The Space Between

Brendan 2

Brendan

I stopped at the Starbucks down the street and got a giant, grande, venti, whatever the f**k word they use for large, chocolate chip Frappuccino. Brittany had introduced me to them, and I’d hated to admit that I actually liked it. By the time I came back to reality, I’d been lifting weights and doing exercises for almost two hours, and I probably burned like four million calories. I let that weight bar slip from my fingers for the last time before I headed off to the locker room and took a quick shower and changed. 

When I stepped out of the locker room, I noticed a tall, blonde, human woman standing off to the side. She was wearing some tiny exercise shorts and a sports bra and the look in her eyes told me she’d been waiting for me to come out. I could smell her arousal. I wonder how embarrassed humans would be if they knew we could smell those things. Anyway, when I stepped out of the locker room, she stepped up to me and placed a hand on my forearm. She came up to just about my sternum area.

“Hey,” she said, “I was watching you.”

“You don’t say.” She must not understand sarcasm.

Her fingers started running up and down my arm and I could see she was looking at the expanse of my chest. I can’t help it, I’m a big guy. It takes a lot of generations to dilute giant’s blood. She licked her lips and looked up at me. “My name is Layla, what’s yours?”

Not going to lie, if this was another time, I probably would have taken her up on the offer in her eyes. I already had her name. I sighed. I didn’t want her name though. “Nice to meet you, Layla. My name is No Thanks.”

“What?” she said.

I didn’t answer her and just turned and walked towards the door. The guy at the counter nodded at me and then smirked in Layla’s direction. I had a feeling she’d made her way through a lot of the guys in the gym. More power to her, but I wasn’t interested in being one of them. What I was interested in was this goddamn delicious Frappuccino and a pair of soft, f*****g thighs whose name I didn’t know. 

I decided to go ahead and call Genie the genie while I was thinking about it, to let her know about Minerva’s visit. And yes, she called herself Genie, even though she was a genie.

“You spoil that ogre.” Her voice was practically dripping s*x through my cell phone.

“She’s had a rough life, it’s just her f*****g nails.”

“When will I see you in my shop again?” I could practically feel her nails running down my chest. I’d made the mistake of f*****g her one time and now she won’t let me forget it. Public service announcement don’t f**k a genie.

“Don’t send your magic through my phone, that’s a no-no.” She must have heard the magical edge in my voice because her nails disappeared. “And second, I never twisted my words or promised you anything. You got what you got.” Never promise a genie. Never. “Just make Minerva’s nails all beautiful again and send me the bill, nothing more, nothing less.” Service rendered. Service paid.

“Tell me, Brendan, how is the search going for your sister?”

My whole body stopped and tensed when she asked me that question. There was only one reason she’d ask, and it wasn’t because she cared. It was because she wanted something from me. “Don’t even ask me about that.”

“You know I can help.” 

“No, I don’t want your f*****g help with that, just do Minerva’s nails. And Genie, you know she’ll show them to me so don’t f**k them up. Do them how she likes them or no payment.”

Genie sighed. “Fine, Brendan, I will. Since you won’t come play, how about that hunky, blonde elf you keep around?”

“I won’t speak for anyone, so you’ll just have to call Zak and ask him yourself.” I hung up on her after that, no reason to keep the conversation going. Now that I had that taken care of, time to take care of my other Sunday responsibility. I stopped by a pizza place and ordered three extra-large pizzas and some cinnamon and honey dessert breadsticks they had. Unfortunately, these guys weren’t magical creatures, I liked to spend my money within the community, shop small and all, but the pizza was good and right by the club. After that, I walked down the alley behind the club, put in the code for the back door, and entered the kitchen.

I flipped the light on and pretended not to hear the scurrying of the little feet of the colony of brownies that lived in the club. I wasn’t sure how many there were anymore, but they kept the whole club spotless so there had to be quite a few. Or they were just tireless. I placed the pizzas on the large table in the middle of the kitchen and opened two of the pizza boxes and the sweet breadsticks. One supreme pizza. One cheese pizza. Cinnamon breadsticks. I made a show of smelling each one.

“Man, oh man, do these pizzas smell delicious. I’m just going to leave these here to cool off.” I picked up my gym bag and the other pizza box and left the kitchen. I was pretty sure they’d caught on by now to what I was doing, but I made it seem like they were taking it from me, not me giving it to them. So long as it wasn’t payment, they were happy, and I got to reward them for all the hard work they did. I’d stop back in the kitchen later and make a big show of the boxes being empty, fuss and complain about rats or something. I could hear them laugh at me every time, like they got one over on me, but it’s whatever. Them being here meant they had a safe place to live.

I walked along the back wall until I came to a door that used to be a utility closet but was now a room for one of the guys on my security team. A shapeshifter. A rogue, according to him. I knocked on the door, heard him thump around for a second and stepped back when I heard him turn the knob. He opened the door, and I held the pizza box up for him to see. “I got us a pizza, extra-large meat lovers. Come up to my office.”