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BONUS POV: MONIQUE

Monique had entertained some shady characters in her bar. People she’d had to cut off, people she’d had to kick out, people she’d had to ask her bouncer to keep an eye out for after closing, just to make sure they hadn’t come back with a switchblade with her name on it.

Basically, she was no stranger to trouble. It was impossible to own a dive bar and not be at least tangentially familiar with it.

But she’d never had someone come into her bar who set her hair on end quite like this Lucien guy.

It wasn’t just the freaky eyes and elongated canines that Jamie kept insisting were some sort of method acting choice.

It was something more. Something about his whole damn presence.

For all that Lucien had style, and his words dripped in a chic French accent, there was something…

other about him. Like he didn’t quite fit with the rest of humanity.

Like maybe he was more predator than person.

And Jamie was smitten with him.

It would have been obvious even without Jamie’s talk about finding “the One.” It was in the way Jamie looked at the guy, the bounce in his step as he served patrons who couldn’t decide whether to drool over the bright-eyed punk with green hair and a devastating smile, or the brooding beefcake eyeing that very same punk like he was dinner.

Because that was how this Lucien guy looked at Jamie. Like he wanted to consume him.

Monique was pretty certain, if she let both of them stay in her bar until the end of the night, she was going to end up with either a very bloody brawl or a very public fuck on her hands.

From the look of him, Lucien couldn’t seem to decide whether to bend Jamie over the bar or slam his admirers into the ground and pop their skulls like grapes.

Bad news. Bad fucking news.

But Jamie was into it in a big way. Into him. And if there was anyone Monique knew who was deserving of some over-the-top adoration, it was Jamie. How someone so bright and so charming could suffer from such deep loneliness was a mystery. Or it would have been, if not for Jamie’s…peculiarities.

As it was, Monique knew the reason Jamie set himself apart, the why behind him holding himself back from making new friends or collecting new lovers.

It didn’t make it any less heartbreaking to see.

Jamie was a capital G Good Person. And while this Lucien guy seemed like the very definition of not good people, he was apparently Jamie’s choice.

So Monique prepared to make nice with the monster lurking in her bar and grabbed a bottle of mid-shelf whiskey, sauntering over to where Lucien was sitting.

“Jamie said part of his payment tonight was keeping you topped off,” she told him as she poured more whiskey in his glass, keeping her voice light and friendly. “Said you could handle your liquor.”

“How generous,” Lucien murmured.

It wasn’t a thank-you; that was for sure.

“Isn’t it though?” Monique turned to put the bottle back, using the brief break in eye contact to steel her nerves.

When she felt capable of keeping her voice even and her gaze sharp, she whirled back around, hand on her hip.

“Now seems like a good time to ask you about your intentions toward my best guy.”

Because if this Lucien guy was just in this for a quick fuck, no way was Monique letting Jamie get involved.

Lucien shot her a smirk, the expression transforming his face from creepy to creepy-but-fucking-hot.

Monique got it, okay? She was as gay as gay could be, but she knew what an attractive man looked like. On top of that, this Lucien had charisma. A dark fucking charisma, that was for sure, but charisma all the same. Factor in Jamie’s natural charm, and the two of them would be a lethal combination.

“I have all the intentions when it comes to Jamie, I assure you,” Lucien practically purred.

It sounded a little like something Jamie would say, but Monique refused to crack a smile. “Mm.” She gestured to Lucien’s all-black eyes. “Always in costume, I see. You’re a real method actor.”

It was suspicious, was what it was. His eyes. His teeth. Monique wasn’t exactly sure what she was suspecting him of though. Was he one of those guys who altered his appearance so facial recognition software couldn’t pick him up? A conspiracy theorist masquerading as an actor?

The idea was too stupid to contemplate seriously, so Monique threw it out. She kept hold of the distrust though. That part felt solid.

“Why, yes.” Lucien took a sip of his drink, licking the whiskey off his lips, and then leaned over the bar, voice low. “Shall I show you the other ways I remain in character?”

Monique could almost swear, for a moment, that something other shifted in that black gaze.

He smelled strange too. Not bad, but there was an edge to his scent. Something metallic. Some new French cologne?

With the sixth sense of someone born for trouble, Jamie was back, edging between them. “Behave,” he teased, like Lucien was more house cat than feral panther.

And Lucien…melted. He sat back on his stool and stared at Jamie like he was water in the—well, in the desert, for lack of a better metaphor. Like he’d never seen anything so perfect and necessary before in his life. And the way Jamie stared back at him wasn’t much different.

Monique suddenly felt very much the third wheel. Something about the way those two interacted was so…intimate, for all that they were in public.

Monique turned, leaving them to it.

It was that look —the way Lucien stared at Jamie like he was a literal fucking angel from heaven and not a scrappy Tucson boy with daddy issues and a penchant for boxed hair dye—that was the only reason Monique wasn’t trying to smuggle Jamie out of the city and put him in some Lucien-specific witness protection program.

Maybe it was still a mistake to let him pursue this, but there wasn’t much Monique could do about it, if she was being honest with herself. Jamie knew his mind. He always had. Monique could only hope he was reading this Lucien guy correctly.

For her part…

Monique would keep crossing her fingers she never came across Lucien alone at night in any dark alleyways. Something told her she might not survive the ordeal.

Or maybe she just needed her own shot of whiskey.