I nodded. "You're right. I've never seen him act like this before." I was looking at Richard. His face was as closed and careful as I'd ever seen it.
"He acts like this around other dogs sometimes, tries to boss them," she said. "Do you have a dog, Mr. Zeeman? Maybe Custard smells him on you."
"No," Richard said, "I don't have a dog."
"I found your beau sitting in the hall with his sack of food. I thought he might like to wait inside. I'm sorry that Custard has made the visit so unpleasant."
"I always enjoy talking shop with another teacher," he said.
"So polite," she said. Her face had broken into a wonderful smile. She'd only met Richard once or twice in the hall, but she liked him. Even before she found out he was a teacher. Snap judgment.
Richard stepped around her into the hall. Custard followed him, yipping furiously. The dog looked like an overly ambitious dandelion. But it was a pissed dandelion. The dog bounced forward on tiny feet, giving a little hop with each bark.
"Custard, get back in here."
I held the door open for Richard. He had a white take-out sack and a coat in his arms. The dog gave a running bound, darting in to nip his ankle. Richard looked down at the dog. Custard stopped a nose away from his pants leg. He rolled eyes upward, a look in his doggy eyes that I'd never seen before. A considering look as if he wondered if Richard really would eat him.
Richard slipped through the door. Custard just stood there in the hallway, as subdued as I'd ever seen him. "Thanks for looking after Richard, Mrs. Pringle."
"My pleasure. He's a nice young man," she said. Her tone of voice said more than the words. "Nice young man" meant marry him. My stepmother, Judith, would agree with her. Except that Judith would have said it out loud, no hinting.
I smiled and closed the door. Custard started yapping at the door. I locked the door out of habit and turned to face the music.
Richard had draped his leather coat across the back of the couch. The take-out sack was sitting on the small kitchenette table. He lifted out cartons of food. I put my coat on the back of the couch by his and slipped off the high heels. I lost about two inches of height and felt much better.
"Nice jacket," he said. His voice was still neutral.
"Thanks." I had been going to take the jacket off, but he liked it, so I kept it on. Silly, but true. We were both being so careful. The tension in the room was choking.
I got plates out of the cabinet. I got a cold Coke from the fridge for me and poured a glass of water for Richard. He didn't like carbonated beverages. I'd taken to keeping a jug of cold water in the fridge just for him. My throat felt tight as I set the drinks on the table.
He set out silverware. We moved around my minuscule kitchen like dancers, knowing where each would be, never bumping unless it was on purpose. Tonight there was no touching. We left the lights off. The only light was from the living room, leaving the kitchen in semidarkness like a cave. It was almost as if neither one of us wanted to see clearly.
We sat down at last. We stared at each other over the food on the plates: mooshu pork for me, cashew chicken for Richard. The smell of hot Chinese food filled the apartment. Warm and comforting on most occasions. Tonight it nauseated me. A double order of crab ragoon sat on a plate between us. He had filled a saucer with sweet-and-sour sauce. It was the way we always ate Chinese, sharing a bowl of sauce.
Damn.
His chocolate brown eyes stared at me. I was the one who looked away first. I didn't want to do this. "So, do all dogs react like that to you?"
"No, just the dominant ones."
I looked up at that. "Custard is dominant to you?"
"He thinks so."
"Unhealthy," I said.
He smiled. "I don't eat dogs."
"I didn't mean... oh, shit." If we were going to do this, might as well do it right. "Why didn't you tell me about Marcus?"
"I didn't want to involve you."
"Why not?"
"Jean-Claude involved you with Nikolaos. You told me how much you hated that. Resented it. If I brought you in to help me with Marcus, what would be the difference?"
"It's not the same," I said.
"How? I won't use you like Jean-Claude did. I won't do it."
"If I volunteer, you're not using me."
"What are you going to do? Kill him?" There was a bitterness in his voice, anger.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You might as well take your jacket off. I saw the gun."
I opened my mouth to protest and closed it. Explaining in the middle of a fight that I wanted to look good for him sounded silly. I stood up and took the jacket off. I draped it carefully over the back of the chair, taking a lot of time with it. "There. Happy?"
"Is that gun your answer to everything?"
"Why do you suddenly have a problem with me carrying a gun?"
"Alfred was my friend."
That stopped me. It hadn't even occurred to me that Richard might like Alfred. "I didn't know he was your friend."
"Would it have made a difference?"
I thought about that. "Maybe."
"You didn't have to kill him."
"I had this conversation with Marcus last night. They left me no choice, Richard. I warned him, more than once."
"I heard all about it. The pack's buzzing with it. How you wouldn't back down. You rejected Marcus's protection. You shot another one of us." He shook his head. "Oh, everyone's real impressed."
"I didn't do it to impress them."
He took a deep breath. "I know, that's what scares me."
"You're scared of me?"
"For you," he said. The anger was seeping out of his eyes, what was replacing it was fear.
"I can handle myself, Richard."
"You don't understand what you did last night."
"I am sorry if Alfred was your friend. Frankly, he didn't strike me as someone you'd hang out with."
"I know he was a bully, and Marcus's dog to call, but he was mine to protect."
"Marcus wasn't doing a lot of protecting last night, Richard. He was more interested in his little power struggle than in keeping Alfred safe."
"I stopped by Irving's place this morning." He let the statement hang there in the air between us.
It was my turn to get angry. "Did you hurt him?"
"If I did, it was my right as beta male."
I stood up, hands pressed on the tabletop. "If you hurt him, we are going to have more than just words."
"Are you going to shoot me, too?"
I looked at him, with his wonderful hair, looking scrumptious in his sweater, and nodded. "If I had to."
"You could kill me, just like that."
"No, not kill, but wound, yeah."
"To keep Irving safe, you'd pull a gun on me." He was leaning back in the chair, arms crossed on his chest. His expression was amazed and angry.
"Irving asked for my protection. I gave it."
"So he told me this morning."
"Did you hurt him?"
He stared at me for a long time, then finally said, "No, I didn't hurt him."
I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding and eased back into my chair.
"You'd really pit yourself against me to protect him. You really would."
"Don't sound so amazed. Irving was caught in the middle of the two of you. Marcus would have hurt him if he didn't contact me, and you said you'd hurt him if he did. Didn't seem very fair."
"A lot of things in the pack aren't fair, Anita."
"So is life, Richard. What of it?"
"When Irving told me that he was under your protection, I didn't hurt him, but I didn't really believe you'd hurt me."
"I've known Irving a lot longer than I've known you."
He leaned forward, hands on the tabletop. "But he's not dating you."
I shrugged. I didn't know what else to say. Nothing seemed like a safe bet.
"Am I still your sweetie or did your baptism by fire last night make you not want to date me anymore?"
"You're in a life-or-death struggle and you didn't tell me. If you hide things like that from me, how can we have a relationship?"
"Marcus won't kill me," he said.
I just stared at him. He seemed sincere. Shit. "You really believe that, don't you?"