cold night. pretty good movie.

witch
Another night passes with Devon sleeping down the hall in the second bedroom, and not with him. Not that she's ever spent the night with him. She slept beside him for a few hours once. They've had sex twice. That's all.

The next day she's out early. And she's scarce for a while thereafter. Doesn't strictly avoid Rafael, but... she doesn't come to his room at night. Any night. She doesn't run up to him when he walks in and leap into his arms. She lives the way she has lived for who knows how long: some nights she is out partying. Some days she wakes at dawn and comes back at dusk. Sometimes she's there reading, or watching television. She goes out and gets some (admittedly: inexpensive) wine and whiskey to replace some of what she's been drinking here.

A couple of times she spends the day at the stove. Some brews take one day, others require two full days' of work and steeping and aging. Once, she has to throw out an entire batch of god knows what: she digs a hole in the corner of his yard and dumps it in there, covers it over. For someone as weak-limbed as she is, she doesn't shy from the labor, doesn't grow faint or fall apart. The weekend is warm.

And one morning she heads out, has some things to get at that store of hers or some other one, and midafternoon a winter storm blows in. First one of the year. And it is, compared to the balmy warmth and sunshine of just the day before, somewhat brutal. The temperature plummets and the wind starts throwing patio furniture against walls and snow dumps itself down. Devon thinks it will pass, but it's still snowing when the sun sets. She heads out then, determined that waiting any longer will only make this worse. She's downtown, not on the mall and not in the financial district but nearer to Broadway, where it's a bit seedier and a bit less flashy and the bars go from sports games to karaoke at ten pm and are bizarrely always packed. It is very cold and it is rather dark.

She is wearing sparkly blue tap shorts with black tights, black boots, and a Y-backed tank top of grey and black stripes that is about four sizes too big, hanging off of her and revealing most of her torso, the black of her bra. Some of her dark hair is pulled up and back, most of it falls in its usual waves. It is speckled with snowflakes. Her nails are the same color as her shorts. Her jacket, such as it is, was fine before the storm blew in. It is a black hoodie, also far too big. She finally gave in and zipped it up, but she's standing outside waiting for a bus that is now twenty minutes late and she can barely feel her knees or her fingers or her nose.

Devon gives in. She dials the number she has for Franklin. Halfway through her shaking hands drop the phone, which comes up from the sidewalk with a crack in the corner and moisture all over it, but at least it dials. She calls the driver, her shivering audible as she says the bus is late and can he please just come get her.

Franklin's boss, sitting for some reason in the back seat, may even overhear.

wolfman
Truth is he sort of expected her to show up in his bed some night. Went to sleep a couple nights in a row wondering if he'd wake in the small hours to his bedroom door cracking open. Girl in a cute little sleep set sneaking in beside him to share his warmth. It never happens, and after a while he stops wondering. He almost forgets,

except of course he doesn't, because she's there dancing around under his nose. There when he wakes up and there when he goes to sleep. There when he goes out and there when he comes back. They keep different schedules. They still overlap enough for him to come sniffing suspiciously at her brew a couple times. For him to watch her from the little terrace in the back, smirking, while she buries a failed brew in the yard like somebody's dead hamster.

Weekend's gloriously warm. Wolf fools around in the backyard. Has a football that he throws back and forth with Franklin, except Franklin's got noodles for arms and keeps fumbling and eventually the wolf gives up in disgust. Calls up his personal steward and talks to her vaguely about his money and his accounts but in three minutes flat his head is spinning from all the talk of dividends and principals and investments and funds. He gives up, lets her handle it. Reflects on the fact that if she robbed him blind he wouldn't have a clue. Just had to trust her expertise and her loyalty, the latter of which she owed none of to him.

Wolf's a stranger in his own life. An interloper of two months. Nasty place to be.

--

Winter comes sudden and fierce. Snowing suddenly, temperatures below freezing. Girl's out there somewhere and wolf thinks a couple times of going to find her, but he doesn't have her number and tracking her down seemed extreme. Wolf ends up in the car all the same because he's thinking of going down to the Sept, maybe making his introductions at last.

Wolf's driver gets a call. Girl doesn't have his number either. Driver tells her to hold please and driver turns to ask his boss. Wolf's eyebrows go up. He holds his hand out for the phone and gets it.

Wolf's voice on the line is the next thing girl hears. Rough burr on the edges of his words, recognizable, just a touch feral. "Hey," he says. "Where are you?"

Location gets ferried to Franklin. Franklin hangs a U-turn and heads toward girl's bus stop. Wolf stays on the line.

witch
As soon as Franklin tells her to hold on she winces. She knows. She closes her eyes tight, but not for long, because it's dark and cold and she's standing alone on Ogden street. When he gets on the line she is exhaling, a puff of air, a huff and a sigh at once.

She just tells him. She's too cold to care.

And then they're being quiet, staying on the phone, neither one saying anything. Sometimes he can hear her breathing, the way it shivers. But she doesn't hang up. Something about having a line to someone like that, anyone, when it's cold and dark and wet and you're alone.

wolfman
Girl can hear ambient noise in the back. Wolf tells driver. Driver turns the car. Wolf asks him how far and driver says maybe ten minutes.

Wolf's breathing over the line, closer. He shifts the phone to his ear. A little bit of silence passes. Girl hangs onto the line. Wolf doesn't cut it. Eventually: "Hell you doing out there?"

witch
"Freezing my tits off," is the immediate answer.

wolfman
Soft little huff of laughter. "Yeah, well, we're coming." A laconic drawl. "Franklin's blowing all the lights and everything."

witch
Somehow that warms her. She tries to laugh but she's really, really cold. Which may explain why she says: "Really?"

wolfman
"No." Doesn't spare her poor freezing heart or anything. "But he's going like five whole miles above the speed limit, which is pretty good for him."

witch
"I'm really cold," she says, and she's hunkering down, trying to wrap her gigantic hoodie around her nearly-bare legs. She shivers. "The hell is with this place," she mutters, breath fluttering between her teeth. "It was fine earlier."

wolfman
"It's November. Don't you have warm clothes?" Wolf leans into the door as the limo hangs a left. "We're on Ogden now. Maybe five or seven minutes."

witch
"It was fine earlier," she repeats, defensive. She also sounds on the verge of tears, but that may just be the tightness brought on by the chill. "Please don't make fun of me right now."

wolfman
"Okay." Wolf relents. Maybe he feels bad. Girl sounds on the verge of tears, and last time she sounded like that she'd been half-eaten by giant lizards. "Almost there," he promises again, though they'd gained maybe a block in that time.

Falls quiet, then. Stays on the line. Shifts in his seat, unbuckling and scooting to the center to help Franklin keep a lookout on the street ahead. Not the best part of town here, either. Cold and dark and wet and the public transpo always runs late.

witch
Again, neither of them hang up. She just asks him -- pleads with him, in that soft cold voice of hers -- not to make fun of her right now. So he relents. And he says they're getting close, and they don't hang up. She can't think of anything to say. It isn't until she sees another set of headlights, slowing down, that she rises from her crouch.

The lights hit her eyes. And her spangly tap shorts, reflecting light even more forcefully than her eyes do. That's when her thumb taps the End Call button. She doesn't lift her arms to wave; they're locked around her body, holding herself. She hustles to the side of the limo as soon as it slows enough, stomping across asphalt. Not enough snow to make a slush in the gutters, but enough to make it damp when she pulls open the door and gets in as fast as those skinny legs of hers will carry her.

Her cheeks and nose are red. Her hair is wet. She's shaking.

wolfman
Car slows to a stop and the back door opens for her. Girl's hurrying over when the wolf rises up out of that door, stands aside, lets her in, piles after so he's on the side of the car that's marginally colder. Slams the door behind him.

"All right, take us home, Frankie."

Meanwhile wolf peels out of his coat. It's his motorcycle jacket, though with some of the roadrash pads stripped out to lighten it up a bit. Still thick and warm. He drops it around the girl's shoulders. Pauses a moment. Then drops his arm around her shoulders too, hauls her against his side as Franklin pulls away from the curb.

witch
Frankie.

She scoffs, ends up shuddering, giving a slight cough. And then she is being wrapped up. Devon just pulls the jacket down, covering her legs with it. She actually curls up, booted feet leaving snow and muck on the edge of the leather. Poor Franklin. And when Rafael drops his arm around her she leans into him, buries her face into his chest, seeks his heat, draws it out. She doesn't even fucking care right now.

His body heat laces the motorcycle jacket that covers her legs. Her own lines the hoodie, his arm settling on the damp shoulders to give her more. She closes her eyes, letting herself warm up, gradually slowing the shivering, the shuddering, the teeth-chattering.

"Thank you," she murmurs, after a while.

wolfman
Wolf grunts unintelligibly to the thanks. They're a good ways away from that miserable bus stop where girl turned into a bedraggled collection of wet rags. Wolf thumbs the rear vents open, directs them at the girl. Settles back and watches the street slide by.

"Wasn't really making fun of you," after a while. "Was just asking if you had warm clothes. If you don't we can get some. Drop you off at a mall tomorrow or get it off amazon or something, I don't know."

witch
Feels so awkward, after a time, curling into him like this. She takes a breath, slipping a way a bit. Doesn't entirely dislodge his arm. Doesn't exactly try to stay within it. She shifts a bit on the seat. Keeps his jacket over her lap and legs, keeps her hoodie wrapped around her. Looks out the side window at the dark streets going past.

He wasn't making fun of her.

"I've got some," she says. Looks over at him, stop staringat the ghost-reflection she has in the window. Truth be told, he's probably seen most of her clothes by now. Repeats. She puts things together well but she doesn't have an endless closet. She had a backpack and a duffel bag, basically.

"This isn't Pygmalion," she also says, after a moment.

wolfman
"Guy who fell in love with a statue?" Wolf's mildly bewildered. "No shit."

Girl moves away and wolf doesn't try particularly hard to keep his arm around her either. They end up coming apart. She keeps his jacket. He rebuckles his seat belt.

witch
"The play," she says, exhaling heavily. "My Fair Lady?"

wolfman
"Never seen it."

A red light. Silence in the car. Awkward. Then it goes green. Car starts moving again.

"Maybe we can rent it. If you want."

witch
She sighs. Not for any reason; it's like she's warming herself from within, that way. She looks over to him.

"Professor makes a bet with a friend that he can turn this Cockney flower girl into a fancy lady, indistinguishable from a duchess. It's a whole thing about linguistics and class division and how changing a person can alienate them and... the play is a work of art and the movie is sort of light and fun and has songs and Audrey Hepburn."

A long pause. She seldom uses so many words at one time.

"Just mean... you don't have to get me warm clothes."

wolfman
"Know I don't have to. But I suddenly got more money than I know what to do with and all I'm buying is ... bacon and eggs and sirloin steak. So if you need a coat, I'd like to get you a damn coat.

"You don't have to though. Don't want you to feel like you're getting charity or something."

witch
She laughs.

Bacon and eggs and sirloin steak. That's what does it. She laughs, kicking her head back, feet finally coming off the seats. Looks at him, amused, eyes sparkling.

And is going to say something.

And doesn't.

wolfman
Laughter surprises him. Turns his head her way, half-wary. Girl looks like she's got something to say but she swallows it. Wolf eyes her.

"What?"

witch
She just wrinkles her nose. Says no, so she doesn't have to. And turns a bit, looking out the window again, letting the warmth of the car and the jackets and the heated seats seep into her bones, relax her joints.

Spends the rest of the ride like that, if he lets her.

wolfman
Girl refuses to tell him what was on her mind. Wolf snorts a little, lets it go. Girl cocoons up, drying out and warming up, and wolf watches her a little while. Thinks of putting his arm around her again, but now she's leaning the other way and so is he, and it's too weird.

Rest of the ride goes by silently. Franklin drives carefully, conscientiously. Wolf eventually remembers to give his phone back. They get to the townhouse and Franklin pulls into the garage. Wolf unsnaps his seatbelt and gets out.

"Might order a couple pizzas," he says over the gleaming black roof of the car. Melted snow all across the well-waxed surface, every droplet beaded up tight. "Watch something on Netflix, if you wanna join me. After you soak in a bath or something. Doesn't have to be My Fair Lady."

witch
It's too weird. And so he doesn't follow her, or wrap her up in his arm again. He lets the silence descend, and she doesn't break it. She never closes her eyes. She watches as they turn into the now-familiar neighborhood of his townhouse and starts to sit up, stirring her finally-warmed body. She even relinquishes his jacket back to him, nudging it over the back seat toward his leg.

The car pulls into the driveway, the garage, the door closing behind. The air in the garage is cold but not frozen. She slips out the opposite side of the car, looking at him over the top as well.

Pizzas, he says. And Netflix. If she wants. After whatever. It can be whatever.

She smiles a little. For a moment. Starts walking toward the door to the house proper. At that door she pauses, turning to look at him. "Breakfast at Tiffany's?"

wolfman
"Never seen that either. You into Audrey Hepburn and old movies or something?"

He's caught up to her at the door. Wasn't really trying to, but there he is and there she is. He takes the door from her, ushers her in. Franklin stays behind to wipe down the car, keep the melted snow from spotting the paintjob.

"But yeah, all right. See if I can find it."

witch
"Who isn't," she says, even though he just said he's not. He hasn't seen any of it. How could he be a fan?

But who isn't a fan of Audrey Hepburn. Classic movies. Old musicals. She walks up into the house in her black tights, her little tap pants. His hand on the door, his body behind hers. She crouches in the mud room, unlacing her boots just enough to slip out of them, and then walks in stockinged feet further in, shedding her damp hoodie, revealing the... revealing clothes beneath. Bracelets on her wrists. She starts to head for the stairs. The bath he mentioned.

It sounds nice.

wolfman
Girl's wearing the most ridiculous clothes again. Actually they're not that ridiculous. Actually they look damn good on her. But they're not the sort of thing your average woman has the guts to wear, the attitude to pull off. Wolf watches her go: all those bracelets clattering up her forearm as she lifts her hand to the railing of the stairs.

Spiral turns up and up. Maybe she sees him staring. If she does, he looks away, caught, a quick flush rising in his cheeks.

--

Her room's starting to feel more like her room, maybe. She's been there long enough. The bed's slept in, the bedding already washed and changed a time or two. The closet's all hers. At some point she came back one day to find a dresser in front of her door, which Franklin or maybe the cook -- what was his name, anyway? -- helped her move in if she needed help. Bathroom's all hers too, and at some point there was a nice new fluffy robe folded up in front of her door.

Water runs hot quick and reliable. No one's thought to buy bath salts yet, but there's shampoo and conditioner and bodywash and whatnot. Tub's big and roomy; not a garden tub like in the master bath but close enough. Multiple jets around the perimeter. Sleek, gorgeous fixtures.

--

Downstairs, wolf calls for pizza. Doesn't even get the gourmet shit. Just Papa John's or Round Table or something. He gets a meat pizza and he gets a supreme. He gets wings. He gets cheese sticks. He gets a salad in case girl wanted greens, and he gets a two liter coke.

There's beer in the fridge. Crappy shit. After a bit of thought he gets a bottle of wine out. It's like a little party. His blu-ray player has Netflix built in and he's happy to find Breakfast At Tiffany's on it. Cues it up and leaves it paused.

Tosses a fleece throw on the couch for the girl, finally. Last little amenity he thinks of. By then the tub is draining upstairs.

witch
Everything looks good on her. Those long legs. That slender body that doesn't yet seem weak, fragile, breakable, gaunt: she's just young, and fit, and yes, the attitude helps. The fearlessness. The not-caring what anyone thinks of her. Even him. She walks up, and she does glance back at him --

can't really help it

-- and sees him watching her. More importantly, sees him looking away, sees his face go red. She says nothing. She keeps walking upward, and to the hallway, and she doesn't call it her room in her thoughts, just like this townhouse isn't home, but yeah: she lives here. She puts things in the dresser and closet. She has bottles everywhere of whatever she's brewed. Her favorite tarot deck -- she has more than one -- rests under her pillow, usually. It's a strange one, all black and white and there are no human figures. It is considered, in circles where you take these things seriously, a difficult deck to read. She feels it intuitively when she uses it. She nails things down on the first go, usually. But it sleeps under her pillow in a black back, waiting for her touch. And she leaves things out on the bathroom counter, hairclips and makeup and toothpaste.

She lives here. Bathrobe and all.

And she makes her own bath salts, anyway.

--

Her hair gets piled up. A bath bomb gets tossed in hot water. She soaks, warming. She washes her face. She stays in there until she smells like bergamot and vanilla, her skin soft as silk. She dries off and lets it drain, patting herself dry, letting her hair down and finger-combing it. She puts on thick knit socks that go over her knees, gray ones, and a nightgown. It's just like that little dove-gray, pale-pink sleep set she wore to his bed that one fucking time. Only it's a nightgown, a slip, leaving roughly two inches of bare skin between the tops of her socks and the end of that pink lace hem. She comes downstairs eventually, hair loose, wrapped in a throw blanket from the end of the bed.

There's pizza by then. And soda. And salad and wings and cheese bread and shitty beer and wine. She's stepping down onto the ground floor for the most amount of time she's spent with him in... days, now. A week? She hasn't kept track. She comes toward the living room, with all the food on the coffee table and a blanket waiting for her to add to the one she's got herself wrapped up in like a shawl and,

of course,

Rafael.

Who seems to be waiting.

So:

"Hey."

wolfman
Wolf is waiting for her. Wolf is definitely waiting for her. Pizza boxes aren't opened. Wine's corked. Beer cans aren't popped. Movie isn't started.

He looks up when she starts coming down. She's wearing something different; not so edgy and cool and what the hell is that as before. Kinda sweet and girly, actually. Who still wears a nightgown these days? Wolf's still in jeans, a longsleeve t-shirt. He's taken his shoes off. He flips the pizza boxes open as she hits ground floor.

"Got supreme and meatlover's," he says. "Wings with dip. And cheesesticks. There's salad too if you want. Beer and wine, I don't know. I'm gonna start the movie."

Which is what he does. And then he points at the throw.

"If you're still cold."

witch
She's in pajamas. Sometimes she wears shorts and tank, sometimes a nightgown, sometimes a t-shirt, sometimes panties, sometimes nothing at all. Tonight she's wearing this, simple as all get out: like the tank, just longer. He tells her all the things he got for dinner and by the time he finishes he seems so awkward. He's going to start the movie. There's a blanket. He points at it.

Her eyebrows are up a bit, though not extremely. She has a faint almost-smile on her lips, but she doesn't press it into anything else. She drifts into the kitchen, because she is -- in fact -- hungry. Gets a plate with pizza, wings, some salad. Brings over a glass of wine. By then he's pressed Play again.

Holly Golightly, wandering out of a cabin evening wear and a small tiara, eating a croissant from a bag with a paper cup of coffee, looking in all the various windows of Tiffany's. Moon River is playing, instrumental. Devon gets some food and comes over to the couch, one blanket around her shoulders, another that she scoots up to and pulls over her lap, settling her plate atop. She pushes all her hair to one side, off one shoulder, starting to eat.

wolfman
Isn't even room for them to put their feet up on the coffee table, there's so much food there. Way more than two can eat, even if one of them is a wolf. Makes him happy to have it though. Happy in this quaint, quiet way he doesn't quite understand. She heaps her plate. He heaps his too: wings and 'za and cheesesticks. No salad. Some croutons, though.

Movie starts. Wolf watches with more interest than you'd predict, considering he's a wolf. And a full moon. And a muscleheaded male whose first response to most problems is punch it. Second response: punch it harder.

He likes this, though. Watching a movie. Eating pizza. With the girl. Feels rare, and special, and small, and nice. He doesn't talk about it aloud -- doesn't know how, doesn't want to ruin it -- but his quiet pleasure is all but palpable as he chews silently on a chicken wing.

witch
The movie has a quietness to it, but a sweetness, a readily available underbelly. It's so... vulnerable. While pretending not to be, of course. She has seen it before. She drinks her wine and eats salad and pizza and even some wings, messy as they are, while he... sits beside her? Oh yes, but not right beside. Some distance. He's not in his recliner, set apart. She's there on the couch, legs stretched out, and eventually she shifts the blanket off one leg and the other blanket down her shoulders a bit. Still covered but cooling, no longer so frozen.

She watches the movie. Eats her dinner. And doesn't find a way to scoot closer to him, or curl up against him. Drinks a second glass of wine, after she's eaten. Watches the movie drowsily, quietly, with familiarity.

wolfman
They don't really talk about the movie. Wolf doesn't make any guesses on the plot. Girl doesn't spoil anything, or tell him when her favorite part is coming up. They don't find excuses to scoot together. Wolf eats until he's full, and then he puts his plate aside. Nurses a crappy beer like he can't tell it's crappy. Which he sort of can't.

Movie unwinds its sweet, quiet plot. Wolf yawns once or twice, but not because he's losing interest. It's just late. He's tired, in this comfortable way. Didn't make it down to the Sept today but that's all right. Movie gets close to an end and wolf eats a couple pieces of sausage out of the box, where they'd rolled loose from the pizza. Pours himself a bit of wine, too, and drinks it now that his beer is gone.

--

Movie ends. Credits roll. Quiet in the house by then. Wolf turns the sound down. Starts packing up the leftovers. If girl's asleep, he doesn't wake her just yet.

witch
She's curled up in the end, against the back of the couch, wrapped in blankets and nothing else. Not his arms. And she's finished eating and finished rinking and at the end of the movie there's rain. There's a cab and there's a lost cat rescued, named, taken home, and she's just watching the movie with its aching ending and in the old style of movies, most of the credits were at the beginning. The end is the Paramount landscape, that tall mountain: the words The End in scrollwork white across them.

And of course, Moon River, swelling to a grand crescendo.

She sighs. The screen goes dark, and Netflix suggests others, and offers to let you go Back to Browse. Devon stirs, shifting on the couch. She never fell asleep. She looked at him, a couple of times, that's all. Looks at him again now. "Thanks," she says quietly, again. For dinner, this time. Or cleaning up, maybe.

wolfman
Wolf's slouched on the couch by then. Big rough hands relaxed atop his thighs. Feet apart. He doesn't stir, except to thumb the volume down a little. Girl thanks him. He's not sure why, but he takes it.

"Yeah," he says. A bit better than the unintelligible grunt in the car, though not by much. She moves. He looks over to see if she's getting up.

"You going to bed?"

witch
Not yet. She does stir, though, shifting around. "Yeah," says she. "Think I am," and slides her legs off the couch and to the floor, wiggling her toes in her socks, rising, blanket wrapped around her body. "You?"

wolfman
"Nh-hnh." Affirmative without opening his mouth. Wolf flicks the TV off, gets up, picks up the leftovers. "Just gonna stash these in the fridge first."

Which is where he goes. Kitchen, with the pizzas combined into one box, the cheesesticks and wings into another. Salad's in its own clamshell. Wolf bends down to shove everything in. Rises, pauses. Watches her a moment. Thinks a moment.

"Was a pretty good movie. Thanks."

witch
She doesn't wait. She gives him a faint little smile, as he's getting up, getting ready to put things away when lord knows there are servants who would do it. They came with the house, though; he doesn't consider himself their master. So he isn't. That's how it works. He may not know that, though.

And she's over there, ignoring the fleece throw she wore over her lap just like the jacket he handed her. She leaves it on the couch. She wears the other blanket like a cape, a cloak, walking over to the stairs. Halfway up he tells her it was a pretty good movie, and thanks her.

That smile. Far away. Secret. Self-possessed. "I know," she says, and rests her hand on the railing, trailing upward, blanket trailing behind. Going upstairs.