Four, p.29
Four, page 29
“Are you kidding me?” Ren snapped.
“I’m just waiting for it. I want my next lecture that makes me feel like an idiot while you lord over me your lofty experience as the perfect assistant.”
“That’s how you see our meetings? I thought you wanted help!”
“I do want help, but I’m sick of your passive-aggressive, subtext-laden bullshit. I get it, you’re a Matsuoka and know all—”
“And you know nothing—”
“Yeah, you’ve made that point a lot,” Georgia growled.
Ren shoved back from the table, sending soup and tea sloshing, and he hunched over to glower at the shocked Georgia. All traces of his bland mask had melted away as his freakishly light eyes practically glowed under the fluorescents in the little hole-in-the-wall sushi joint.
“And you know nothing about me,” he snapped. “You think I was born for this? That I even wanted my job? You think I like cleaning up the messes of an overgrown child and his toys? You think I want to be used up and thrown away by whatever Jaeger happens to be in town?”
“I—”
He cut her off. “You see this demure little Japanese man who scrapes and bows, don’t you?” Ren asked. “I grew up in Irvine! I went to UCLA and Stanford and had job offers from every coke-loaded day-trading start-up before the crash. I was dating a pro snowboarder, for fuck’s sake! Trust me, coming here and taking this job was the last thing I wanted.”
Georgia sat there, gobsmacked, as cool, calm, and collected Ren kicked his chair and stomped off toward the men’s room. She started rifling through her purse, fumbling for any cash to pay the bill, while the terrified chef and waitress peeked out from behind the beaded curtain that marked off the tiny kitchen space.
“I’m so sorry,” she mouthed as she finally found her wallet. The waitress dashed out with all possible speed and whisked away the mess. Jiro himself bowed and waved his hands. “It’s on the house tonight,” he said quickly.
Georgia eyed the empty tables all around and plopped down a fifty-dollar tip. She grabbed her purse and almost made it to the door before Ren reappeared, his hair slightly damp and his face quite pink. Ren bypassed her and instead went to mutter a soft apology to the owner. Georgia took the opportunity to start walking.
She let the first cool breeze of the early fall soothe her burning cheeks. Before she made it to the train station, however, a huffing and puffing Ren jogged up to her and blocked her way.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper,” he said.
“I’m sorry I just assumed everything,” she muttered back.
“I’m upset because I don’t want you to get hurt, Miss Sutherland,” he said.
“Oh, it’s Miss Sutherland again?” she snapped before the filter took control between the brain and her mouth.
“Georgia,” he corrected himself. “And you’re right. I am jealous.”
She stopped trying to walk any farther. “What have you possibly got to be jealous of? I mean, oh, it’s about you and your master, isn’t it?”
“It’s about you getting a chance to be happy with one of their kind,” Ren confessed. “Let’s just leave it at that . . . please?”
September had entered Boston with a vengeance, and Georgia found herself shivering as the wind whipped through the streets and had forced most of the sane people into jackets already. She grabbed her bare arms and shuffled back and forth as she waited for Ren to ruin the moment. The sheer number of normal new inhabitants to the Boston area for fall made conversations on the street a little trickier, and Ren joined her fidgeting as words seemed to escape him.
“If you hated it so much, why did you take the job?” she finally asked.
He pulled off his jacket and handed it to her. As she slid into it, he pulled out his phone and opened up a photo gallery for a change. He landed on a shot of a chubby-cheeked young man with bright red spikes of hair falling over his eyes. Even though he was clearly Asian in most features, the stranger’s blue eyes and light brown roots told a mixed tale.
“My cousin, Mischa,” Ren explained. “Aunt Sachiko married a Russian. It was quite a scandal. Anyway, he dreamed of nothing but becoming a servant since he was five. He was going to be our generation’s donation to the family until a drunk driver took him out on the way home from a party.”
“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Georgia gasped.
“It was me or consigning my little brother to this fate,” Ren said softly. “I studied how to make money. He’s writing equations to figure out where the universe came from. It was a no-brainer.”
“Equations?” she asked as Ren swiped over to show a picture of a young man in a mortarboard and gown. The stranger with the same high cheekbones and sly smile as Ren on his good days waved his temporary degree proudly in front of the camera while a rather stern-looking man flanked him. The man’s impossibly dark brown stare and fixed jaw actually made Georgia shudder.
“As you can see, I got my glib sense of humor from my father,” Ren said. “And Rikuto takes more after our mother.”
“MIT, not too bad,” Georgia said as she squinted to make out the details. She let Ren switch to another shot—this one of him with his arm around the much shorter and slighter Rikuto. She had to smile as she saw a rare glimpse of Ren with his shaggy hair down and a toothy grin.
“He now has degrees in mathematics and physics and is working on his doctorate in astrophysics as we speak,” Ren said proudly. “Lady Jaeger was actually one of his tutors when he was stuck on electromagnetism.”
“Really? Which one—redhead or glamazon?” she asked.
“Neither. Minerva was a close follower of Nikola Tesla for years. She’s always had an interest in theoretical science,” he said, looking away as soon as he said her name.
“You mean Miss Kung Fu and Porn Barbie knows physics?” Georgia laughed. “Next thing you’ll tell me that Steve studies philosophy.”
Ren started leading her toward the subway. “While the Jaeger clan doesn’t prize academics as some of the other families do, there are a few of them who choose to study fields other than stalking and martial arts.”
“So you took the bullet for your little bro?” she said. “And if you ever want to change jobs?”
“My contract isn’t exactly as short-term as yours,” Ren said. “My master wanted to plan something special for you, you know—”
“You really like to change subjects on me,” Georgia said. “Just tell me, did you sign a lifetime contract?”
All Ren had to do was look to the side for Georgia to get her answer. She shuffled beside him in silence all the way to the subway platform. Ren pulled his phone out and started flipping idly through his photo gallery while Georgia tried her best not to stare too much. A picture of a very pretty Japanese woman in a blue kimono couldn’t help but catch her eye. She stood next to the super-stern man from Rikuto’s graduation photo, while the two little boys posed demurely in front of her. Georgia had to giggle at the much taller, older-looking one who was stuck with an unfortunate bowl cut that only drew attention to his distinctly unexpected green eyes, while the smaller boy showed off the same almost-black irises as the father in the photo.
Ren closed the app the second he noticed Georgia’s lashes flutter. She gave him a cheesy thumbs-up as the train roared by. “Loved that hair,” she snickered before crowding into the car and leaving Ren to shuffle into the next one down. As she crammed into a tiny space in the back of the green line, she took a moment to pull up her own phone and search for “genetics of eye color . . .”
“Wait! Did you say that Ren’s mother had brown eyes too?” Gail interrupted as the three of them started on a fresh round of various beverages.
Georgia nodded. “You caught that too, huh?” she asked with a little wink to the blonde vampire.
“Maybe she does pick up on zee little details too,” Minerva said. She wrinkled her nose at the first taste of the thick red liquid in her snifter. “Ugh, this is old,” she complained. “Ren does look ever so much like his cousin, no?”
Gail smiled knowingly. “Oh, I think I get it. So there was more than one reason why he ended up having to be a servant. Poor Ren—no wonder he has anger issues.”
“You have no idea,” Georgia sighed. “Well, actually you do get the idea. Ren had his moods, and Mr. Lambley wasn’t much better. Finally, one movie night after a fairly uneventful showing of Casablanca, Mr. Lambley finally decided that enough was enough after he caught Steve and me sneaking a kiss in the kitchen . . .”
“You know I think I’m just going to take a morning stroll,” Geoffrey growled as he found his way to the fridge blocked by a pair of snogging young lovebirds.
Georgia pushed away from her partner and opened the fridge for her boss. As she handed him a carafe marked G. L., he turned up his nose.
“Geoffrey,” she sighed.
“There was a time when a man could get a glass and ice for his blood,” Geoffrey sniffed.
His assistant just smiled and untangled herself further to grab him a glass. Before she could even start pouring, the elder vampire pointed to an infinitesimal spot on the rim. “It’s filthy.”
“Mr. Lambley, you drank rat puree out of a blender last cleaned in the seventies, and you’re worried about a little spot?” she snapped. Steve took this opportunity to make a hasty retreat toward the living room.
Geoffrey continued to hold his nose until she took the time to find a new glass, carefully fill it with three perfect ice cubes, and then decant the pig’s blood neatly over the rocks and top with a sprig of fresh mint. “Better?” she asked. “You know we do have the movie you requested coming up next.”
“I don’t want that one anymore,” he pouted. “I want you to find the one where you-know-who gets stabbed on a pike and dies slowly on-screen like the rotten sack of murderous shite he really is.”
“Well, I haven’t found too many gory retellings of the Arthurian legend, but I’m sure we can find something where Mor—where you-know-who—bites it in a graphic fashion,” Georgia offered. “Just give me a minute . . .”
Geoffrey sniffed again and continued to tap his feet impatiently in the kitchen. “Oh, you have time for Stefano always, but when I want something—”
“Mr. Lambley!” Georgia snapped.
“Well, he’s not the one paying you, is he?” Geoffrey snapped.
“What is wrong with you tonight? I thought we were having a good time—”
Geoffrey leaned in and took a deep, long smell. “Oh, you’ve been having a good time, haven’t you?”
“There is nothing in my contract about dating your friends, Geoffrey.”
“It’s just that you smell very Jaeger now,” he said, still making the patented Pendragon poo-smelling face.
“Are you jealous?” she hissed.
“Certainly not!” he said, puffing up his chest and summoning a full-on aristocratic glare down the tip of his stubby little nose. “Now I want to see my family’s disgrace die over and over, and if you can find anything where that . . . what did you call him?”
“Trampsylvanian,” Georgia, Ren, and Steve all chimed in at once.
“—bastard dies a terrible death too, then I will be most pleased,” Mr. Lambley finished. “Oh, and I want fizzy blood. This pig was slaughtered days ago and tastes all stale and flat.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with an exaggerated bow. After the third attempt to make his drink properly, she gritted her teeth, looked him right in the eye, and growled very slowly, “You better like this one, or you’re going to end up wearing it.”
Mr. Lambley puffed in his chest for a second more but decided that discretion was the better part of valor as he found himself burning in the full blue-hot fire of Georgia Sutherland’s glare.
“Thank you,” he huffed before wandering off toward the sofa. Georgia quickly texted Ren the next movie request and let herself cool off in the kitchen for a few before daring to pop some popcorn and return to the boys. As the aroma of crispy snacking goodness mixed with artificial butter wafted toward the sofa, Steve groaned and licked his lips. She clutched the warm paper bag to her chest and gave a withering look as both vampires eyed the dangerous bag of plant-based foodstuffs.
“Oh, that smell reminds me of the ballpark,” Steve said. “I’ve missed it.”
“Sorry, Steve-o, this isn’t bloodsucker-approved,” she said before popping a handful in her mouth. She offered the bag toward Ren as he fiddled with the remote, but he seemed far too focused on scrolling through the thousands of titles online for just the right selection to pay her any mind.
Steve grabbed her by the waist and ended up tickling her as she toppled on the sofa. Geoffrey shot them both dirty looks again, but they were too focused on fumbling and fondling to pay the elder any mind. Finally Ren cleared his throat as the screen went dark.
“Are you sure this was what you wanted?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” Georgia said as the screen faded back into an image of the Magic Kingdom.
“Oh, not a cartoon!” Geoffrey whined. “Only one of us is a child around here,” he said with a pointed look toward the other vampire in the room.
“Really?” Steve said. “Can’t we watch—?”
“No,” Georgia said flatly.
“But I wanted to see Mordred get disemboweled,” Geoffrey whined.
“No! We are going to make it through one night with no family history, no World War II, and no bloodsucking on the screen,” Georgia snapped. “For once we are going to watch something lighthearted and fun and perfectly pleasant, and you are going to deal with it.”
“But—” both vampires stammered.
“No! I’m picking the movie, so shut up and deal.”
Ren started to speak up but quickly shut up as he saw Georgia cracking her knuckles. Instead, he reached for the popcorn as the screen turned into a lovely scene of an African savannah.
“It’s got animals in it—” Steve muttered. “This is going to be stupid.”
“Really, Georgia. It’s called The Lion King—” Geoffrey tried to protest.
“Hush, both of you, or I’ll stab you with toothpicks!”
The vampires relented and rolled their eyes but acquiesced to sitting quietly and watching the lovely tale of an adorable lion cub coming of age. Twenty minutes later Georgia found herself passing tissues as both big, bad creatures of the night were sniffling.
“The tragedy of it all,” Mr. Lambley whimpered.
By the time the final credits rolled, Georgia had a head resting on each of her shoulders as Steve and Geoff struggled to pull themselves back together. She gently patted the trembling older vampire as he blew his nose.
“You said this was happy!” he choked out.
“Well, he won in the end,” she said. “Aww, let it out. I cried the first time I saw it too.”
She looked slyly to her left, where Steven tried his best to put on a brave face, but he had to rub the corners of his eyes a few times. She gave Ren a little wink across the room.
“So, isn’t it nicer to not be snapping at each other?” she said.
“Do you have any more of these movies?” Geoffrey asked.
“I think we can manage it for next week. We need to be getting you back well before dawn, Mr. Lambley.”
Steve gave a little pout. “Can’t you stay the night?”
“I think we do need to be heading back. I have work to do around the house, and I know Geoffrey hasn’t had a good solid day’s sleep at home all week,” she said before giving Steve a kiss on the cheek.
“But—”
“I’ll be back,” she said in a fake deep Austrian accent.
Steve pouted the whole time she packed up her purse and got ready to go. He kept pawing at her arms and waist to tease her into giving up her crazy scheme. She just rolled her eyes and kept playfully pushing him back.
Mr. Lambley smiled like the cat that landed the canary as they drifted down to the first floor well before sunrise. Once they were safely tucked in the cab Ren had so graciously called for them, Mr. Lambley rested his head gently on Georgia’s shoulder one more time.
“Thank you, Miss Sutherland,” he said.
“I had housecleaning to do,” she said.
“I know I shouldn’t give in to the green-eyed monster, but I am sometimes vexed to see him get so very much of your attention,” Geoffrey said.
“It’s apples and pears—”
“Stairs?” Geoffrey asked, confused.
“You and your weird British slang. Apples and pears . . . apples and oranges—pick a fruit,” Georgia sighed. “You are my boss, and I do my best to take care of you. Steve is my . . . friend, with a decided amount of benefits, that’s all. Why is it suddenly bothering you so much?”
“It’s my deathday coming up in less than a month’s time. It got me thinking about time and how quickly it passes,” he said softly.
“Oh, Geoffrey, don’t be silly, I’m not—”
“Please, indulge a weak old man. What seems like forever to you isn’t so long to someone like me,” Mr. Lambley said as he looked out the window.
She squeezed his hand. “You can be rather sweet sometimes, Geoff—morbid, maybe, but still sweet. I’ll try to balance my time better,” she said.
Geoffrey continued to be lost in thought. “I can’t help but worry since he is, you know, a Jaeger.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
He waited till they were safely dropped off at the brownstone and out of prying earshot before daring to answer. As Georgia fumbled with the keys, the vampire took the time to pet the little concrete bunny statues tucked in the new fall mums in the window box.
“You know that the Jaegers aren’t like my family. Stefano may be my friend, but he’s still one of them. They are all, to their very core, hunters born and bred.”
“Well, Steve isn’t like the rest of the family. You know that,” she said. “Did you want a shake before bed?”
“I just want you to listen to me, please. I know it’s easy to get lost in the fog of young love—”
