Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (34 page)

I shove those thoughts aside to deal with the cheetah clown. “What about your tantric meditation and all that bullshit?”

“Oh, that’s fine for the regular season,” Strike says. “But we have two weeks off, and it’s the championship. Lot of stress can build up here. Anyway, I didn’t say I was going to sleep with Iva. Just going to dinner, getting away from the football crowd.”

“And you,” I say to Charm. “I don’t know if I want to ‘get out.’”

He shrugs like he always does and grins his horsy grin. “I just said I thought it might do ya good,” he says. “I mean, you need to unwind somehow.”

“I can think of a lot better ways to unwind than…” I don’t want to say “going on a double date with Strike,” but I can’t think of another way to end that sentence.

“I can’t.” Charm elbows me again. “G’wan, get out of your head for a bit. This ‘Keith’ guy sounds pretty hot. Is he a bunny?”

“He’s a wolf.”

“Ah, well. Bunnies are the best for getting out of your head. Reminds me…” He takes out his phone and scrolls around. “Ah, Davinya. Thanks, guys, now I know what I’m doin’ tonight.”

“Don’t you mean ‘who’?” Zillo’s wandered over from his locker. I bet he didn’t say anything stupid in his interview like wishing he wasn’t a coyote.

“Or ‘whom’?” I say.

Charm laughs. “Who, whom—she’s a Sabretooths cheerleader. You guys can argue ’bout what to call her. I’m just gonna call her.” He puts the phone to his ear. “Hi, Davi? Guess who’s in town?”

When he steps back, Zillo looks between me and Strike and seems to realize that he’s very close to getting into a conversation with Strike. He checks the clock and says, “Ah, I gotta go too—sorry, set up a meeting with—um, I told Mace I’d play Xbox with him,” and before we can say anything, he’s taken off.

“I’m really glad I get so much one-on-one time with you,” Strike says, getting his phone out when everyone else has cleared away from the two of us. “Hi, Iva?” he says, and starts making plans.

I could still back out. But like he said, it doesn’t mean I have to sleep with the guy. It’s just company, just something else to do for a night. Fuck it. I can either be miserable and entertained or miserable and alone. And I’ve done the miserable and alone bit.

So when Strike hangs up, I barely hear what he says about Iva not knowing Keith’s number, but having another gay friend who wanted to date a football player. I just say, “Sure,” and tell him we can take a taxi to wherever it is.

In the taxi, I tune out Strike and watch the apartment buildings fade into department stores and small strip malls. When I say ‘strip malls,’ I mean Crystal City strip malls. They’re as much like the strip malls back home as the fashion-show wannabes walking around here are like the girls in my high school. The ladies walking around these malls in glittering jewelry and bewildering swaths of cloth and color look perfectly assembled, unbelievably thin at the waist and arms, coordinated from the delicate shawls around their heads and necks to the trim at the bottom of their skirts and the decorations on their anklets. Whatever the species, they are so similar that their fur colorations look like just another fashion accessory, as though this one chose red fur and a long muzzle while this other one chose a shorter muzzle and golden-brown fur. It’s a little unsettling, and the guys aren’t much better. They’re either packed into identical business wear—charcoal or light grey suits, or shirts and brightly-colored ties—or else they’re jogging shirtless in athletic shorts down the sidewalk. My eyes linger on the latter; my first thought is that Lee would say they were hot, and then I actually make the leap and think to myself that yeah, those guys are hot, and if we were alone in a room together…

I shift in the seat, surprised at the reaction in my sheath. The truth is, I’ve never been with any guy but Lee, and I never really wanted to be. But now, even though I’m missing him, I’m mad at him, too, so I’m taking the horniness from missing him and turning it into wanting other guys.

That’s how my mind spins it, anyway. I look at this leopard guy jogging down the street, hard abs, powerful legs, and I imagine his body twisting under mine, and it’s a little exciting, but not heart-thumping passion exciting. He’s not a fox, but that’s not what’s tempering my attraction. What’s tempering it is the same thing that tempers my attraction to any guy I see who’s moderately attractive: I don’t know him. He’s not the guy I fell in love with.

The restaurant turns out to be some glitzy place, all tinted windows and silver chrome supports, called The Raven’s Nest. Strike tells me as we pull up to the curb that movie stars hang out there, though usually only in the upper floors where there are more private booths. “And that’s where we’ll be,” he says with a little smugness.

I take a moment to examine the warped reflections of the other buildings in the restaurant’s windows while the taxi pulls away, and then I follow Strike inside.

My first thought is that it’s kind of like what a goth cub would design given unlimited money. The whole place is draped in black curtains with brass feather ornaments around them. The staff are all black-furred, either natural or dyed, I guess—the hostess is a panther, which could be natural, but the waiter at the host stand is a weasel and I don’t think they come in black—and they wear black feathery decorations on their wrists and around their collars. The carpet, though, is a wine-red plush that my feet sink into, and behind the host stand, I see white tablecloths with gold trim, black plates and glasses, and gold candlesticks. The air is thick with Neutra-Scent, but over that is a light, flowery perfume.

“Posh,” I say under my breath to Strike.

He just smiles and gives his name to the pantheress. “Party of four?” she says, and taps a small device—is that an iPhone? I crane closer to look. It is.

“The other two are at the bar,” Strike says, and I turn with him to look in that direction.

The bar is the dimmest part of the restaurant, which makes the smoked glass shelves and collection of bottles on them look somehow eerie. A black wolf behind the bar polishes a glass with a rag, talking to a customer in a trenchcoat with a long white-tipped red tail emerging from the lower hem. A little away from the bar, at a high table, a busty leopard swirls a straw in some pale green-colored drink. I think that’s Iva, but I can’t be sure in the dim light, too far to catch her scent. There’s another drink across from her, but nobody’s sitting there.

“I’ll get your companions from the bar,” the hostess says as a black rat appears. “Carmen will take you to your table.”

The rat gestures with one paw so that the feathers around her wrist flap slightly. “This way,” she says with a bright smile, and leads us around to the right, through a black-curtained doorway. The wine-red carpet continues up the stairs and ends at the second floor, where a glossy black tile replaces it. Apparently even a ritzy place like this doesn’t want to lay out the money to clean a full building’s worth of carpet every week.

The upstairs is considerably less crowded than the downstairs. Not that there are more empty tables; there are just fewer tables altogether, and they’re split into several rooms. Our room has two tables in it and three booths, two of which are occupied by couples (if they’re famous, I don’t recognize them). The Neutra-Scent is still as thick here, so we can’t smell our fellow diners, but the flowery scent is gone, replaced by the very light aroma of wine. Carmen brings us to a square table—apparently we don’t rate a booth—and holds the chairs out for both of us as we sit down.

The tablecloths up here glimmer with mother-of-pearl iridescent trim, and the silver centerpiece is much more elaborate than the candlesticks downstairs: a stand that looks like a silver monument topped by three curved arms that each end in a base decorated with carved silver ribbons. Carmen lights the black candle above each base, says, “Your companions will be right up,” and then leaves us.

“Don’t we get a menu?” I say.

Strike grins. “They only serve four dishes a night, plus starters. The servers just recite them all. And the sommelier will be over to discuss wine with us. If there’s a vintage you like, you can ask for it, otherwise he’ll be happy to recommend something.”

I feel lost without a menu, something to occupy my eyes and paws, so I tap fingers on the table and look around the room. The other couples are all eating already, so I give them a cursory glance—two sheep at one table, a coyote and a kangaroo at the other—and then just sit down to look around the room.

Like the rest of the restaurant, it’s understated and mostly dark. The floor-to-ceiling windows are bordered with silver partitions topped with small clusters of silver feathers. Through the tinted glass, the lights in the Nordstrom’s across the street glow darkly, and the people shopping inside flit like shadows. Even the people on the sidewalk look unreal, as though they’re in a movie I’m watching. I guess there’s a certain amount of power in being able to look down at all those people without them knowing it. If that’s what you’re into.

“Hi, boys!” The busty leopardess from the bar slides into the seat next to Strike, across from me. So it was Iva. And to my left, as I look up, the black pantheress from the host stand is holding out the chair for—

—a bunny.

He sits down, a slender white-furred rabbit with black-tipped ears and a bright smile. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Iva’s friend Machaine. Like ‘machine’ but with an extra ‘a’ in the middle.”

He’s wearing a blue silk shirt and some kind of chain under it. I can only see the glint of a few links that aren’t completely sunk into his lush white fur. The paw he holds out to me is immaculately manicured. Usually non-retractable claws are cracked and dull, but his are polished and almost sparkle in the candlelight. I take his paw, unsure whether to shake it or kiss it. I shake, and he doesn’t seem offended. “Devlin Miski,” I say. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s mine, dear,” he says. “Do you know who was in the bar downstairs?”

I frown. “Besides you two?”

He giggles and gestures dramatically. “Ford Flame!”

“The fox?” I know the name from movie posters, though I’m not sure I’ve seen any of his movies.

“Oh God, he was in a trenchcoat, but I saw his muzzle and he is
so
much handsomer in person, I could’ve
died
.”

Iva leans over and grins. “He’s straight, dear.”

“Well.” Machaine—whatever kind of name that is—sits back in his chair and smirks. “Maybe he is, and maybe he isn’t.”

“This isn’t a gay bar.” They argue for a few excruciating minutes about Ford Flame’s sexual preference, and then the black rat comes back to rescue us.

“Tonight,” she says without preamble, “we have four delicious dishes…” She describes a mushroom-saffron risotto, a portobello mushroom roasted with red peppers, a sauteed eggplant with a balsamic vinegar reduction, and a sweet curry with tofu.

“Um,” I say, cutting her off as she starts listing the salads and other appetizers, “so there’s no meat entrees?”

“Oh,” she says with a smile. “We’re an organic vegetarian restaurant.”

I glare at Strike, who says, “Didn’t I tell you that?” He doesn’t even put on wide-eyed innocence. Maybe he really did forget. Not everyone is plotting all the time, I remind myself.

“No.” I look back up at Carmen. “Sorry, it all sounds delicious.”

“I recommend the portobello,” she says. “It’s got the consistency of steak.”

Machaine looks faintly disgusted, then loses the disgusted face and cheerfully orders the curry. Strike takes the eggplant and Iva takes the portobello as well.

“Sorry,” Strike says. “I could’ve sworn I told you.”

My reply is forestalled by the wine guy, whatever Strike called him. I leave Strike to choose the wine and take the time to talk to Machaine, who is, after all, supposed to be my date.

He’s a nice enough guy. Works as a key grip in the studios but wants to act and has been an extra in three films. When he’s talking just to me, he slowly loses the ‘fabulous’ affectations, but when Iva breaks into the conversation, they’re all back again: the hand gestures, the outraaaaaageous semi-flirty comments, the head tilts.

When he asks me about my boyfriend, I hesitate. Lee and I haven’t officially discussed our relationship, but he’s pretty much told me to go it alone until the game. Still, I don’t want to give this rabbit the wrong idea. I mean, Iva brought him to be my date, and I don’t know if that means only that we talk to each other while she talks to Strike, or if I’m expected to take him home at the end of the night, or what. So I just say that Lee’s staying home to not be a distraction.

“A little distraction is good every now and then,” the rabbit says. “Helps you focus when you get back to what’s really important.”

“I guess,” I say.

Strike jumps in then to echo that sentiment, and we slide into a conversation about football, which it turns out Machaine doesn’t know much about. It’s kind of fun trying to explain it, and that takes my mind off the social pressure I might’ve only been imagining. Then the salad courses come, and we pause the conversation.

I stare down at the glossy black plate that has what looks like about three lettuce leaves and a drizzle of dressing on it. “Fabulous,” Iva says, eating slowly.

“I love the presentation,” Machaine says.

“Is this, like, the teaser for the actual salad?” I say. I’m starting to wonder if I should’ve ordered two entrees.

Strike gestures with his fork. “You don’t want a lot of salad to start the meal. Eat the main course and then the vegetables that come with it. This is just enough salad to start your digestion flowing.”

“It’s just enough to make me hungry,” I say, and spear two-thirds of the salad on my fork, finishing it off in one mouthful.

This makes Machaine giggle again, only it seems more like a real giggle and less like the affected ones he was making earlier. “Slow down,” he says, nibbling on one of his lettuce leaves. “It’s a fifteen-dollar salad.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “He’s picking up the tab.” And I gesture at Strike, whose whiskers flick for a moment, then relax into a smile.

“Sure,” he says.