“Where to?” Taig asked from behind the wheel as I hauled myself into the car and shut the door on the arse-bitingly cold wind.
Where to?
Shit, I probably should have asked for vague directions, shouldn’t I?
“Give them a few minutes,” I said, as Zane’s bike sped past us. Arthur was staring at me openly. In the rear-view mirror I saw Taig watching us closely. Only Clint’s eyes were narrowed on the dark outside the car.
Hoping Beo could stay out of sight, I cleared my throat and wished I still had my scarf. “Maybe just follow that general direction.” It was the best I had.
“I don’t think they’re both on that bike,” Clint said, suspiciously.
“Who could tell,” Taig said, blandly. “It’s so dark. Pretty sure I saw two people, but, hey, they accelerated fast.”
Good old Taig.
“You really care about Dierdre,” Arthur said quietly. “I mean, I knew you did. You talk mean but you’d do anything for your clients.”
I really felt for the guy. There was no way he’d be saying this if he weren’t TKO’d. “It’s my job.”
“It’s more,” he disagreed. “You’re a… an egg, Rory. Hard outside, soft inside.”
Taig, in the front, cleared his throat. I struggled not to react too. An egg. I was an egg.
Lilith would get a kick out of that. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me.” I couldn’t think of another response.
He looked offended. “I called you a strong, independent woman within five minutes of meeting you. I recognized it immediately.”
And he’d done it unironically, too. “Guess you did.”
“You, ah. You haven’t commented. On me.”
I had, actually. Just nothing good. “You’ve been hit by a love potion, Arthur,” I said, trying to be as gentle as I could. “You’ve probably forgotten we don’t like each other.”
“But you’re kind and sweet and hot as hells,” Arthur said, confused. “Why wouldn’t I like you?”
I sighed. I doubted his bubble was poppable, but I couldn’t lie. “Because I’m a loose cannon.” Pretty sure he’d accused me of that at some point. At least mentally. “I consider rules to be guidelines and I won’t sleep with you.”
“You follow rules,” he objected. “Tonight, you did.”
Sort of. “Mm.”
“As for the rest, well…I guess, unpredictability is not something I usually like, but—but maybe I just need to see things from your perspective. Maybe that’ll help. And maybe you’ll benefit from a routine focused day, too.”
Routine focused day. That’s what he was offering me. Come for the admin, stay for the routine.
“As for sleeping with you…I wouldn’t hold it against you if you didn’t see me like that.” The hurt in his voice said, very clearly, that he would. “I, ah. I don’t remember asking you out.”
No, I’d nipped that in the bud. “Look, Arthur…” come on, brain.
“You’re wasting your time,” Clint said, from the front. “I’m telling you, Arthur, women nowadays don’t understand their market value. Just take it easy, bro, you know what I’m saying?”
“Whoa,” Arthur said, shocked. “Are you saying Rory isn’t good enough for me?”
“Okay,” I said, my head ringing. “Okay, at no point did I or any other woman ask for an evaluation of my market value from a bloke whose entire personality is ‘arsehole’—I’m not up for sale, mate, and if I was you couldn’t make the payments, so just sit down.”
“Yeah,” Arthur added, emphatically. “Sit down, Clint.” He frowned a little, though, and studied Clint’s position as if checking to see if he’d stood up. I wanted to hit my head against something very solid.
Taig cleared his throat again. “Rory, can you give us a description of this witch?”
I knew what he was trying to do, and I didn’t like it. “Sure. After you put your sidekick in his place.”
Taig did a quick head check before he merged. I had no idea why he bothered changing lanes. It wasn’t like we knew where we were going. “There are some conversations I’d prefer to have in private. But she’s right, Clint. And I’m absolutely fine with having you out on administrative leave while you do sensitivity training. I report this sort of thing, and I follow up if that training doesn’t stick. We’ll speak more later.”
Clint snorted. “That's rich. Don't think people don't talk, O'Malley. I know what you did a few years back. You and me, we’re no different.”
Arthur murmured something and, suddenly, I couldn’t hear them. Not their conversation, not the background road noise. What had Taig done a few years ago? That was…interesting. I arched a brow at Arthur.
“Just a Silence Ward,” he said, shrugging. “Clint was upsetting you.”
“Arthur,” I said, reaching for patience. “You should check in before you make decisions for people. I can cast my own Silence Wards.”
He looked like I’d kicked him in the balls. “Oh. I can lower it—”
“Look.” But what the fuck did you say to your irritating, self-important, but doped up boss?
He waited while I sifted through options frantically. “At… what?” he asked, awkwardly.
Shit. “Clint’s an arsehole. But he’s an arsehole I can deal with.”
“But… I thought you said we’re all arseholes.”
I don’t think I’d ever had so much actual attention from Arthur. I turned a little in my seat to face him as best I could. His eyes skittered away from mine. I’d hurt his feelings and it was no wonder. He was basically a walking feeling right now. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that would be. I put aside my curiosity about Taig for now.
“I was being flippant. No one is perfect. But there are different flaws that are less of a problem. You know what I mean?”
He shrugged. The movement should’ve hurt him, but if it did, he gave no sign. “Not really. I thought…I thought I was okay. I thought I’d been okay to you. I know…I know I said some stuff, when I was upset. About you sleeping with other people, and whatever. I’m sorry. I was just, I don’t know…”
Being yourself.
“I guess I was just insecure,” he said, weakly. “I never knew if you liked me or not. Sometimes I thought you did, and then sometimes I couldn’t tell, and sometimes you were just…mean.” His gaze flickered up again but he didn’t meet my eyes.
Poor Arthur. I wanted to put a bow on him, squeeze his cheeks, give him a hug, and tell him to have another go. But not at me. Still, if he was going to listen, then I had to try, didn’t I? And where the fuck was Beo? We’d been on this merry-go-round for, what, ten minutes?
“I don’t know what you want,” Arthur was saying, words thick with misery. “I know what you need, but not what you want.”
I drew in a deep breath and didn’t let my anger reach boiling point. “Okay, well, maybe that’s the problem, Arthur. You don’t know what I need, except basic stuff—safety, shelter, food, connections.” And, finally, my brain kicked in. “You want to know what a good man is?” His eyes raised, zeroed in on mine. He hung off my every word and I felt the pressure like cement shoes. “A good man is someone who listens to what other people say, who makes space for them to speak and—and live, and exist. He’s someone who knows his own power and protects the people who have less power, makes sure they can get what they need. He creates a space for that. He lifts them up.” Yeah. Nothing about steak. Definitely no jizz involved.
“I…don’t know how to do that?” he admitted, tentatively, almost questioningly. “I think…I try?”
He was trying all right. “If you aren’t sure if you’ve done that, ask your exes,” I said, with a shrug. Shit, that’d be a horrible conversation. “Let them know you want to learn and grow.”
“I don’t want to talk to them,” he said, flatly. “I want to talk to you.”
“And I’m telling you, you can learn from your mistakes.” He was so damn vulnerable. “We all make mistakes. A good man tries to learn from them. Ask people’s opinions. Don’t try to explain them away. Wonder why they have those opinions. What situations led to them feeling the way they do? Because everyone’s feelings are valid.”
“What about mine?” he asked me, the words small and sad.
“Yours, too,” I agreed, aching for him. “Yours, mine, the homeless, a snotty nosed two-year-old. We all are important. We need to ensure we can all have the ability to get the basics, though.”
He looked at me like I had just jumped through a rift. “You want me to give my apartment to the homeless?”
“No, Arthur.” I couldn’t help it. I offered him my hand. I squeezed his cool fingers comfortingly. “I want you to recognize that you’re lucky. You’re someone with a lot of privilege. Use that to help people without. Don’t let jerks like Clint talk down about women. Don’t invite Lilith to wizards’ only events. If someone dismisses someone else’s struggles, stop them.”
“What about my struggles?” he asked, and this time it wasn’t quite as pathetic. “I worked to get where I was. Family helped, but lots of people have family. I’m good at what I do, but it isn’t easy.”
I was not equipped to have this conversation. My head ached. My heart ached. “Everyone has struggles. But you do have family, who did support you.” Also tried to get him thrown in prison, but I wasn’t going there. “No one is saying you don’t work, but remember you’re running a race where you got a head start. You’re still running, sure, but there are others who are on the track whose lane is quicksand. That’s what I’m trying to say, Arthur. Good men see that. Good men will try to help people run their own race.”
A bit of a smile touched his lips. “Because we aren’t really competing, right?”
Relief rushed through me. “Nah, not really. Not unless we’re jerks.”
“That’s a complicated metaphor, Rory,” he said, on a sigh. “But I think I’m sort of following. If I have questions, can I ask you?”
I didn’t try to hide my smile. “You can.” And didn’t that take all?
“Could you love me, if I was that sort of man?” he asked me, deadly serious. “If I helped pull other people out of quicksand?”
“You…” I tried to unravel that. “You don’t pull other people out of quicksand. You might try to get their lane re-paved. Um. Like, now.” I blew out air. If I mixed metaphors, I’d lose him. “Okay. So. I’m in quicksand with Clint. You can’t just kill Clint.”
His eyes narrowed. “No, that’s illegal.”
“And immoral,” I added, because the two didn’t always align. I’d probably make an exception for Clint, but, hey, he’d taken some shots at Dierdre. Fuck him. “But what you can do is…like when Taig came in and deflected.”
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “He said something about being wanted being better.”
“Right. So he wasn’t, like, going head-to-head with Clint. That would’ve made me feel like shit. I would’ve had to sit there and watch them argue about women’s rights. Instead, he sort of steered it into neutral territory, got us back on track.” Arthur was nodding thoughtfully. “He made it clear that he doesn’t agree, but he did it in a gentle, general way. Because he had the power in that situation. He could’ve just kicked Clint out, reported him.” Maybe he should’ve. “This way I didn’t have to feel any guilt about someone maybe losing their job.”
“Why would you?” he asked, shocked. “It’s his fault.”
I drew in a deep breath. “King, I am not qualified for this conversation, I have to say. If you want to discuss the impact of privilege, you really need another tutor. And I encourage you to go there. I’m not an expert. I screw up all the time. I just do the best I can.”
“Okay.” He dug out his phone and I could see him typing into notes. The guy actually was making a to-do list. I peered at it. Ask exes how I can do better. Research impact of privilege. Find examples of helping make space.
My heart just about broke. I kind of hoped that potion didn’t get lifted before he’d ticked at least some of them off. And, hells, I really hoped this didn’t backfire.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever love you, Arthur,” I told him, as he resolutely saved it. “But I know someone can. And I know you’re worthy of it. This stuff… it’ll help you be a better person.”
The breath he let out shook. “Thank you. For being honest.”
“Hey. King.” He looked up, tears in his eyes. Here I am, kicking puppies. “You’re in my coven. I’ve got your back, okay?”
“It’s my coven,” he disagreed, but it was said with a bit of a smile.
“Fight you for it,” I said, with a wink, to lighten the mood.
Horror flickered over his face, then concern, and finally, resignation. “You like running risks.”
My belly rolled and, as if on cue, my phone rang. “Occasionally. Usually, I like making sure shit gets done. Rory here. Drop the ward, King, it’s Zane.”