The orc woman had seemed uncomfortable with her continued presence on the weekends, and her trips to the kitchen to say hello and goodbye and engage Elshona in conversation had tapered off quickly when Silva realized she herself was the cause of said discomfort. She supposed she understood, for if she had had a weekend fling with someone that she'd not intended to see again, she might not like having their presence forced upon her either, but it still made her feel poorly, and she avoided the kitchen hallway when she went with Tate to the bistro on Sunday mornings, setting up the dining room and preparing for the brunch rush before she left for home.
"It’s not our fault, lamby!" Elshona was cackling, all discomfort with Silva apparently forgotten, crowded into the frame next to Ainsley’s huge mohawk. "You need to come get yer man, he’s completely off the lash." Just behind them, she could see Tate’s head, was able to hear his musical laugh, louder than normal with a wild, manic quality. Beside her, Ris gaped.
"Look," Ainsley began raising his hands as if he were about to explain the mysteries of the universe, his shoulders shaking in laughter he was barely able to contain. "First, I just want to say this isn't our fault. Have you ever been to a music festival, lamby-dove? You know you're not supposed to eat the blue pastilles, right? Your boyfriend went face first in a whole pile of them, and I don’t think he’s eaten today. He's been dancing for like three fucking hours, everyone in this place is now his best friend. I have to work tomorrow, Silva. We both have to work," he gestured to Elshona beside him. "We've been trying to get him to wrap it up for the past forty minutes. I just wanted to let you know where he was, in case he winds up on a missing person’s board somewhere, because we need to go home." The music was a raucous Celtic tune, played on traditional instruments and accompanied by a driving drumbeat, faster and more intense than she suspected it was meant to be played. She heard Tate's laughter again, and the braid of her stomach tugged.
"Can't you take him with you? Tell him you're going to another pub!"
Ainsley sighed, rubbing a huge hand over his face. "Humans have this expression I'm rather fond of, maybe you’ve heard it. ‘Like herding cats,’ meaning a situation that is aggravatingly impossible. You're just going to go around in circles with this obnoxious cat, right? And everyone knows cats have claws. In this situation, in case you weren’t sure, Tate is the cat. I've always been more of a dog person, to be honest."
"These friends of yours, Silva?" There was an odd edge to Ris's voice, but before Silva could respond, Ainsley's face split into a huge smile on her phone screen.
"Well, well. Looks like the gang’s all here. Fancy seeing you, Nanaya. You ladies should've joined us tonight."
"How do you know him?" Ris demanded, leaning over Silva's shoulder, attempting to see the phone screen. "What does he mean ‘your boyfriend’?"
Silva opened her mouth to answer, finding no sound willing to come out. She gaped at Ris like a fish for several moments, coming no closer to an answer than she had when the question had been asked. On the phone screen, Ainsley cocked his head, his eyes narrowing.
"Are youkiddingme? Do you mean to tell me after all this fucking time that—" he held up a hand cutting himself off, his mouth pressing together in a flat, grim smile, shaking his head. Beside him, Elshona had gone quiet, her eyes widened.
Anger burned in her belly, the urge to defend herself churning at the back of her throat. He didn't get to judge her, she wanted to scream. No one understood what she was juggling, and no one seemed to care. "Ainsley, you can't just leave him there," she pleaded, ignoring his judgmental look. "What if something happens?!" He had called her his heartbeat, his reason for breathing, and then they'd not spoken in nearly three weeks. It was hard to fathom turning her back on her family and her community for someone who seemed perfectly content to not assert himself in her life, to let her go on living without him, to let her follow the tightly prescribed roadmap her family had laid out for her, assigning himself the role of a minor accessory at best. "Please just bring him home."
"Don’t worry, Silva. I will absolutely be bringing him home, and when he finally sobers up, I'm going to have a very hard conversation with my friend over pretty things that are a waste of his time."
The screen went black as the call disconnected and Silva bit back a curse.
Ris gaped at her. "'He has his little beauty in this weekend,'" she intoned, her eyes squinting as if she were trying to remember something, her brow furrowing. "You? AndTate?!"
"How do you know Ainsley?" Silva demanded, not liking the fact that she was at the center of everyone's apparent ire that evening, that everyone was demanding things of her, and giving nothing in return. "Is that how you know about the Pixie?"
"We've been seeing each other since the fall," Ris shrugged. "It’s casual. Only reason I didn't say anything was because I didn't want Dynah going into a tizzy." Across the table, Dynah gasped in offense. "So let me get this straight . . . you . . . and fuckingTate. . . and you’ve been seeing him in secret for . . . how long?"
"It's not been in secret," Silva insisted hotly. "We double date with Lurielle and Khash all the time! And since the end of summer. I met him on our first trip."
Ris 's violet-colored ears darkened. "What the actual fuck nugget?!" She shouted, banging on the table, making their glasses rattle and slosh. "Are you fucking telling me that not only have you been in a secret relationship with that feral fuckinglunaticsince the summer,I'mthe only one who didn't fucking meet someone on that trip? And Lurielle knows about this? Are you fuckingkiddingme?!"
Ris's expletive-laced tirade seemed to hang in the air over their table, earning the attention of most of the bar patrons in the vicinity. Silence reigned in her wake, and across the table, Dynah still stared slack-jawed. Silva began to giggle, slapping her hand over her mouth, unable to stop herself. Ris' laughter, two beats later, was louder. Her head dropped back, shoulders shaking, the long waterfall of her sleek black hair swinging behind her. "Un-fucking-believable."
"I can't believe you're seeing Ainsley," Silva sighed once their laughter had subsided. "He talkssoooomuch! How do you ever get a word into the conversation?"
"I can't believe you're seeing Tate! You know, I think he might actually be part fox. Or like, a really evil rabbit. Something that lives in the forest that bites your ankles." Silva dissolved into laughter again, her chest beginning to hurt from the way it heaved. “And I know about the Pixie because of you, actually, you told us that’s where you spent the weekend the first trip." She dropped her head back, throwing a hand up in exclamation. "And I guess now we know why. It’s a fun place, too bad it’s not closer. He put some of the violet and rosemary Blackfangs in the cooler just for me, so I guess he’s a nice rabbit sometimes. What did your family say? Evil rabbit doesn't really seem to fit the whole club aesthetic."
"I haven't told them yet," she whispered, all traces of her laughter extinguished, her head suddenly heavy from the drinks she’d consumed. The thought of Tate going out of his way to accommodate Ris made her lungs seize. It wasn’t surprising, she thought, considering the way he adjusted his own home for her comfort. She wondered if he knew Ris was her friend, wondered why he’d never said anything . . . "I don't know how to tell them. And he doesn't want me to. I don't really know what he wants. But he's an elf, did you know that? He was raised in an Elvish community, he went to an Elvish school. We have so much in common . . ."
"But he's an orc," Ris finished, pulling a face. "You have to tell them eventually, Silva. You’re not being fair to yourself if you don't. It's really not fair to him, either."
"I’m not being fair to him," she agreed softly. "But he's not very fair to me."
Ris rolled her eyes, sighing. She raised a hand, catching the attention of the slender satyr who was taking care of their table, leaning at the end of the bar. "Well then, it sounds like you two are made for each other. Two evil rabbits who don't know what you want. I think it's time to call it a night, those hurricanes are gonna hit us in about 10 minutes. Dy, you good?"
Silva blushed guiltily, remembering Dynah was still at the table. The satyr made it around with their tab, taking Ris's card as Silva pulled out a fistful of bills for her.
"I've got to hand it to you ladies," he mused, collecting the credit card. "When you four want to make a scene, you really make a fucking scene. And look at that, you're missing one tonight. I hate to hear how loud you're going to scream if all of you are ever here together."
"AJ, just take the damn card," Ris groused at him good-naturedly. "This is why we tip Ruby better."
The rideshare dropped her off first, and she was glad that Dynah had the idea in the first place, before they'd left work. She would call the service again to bring her back to the office the following morning, to collect her car, and treat herself to her long-missed coffeehouse on the way home. Her stomach tensed and tightened when her phone buzzed again, less than 15 minutes after she'd locked her apartment door. It was another unfamiliar number and she answered it tersely, prepared to argue with Ainsley again. She was surprised when a heavily accented voice barked in her ear.
"Corduroy Falls? You live in Corduroy Falls, yes? Can you give me an address?" Silva slumped against her kitchen counter, her jaw working but no sound coming out for a full minute as she attempted to process the words the man spoke. She had no idea what he was going on about, no clue what Corduroy Falls was supposed to be, but she wasn't about to give her address to some rando on the phone.
