The Walls of Jericho

Misled

It’s weird going to bed later that night without Channing.

We’ve been apart other nights in the preceding month since we came to Tassler house, but somehow this little FaceTime venture into Naughtytown has made the separation more difficult to bear. I toss and turn, wake in the night and find my hand unconsciously searching his side of the bed for him in vain.

By the time I wake to the rotten little birds singing at first light and stumble out of bed to the kitchen, Rebecca has taken care of the first issue I gave her—she’s printed the ancestral tree and slipped the copy under my bedroom door. There’s a note in her meticulous scrawl in one corner that explains she’s only tracing a single bloodline at a time, which is why there aren’t millions of individuals on this chart. She also provides a list of the bloodlines she’s eliminated previously, with the comment that should I like to review them, she’ll be happy to provide those printouts as well.

‘Happy’.

From Rebecca, I doubt that seriously.

While I don’t put it past her to flub the work deliberately now, in the past, she’d been doing this tracing for herself, so I don’t think she likely missed anything.

With my coffee done, I pour a cup and prepare it the way I like, mumbling, “Come to me, oh sweet bean juice of life.”

As I’m taking my first life-sustaining sip, Mr. Adriani shuffles by, headed for the cinema. “Hi mom.”

“Stop right there,” I reply flatly. “Did you take a shower?”

“No. I went swimming yesterday. That’s hygiene.”

In my sleep-deprived state, it takes only a few seconds for that sentiment to process. I close my eyes and shake my head. “No television until you take a real shower and wash. With soap. Get going.”

He groans, then pouts, shuffling back to the stairs and hopefully to the shower and not the television in his room. It gives me another half hour to an hour to sort through the documents Rebecca has given me and try to make some sense out of it and the conflicting stories between her and Channing. 

Of the two of them though, she’s the convoluted one. As Winston Churchill famously said of Soviet politics in the build-up to World War II, she’s ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’. And that’s for more reasons than just that she’s one of the dragon-compatible bloodlines.

As for Channing, his complexity level can be summed up best in his own words from the FaceTime call last night: ‘Jesus. You’re not wearing a bra.’ Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the near-entirety of most post-pubescent male drives and rationales.

I can appreciate the purity of that kind of simplicity.

Makes getting information out of him a lot easier too.

Still, with two sides to every story, the truth is likely somewhere in between. Which translates to it’s not as charmingly simple as Channing makes it, nor is it as ridiculously complex as Rebecca does. If I had to bet, that’s because she’s got a vested interest in it as one of her two mysterious dragon-compatible bloodlines.

Since the same is true of the dragon in this conflict, then for the time being, I think that’s still the best route for me to pursue.

The first stage of that starts in about an hour, down at the beach with Drake Kemp Junior.

**

In a stunning turn of events, the doorbell rings as I’m cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast. Let me state that I’m not lying when I say in nearly seven years taking care of Mr. Adriani, the doorbell has literally never rung. Ne-ver.

I spare a brief moment for an internal rant. Why doesn’t anyone ever drop by when I look awesome? I did manage to squeeze in a quick shower after I fixed breakfast and fed Mr. Adriani, but my hair’s wet and uncombed, and I’m still dressed in the ratty light-blue bathrobe I’ve had for years and can’t seem to part with.

Okay, so me looking awesome doesn’t happen either, which answers my own question why no one shows up in general. Except for today. It’s too early in the week for the maid service, and the landscape crew was here over the weekend. Asking Mr. Adriani to answer the door is completely out. Frankly, with as much as I hate being awoken, I’m not doing that to Rebecca either. So if the doorbell rings again, that leaves me to get it.

Naturally, the doorbell rings.

Inhaling deeply, I exhale through pursed lips. Seeing as how this is a private gated community, it’s not likely someone selling something, unless that someone is one of the neighborhood kids. I wonder as I pad to the front door to send whoever it is away if rich people’s kids get stuck selling candy bars for their baseball teams or Girl Scout cookies.

It doesn’t even cross my mind to ping Tassler house’s marvelous electronic nervous system and see who rang the bell, so when I open the door, I’m blindsided by the mouthwatering specter of Drake standing there beaming that drop-dead gorgeous smile of his in a loose pair of athletic shorts that show off his incredible, tai chi legs and a chest-hugging t-shirt.

Oh, who am I kidding!? When you’ve got a chest like that, everything wants to hug it.

“Hi,” he says, and even that simple, two-phonetic sound word drips with his intriguing South African accent.

“Um, hi,” I answer, humiliated, and overlap the sides of my robe even more as subtly as I can. “I thought I was meeting you at the beach.”

Drake’s golden-orange jaguar eyes skim the inside of the house behind me. “Yeah. But I was curious to see this place, so I figured I’d just walk up.”

Great. I’m none to keen on showing him around the place at all, but especially not in my bathrobe. There’s not much option for how to handle any of this though. I open the door a little wider and gesture him in. “Give me a sec to go change, then we’ll go.”

“Yeah, okay.” He smiles, nodding, but his eyes are mercifully wandering over Tassler house, allowing me to make my escape upstairs.

So much for dressing nicer, I think, not just a little bitterly. As I scurry into my closet and root for some clean clothes to wear, that thought gives me pause. I’d never have considered dressing up in pretty much any capacity for Channing. Why would I feel motivated to do it for Drake? 

Seriously, he’s wearing athletic shorts.

Tossing aside the dress slacks Rebecca’s stocked my closet with, I yank a pair of yoga pants and a tank top she’s hidden out of one of the drawers. Sending the robe to the floor with the dress slacks, I half-hop half-fall into a pair of panties, squirm into the yoga pants, and pull the tank top over my head as I’m stuffing my feet into my Converse.

I dash back down the stairs to where Drake is waiting, only realizing as I’m halfway down and my movement has drawn his eyes that I didn’t put on a bra. Granted, there’s not much reason to bother with my barely-there cup-size, and the tank does have one of those built-in bras in it. Still, I’m not all that keen on having the pebbled tips of my breasts poking out at him enticingly after I told him yesterday that I didn’t want him getting the wrong impression.

My concern ticks up a notch when his eyes skim me head to toe then linger on my chest on the way back up. In the hopes of realigning the boundaries I’ve inadvertently skewed, I say, “Shall we get going?”

Drake lifts a hand and makes a vague circling motion that encompasses my chest and my face. “Looks like you got some sun since yesterday.”

I press a palm against my cheek. I’d noticed last night after I got out of the shower that my face was a little flushed, and the light heat from my hand starts it stinging. “I was in the pool.”

His brows shoot up and even his extroverted expression of surprise is handsome. “Yeah? The place even has a pool? I loved the landscaping as I came up the stairs. Gorgeous.”

Opening the door, I gesture him out and reluctantly, he takes the cue. I’m sorry. There’s just no way I’m giving him the tour. Especially not when Channing’s gone. Too dangerous. In more ways than one.

“This is nice too,” he tells me, pointing to Tassler house’s front landing and the water feature. “When I came up, there were a bunch of little birds singing and bathing in it.”

“Oh, so that’s where the little snots are hiding,” I grouse, half-jokingly, half-seriously.

Drake laughs as we start trooping down the stairs and it’s a nice sound. “I’m gathering you’re not a morning person.”

“I don’t mind mornings,” I explain. “Aside from my—,” I start to say ‘mate’, then think better of it, “—fiancé, I’m always the first one up. I don’t like being forced to wake up, whether that’s with birdsong or an alarm.”

“Yeah, I get that.” We carry on, admiring the landscape together. “Tell me something?”

I glance up at his profile and I’m struck again by how exceptionally handsome he is. It’s something about that dark skin and those mesmerizing golden-orange eyes. “Depends on the question.”

“I didn’t know I could ask those kinds of questions. I’ll try those later, when you drop your guard,” he purrs, then laughs when my face flushes. “God, that’s really gorgeous when your color gets high like that. So I’m wondering why you’re looking for a job when you got to lady of the manor that monstrous place,” he thumbs over his shoulder towards Tassler house, “take care of your sick uncle, and do all of it with a partner who’s gone at least some of the time.”

“I didn’t expect to be an in-home caregiver forever,” I reply a little defensively and a little guiltily. I'm not wishing Mr. Adriani into an early grave.” I definitely didn’t expect to be ‘lady of the manor’, let alone to have a partner.”

Drake looks down at me and grins. “Oh yeah? Love got the better of you?”

“Got him first,” I shoot back and he laughs.

“How’d you two meet?” Agilely, he leaps down the last four steps to get the ornate gate at the edge of the drive circle and holds it open for me with a gallant bow.

“While I was working.”

“Nah, come on. I want to hear the story. I want to learn how that lucky bloke swept a girl like you off her feet.” Latching the gate behind us, he jogs to where I wait in the drive. “It can’t be because he bought you. You’re too spiny for that.”

God, he’s a merciless flirt, but that comment makes me laugh, especially since Channing gave it his best shot at ‘buying’ me, with his over-generous tips. “He tried,” I admit. “I worked as a waitress. He used to come into the diner all the time and leave me huge tips.”

“Damn. If that’s all it takes, I’ll take you up to my dad’s place in the KDS tower right now.”

“Won’t work for you any better than it did him,” I counter, following him along the landscaped and maintained trail that winds into the valley in Tassler Heights.

“Spill the story already, Jericho!” he urges, nudging me with his arm and laughing.

Something about his playful manner and the teasing smile makes my stomach do a flip-flop.

“I don’t know.” I look down at my Converse, then kick at the pine needles on the trail.

Frankly, I feel stupid even admitting that. Channing and I have only been together for two months. I get physical attraction, and there’s no denying there’s a seriously combustive chemistry between us. God, he’s a literal and figurative animal in bed. Besides that, I do enjoy his company.

But none of this would have happened if he hadn’t been following me home on the single occasion I’ve ever been noticed by any other south Crossroads gang.  Which suddenly seems more than coincidental, especially once I figured out that he knew I was a budding technomage.

An avalanche of things were set into motion with that single event. Most of them were to Channing’s benefit, even if he is trying to make it up in spades. “I guess he smooth talked his way in.”

One of Drake’s large hands wraps around my upper arm as he sets an arm around my shoulders. Startled by his forwardness, I struggle ineffectually against him as he pulls me aside. Then I feel like a fool as a trio of joggers passes us, moving fast and going the other direction on the trail.

Releasing me immediately, he apologizes quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d seen them. So you were working your way through school and that’s when you met?”

I shrug. “He says we knew each other as kids. I don’t remember him before he started coming into the diner.”

“You didn’t tell him that did you!? That would crush my soul if I were him.”

Snorting, I give him a dubious stare. “You don’t strike me as the type who has trouble picking up replacement girls when one doesn't work out.”

“Nah. Just getting to them before the other bloke.” Drake picks up on my annoyance and changes the topic quickly. “Listen, I don’t know what pull I’ve got to get you into KDS, but if you’ll give me your resume, I’ll get it in front of the right people. I don’t expect you to work for free on my project.”

I stop abruptly on the trail, my eyes narrowing as I glare at him. “Then why did you show up at my house? To take a walk? Just what are you up to, Drake?”

He squats in place and picks up a pebble which he then rolls around in his humongous palm. “Would it be so bad? You seemed lonely.” Tossing the pebble aside, he stands to his full and impressive height. “So am I. It was just a walk. And to talk to someone who’s nice.”

“How long did you intend to string me along?” I demand indignantly.

He shrugs a well-formed muscular shoulder. “I kind of backed myself into a corner, you know? I figured if I showed up at your place, you’d invite me in and we could talk. When you didn’t, I realized I’d have to show you mine before you’d show me yours.”

The risqué innuendo and the lazy smile he gives me makes me blush. I feel the heat of it on my cheeks and it’s instantly obvious by the way he stares at my lips, fascinated, that Drake enjoys it. Probably too much. Eventually, he meets my gaze, and I get the distinct impression I know exactly what he’s thinking.

“Would you stop that?” I ask, embarrassed.

His fine lips pull into a tight ‘O’ and he grimaces. “You hit a man where it hurts.” He traps my gaze with his, and the seconds stretch, almost uncomfortably. Then he says softly, “I’ll try. If you let me take you to lunch and forgive me for misleading you.”