, and maybe I am, but I don't get to talk about it because our pizzas arrive at that moment.

And it smells so freaking good. I need to be careful or I’m going to drool before even starting to eat the pizza.

Brice cuts his and starts to eat it like a civilized person.

“You’re losing part of the appeal,” I say as I shake my head. I feel my curls bounce around it and tuck what fell into my eyes behind my ear.

When I look at Brice again, he’s not cutting his pizza anymore. His attention is wholly on me.

“And what should be the appeal?” he asks me, and I’m pretty sure he’s now trying to sound bored, but the way his eyes are piercing me right now makes me feel something completely different.

I want to squirm under his gaze, but I manage to stay put and answer.

“The appeal is that you shouldn’t have to use your silverware to eat pizza,” I say as I cut the pizza in six and bring one of the slices to my mouth.

The cheese is melted so perfectly that it makes filaments linking the slice to the rest of the pizza and I’m probably—most likely—making a mess of myself.

“And yet you had to cut your pizza to eat with your fingers,” Brice answers with a smirk.

If he thinks he can annoy me with this, he can think again. Because, cheese. I don’t even put the slice back on my plate before talking again.

”I could have done it without cutting by just folding the pizza in four, but I didn’t think you were ready for the show,” I tell him and I’m surprised to see that the man almost chokes on the water he was drinking at my words.

I can’t help but laugh at the sight. He doesn’t look so stern and put together now.

“You’re a menace, Miss Furious,” Brice says when he finally finishes swallowing what was in his mouth when he choked.

“Why, thank you,” I answer him as I bite eagerly into my pizza again.

It’s Brice’s turn to shake his head and the movement brings my attention to his forehead and that’s when I see it, the thin white line that’s jagged at his hairline, and it sobers me up quickly.

It’s often easy enough to forget why I’m currently working for him.

He might be an asshole, but it could easily be chalked up to a personality trait, but this line, this small line that didn’t properly heal—when you know shifters can basically heal from anything—is a stark reminder that I’m not just toying with holo-puters this time.

Brice catches where my eyes strayed and I don’t know what I expected—him to hide it and change the conversation subject maybe—but he grabs my hand—the one that isn’t currently holding a slice of pizza—over the table and brings it to his forehead.

“It’s ugly, isn’t it?” he asks as I trace the thin line with my fingers. I can feel under the pad of my index finger that it doesn’t just look jagged, it is, and I wonder if they kept cutting over and over again when he was on that hateful table in the lab.

In the end, I’m the one who needs the change in conversation, because the thought of seeing him cut over and over is making me nauseous.

I better get used to it, though, because there is no plan that doesn’t include me being in the room when the man will be cut open again.

“How old are you?” I ask, because that’s the first question that came to my mind.

I’ve been curious. Shape-shifters don’t age the same way as humans after all and I think not even all species age at the same rate either, so it had me wondering.

He looks to be in his early forties, but I’m pretty sure he is way older than that.

“One hundred and forty-seven,” he answers and I’m freaking glad that I wasn't drinking because he sure as hell would have been covered in water right now.

What the fuck? One hundred and forty-seven? How is that possible?

“Bats age slowly,” Brice answers, and I realize belatedly that I actually asked all of those questions out loud.

“Wait, how old is Cassiopé?” I ask, and this time I have no idea where the question came from. Brice still answers me, like this question is completely normal.

“Twenty-eight.”

She looks to be in her early twenties, so it’s not far off, which makes me think that the way they age isn’t linear, and my weird mind is already tracing graphics with data so that I could actually make an approximation.

Yeah, yeah, I know, like I said, weird.

“What are you thinking about?” Brice asks.

“Nothing.”

“Liar,” he counters. “When you’re thinking too hard, your nose bunches up and your eyebrows try to meet. It’s the same look you have when you’re working in the lab.”

“My eyebrows don’t try to meet,” I sputter, trying to hold onto the only thing that was relatively safe—and could be meant as an attack—in these sentences, because knowing Brice has observed me enough in the short period I’ve been in the castle to know this about me is unnerving.