Page 21 of Outside the Veil
But by now, gods help him, it was more than that.
“Everything all right?” Diego glanced between him and the woman.
“He says he forgot his inhaler.”
For an eye-blink, Diego stared. Then he threw up his hands in a credible show of exasperation. “Ay, dios!How many times do we have to go through this?”
Good man.Finn hung his head in his best imitation of remorse. “I’m sorry.” He fought to hold off the impending coughing fit until the woman went away. The last thing he wanted to hear again was the word ‘doctor’.
“You boys aren’t going to make me call in a medical emergency, are you? I hate all the damn paperwork.”
Diego put a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “No, ma’am. He just needs to rest and then I’ll get him home.”
As soon as she walked out of earshot, Finn doubled over his knees to muffle the barking coughs that threatened to shred his lungs. Diego sat down beside him to rub his back.
“This was a stupid idea. I’m sorry. You just looked so much better this morning.”
Finn closed his fist on the air to cut off Diego’s self-flagellation. “I’ll live. Don’t fret.”
“I don’t think I want to take you back on the subway, though, when you can barely walk.” Diego was silent for a moment. “Could you shift to something smaller? Not here in front of everyone. But something I could carry. Like a mouse?”
Finn leaned back in the chair. “It takes a good deal more effort…to become something so much smaller. The excess mass…has to go somewhere, you know.”
“No, I didn’t. I suppose I never gave the mechanics of magic much thought.” Diego chewed his bottom lip in that endearing expression he had when he thought hard. “How much smaller could you become? Without too much effort?”
“Oh, say, a terrier-sized dog. A weasel, perhaps.”
Diego nodded and patted his knee. “Wait here a sec.”
The sight of that shapely backside walking away was almost enough to distract him from the pain. A thousand and three ways to conquer Diego’s reluctance had crossed his mind. His concern, his empathy, his need to help those in pain all made him an absurdly easy mark, but the thought left a sour taste. He wanted Diego willing and aching for him, not out of a sense of obligation or pity.
On the other hand, hang it all, I haven’t had sex in seven hundred years.
It didn’t help that the pedestal directly in front of him held a statue of a faun cavorting with a woman, her luscious body pressed between his furry thighs. He closed his eyes and thought hard about frozen lakes. With a freezing rain falling. And his balls trapped in the ice. That did it.
He pulled a second chair close and curled up across them to wait.
Diego hurried back with the shopping bag he’d wheedled out of the girl behind the gift shop counter. His pulse lurched when he spotted Finn, apparently asleep or passed out.
“Oh, gawd, there’s bag people even in here?” a nasal female voice whined on his left.
Diego risked a glance over at the trio of young women who had stopped to stare at Finn.
The one with streaked hair giggled. “He looks more like a refugee from Fashion Week.”
“Homeless designers, right? Like, ohmigod, you can’t live in that box. It’s not Perrier!” They collapsed against each other in gales of laughter.
“Excuse me.” Diego made a point of walking through them to Finn and shook his shoulder gently. “Time to wake up. I know you don’t feel well so let’s get you home.”
Finn blinked, his look seeming to ask why he was saying such idiotically obvious things. But with a glance at the girls and back at Diego, his expression hardened.
When Finn sat up and the girls began to walk off, a chair leaped out of line directly into one girl’s shin. She stumbled into the others and they all tumbled in a heap of shrieks and flailing limbs. Finn’s grim smile told Diego all he needed to know.
“That wasn’t very nice.” He took Finn’s arm to help him up.
“They’re nasty little bits. And they were upsetting you.”
“Still, you can’t go around…” Diego shook his head and led him off to the nearest bathroom. “If I’m really upset, I’ll take care of it myself, okay? Please don’t think you have to fight my battles for me.”
