Read Love for the Cold-Blooded Online
Authors: Alex Gabriel
“No worries, man. Who’m I gonna tell, right? I mean, obviously I’m not gonna tell anyone.”
Hang on. Why had he said that? Star Knight was one of the most powerful hoagies in history, and weaknesses as easy to exploit as salt and tomatoes were definitely not something Pat should be keeping to himself.
But Nick let out a huge breath, the tense line of his shoulders relaxing once again into a comfortable slump, and Pat couldn’t find it in himself to regret his oath.
Whatever, Star Knight would just crash into even more buildings than usual if people got him drunk all the time. The Ace Tower had been an eyesore whose destruction Pat couldn’t regret one bit, particularly since everyone had evacuated the thing in time, but Pat didn’t want to be responsible for actually important buildings going the way of the dinosaur.
Pat crammed his mouth full of one last bite of crust and tomato treasure before ceremoniously slamming the box shut. Nick barely snatched back his fingers in time to avoid trapping them in the cardboard lid, and Pat caught a dirty glance as he stood up to fold the box (pizza remains and all) in half and stick it into the trash can next to their bench. He just raised his eyebrows, giving Nick an unrepentant grin. Someone who wasn’t going to eat shouldn’t have been touching the food in the first place.
~~~~~
N
ick was subdued for a little while, but by the time the next bus arrived, Pat had drawn him into an argument on which dinosaur was the coolest. Nick had chosen the super-boring allosaurus (could he possibly be more wrong?), and all he had to say about Pat’s clearly superior choice of the pteranodon was “pteranodons are not dinosaurs”. He even used this really superior, judgey tone. What was wrong with the dude, honestly.
“Pteranodons are dinosaurs in spirit,” Pat argued. “Not to mention in common opinion. Ask anyone. You’re just trying to deflect the argument because huge flying reptiles with a beak that’s larger than your whole body are about fifty times as cool as boring, plodding old allosaurs.”
Nick scoffed — no really, he actually scoffed out loud. He topped off this feat of lameness with a really snooty look down the side of his nose. “Not everything is up to popular vote, Patrick.”
Luckily for Nick, this was when they arrived at their stop, or Pat would have delivered the crushing come-back he’d have been sure to come up with in the next second or three.
Back at Pat’s place, Nick hovered awkwardly just inside the door while Pat retrieved his shirt, tie and suit jacket. Nick’s odd awkwardness was catching, so Pat went to take a quick leak and throw some water on his face. In the tiny mirror above his sink, Pat’s face was lightly flushed with alcohol and good company. The skin around his lips was rosy and tender to the touch from beard burn, and his hair was an even messier mop of curls than usual. He gave it a quick, half-hearted finger-combing before giving it up as a bad job.
Nick had changed back into his own stuff when Pat rejoined him in the living room. The borrowed flannel shirt was folded neatly over his arm, and he wouldn’t meet Pat’s eyes when he held it out to him. Nick had really long eyelashes, inky against the skin of his cheeks. He was gorgeous, and Pat still had the taste of his mouth and skin on his tongue, the heady warmth of his harsh, unsteady breath in his ears.
Should Pat be kissing Nick, or offering to make him a cup of coffee, or…
Pat nervously rubbed his fingertips over the shirt’s worn fabric. He didn’t have a lot of experience with bringing hot people back to his place. Still, clearly Nick had even less experience with being the hot person brought back to someone’s place. In a way, that was kind of reassuring.
“Hey,” he said softly, and waited until Nick had raised his eyes to meet Pat’s. He didn’t look shy, exactly; more uncertain. Pat could work with that.
He reached out to bump one fist gently against Nick’s shoulder. “I had a really great time tonight.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, with a half-second delay. “Yes. So did I.”
And then Nick’s cheek was warm and soft beneath Pat’s lips, rough with a hint of stubble. A slight hint of his expensive cologne clung still, overlaid by beer and tomato sauce and the more subtle, natural scent of Nick.
As he leaned back Pat’s breath caught slightly, for no reason he could easily name. It might have been Nick’s dark eyes or focused attention, or the way he’d tilted his head a little in anticipation of a kiss to the mouth; maybe even the curve of his mouth as it curved into a small, private smile.
“See you soon?” Pat hadn’t meant to make it a question, but that’s what it came out as.
Nick nodded with no delay at all. The previously military-straight line of his back had relaxed into a more natural posture.
Pat reached around him to open the door. Nick didn’t turn around, but backed out into the corridor instead, like Pat was holding a laser on him or something.
“I’ll be going, then.” Nick was still smiling that tiny, almost secretive smile. He looked like a moron, but tragically, it wasn’t a bad look on him.
Pat nodded, and entirely failed to close the door. They stared at each other like the matched pair of morons they were for another minute before Nick remembered that he was leaving.
When Nick glanced back before he turned the corner to the elevator, Pat still hadn’t managed to close the door, and was subjected to a dorky little wave that should have made Nick explode in spontaneous, embarrassment-fueled combustion on the spot. Since it didn’t, though, Pat had no choice but to reciprocate, although he chose the only cool option of fist-pumping.
Okay, that had been weird. Not the fist-pump — that had been perfectly cool, and so by definition non-weird. No, it was the awkwardness, cheek-kissing and dumb smiling that was giving Pat trouble. Why hadn’t they had sex? Pat was reasonably certain Nick would have been up for it; had probably even been expecting it, seeing as how they’d all but boned in front of half a fraternity mere hours earlier.
But… it hadn’t felt right, and Pat trusted his instincts. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have liked to have sex with Nick again — duh, he wasn’t stupid, and hadn’t lost his memory either. It just hadn’t been the right time.
~~~~~
D
ad called just when Pat was getting up from his morning nap. The connection was bad — it faded in and out constantly, and there was a lot of white noise. Even so, the excitement and enthusiasm in Dad’s voice was impossible to miss. “Your mom’s waking up soon, Pat!” he shouted, words thinned down to a crackling whisper by the connection. “Her old skin has already begun to slough away. She’s going to be so terrible in her beauty! She’ll need a bit longer than last time since she’s much larger now, but we’ll be ready to roll in a few months.”
“That’s great, Dad!” Pat didn’t have to shout, fortunately; the sound-proofing in his apartment wasn’t great. “Have you told the others yet?”
“Yes, and Hell’s assured me everything’s going great at your end — she’s keeping everything running smoothly while both Mom and I are gone. I’m so impressed with how she’s on top of things, Pat. She’s going to be a great challenger in her own right soon.”
It was impossible to disagree with that, because yes, Hell was amazing, and would obviously try to take over the world one day. Even so, Pat faltered a little at the familiar hint of hope in Dad’s tone; the tiny spark of expectation that maybe, Pat would spontaneously change his mind about everything he wanted from life.
Pat knew his dad wasn’t disappointed in him. Not really, anyway. He guessed it was just difficult for someone like Dad to truly understand that anything could be as rewarding as being a challenger. He’d probably never entirely stop expecting Pat to wake up one day with an insatiable hunger for conquest burning in his chest.
“She sure will,” Pat answered, with only a slight delay. “So you don’t need me to do anything?”
“No, no, Hell has it well in hand. You’re busy with your studies, anyway. Oh, and Cea tells me you’ve picked up an additional job? I didn’t really understand when she explained what it was, though…”
Pat was going to kill Cea. Slowly. Or at least lock her in the bathroom and blast her for hours on end with the most saccharine, insipid collection of 80s pop he could find on short notice. “Uh,” he said, eloquently. “It’s just — some more stuff for the Andersen Estate. They needed someone to do odd jobs from time to time, run errands and whatever.”
Wow, Pat was such a bad liar. And of course Dad made an interested noise (kind of a shouted “ah”) at the mention of Pat’s work for the Andersen Estate. “Anything ever come of that in terms of information on the Paladin?”
“Nah,” Pat said, just a hair too quickly. “Nothing.”
It was what he always said, and it was true enough. Wasn’t like the kitchen was info central, and the AI was a serious badass when it came to security. But Pat hadn’t taken the job to snoop, anyway — he’d just needed something he could squeeze into his schedule. He wasn’t some kind of spy for the challenger network. He was just an urban design student trying to make ends meet.
Fortunately, his dad seemed satisfied with Pat’s reply. He dropped the subject and asked after Pat’s studies instead, seeming genuinely interested in Pat’s paper on the garden city movement.
“I know I can trust you to spare some time for the fun side of life while you’re young.” Dad laughed, the sound almost completely swallowed by white noise; Pat knew his laugh by heart, though, and heard it anyway. “Sometimes I wish your sisters would take a page out of your book. They are so serious! Well, except Zen, she has her moments. But don’t go overboard, Pat. You know what matters in the end.”
Pat laughed. “Family, the loyalty of your minions, and a reliable logistics support system?”
“That, too,” Pat’s dad shot back, now unexpectedly somber — as somber as possible, at least, when speaking in a shout. “But in this case, I was referring to a solid education, good health, and true friends.”
Pat took a moment to clear his throat. “Yeah. I’m… yeah. On it, Dad.”
“I’ll let you go in a moment — I have to check on the temperature in the skinning chamber. But tell me, Patpat, is there anyone special in your life?”
“No,” Pat said automatically, and then hesitated. “Well, I don’t — there’s just. But I guess, no, not really.”
Dad didn’t say anything for a while, letting the echo of Pat’s babbling and the low rush of static on the line speak for him. It was an eloquent commentary. Pat could see his father’s expression as clearly as if he’d been standing right in front of Pat. “What do your sisters say about it?”
Pat snorted. “Nothing. I can’t talk to them about this kind of thing — they’d tease me to death.”
“They won’t tease if it’s important, Pat.”
That wasn’t completely true, but whatever.
The static-strewn silence stretched on for much longer this time. Pat noticed he was clutching the phone rather hard, and consciously relaxed his hold. Good thing he didn’t have superstrength, or he’d be breaking stuff all the time. “Uh,” he said, when he couldn’t leave the silence to itself anymore. “I don’t know if it’s important yet. You know?”
It was only when he heard his own words echo in his ears, backlit by the ambient noise of a connection halfway around the world to a jungle village near the cavern where his father was watching over his hibernating mother as she shed her human skin, preparing to rise up in glory to seize the world in the scaled grip of her fist…
That’s when Pat realized that this thing with Nick, whatever it was, had the potential to become important. Might even be important already.
He stunned himself near-speechless with the unexpectedness of the revelation. It was a good thing the conversation with his father was already mostly over, and all there was left to do was to say goodbye.
Chapter Seven
Try to remember you’re in the process of taking over the world.
I
n the evening, Pat rode his bike to the Andersen estate. The ride took nearly an hour if he put in effort and didn’t dawdle, and Pat usually took the bus. This, however, was clearly a bike day. The combination of icy wind and exertion cleared his head, gave him time to think. Gods knew there were a lot of things that needed sorting right now.
It was a beautiful route, leading through the narrow, picturesque streets of the old town to the river. There were some beautiful buildings down here — villas, a church, an old brick waterworks that looked like a small castle, and had served as the seat for municipal government for a while. The tree-lined river promenade led all the way through town, from the outskirts through the center and back out again to the Riverside district, where a handful of elegant older villas competed with several modern mansions like Nick’s.
Pat whipped onto the promenade and picked up speed to swerve past a small group of joggers. As always, he gave himself a moment to admire the clean lines of the old university library, wreathed in ivy and the quiet elegance of centuries. Then he turned his head the other way, out over the water, and almost ran over a couple that shouted unfriendly names after him.
There was a glow over the water, lying close to the river’s surface like a colorless, luminescent mist. Pat had never seen anything like it. It was entirely insubstantial, more like a reflection than anything else… but a reflection of what, Pat couldn’t say.
The air was strange by the river, as well. All the hair on Pat’s arms was standing up, a low crackle building in his ears as the hair on his head began to plaster itself to his brow and cheeks with static electricity.
Pat sped up until he was flying down the promenade at breakneck speed. A good number of people were out and about, jogging or walking their dogs or merely enjoying the crisp blue winter evening. None of them was looking at the water with anything but idle appreciation. Had anyone else had been able to see the glow, Pat was sure they would have reacted in some way — if only to stare fixedly, or retreat from the river, or even climb over the railing and try to get a closer look.
By the time Pat reached the Andersen Estate, he was itchy and jittery, restless energy sparking through him like distant fireworks. He dismounted by the estate’s river gate and waved into the camera. The gate clicked open before he’d even rung the bell, which Pat interpreted as a sign of welcome as well as one of an alert security detail.