A Wolf at the Door

Later, when I looked back on this, here is where it all started going horribly awry. But at the time, it seemed like the nice thing to do. I reached out and put my hand on her bare shoulder, squeezing a little to offer comfort.

She spun around, throwing her arms around my waist and burying her face against my mail-clad chest with enough force to back me up a couple of steps. “Erm…” Okay, so what do you do there? Awkwardly, I petted her hair a little, not quite sure what to do with this turn of events.

“I don’t want to die,” she whimpered, and I could hear the tears in her voice. Oh boy. I don’t deal well with crying women.

“Hey, look, no one said you were gonna die. And…that’s what I’m here for, right?” I coaxed her to lift up her head, and rapped my knuckles on my mail. “Armor and all. Serve and protect or whatever.”

Gretchen sniffled a little, blue eyes swimming in tears even as she tried to smile for me. “You’re a good person, Jesse. Better than I am.”

“Hey no, you’re a good person—” I’m sure I had really profound stuff to say here, but it’s kinda hard to talk (or think) when a gorgeous woman suddenly kisses you.

Her lips were soft and she smelled like coconut. Those were the first two things I noticed. I could taste the salt of her tears, and the hint of cherry from her lip gloss. Honestly, I was so stunned, it took me a few precious seconds to react. It had been years since I’d been kissed by anyone other than my wife.

My wife…Oh shit, Mira…I caught Gretchen’s arms as she tried to slip them around my neck, and gently held her in place, stepping back out of her embrace. She blinked at me with huge glimmering eyes, obviously never expecting me to stop her. “I’m married, Gretchen. And I love my wife very much.” I said it as gently as possible, ’cause…well, mostly ’cause I didn’t want her to cry anymore. I’d have promised anything (well, almost anything) if she’d just stop leaking from the eyes.

It…didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. The diamond tears welled up in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks, but she nodded with a tiny hiccup of a sob. “And…I’m sure she’s a good person too…just like you….” Finally, she turned away, flopping down on the couch again to hide her face in her folded arms. Her entire frame shook with silent sobs.

Crap. I was seriously close to waking up Tai, just to see if he knew how to deal with this better than I did. Or Dante. Where the hell was Dante when I could really have used him? “Hey…um…you want like…some ice cream or something? Chocolate?” That’s what women liked when they were upset, right? “I could go down and get some….” Yeah, room service would deliver, but that wouldn’t get me out of the room, now, would it?

After a few moments, she nodded, and just as I was about to slip out the door, she called after me, “And whipped cream! Lots of it!”

The door shut behind me and I sagged against it for a moment. Holy crap…This was…what…how…“Holy crap!” I muttered to myself. I was gonna get ice cream for her, and seriously debate a strong shot of whiskey for myself. And I’m normally not a hard liquor kinda guy.

The elevator dinged, and I hopped on without waiting to see if anyone was getting off. Unfortunately, that resulted in me mowing down poor Dante. He sprawled on the floor of the elevator, and it took us a couple of moments to get our legs untangled from each other. I think I even stepped on his hand once, and he snatched it back with a pained hiss.

“Oh damn, sorry, man.” I offered my hand to help him up, and he gave me the uninjured one so I could pull him to his feet.

He looked me up and down with a puzzled tilt to his head. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“Armor,” I answered, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “She’s crying. Go fix it.” The elevator doors closed on the puzzled look on his face.

Down in the kitchen, no one commented on my armor. They were too busy insisting that the kitchen closed at ten, which was an hour ago, and giving me dirty looks when I kept insisting “No, bigger!” But seriously, how hard is it to understand that I wanted a big ice cream sundae? I finally took the can of whipped topping away from the flustered cook and emptied it over the top of the biggest bowl of ice cream and hot fudge I’d ever seen. And I still wasn’t sure it was big enough. “You got any strawberries? And cherries too, lots of cherries.”

A quart of strawberry syrup and half a jar of maraschino cherries later, I was making my way toward the elevators again (and dammit, the ice cream was already dripping into the links of my armor), when I noticed a commotion in the lobby.

A group of black-coated hotel staff had surrounded someone near the front door, either denying them entrance or…well, I don’t know what the “or” was. An angry voice rose from the center of the circle. “No, I don’t need a fucking ambulance! You just gotta tell me if she’s here!”

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that was Dante’s voice. Curious and more than a bit confused, I went to investigate.