He doesn’t elaborate, and the one-word answers are getting boring. I search my memory for anything important about today, or April in general. I was assigned to him in July, and even though I admit to being a pain in the ass, I’m not worth a drunk like this one. Must be personal.
I can count on the fingers of one hand the personal things I know about Wyatt. If he discusses his personal life with anyone else, it’s when I’m not around. He and Ash have been together for almost eight years, so she makes sense as a confidante. Jesse has the male camaraderie thing going.
Wyatt’s so sloshed it would take only a few well-formed questions to learn everything I want to know. But I’m not sure if he’s a blackout drunk, and the last thing I need is him sobering up tomorrow and getting pissed because he remembers everything. No, it’s safer to let it lie. Especially since he’s been riding me so hard this last month or so.
He’s watching me intently, if a little unfocused … no, a little too focused.
“So why’d you bring your anniversary party here?” I ask.
“My apartment’s empty.”
“Yeah, that happens when you leave it and stumble across town to someone else’s.”
“Didn’t want to be alone.”
Okay, this is definitely a personal anniversary. I know the Triads kicked off roughly ten years ago. Could this be it? If so, why the drunken stupor? He should be proud of what he’s accomplished, not pickling his liver like he’s ashamed to be in the same room with himself.
His stare is making me uncomfortable.
“Want a bologna sandwich?” I ask.
“Mustard?”
I hand him my uneaten sandwich, then get up to fetch a bottle of water and two aspirin. He probably deserves to stew in hangover hell tomorrow for how hard he’s been on me lately, but I can’t bring myself to let him suffer.
He pops the aspirin with a swig of bourbon, which makes me chuckle. I settle back down and channel surf while he eats. All I really want now is to go to bed, but my internal clock is set for nocturnal hours—the curse of a Hunter whose prey mostly comes out after dark.
His plate and abandoned liquor bottle both end up on the coffee table, and he nurses the water for a few minutes. I flip channels to some historical movie in which a cowboy is struggling to undo the many buttons and ribbons of his ladylove’s fancy dress. He finally gets the frilly thing off and makes contact with skin. The scene changes and they wake in each other’s arms, still tangled up in bed together.
I snort. “You know what I hate about basic cable? They cut out all the good stuff. Especially the nookie scenes.”
He makes an indeterminate sound. “Thought you had sex already tonight.”
“I did, but doesn’t mean I don’t like to watch.”
“That movie sucks anyway.”
I shrug and change channels again.
“Do you want me to leave?” Wyatt asks.
“Did I say I did?”
“No.”
“Well?” He doesn’t reply. “Besides, if you leave now, in this state, you’ll probably end up hit by a car or at the wrong end of a goblin’s hunger pang. I won’t be responsible for your death, Truman.”
“We’re all responsible for someone’s death.” He says it so quietly I almost miss the grief layering each word. He studies the water’s generic label, stuck on his own responsibility for something.
It’s nearly impossible to stay quiet, and I battle my instinct to ask whose death he’s responsible for. I’ll question his orders, smart-mouth him when he’s not listening, provoke him into fits of anger, and even go against his wishes when the mood suits me. I just can’t breach this last line—this invisible barrier of personal information that keeps our roles as Hunter and Handler so perfectly defined.
“God, I’m tired,” he says. Three words with a greater weight than just tonight’s physical exhaustion. There’s a fatigue in him about life in general that makes me sad. He looks beat down, ready to lie there and be trampled. Wyatt’s our Handler. He’s the boss, the guy in charge who has all the answers. He’s always on top of things. He isn’t supposed to be like this.
Ash would know what to say.
My gaze flickers to the door, as though she might spontaneously appear. But no such luck.
I slide across the worn sofa to the center cushion, knowing full well offering comfort just isn’t my thing. I tend to unwittingly err on the side of pity, which most people hate. If I do this wrong, he’s going to get fucking pissed, and I don’t know how he’ll react if he gets pissed while plastered.
He’s slouching with his left leg tucked beneath him, which puts his knee at the closest point to me. I give his thigh a gentle squeeze just above the kneecap. When I look up to offer a friendly smile, I’m startled by the intensity of his stare. His eyes burn with something that takes my breath away and squeezes my heart tight. I can’t even pin a name on the emotion.
“I’m glad you were home,” he says.
It takes me a minute to find my voice. “I almost wasn’t. Guess you have good timing, huh?” Every note of humor falls flat.
“Was it worth it?”
Okay, now he’s really not making sense. “Was what worth it?”
He points his water bottle at me, then gestures all around us. “You. It. Going out. Sore note.”
It takes a supreme effort not to roll my eyes at his patronizing tone. “Why do you care, Wyatt? Jealous?” His silence sends a niggle of worry worming through my guts. I yank my hand off his leg, embarrassed that I left it there. He’s probably just feeling some Handler-produced overprotective instinct because I was so sick last week. Sick enough for him to sit by my bed and nurse me through the worst of the fever. Surely I can nurse him through this.
Or at least make it so he doesn’t hurt himself until he’s over it. “Look, why don’t you go sleep it off in my room?”
I offer only because I have the private, closet-sized bedroom. Ash and Jesse share the cramped apartment’s other room. Triads live together, always within close proximity to their Handlers and assigned hunting grounds. Makes life easier. Except on nights like this when your drunk Handler shows up at your doorstep acting completely out of character, and you have to battle the urge to drop-kick his plastered ass to the curb.
My question finally seems to penetrate the fog in his brain. He nods, then sucks down the remaining water in his bottle. It misses the coffee table when he tries to put it down, and the bottle skitters to the floor. We reach for it at the same time. Our heads actually collide with a dull crack that sends white lightning between my eyes.
I give up and let Wyatt snag the bottle. He takes great care to balance it this time, then slithers to the edge of the couch cushion. I scoot closer and drape his arm across my shoulders. “Come on, drunkie. Let’s go.” I wrap my right arm around his waist. This close, I smell the whiskey on his breath and the faint hint of cinnamon on his skin and, beneath it, something sharper. More masculine.
The oddest thought strikes me: Wyatt smells good.
I bat it away and promise to beat the thought to a bloody pulp later. We get a good swing going, and Wyatt finally lurches to his feet. He’s several inches taller than me and a good thirty pounds heavier, but I’m trained to kill goblins and half-Blood vampires in large numbers, and to potentially haul around wounded partners. Supporting him isn’t too much trouble.
His feet drag across the floor as if he’s not quite in control of them. We get through the bedroom door, and then he stops. Just ceases all forward motion, and I feel the tension creeping into his body and shoulders.
“What?” I ask.
He drops his chin, head turning to gaze down at me with a question in his eyes. His mouth opens, and whatever profound thing he might have been about to say is lost in an eye-watering belch.
I can’t help it. I double over laughing, which leaves Wyatt without his crutch. He stumbles sideways until he hits the dresser. I drop to my knees, holding my stomach as deep belly laughs make my ribs ache. It isn’t that I’ve never heard Wyatt burp before, or that I harbor any illusion about his perfect manners. It’s seeing him down at my level—drunk, upset, and feeling the effects keenly—that’s doing me in.
