Page 38 of The Sin Eater
“Yeah, but—” The whole thing makes me shudder. “I need some coffee.” He’d responded with confusion until I’d told him toxic was my middle name. Since then, silence.
“You should get some for Damon, too.”
That straightens my shoulders. “Why?”
She blinks a couple of times, giving me the kind of stern look she had to have learned in the military. “Because you’re in a shitty mood and you need to apologize, stupid. That’s your new name, by the way. Stupid. For fuck’s sake, you actually like this guy and you went out of your way to fuck it up.”
“I don’t like him.” The words sound more like a bleat. She doesn’t answer. Her eye roll is eloquent enough.
“I mean, I don’tlike-like him.”
She raises a single eyebrow.
I get off the chair and pat my pocket to make sure I have my phone. “I don’t even know what he drinks.”
Her expression takes on an air of long-suffering patience. “Jett will.”
“I can’t ask Jett.”
Pointing at the door, she says simply, “Go.”
I don’t move. “I don’t even know if Damon’s working today.”
She’s got her hair pulled back in a super-tight ponytail, and she grabs hold of it and yanks, like she wants to cause herself more pain than I’m causing her. “You’re hopeless. You know that, right?”
I blink at her a couple times. She rolls back to the desk and picks up the phone, punching the zero. “Can you connect me to the security desk in the ER?” There’s a pause, and I come close to making a break for it.
“Hi, Rory, is Damon Clemens working today? He is? No, I don’t need to talk to him. Thanks so much.”
By the time she hangs up, I’m pretty sure my cheeks are the color of tomatoes. She doesn’t look at me, simply flicking her hand toward the door. “Go,” she says, her attention on the desktop. “You’ve got half an hour before we have to start prepping for the next case, and you can bring me a tall London Fog as a thank you.”
Could I be any more embarrassed? I don’t think so. I leave before I find new and unique ways to make an ass of myself.
If I stop for a smoke before I hit the Brew, I might actually be calm enough to order. The weather’s not too shitty. Cold but not actively raining, and tucked in between two buildings, I’m out of the wind. I hold my cigarette in cupped hands like that little cherry is going to warm my frozen fingers and ponder my life choices.
Doesn’t take me long to decide that the only thing that’d make today worse would be eating sin, and since I’ve done that fairly recently, I’m safe. Unless they bring in a corpse who can talk to me. That new wrinkle, the one I don’t yet understand. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, I squash it. Jesus Christ, I should know better than to tempt fate like that.
My nails could be cleaner. They’re not as dirty as James Smith’s nails, which reminds me that I still have bits of him in my apartment, which twists the tension in my gut that extra bitharder. I take a drag, willing the tar and nicotine to calm me down. It doesn’t work.
Face it, dumbass, you fucked up. I’ve been avoiding those words ever since Damon left my apartment, and now they settle in like they’re going to be here a while. I did fuck up, and since my social skills are lacking, I should probably take Geneva’s advice. “Coffee drinks for everybody,” I mutter, stubbing out my cigarette and picking up the butt.
Can’t leave trash around. Should probably throw out James Smith’s extras, too. I don’t need souvenirs.
The Brew is blissfully warm and relatively empty. There’s a guy at the bar talking with Jett, and a pair of lesbians in the corner planning world domination or something, but otherwise it’s quiet. I approach the counter, admiring the rainbow ribbons braided into Jett’s dreads, and wait for their conversation to pause.
“Have you met Micah?” Jett asks without missing a beat. “Ezra, this is Micah. Micah, Ezra. There. Now we all know each other.”
Micah’s cute, with a retro vibe and a nice, round ass.Sue me. I notice the important stuff. He raises his cup and nods at Jett. “I need to take off, so—”
“Sure, sure,” Jett says. “I was just going to ask Ezra what he thought of the Carnival.“
I freeze. “Yeah, it was a thing, I guess.”
Micah’s grin is several degrees warmer than it was at first. “It is athing, for sure.”
“You went too?”
“Me and the Carnival of Mysteries go way back.” He must see something in me that intrigues him, because he gives me a closer look. “It can be a lot.”