Rosalyn King Voorhies (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} red_red_rose) wrote,@ 2009-01-31 01:05:00 |
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Getting Connected
Once upon a time, Rose loved to catch a few winks of beauty sleep. Unfortunately, her new-found fear of slipping into a lucid nightmare spoiled the fun. She was now a certified insomniac. Had she thought caffeine would affect her, she would've kept a pot permanently percolating, but the only things that seemed to prop the brunette's eyelids up during the daylight hours were soap operas. She had become a fan of The Young and the Restless. Those actors, especially Eric Braeden and Melody Thomas Scott, were as timeless as the undead. Rose found that if she left the tube on while dozing on the couch, their voices got woven into her dreams, and since Victor and Nikki Newman had no place in her memories of 1954 Chicago, they were a safe bet.
Around sunset she dragged herself to the Frigidaire and poured a cup of the red stuff in a ceramic mug. It sat there, cold and viscous, while Rose wrinkled her nose at it and sniffed. "They ought to sell herbs and spices for the taste-challenged," she moped, fantasizing about a future when some intrepid, brainiac scientist might discover a recipe for spicing up her daily diet. Last summer, she'd actually poured it over ice shavings and pretended it was a cherry sno-cone.
She closed the door with her toes. The bottoms of her feet made soft sounds on the tile and carpet as she wandered to her bedroom, sipping the cold beverage.
There had been too many sly comments from Wyatt lately, about where he was spending his free time when it wasn't in his restaurant. For that reason, and the fact that the prospect of bumping into that creature was not on his wish list, he had taken the last few days to being devoted to his work. Personalities, it seemed, calmed down when everything appeared as normal as usual. Staying intentionally to have dinner with his staff, Gavin made no show of having to leave until their break was over. Even then it was casual, lingering to have small snippets of chat in between grabbing his coat.
The drive home was quiet, the radio being neglected for once. It was only when he stepped into his house, and felt the cold solid door press against his back, that he finally relaxed. Through the entire day he had served couples, or his staff were talking about their significant others or possible candidates, and for once he understood that urge they all shared. To talk about the person that was regularly fluttering through your mind.
The trouble was biting his tongue, and acting as if there wasn't anyone he'd rather be rushing off to see, or meet. The werewolf stretched, sighing heavily as his hands peeled off his jacket. It was tossed haphazardly over the stairs as his booted feet led him to the kitchen. Pulling open the fridge, it made that familiar tinkling sound as the contents shook and bumped each other, Gavin pulled a beer free and set it on the counter. Thick fingers loosened his tie, it came free with a swish as he tugged it, leaving it to rest on the draining board as the first two buttons of his shirt were undone. Now he could breathe.
One rough palm glided against his grizzly cheek, then further over his head, until he scratched the base of his neck. Twisting off the bottle cap, Gavin took a liberal gulp, the phone in his pocket already in his hand. The pad of his thumb hit a few buttons rapidly, then he held it to his ear, listening to it ring. So he couldn't go and see Rosalyn right now, that didn't mean he couldn't still talk to her.
The duvet on Rose's bed was a feminine thing, so cloudy and thick that it reacted as a living creature might when she sat on the edge of the mattress, puffing up around her waist as if disturbed from a slumber all its own. It settled around her slowly. Rose lifted her feet onto the bed railing. Across from her, the closet was open. The previous tenant had affixed a mirror to the inside of the door. She saw the bed reflected there and the downward press of her weight on the linens. A sip of blood was taken. Leisurely, her arm drifted to the side and she poked at a billow of fabric, watching it dip in the mirror.
As for evening plans, she had none so far. Perhaps she'd put on a nice dress and go to a lounge, smoke cigars, watch a performer croon old tunes, listen to the musicians plucking strings and tapping keys. Or maybe she'd bundle up and go ice skating again. No particular ideas leaped out at Rose, so she stared at a pair of hose dangling from the top dresser drawer.
The cell phone rang. Having hired a couple of gals to take calls for her fledgling business, those were no longer patched through to her personal phone, which meant that the call coming in was someone Rose knew. She caught it before it vibrated off the nightstand and checked the display.
'Vine'
She caught herself taking a breath and smiling. Decades past the need, vampires could still react to emotional or physical stimuli that way: a gasp of surprise or pleasure, a sigh to indicated something was the pits. The werewolf was nowhere near the pits. Pressing 'send', she lifted the device to her ear. "Heya, handsome."
The remote for the TV was held in an outstretched hand, as if Gavin could make the channels flip faster that way. It was all the same, every channel, cops, animals, music, soap, cops, animals, music... "Hey yourself." The werewolf grinned as Rosalyn's voice floated to his ear, and placed the remote back on the arm of the couch. There was no point looking for something to watch when his attention would be with her.
"I thought I'd call to let you know that I miss your voice." His elbow moved to nudge against the arm of his seat, "How have you been?" For a moment, the werewolf frowned, not at Rosalyn of course, but from the way he started conversation. It wasn't riveting by any means, "I've been working a lot." Way to go Captain Obvious. "I was thinking today, that I want to know more about you, what's your star sign?" Clearly, he wasn't in the habit of calling women.
Rose's expression turned, as quickly as a revolving door might, from simple joy to confusion and finally amusement, upon listening to the werewolf ramble through four topics in his opener. Was he nervous? If he was, she decided, it was cute. She addressed the latest one. "My star sign?" The question took her a bit off guard. How long had it been since she celebrated a birthday? Such things were left by the wayside in immortality, though she had always found that to be a bummer. "I guess it depends on if you mean my birth or my rebirth," she teased. "I'm a Leo... a fire sign. Don't you think that's ironic?"
Setting the mug on her nightstand freed up her hand, but it did nothing useful. She picked at a seam on her duvet. It didn't escape Rose that the moment she heard his voice, she needed to preoccupy her fingers. "What's yours?"
"Taurus, fitting huh?" Gavin snorted, a rush of air leaving his nostrils as if he was imitating the bull. "I don't know about ironic, you always seem to shine when I see you." There was more he could add to that, but he bit his lip instead. It was only a phone call, no big deal. Taking a quick swig of his beer, he lodged it back down beside the sofa and his thigh, his fingers brushing off imaginary dust from his pants. "Am I keeping you from anything?" The last thing he wanted to do was be fumbling over the phone when she was busy.
"Of course you are," Rose said, lying through her teeth. She tilted her head back and cast her eyes on the pale pink ceiling, drumming up imaginary activities for the night. "I made oodles of plans. First, I'd have dinner at Spiaggia... I can't taste it, but I always liked spaghetti noodles. Then cocktails at Pop's and jazz at Green Mill. With all that lined up, it should be a blast." She breathed out heavily to accentuate the punch line. "It's a real shame, though, because I'd rather dump my plans and spend the night in my bed with you on the horn."
The vampire's front teeth nipped her lip. "You're not gonna make me keep them, are you?"
To begin with, Gavin wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or not, until her last words. "Aren't you crafty." The werewolf scraped his short nails over the bristles on his chin, as if he was really deciding something. Two of course, could play that game. "Now why would I want you to skip a night out?" The corners of his eyes crinkled as he tried not to laugh, a smile managing to break through instead. "You might have fun."
The thing was, with the questions he had gotten recently, he wasn't sure if meeting up was the best idea right now. Gavin let his head fall back, a sigh escaping his lips, "I can't come over." It felt like he had groaned the words out, as if saying them was an effort. "Not this week, at least." He didn't want to lie, but on the other hand he didn't want her to get involved with his pack either. "I have a lot to catch up on, early mornings are not something I could manage with you laying beside me."
"Sure you could," she said cheerily. "It's not hard to wake up when you never get to sleep." Had there been a cord attached to her phone, she would've twined it about her finger just then, flirtatious as she felt. That mood always expressed itself quite physically with her. Instead, her hand twisted a small knot in the linens. As she relented and smoothed it into place, Rose tipped her ear towards her shoulder. She knew the reason why Gavin couldn't see her tonight, and it sharply reminded her of being young and having to hide from the watchful gaze and intuition of parents, only far more scary. "But I guess I'll settle for a call."
Scooting backwards, she curled her legs up and tucked her feet beneath a pillow. "What was the funniest thing that happened to you today? Or was it a giant bore?"
Gavin coughed, the base of his neck slowly burning as it went a shade of red, he took a moment to clear his head from the images that suddenly swamped it. "Well thank you for that." The werewolf shifted, letting his booted feet rest on the other end of the sofa, his back resting against the arm rest. "Funniest thing?" Brows furrowed as he tried to recall anything that tickled him, then he remembered, "There was this young couple, probably a first date from the looks of the guy. Mid meal when I went to fill their wine glasses, he lifted the cutlery in the wrong hands after setting them on his plate, tried to wind his pasta around his spoon with the fork for support, dropped it straight down his shirt."
The werewolf had to turn his back, though it never stopped his shoulders shaking as he walked away. The funniest thing about it was that Gavin got that way around Rosalyn, the trick was to stop her realising it. "Alright, your turn, funniest thing to happen last night?"
Rose had smiled at that story. It seemed simple enough, an awkward moment that would later be rehashed by both parties as a comical or embarrassing highlight of the night, but she liked the image of a guy getting so bothered by a girl, he'd forget how to operate utensils. There were worse things than being rendered stupid by your date; at least you weren't falling face-first into your plate, out of sheer disinterest. She piped up to say, "She must've been a looker," before absorbing herself in his turnabout.
"My high heel got stuck in a sidewalk crack," she admitted. "It wouldn't have been so bad, if I'd just stepped right out of it, but it was strapped to my ankle. I nearly yanked my hip out of the socket. I had to undo the buckle." Rose encircled her ankle with her fingers, reliving the less than cool moment. "Can't you just imagine how it looked, me crouching on the sidewalk in a puddle, with my skirt hitched up?"
"Couldn't tell you, I never noticed." The reply was so quick that Gavin blinked, he could tell you the colour of the guy's shirt, or what his hair looked like, but he couldn't remember the girl at all. There was nothing stopping the werewolf looking at other women, it simply came down to him being so wrapped up with Rosalyn that they didn't catch his eye anymore. Why would they?
Suddenly turning a light shade of red, Gavin cleared his throat and took another gulp of his drink. "Are you alright now?" The image of Rosalyn bent down like that was hard to remove from his mind. Obviously she hadn't wet herself, but it would have looked that way to anyone passing by. "I'll kiss it better when I see you next." The werewolf's lips quirked, "What's your favorite flower?" The questions were sporadic, but enthusiastic, as if they were highly important. In a way, they were, at least to him.
Affecting a comical pout, she said, "Oh, I'm fine, just a bruised ego." Rose retrieved a cup of blood, taking care not to spill while she sipped the cool contents from the rim, absently stroking the circumference of her bent knee. The blood was at least two nights old and had lost some of its snap. The pointy tip of her tongue licked a droplet from the side of her mug.
If Gavin could see, what would he think of his girl Rosalyn?
"Mmm, I like the gladiolus," she said. "Plain white." There had been plenty of those at her wedding but none present at her funeral. Either Lawrence or her parents had made a thoughtless mistake and draped the black coffin and later the headstone in pink roses and carnations. When the vampire clawed her way out of the coffin and up through the soggy dirt, looking none too thrilled, she found her grave layered in confectionery pink, rather than a classy, more understated white. Worse, her burial dress had a high lace collar around the throat, chosen to hide the bite marks. She looked like a regular Victorian, or the old maid on a deck of cards. She had barely survived with her dignity intact.
"What do you sleep in, when you're not with me?" she asked, changing gears.
"I'll keep that in mind." Gavin nodded, before remembering that she couldn't see him. Usually his cell was for quick calls to his pack or work, anything over thirty seconds was a conversation. Rosalyn didn't know that though, and he wasn't about to tell her either. The question caught him off guard, and the werewolf pulled the phone from his ear, giving it a funny look almost like asking if he had heard her right. Bringing it back to his ear, Gavin stated simply, "My boxers, what did you think, a dress?"
Rubbing his dry palm over the top of his head, the werewolf crossed his ankles and settled further into the couch. "What do you hold when you're not with me?" The soft tone was cheeky, "What height you are?" Now that he was a safe distance away, where Rosalyn couldn't thump him, he felt free to taunt her. Just to ruffle her though, Gavin was under the impression that the vampire was perfect sized. Especially when Rosalyn was in his arms.
"No, I didn't think a dress," Rosalyn said, rolling her eyes in mild, good-natured exasperation. After crawling up the mattress towards the headboard, she leaned onto the pillows there and got situated. She wrapped her fingers around a bedpost. The wood had been carved in a spiral pattern, twisting round and round from spire to base like a piece of natural licorice. She fit her fingers into the grooves.
"What do I hold when I'm not with you," she paused to contemplate, "You mean when I'm sleeping? I flip on my side and put my arm and leg across a pillow," she said. "And I'm five foot four, I'll have you know. I bet one of your shirts would come to my knees, but I still want one. Can I have one?" The idea of lazing around her apartment in a shirt that smelled like him was unbelievably appealing. Just sitting there on the couch, able to pick up the collar and bring it to her nose whenever she wanted to. Months ago, Rose wouldn't have believed the scent of a werewolf could signify safety to her, but it did now. "Pretty please?"
There was silence for a while, as Gavin pictured her standing there, with one of his shirts draping over her small frame. In his mind, Rosalyn's hair was down, and a little tussled, she didn't have on any make-up. Just his shirt. Bare feet sinking into her lush carpet, and those beautiful eyes, looking straight at him. "Lovely down to the last inch." Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Gavin tried to hide the smile in his voice, "What one do you want?" The werewolf had quite a few, and each one was looked after as much as the other.
Now the cogs were turning in his head, little ideas forming in an almost childish way. What if he gave her one of his pillows to hold at night? Would she like that or laugh? Should he mention it or just do it? What if he put a shirt on that too? The werewolf's hand rubbed across his face, bringing him back to reality. "So what do I get for the shirt?"
"I want... well, let me think about it." The line went quiet as Rose pictured the threads she'd seen the werewolf wearing. At least one of his shirts couldn't be worn until a seamstress got a hold of it. "I want something with buttons all the way down," she decided. Crisp, long-sleeved shirts with buttons held a timeless, seductive allure, especially if they were white. They brought to mind men sitting on the edges of beds, fastening their cuffs, with lipstick on their collars. She could practically imagine meandering around her pad in such an item, the shirttail long enough to skim her thighs.
"And in exchange," she mused, resting the mug on the table, and then curling her knees up to her chest. "Do you want a something or a favor?" She didn't dare send anything to Gavin that might keep her scent, unless asked for specifically; he'd have to hide it away, along with all their other secrets. Deep down, where Rose kept her truest feelings, she nursed an unspoken desire to be found out. Some awful, reckless part of her wanted to leave her fragrance all over his body... wanted to be the feminine voice heard crying out in the pantry of his restaurant, amongst the clamor of disrupted pots and pans... wanted to be paraded by his packmates, because he needed her so badly, he didn't care what they thought.
On the other hand, there was a certain titillation in being the woman Gavin saw, despite objections so strong, he could never introduce her as his girlfriend. It wasn't that Rose wanted to be his dirty little secret; she wanted to be so special, he'd break all the rules for her.
Frankly, though, she didn't care either way. She was content to be his girl.
Gavin brought his chin down to his chest, until the stubble grazed against the material, cocking his head to the side he said on impulse, "I could give you the one I'm wearing." He paused briefly. "I've wore it all day." In his mind, the werewolf was offering something very personal, his scent. Things like that, he had found, became a lot more important when he was brought into the pack. The animal residing inside him had its claws sunk into every aspect of his life.
"What do I want?" Taking a deep breath, the werewolf let it out in a quiet rush, "I want information." The corners of his mouth twitched, his hand bringing the phone closer as he lowered his voice. "Specific information." Bringing his hand up, the werewolf bit the tip of his short thumb nail, and tried to keep up his serious act. "What kind of perfume do you wear, and who's it by?" Gavin knew better not to have any clothing laying around the place, but a small bottle could be easily hidden in his bedroom, the smell contained perfectly in the bottle. That's not to say he wouldn't spray it on one of his pillow cases, but that could easily be thrown in the washing machine.
As soon as his voice went so low, anticipation for what he might ask had gathered in her belly and spread its tingling touch all the way to her toes. She had curled those and wrapped her hands around them, waiting to see what he'd say; from there, she'd figure out whether to dish the real mccoy. Then he asked about perfume. Rose laughed and tipped her head back. She felt like a fish dangling off the sharp end of a hook.
"You're a goof, you know that, Gav?" she asked, a mega-watt smile going to waste in the darkness of her lonely bedroom. "I thought you were gonna ask me to spill my guts! It's Cherry Blossom by Guerlain." The vampire pursed her lips. "Then again, you could make anything sound positively shocking. A grocery list could send me up to cloud nine."
She looked at the window, where gauzy curtains let in the filtered light of streetlamps. "What's your favorite song?"
Laughter was rich and warm as it spilled from Gavin's lips. Shaking his head, he lifted an eyebrow even though Rosalyn couldn't see it, "A grocery list? I should make one to see what happens." Absently, one foot tapped against the other, making a soft clicking sound. "Couldn't you have asked something else?" The werewolf groaned, he wasn't in the habit of telling anyone. "You aren't allowed to laugh, or I'll hang up." The back of his neck scorched from the sudden blush creeping up it. "It's Unchained Melody."
Grimacing, the werewolf hurriedly added, "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?"
Rose's mouth parted on a note of surprise. "Oh, no you don't! Waaaiit a second... you like Unchained Melody?" Never one to discourage appreciation for the oldies, she was genuinely enamored with the idea of her werewolf digging that tune. It had been released in its original format a year after her death, and re-released and made popular again and again over the decades. Everyone from Elvis to Roy Orbison to the Righteous Brothers had performed that song, but the sentimentality of it hadn't been lost along the way.
"Wow, that's a sad one, baby," she said. "You're such a softie under all those muscles. Maybe next time we go dancing, we can request it."
Turning to what he asked her, Rose ruminated on it. "So where would I go right now, if I could go anywhere? Well... I spent all my living years in Chicago. Daddy took a lot of trips for business, and we went along for vacations sometimes, but we spent most of our time here. After I... you know... after I was out on my own, I tried a couple of places on for size, like Paris and Los Angeles and New York and Las Vegas, but I always came back here. There's no place else I'd rather dig in my heels."
She bit down her on lip. "I'd spend a few hours with you anywhere, though. If I could blink right now and send us away, we'd go someplace warm, like a beach in Mexico. We'd drink tequila and walk in the surf and sleep in a hammock and make love on the sand. Unless you've got something you'd rather do?"
With the phone pressed to one ear, Gavin's free hand slapped against his face lightly, maybe he should have lied? No, that's never a good thing, well... Technically he was already lying to the people he knew, but that didn't mean he was going to start it with Rosalyn. "Yeah yeah, I know. Don't you go ruining my reputation." The tone in his voice was easy and faintly teasing. "I've never really been anywhere, maybe one night you can tell me what it was like in each place?" If there was one thing he knew he was good at, it was listening, and Rosalyn's voice was something he could listen to for hours. It was peculiar, the urges he had to just be around the vampire, doing nothing in particular except share the same space.
Gavin's eyes closed, and when she spoke, he let her words paint a picture in his mind. The faint warm breeze, wet sand under their feet, without a care in the world. A little slice of freedom, just for them. A soft sounding rumble came from his chest in the form of a sigh, the thought of Rosalyn laying beneath him in the sand while the waves lapped at their toes. "No. That sounds perfect just the way it is." Truth was, he had never been to Mexico before, now that Rosalyn mentioned it however, it brought forth temptation. Mexico was too far away though, and who was to say he would come back if they went? The risk was too high.
That got him thinking, the werewolf's rough palm grazing the stubble on his cheek as he pondered, "What if..." Gavin's tongue touched his lip before his teeth did, "We went away for a few days? Not too far, just... Far enough? Like a hotel, somewhere nice?" Where they could openly walk down the street and be together without the threat of running into his pack members or someone who knew him. He could swing it, too, after telling Wyatt that he was looking to expand Vine's, all he would be doing was taking a trip to look at some property.
"You'd do that?" Rose, in her excitement with the concept, got onto her knees in the center of the mattress, resettling her weight on her feet. Whenever an idea really got cooking, she had trouble containing her eagerness, shedding the demeanor of a provocative woman and becoming more like a young girl. The kind that wouldn't be able to sit still in her bedroom. "Just cut out and go someplace with me?"
She wasn't sure where they'd go, but it didn't make much of a difference. It was the principle of the thing. In Rose's head, she was already packed up and loaded into a car, not kneeling in a silk slip amidst a cloud of down linens. A daydreamer to the last, she closed her eyes and imagined leaning across the gear shift to lay a kiss on Gavin's scratchy cheek. All there was of Chicago was a reflection in the rear view mirror.
"With you? Absolutely. I was thinking that it would be really something to walk hand in hand down the street, possibly share sneaky public kisses, what do you think?" The way Rosalyn had sounded, almost breathy in her excitement, was enough to make Gavin's idea a solid plan. There was nothing he had to set aside except making sure the mini vacation wasn't falling over a full moon. Providing he spoke about it for the next few days would mean nobody would suspect anything different. With it being his business, he didn't have to explain where he was going, just that he was.
Where, then, would they go? "Do you know any places a few hours away that you'd like to go, or someplace you want to see?" Then another idea hit him, "Or we could just take carry on luggage, and get whatever flight is next, I wouldn't care where we ended up as long as you were with me." There were flights that were mainly during the night, wasn't there? Surely they could jump on one before the sun made its appearance. They could go further too, without his car. The werewolf was getting ahead of himself.
"Let's do that," she said, latching onto the second thing he said. "Just... drive to the airport and take a red-eye. It'll be a blast." Sure, there was some risk involved, with the vampire restricted to evening travel, and the need to secure a hotel quickly upon arriving, and find a discreet way of feeding that wouldn't give Gavin the creeps, but she considered it an adventure, and it had been too long since she'd flown by the seat of her pants.
Bringing thumb to her teeth, she bit lightly. "I'm glad you called," she confessed. "I miss you when you're not around." Rose tugged on the lace hem of her slip. There was more she could say: that she was over the moon about him, that she often found herself staring into space while replaying certain memories, that it was becoming increasingly difficult to feign interest in guys whose necks she needed to bite, even long enough to get them around a corner, but she kept those thoughts to herself, especially the last one, because it would only upset him, being reminded of what she did for food.
"You really made my night, Vine."
Gavin felt like that teenager he had been, stuck in that fake school, asking Rosalyn to the prom. That same happy thumping in his chest, the fluttering in the pit of his stomach, because she had said yes. "I wish I could drive over now." Oh, how he wanted to leave tonight, freeing themselves of complications. The werewolf was careful, but around Rosalyn, it seemed that he was taking risks he normally would stay away from. They were exhilarating, despite what others would think, and they were real. That was what mattered.
Rosalyn's next words warmed the werewolf's heart, and a brief flash of sadness washed over his features, "I miss you too." Softly, he sighed, cupping the cell phone to his ear as if she would feel it. "Why don't you take the next couple of days to relax, and grab a few things to pack, I'll deal with work and before you know it, we'll be flying halfway to anywhere." The thought of them on a plane was comforting, like a blanket, it kept him warm and content. "I'll dream of you when I sleep."
"You will, won't you?" Rose's voice had become quite soft and lush with affection. She placed a hand over the butterflies flapping wings in her stomach. While he slept, she'd be pulling on clothes and going out for the night, all the while with a quiet longing to be in the crook of his arm, under those sheets that smelled of aftershave and soap.
"Sweet dreams, Gavin."
Once upon a time, Rose loved to catch a few winks of beauty sleep. Unfortunately, her new-found fear of slipping into a lucid nightmare spoiled the fun. She was now a certified insomniac. Had she thought caffeine would affect her, she would've kept a pot permanently percolating, but the only things that seemed to prop the brunette's eyelids up during the daylight hours were soap operas. She had become a fan of The Young and the Restless. Those actors, especially Eric Braeden and Melody Thomas Scott, were as timeless as the undead. Rose found that if she left the tube on while dozing on the couch, their voices got woven into her dreams, and since Victor and Nikki Newman had no place in her memories of 1954 Chicago, they were a safe bet.
Around sunset she dragged herself to the Frigidaire and poured a cup of the red stuff in a ceramic mug. It sat there, cold and viscous, while Rose wrinkled her nose at it and sniffed. "They ought to sell herbs and spices for the taste-challenged," she moped, fantasizing about a future when some intrepid, brainiac scientist might discover a recipe for spicing up her daily diet. Last summer, she'd actually poured it over ice shavings and pretended it was a cherry sno-cone.
She closed the door with her toes. The bottoms of her feet made soft sounds on the tile and carpet as she wandered to her bedroom, sipping the cold beverage.
There had been too many sly comments from Wyatt lately, about where he was spending his free time when it wasn't in his restaurant. For that reason, and the fact that the prospect of bumping into that creature was not on his wish list, he had taken the last few days to being devoted to his work. Personalities, it seemed, calmed down when everything appeared as normal as usual. Staying intentionally to have dinner with his staff, Gavin made no show of having to leave until their break was over. Even then it was casual, lingering to have small snippets of chat in between grabbing his coat.
The drive home was quiet, the radio being neglected for once. It was only when he stepped into his house, and felt the cold solid door press against his back, that he finally relaxed. Through the entire day he had served couples, or his staff were talking about their significant others or possible candidates, and for once he understood that urge they all shared. To talk about the person that was regularly fluttering through your mind.
The trouble was biting his tongue, and acting as if there wasn't anyone he'd rather be rushing off to see, or meet. The werewolf stretched, sighing heavily as his hands peeled off his jacket. It was tossed haphazardly over the stairs as his booted feet led him to the kitchen. Pulling open the fridge, it made that familiar tinkling sound as the contents shook and bumped each other, Gavin pulled a beer free and set it on the counter. Thick fingers loosened his tie, it came free with a swish as he tugged it, leaving it to rest on the draining board as the first two buttons of his shirt were undone. Now he could breathe.
One rough palm glided against his grizzly cheek, then further over his head, until he scratched the base of his neck. Twisting off the bottle cap, Gavin took a liberal gulp, the phone in his pocket already in his hand. The pad of his thumb hit a few buttons rapidly, then he held it to his ear, listening to it ring. So he couldn't go and see Rosalyn right now, that didn't mean he couldn't still talk to her.
The duvet on Rose's bed was a feminine thing, so cloudy and thick that it reacted as a living creature might when she sat on the edge of the mattress, puffing up around her waist as if disturbed from a slumber all its own. It settled around her slowly. Rose lifted her feet onto the bed railing. Across from her, the closet was open. The previous tenant had affixed a mirror to the inside of the door. She saw the bed reflected there and the downward press of her weight on the linens. A sip of blood was taken. Leisurely, her arm drifted to the side and she poked at a billow of fabric, watching it dip in the mirror.
As for evening plans, she had none so far. Perhaps she'd put on a nice dress and go to a lounge, smoke cigars, watch a performer croon old tunes, listen to the musicians plucking strings and tapping keys. Or maybe she'd bundle up and go ice skating again. No particular ideas leaped out at Rose, so she stared at a pair of hose dangling from the top dresser drawer.
The cell phone rang. Having hired a couple of gals to take calls for her fledgling business, those were no longer patched through to her personal phone, which meant that the call coming in was someone Rose knew. She caught it before it vibrated off the nightstand and checked the display.
'Vine'
She caught herself taking a breath and smiling. Decades past the need, vampires could still react to emotional or physical stimuli that way: a gasp of surprise or pleasure, a sigh to indicated something was the pits. The werewolf was nowhere near the pits. Pressing 'send', she lifted the device to her ear. "Heya, handsome."
The remote for the TV was held in an outstretched hand, as if Gavin could make the channels flip faster that way. It was all the same, every channel, cops, animals, music, soap, cops, animals, music... "Hey yourself." The werewolf grinned as Rosalyn's voice floated to his ear, and placed the remote back on the arm of the couch. There was no point looking for something to watch when his attention would be with her.
"I thought I'd call to let you know that I miss your voice." His elbow moved to nudge against the arm of his seat, "How have you been?" For a moment, the werewolf frowned, not at Rosalyn of course, but from the way he started conversation. It wasn't riveting by any means, "I've been working a lot." Way to go Captain Obvious. "I was thinking today, that I want to know more about you, what's your star sign?" Clearly, he wasn't in the habit of calling women.
Rose's expression turned, as quickly as a revolving door might, from simple joy to confusion and finally amusement, upon listening to the werewolf ramble through four topics in his opener. Was he nervous? If he was, she decided, it was cute. She addressed the latest one. "My star sign?" The question took her a bit off guard. How long had it been since she celebrated a birthday? Such things were left by the wayside in immortality, though she had always found that to be a bummer. "I guess it depends on if you mean my birth or my rebirth," she teased. "I'm a Leo... a fire sign. Don't you think that's ironic?"
Setting the mug on her nightstand freed up her hand, but it did nothing useful. She picked at a seam on her duvet. It didn't escape Rose that the moment she heard his voice, she needed to preoccupy her fingers. "What's yours?"
"Taurus, fitting huh?" Gavin snorted, a rush of air leaving his nostrils as if he was imitating the bull. "I don't know about ironic, you always seem to shine when I see you." There was more he could add to that, but he bit his lip instead. It was only a phone call, no big deal. Taking a quick swig of his beer, he lodged it back down beside the sofa and his thigh, his fingers brushing off imaginary dust from his pants. "Am I keeping you from anything?" The last thing he wanted to do was be fumbling over the phone when she was busy.
"Of course you are," Rose said, lying through her teeth. She tilted her head back and cast her eyes on the pale pink ceiling, drumming up imaginary activities for the night. "I made oodles of plans. First, I'd have dinner at Spiaggia... I can't taste it, but I always liked spaghetti noodles. Then cocktails at Pop's and jazz at Green Mill. With all that lined up, it should be a blast." She breathed out heavily to accentuate the punch line. "It's a real shame, though, because I'd rather dump my plans and spend the night in my bed with you on the horn."
The vampire's front teeth nipped her lip. "You're not gonna make me keep them, are you?"
To begin with, Gavin wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or not, until her last words. "Aren't you crafty." The werewolf scraped his short nails over the bristles on his chin, as if he was really deciding something. Two of course, could play that game. "Now why would I want you to skip a night out?" The corners of his eyes crinkled as he tried not to laugh, a smile managing to break through instead. "You might have fun."
The thing was, with the questions he had gotten recently, he wasn't sure if meeting up was the best idea right now. Gavin let his head fall back, a sigh escaping his lips, "I can't come over." It felt like he had groaned the words out, as if saying them was an effort. "Not this week, at least." He didn't want to lie, but on the other hand he didn't want her to get involved with his pack either. "I have a lot to catch up on, early mornings are not something I could manage with you laying beside me."
"Sure you could," she said cheerily. "It's not hard to wake up when you never get to sleep." Had there been a cord attached to her phone, she would've twined it about her finger just then, flirtatious as she felt. That mood always expressed itself quite physically with her. Instead, her hand twisted a small knot in the linens. As she relented and smoothed it into place, Rose tipped her ear towards her shoulder. She knew the reason why Gavin couldn't see her tonight, and it sharply reminded her of being young and having to hide from the watchful gaze and intuition of parents, only far more scary. "But I guess I'll settle for a call."
Scooting backwards, she curled her legs up and tucked her feet beneath a pillow. "What was the funniest thing that happened to you today? Or was it a giant bore?"
Gavin coughed, the base of his neck slowly burning as it went a shade of red, he took a moment to clear his head from the images that suddenly swamped it. "Well thank you for that." The werewolf shifted, letting his booted feet rest on the other end of the sofa, his back resting against the arm rest. "Funniest thing?" Brows furrowed as he tried to recall anything that tickled him, then he remembered, "There was this young couple, probably a first date from the looks of the guy. Mid meal when I went to fill their wine glasses, he lifted the cutlery in the wrong hands after setting them on his plate, tried to wind his pasta around his spoon with the fork for support, dropped it straight down his shirt."
The werewolf had to turn his back, though it never stopped his shoulders shaking as he walked away. The funniest thing about it was that Gavin got that way around Rosalyn, the trick was to stop her realising it. "Alright, your turn, funniest thing to happen last night?"
Rose had smiled at that story. It seemed simple enough, an awkward moment that would later be rehashed by both parties as a comical or embarrassing highlight of the night, but she liked the image of a guy getting so bothered by a girl, he'd forget how to operate utensils. There were worse things than being rendered stupid by your date; at least you weren't falling face-first into your plate, out of sheer disinterest. She piped up to say, "She must've been a looker," before absorbing herself in his turnabout.
"My high heel got stuck in a sidewalk crack," she admitted. "It wouldn't have been so bad, if I'd just stepped right out of it, but it was strapped to my ankle. I nearly yanked my hip out of the socket. I had to undo the buckle." Rose encircled her ankle with her fingers, reliving the less than cool moment. "Can't you just imagine how it looked, me crouching on the sidewalk in a puddle, with my skirt hitched up?"
"Couldn't tell you, I never noticed." The reply was so quick that Gavin blinked, he could tell you the colour of the guy's shirt, or what his hair looked like, but he couldn't remember the girl at all. There was nothing stopping the werewolf looking at other women, it simply came down to him being so wrapped up with Rosalyn that they didn't catch his eye anymore. Why would they?
Suddenly turning a light shade of red, Gavin cleared his throat and took another gulp of his drink. "Are you alright now?" The image of Rosalyn bent down like that was hard to remove from his mind. Obviously she hadn't wet herself, but it would have looked that way to anyone passing by. "I'll kiss it better when I see you next." The werewolf's lips quirked, "What's your favorite flower?" The questions were sporadic, but enthusiastic, as if they were highly important. In a way, they were, at least to him.
Affecting a comical pout, she said, "Oh, I'm fine, just a bruised ego." Rose retrieved a cup of blood, taking care not to spill while she sipped the cool contents from the rim, absently stroking the circumference of her bent knee. The blood was at least two nights old and had lost some of its snap. The pointy tip of her tongue licked a droplet from the side of her mug.
If Gavin could see, what would he think of his girl Rosalyn?
"Mmm, I like the gladiolus," she said. "Plain white." There had been plenty of those at her wedding but none present at her funeral. Either Lawrence or her parents had made a thoughtless mistake and draped the black coffin and later the headstone in pink roses and carnations. When the vampire clawed her way out of the coffin and up through the soggy dirt, looking none too thrilled, she found her grave layered in confectionery pink, rather than a classy, more understated white. Worse, her burial dress had a high lace collar around the throat, chosen to hide the bite marks. She looked like a regular Victorian, or the old maid on a deck of cards. She had barely survived with her dignity intact.
"What do you sleep in, when you're not with me?" she asked, changing gears.
"I'll keep that in mind." Gavin nodded, before remembering that she couldn't see him. Usually his cell was for quick calls to his pack or work, anything over thirty seconds was a conversation. Rosalyn didn't know that though, and he wasn't about to tell her either. The question caught him off guard, and the werewolf pulled the phone from his ear, giving it a funny look almost like asking if he had heard her right. Bringing it back to his ear, Gavin stated simply, "My boxers, what did you think, a dress?"
Rubbing his dry palm over the top of his head, the werewolf crossed his ankles and settled further into the couch. "What do you hold when you're not with me?" The soft tone was cheeky, "What height you are?" Now that he was a safe distance away, where Rosalyn couldn't thump him, he felt free to taunt her. Just to ruffle her though, Gavin was under the impression that the vampire was perfect sized. Especially when Rosalyn was in his arms.
"No, I didn't think a dress," Rosalyn said, rolling her eyes in mild, good-natured exasperation. After crawling up the mattress towards the headboard, she leaned onto the pillows there and got situated. She wrapped her fingers around a bedpost. The wood had been carved in a spiral pattern, twisting round and round from spire to base like a piece of natural licorice. She fit her fingers into the grooves.
"What do I hold when I'm not with you," she paused to contemplate, "You mean when I'm sleeping? I flip on my side and put my arm and leg across a pillow," she said. "And I'm five foot four, I'll have you know. I bet one of your shirts would come to my knees, but I still want one. Can I have one?" The idea of lazing around her apartment in a shirt that smelled like him was unbelievably appealing. Just sitting there on the couch, able to pick up the collar and bring it to her nose whenever she wanted to. Months ago, Rose wouldn't have believed the scent of a werewolf could signify safety to her, but it did now. "Pretty please?"
There was silence for a while, as Gavin pictured her standing there, with one of his shirts draping over her small frame. In his mind, Rosalyn's hair was down, and a little tussled, she didn't have on any make-up. Just his shirt. Bare feet sinking into her lush carpet, and those beautiful eyes, looking straight at him. "Lovely down to the last inch." Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Gavin tried to hide the smile in his voice, "What one do you want?" The werewolf had quite a few, and each one was looked after as much as the other.
Now the cogs were turning in his head, little ideas forming in an almost childish way. What if he gave her one of his pillows to hold at night? Would she like that or laugh? Should he mention it or just do it? What if he put a shirt on that too? The werewolf's hand rubbed across his face, bringing him back to reality. "So what do I get for the shirt?"
"I want... well, let me think about it." The line went quiet as Rose pictured the threads she'd seen the werewolf wearing. At least one of his shirts couldn't be worn until a seamstress got a hold of it. "I want something with buttons all the way down," she decided. Crisp, long-sleeved shirts with buttons held a timeless, seductive allure, especially if they were white. They brought to mind men sitting on the edges of beds, fastening their cuffs, with lipstick on their collars. She could practically imagine meandering around her pad in such an item, the shirttail long enough to skim her thighs.
"And in exchange," she mused, resting the mug on the table, and then curling her knees up to her chest. "Do you want a something or a favor?" She didn't dare send anything to Gavin that might keep her scent, unless asked for specifically; he'd have to hide it away, along with all their other secrets. Deep down, where Rose kept her truest feelings, she nursed an unspoken desire to be found out. Some awful, reckless part of her wanted to leave her fragrance all over his body... wanted to be the feminine voice heard crying out in the pantry of his restaurant, amongst the clamor of disrupted pots and pans... wanted to be paraded by his packmates, because he needed her so badly, he didn't care what they thought.
On the other hand, there was a certain titillation in being the woman Gavin saw, despite objections so strong, he could never introduce her as his girlfriend. It wasn't that Rose wanted to be his dirty little secret; she wanted to be so special, he'd break all the rules for her.
Frankly, though, she didn't care either way. She was content to be his girl.
Gavin brought his chin down to his chest, until the stubble grazed against the material, cocking his head to the side he said on impulse, "I could give you the one I'm wearing." He paused briefly. "I've wore it all day." In his mind, the werewolf was offering something very personal, his scent. Things like that, he had found, became a lot more important when he was brought into the pack. The animal residing inside him had its claws sunk into every aspect of his life.
"What do I want?" Taking a deep breath, the werewolf let it out in a quiet rush, "I want information." The corners of his mouth twitched, his hand bringing the phone closer as he lowered his voice. "Specific information." Bringing his hand up, the werewolf bit the tip of his short thumb nail, and tried to keep up his serious act. "What kind of perfume do you wear, and who's it by?" Gavin knew better not to have any clothing laying around the place, but a small bottle could be easily hidden in his bedroom, the smell contained perfectly in the bottle. That's not to say he wouldn't spray it on one of his pillow cases, but that could easily be thrown in the washing machine.
As soon as his voice went so low, anticipation for what he might ask had gathered in her belly and spread its tingling touch all the way to her toes. She had curled those and wrapped her hands around them, waiting to see what he'd say; from there, she'd figure out whether to dish the real mccoy. Then he asked about perfume. Rose laughed and tipped her head back. She felt like a fish dangling off the sharp end of a hook.
"You're a goof, you know that, Gav?" she asked, a mega-watt smile going to waste in the darkness of her lonely bedroom. "I thought you were gonna ask me to spill my guts! It's Cherry Blossom by Guerlain." The vampire pursed her lips. "Then again, you could make anything sound positively shocking. A grocery list could send me up to cloud nine."
She looked at the window, where gauzy curtains let in the filtered light of streetlamps. "What's your favorite song?"
Laughter was rich and warm as it spilled from Gavin's lips. Shaking his head, he lifted an eyebrow even though Rosalyn couldn't see it, "A grocery list? I should make one to see what happens." Absently, one foot tapped against the other, making a soft clicking sound. "Couldn't you have asked something else?" The werewolf groaned, he wasn't in the habit of telling anyone. "You aren't allowed to laugh, or I'll hang up." The back of his neck scorched from the sudden blush creeping up it. "It's Unchained Melody."
Grimacing, the werewolf hurriedly added, "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?"
Rose's mouth parted on a note of surprise. "Oh, no you don't! Waaaiit a second... you like Unchained Melody?" Never one to discourage appreciation for the oldies, she was genuinely enamored with the idea of her werewolf digging that tune. It had been released in its original format a year after her death, and re-released and made popular again and again over the decades. Everyone from Elvis to Roy Orbison to the Righteous Brothers had performed that song, but the sentimentality of it hadn't been lost along the way.
"Wow, that's a sad one, baby," she said. "You're such a softie under all those muscles. Maybe next time we go dancing, we can request it."
Turning to what he asked her, Rose ruminated on it. "So where would I go right now, if I could go anywhere? Well... I spent all my living years in Chicago. Daddy took a lot of trips for business, and we went along for vacations sometimes, but we spent most of our time here. After I... you know... after I was out on my own, I tried a couple of places on for size, like Paris and Los Angeles and New York and Las Vegas, but I always came back here. There's no place else I'd rather dig in my heels."
She bit down her on lip. "I'd spend a few hours with you anywhere, though. If I could blink right now and send us away, we'd go someplace warm, like a beach in Mexico. We'd drink tequila and walk in the surf and sleep in a hammock and make love on the sand. Unless you've got something you'd rather do?"
With the phone pressed to one ear, Gavin's free hand slapped against his face lightly, maybe he should have lied? No, that's never a good thing, well... Technically he was already lying to the people he knew, but that didn't mean he was going to start it with Rosalyn. "Yeah yeah, I know. Don't you go ruining my reputation." The tone in his voice was easy and faintly teasing. "I've never really been anywhere, maybe one night you can tell me what it was like in each place?" If there was one thing he knew he was good at, it was listening, and Rosalyn's voice was something he could listen to for hours. It was peculiar, the urges he had to just be around the vampire, doing nothing in particular except share the same space.
Gavin's eyes closed, and when she spoke, he let her words paint a picture in his mind. The faint warm breeze, wet sand under their feet, without a care in the world. A little slice of freedom, just for them. A soft sounding rumble came from his chest in the form of a sigh, the thought of Rosalyn laying beneath him in the sand while the waves lapped at their toes. "No. That sounds perfect just the way it is." Truth was, he had never been to Mexico before, now that Rosalyn mentioned it however, it brought forth temptation. Mexico was too far away though, and who was to say he would come back if they went? The risk was too high.
That got him thinking, the werewolf's rough palm grazing the stubble on his cheek as he pondered, "What if..." Gavin's tongue touched his lip before his teeth did, "We went away for a few days? Not too far, just... Far enough? Like a hotel, somewhere nice?" Where they could openly walk down the street and be together without the threat of running into his pack members or someone who knew him. He could swing it, too, after telling Wyatt that he was looking to expand Vine's, all he would be doing was taking a trip to look at some property.
"You'd do that?" Rose, in her excitement with the concept, got onto her knees in the center of the mattress, resettling her weight on her feet. Whenever an idea really got cooking, she had trouble containing her eagerness, shedding the demeanor of a provocative woman and becoming more like a young girl. The kind that wouldn't be able to sit still in her bedroom. "Just cut out and go someplace with me?"
She wasn't sure where they'd go, but it didn't make much of a difference. It was the principle of the thing. In Rose's head, she was already packed up and loaded into a car, not kneeling in a silk slip amidst a cloud of down linens. A daydreamer to the last, she closed her eyes and imagined leaning across the gear shift to lay a kiss on Gavin's scratchy cheek. All there was of Chicago was a reflection in the rear view mirror.
"With you? Absolutely. I was thinking that it would be really something to walk hand in hand down the street, possibly share sneaky public kisses, what do you think?" The way Rosalyn had sounded, almost breathy in her excitement, was enough to make Gavin's idea a solid plan. There was nothing he had to set aside except making sure the mini vacation wasn't falling over a full moon. Providing he spoke about it for the next few days would mean nobody would suspect anything different. With it being his business, he didn't have to explain where he was going, just that he was.
Where, then, would they go? "Do you know any places a few hours away that you'd like to go, or someplace you want to see?" Then another idea hit him, "Or we could just take carry on luggage, and get whatever flight is next, I wouldn't care where we ended up as long as you were with me." There were flights that were mainly during the night, wasn't there? Surely they could jump on one before the sun made its appearance. They could go further too, without his car. The werewolf was getting ahead of himself.
"Let's do that," she said, latching onto the second thing he said. "Just... drive to the airport and take a red-eye. It'll be a blast." Sure, there was some risk involved, with the vampire restricted to evening travel, and the need to secure a hotel quickly upon arriving, and find a discreet way of feeding that wouldn't give Gavin the creeps, but she considered it an adventure, and it had been too long since she'd flown by the seat of her pants.
Bringing thumb to her teeth, she bit lightly. "I'm glad you called," she confessed. "I miss you when you're not around." Rose tugged on the lace hem of her slip. There was more she could say: that she was over the moon about him, that she often found herself staring into space while replaying certain memories, that it was becoming increasingly difficult to feign interest in guys whose necks she needed to bite, even long enough to get them around a corner, but she kept those thoughts to herself, especially the last one, because it would only upset him, being reminded of what she did for food.
"You really made my night, Vine."
Gavin felt like that teenager he had been, stuck in that fake school, asking Rosalyn to the prom. That same happy thumping in his chest, the fluttering in the pit of his stomach, because she had said yes. "I wish I could drive over now." Oh, how he wanted to leave tonight, freeing themselves of complications. The werewolf was careful, but around Rosalyn, it seemed that he was taking risks he normally would stay away from. They were exhilarating, despite what others would think, and they were real. That was what mattered.
Rosalyn's next words warmed the werewolf's heart, and a brief flash of sadness washed over his features, "I miss you too." Softly, he sighed, cupping the cell phone to his ear as if she would feel it. "Why don't you take the next couple of days to relax, and grab a few things to pack, I'll deal with work and before you know it, we'll be flying halfway to anywhere." The thought of them on a plane was comforting, like a blanket, it kept him warm and content. "I'll dream of you when I sleep."
"You will, won't you?" Rose's voice had become quite soft and lush with affection. She placed a hand over the butterflies flapping wings in her stomach. While he slept, she'd be pulling on clothes and going out for the night, all the while with a quiet longing to be in the crook of his arm, under those sheets that smelled of aftershave and soap.
"Sweet dreams, Gavin."