Page 13 of Fire
Baffled, Tobias was about to make an excuse about needing to hit the road, when he heard a cough behind him. He turned and saw Jake leaning against the doorway, grinning at him. “Not hungry, Toby?”
“Jake,” he said in relief. “Um—” He turned back to the girl behind the counter. “Thanks, but I think we’ve got to get going.”
“Of course,” she said, drooping. “Safe travels.” She returned to picking at the end of her braid.
Uncertain and a little uneasy, Tobias took the paper and retreated to Jake, who smirked at him and fell into step as they entered the breakfast room.
“I don’t know what she wanted,” Tobias muttered to him, as they filled the hotel’s Styrofoam bowls with cereal and milk.
“Dude,” Jake said, as though Tobias ought to know exactly what that had been about. Tobias tensed, mentally flipping through his internal file of social interactions. Complicated, often contradictory, and always exhausting, interacting with reals—with other people was still something that he struggled with, no matter how carefully he analyzed past experiences.
Jake waited until they sat down, facing each other over cereal, bagels, coffee, and juice, before he said, “She was flirting with you.”
Tobias stared at him.
“She thought you were a serious babe,” Jake went on, smiling like he found it amusing, but he didn’t sound like he was joking. “Can’t say I’m surprised, since she’s got eyes. And she’s probably stuck in high school with a lot of pimply losers who don’t know how to use deodorant. So yeah, damn straight she wanted to take you out around town?—”
“Okay, stop.” Tobias raised a hand, palm out. “Stop. I get it, but that’s not funny.”
Jake cocked an eyebrow. “What’s not funny?”
“That. That whole—idea.” Tobias gestured vaguely with his spoon before stabbing it into his cereal, a little harder than he’d meant to. He stopped to wipe up milk droplets with his napkin.
“I’m not teasing you,” Jake said quietly, earnest in a way that made Tobias look him in the face again. He’d heard that tone before, but usually it was about life and death and monsters and how Tobiaswasn’tone. Not a tone he had expected to hear today.
Anger rose inside Tobias, a furious impotence seizing his chest for reasons that he didn’t want to look at too closely. “No,” he snapped. “You just think that because—” He broke off, biting his lip.
Jake let out a scoffing laugh. “Because what? You think I’m the only one on the planet who’s got eyes to see how hot you are?”
“Stop it,” Tobias snapped, then looked out the window, breathing in slowly through his nose and forcing his hands to relax on the table, where they had been twisting and clenching, as though bound.
He heard Jake exhale, the chair creak. “Hey. Talk to me.”
With an effort, Tobias returned his gaze to the table as he tried to put his swarm of feelings, memories, and half-formed thoughts into words. “Pretty,” he said. “The word you’re looking for is ‘pretty.’”
For a moment, it was silent between them. Then Jake said hoarsely, “Fuck no, Toby. I mean?—”
“I never wanted that,” Tobias said, low and fast, right over Jake. “I never wanted to be one of those—a siren type. I don’t want that.”Bad enough to be a lure for hunters, prey for the guards. But to unconsciously make a civilian drop her guard, offer to go somewhere alone with me?He struggled enough with Jake’s attraction—more than that: with how Jake said he didn’t want anyone else now, just Tobias, and how could that be right?—even though it was the foundation for the best thing in his life. But to have a similar effect on people who had no experience, no defenses against the supernatural? Tobias didn’t want that. He didn’t want that at all.
Jake hissed. “Jesus, Toby. That’s not what this is. That’s not whatyouare. I know they—those fuckers put a lot of fucked-up ideas in your head, but you’re no more a siren than I am.”
Tobias snorted.Then what the hell was it?But he finally met Jake’s eyes, trying for a smile. Jake returned it, just as weak.
“Look, chicks aren’t gonna stop mooning over you anytime soon, especially now you’re—taller and stuff. I always thought flirting was pretty awesome before, but there’s ways to let ’em down easy.”
“I could just say I’ve got a boyfriend, not a brother,” Tobias offered.
Jake extended his foot under the table to catch Tobias’s ankle. “Yeah, I like that idea.”
* * *
Once they’d arrivedin Burlington and confirmed that Judge Hughes and his wife were at some snooty gala in D.C., the house was all too easy to infiltrate. Jake dismantled the home security, and they quickly found their way upstairs to the library and office.
In silent agreement, they divided up the files, and the next half hour passed in silence except for the rustle of papers and the noise of the cabinets.
Tobias finally broke the quiet. “Have you actually thought about it? Finding out something you wish you hadn’t?”
Jake didn’t look up. “Not since the last time you asked me that.”
