Power Trio

They might be overdue for a conversation with Sion about his flightiness with housing Evan, but it doesn’t really bother Thekla anymore. With four rehearsals left until Glorie’s, they’ve gotten into a comfortable rhythm with trading the human back and forth. Kell takes him on Wednesday night, and they ride out to her spot in Darrowbrook, and Thekla takes him to the goblin zone on Friday.

Evan really does manage to occupy himself well in the daytime, and she doesn’t mind the extra days she’s ended up hosting him. That’s because when he’s with you he’s not alone with Kell, her slice supplies, but that’s only half true. She expects him now when she comes home, like her other creature comforts, reading one of her fantasy novels or watching over Dalma’s shoulder as she takes in one of her deeply depressing documentaries. Evan the Interloper has been domesticated.

“What is it you’re doing all day, anyway?” she asks him one evening, when Dalma’s out with some collaborators (working on a movement piece, apparently inspired by the city’s sanitation system).

He looks up from the phone she gave him, a crossword half done on it. “Job hunting,” he says.

“Oh. I guess I should have figured.” Thekla sits cross-legged on the other side of the couch. “What kind of job are you looking for?”

“I can’t really be picky, y’know,” Evan says. “Something part-time, or scheduled out, so it doesn’t get in the way, I guess. Looking for help wanted signs in the morning, then in the afternoon I’m at the library applying online, and then the gym and then back here.”

The gym, huh? Now that he mentions it, the scrawny punk who walked into the Shed back in the spring is filling out those clothes that used to hang off him. His shoulders are looser, wider even, though it’s hard to know how much of that is his posture opening up. He’s taken to tying his hair back in the studio, and when it isn’t curtained by chestnut bangs, his face is… well, it’s nice to look at. It’s still thin, with high cheekbones and a pointed nose, but Evan is healthier now, in a lot of small ways that she’s only now taking the time to add up. Softer along the edges. When they met, he looked strung-out. Now he looks like some kind of punk rock yogi.

But those eyes. The eyes are the same twin arctic lakes. He’s looking at her, as she looks at him, and she almost feels it, like a chilly touch across her summer-warm body.

“I’m just trying to get out of your hair,” Evan continues.

“Help me understand something,” Thekla says. “And tell me if I’m overstepping. But just how bad was your situation before we brought you on?”

“Probationally?”

Thekla throws a pillow at him. “You’re not probational, you dork. You know that at this point.”

“Just yanking your chain.” He grins, dimples on display, then rubs his beard. “It got pretty bad, to answer your question. By the last couple of weeks, I was busking all day, because there weren’t any jobs around that paid better. Not for a guy without papers or an address or references. The goal each day was paying for a night in a hostel, but it was a fifty-fifty shot, and I couldn’t do shelters because your shit gets stolen in there constantly and I couldn’t lose my bass. There were a few couches when I couldn’t earn out, but I’d just burnt through the last one I’d had.”

“What happened with that?”

“He kept trying to get me to deal,” Evan says. “When I said no, he tried to get me hooked, and when that didn’t work, he wanted me out, so I left. Saw your sign a couple days later.”

“What about family?”

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Not even in Nashville?”

“Nowhere,” Evan says. “I’m cut off.”

“Why? And why New Laytham, then?”

“Can I hit that overstepping button at this point?”

“Okay, okay.” She can’t help but be stung a little. “How’s the hunt going?”

“Well, I still don’t have a permanent address. Makes everything harder.”

“I might have something for you,” Thekla says. “The shop is looking for an assistant. Just to keep the books and collect the waivers, a bit of receptionist type stuff.”

“You’d vouch for me?” There’s that whole-body gratitude of Evan’s again, like he’s just seen a pair of angel wings sprout off her back. She used to find that pathetic.

Now she laughs. “Yeah, man. Put your tongue away, you’re gonna drool on my couch. You don’t have it yet. But I’ll put in the word.”

“Okay. Thank you, thank you. If there’s anything I can do to convince them…”

“I’m thinking maybe I should have you swing by and let Hockham get a look at you,” Thekla says. “You’ve got ink already, right?” He nods. “You’ll be fine then. He’s kind of like you.”

“How?”

“Quiet, I guess. Quiet and nice. Show me.” Thekla leans forward, eager suddenly to change the subject. “Let’s see the pieces.”

Evan rolls his sleeve back, revealing the American-traditional swallow on his arm, in sailor-tat black, red, and green. He pulls up one of his pant legs and there’s a line of pointillist water lilies up his calf. “And then I have one on my chest and one by my ribs.”

“Let’s see them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Whip ‘em out, Mr. Receptionist.”

Evan dutifully pulls his shirt up. Thekla gets a look at a trim stomach, flat and firm, his chest surprisingly developed. Well, he carried that heavy-ass bag around all day. Focus! Tattoos!

The rib piece is a light linework bass guitar, a Prelate Precision, the same type he plays. It’s the oldest tattoo on him, by its fade, a graceful, one-line wireframe. The other is on his firm pectoral, right over his heart. It’s a T, made of crumbling stone, with a lightning bolt spearing past it so that, if you turn your head right, it can look like an H. Thekla blinks, trying to make sure she’s seeing this right.

“You have a tattoo of the logo for Thunderhead?” she asks, a laugh forming at the edge of her words. “That old hard rock band? My uncle loved them.”

Evan quickly lowers his shirt. His face has gone red. “They’re kind of important to me, OK? Or they were. When I was young and dumb.”

“Sorry, sorry. They’re classic for a reason. And if everyone waited until they weren’t young and dumb to get themselves inked, I’d be out of a line of work.”

“You have some too, right?”

“Of course. Who wants to get tatted by someone without tats?” She looks down at herself. “I just don’t get them in places I can’t cover up. I guess I have a phobia of doing something I can’t take back.”

“Can I see?”

“Ok, now we’re getting outside PG-13.” She giggles. “I got some in places I really don’t think you wanna be looking.”

“Maybe just one?”

Thekla thinks. “Sure,” she finally says, and scoots the other way on the couch, so her back’s to him. Then she lifts her own shirt off.

She hears his sharp intake of breath. “Holy shit,” he says. “That’s beautiful.”

The tips of her ears grow warm.

“It’s a version of the Kamiyon crest,” she says. “The goblins were big on peerage, so there was a lot of copying ‘em down after the crossover. As well as anyone can tell, this is my clan’s.”

She hasn’t ever seen it outside of mirrors or photos, of course, but Thekla knows what Evan is looking at. The crest takes up her entire back in intricate blackwork, its crenellations along her trapezius, the dogwood crook and the forsythia crossed right below her bra strap, bound up by a horned serpent. Then the dozen spears of the Kamiyon lancers, and the warren, its criss-crossing tunnels trailing down her spine in a Celtic knot, past fanciful subterranean beasts like something out of a medieval manuscript. And then, at the dimples of Venus, just above the cleft of her butt, the Inner Sun, the core creator, the supreme god of her people, its rays reaching all the way back up the design.

She isn’t looking back at him, but she has that sensation again, of his gaze moving across her like a substance. Goosebumps rise on her arms.

A picture pushes its way into her head, with sudden delicious force, of Evan crossing the couch and putting his hands on her, in that gentle way he did the night outside Tvnnel. Of his hold going firm, those musician's calluses, so like hers, digging into her shoulders, her neck. Of him pushing her head forward, cheek against the armrest, and pulling her hips close to that lithe frame, his unblemished skin on hers, and those blue eyes seeing every piece of her, devouring her. Of how tiny she'd feel pinned under him, how helpless against that touch. They're alone. She could be as loud as she wants.

Evan does not do any of that, because of course he doesn’t. This isn’t a porno. Instead, he softly repeats, “That’s beautiful, Thekla.”

Her spine arches a little, involuntarily. Jesus, Thekla, put your shirt back on. “Yeah, well.” She clears her throat. “It took forever.”

“I bet it did. Did you get it done at your shop?”

"Uh huh." Thekla turns back around, tries to get her fluttering heart under control. First Kell, now the human too? Goblins have a reputation for libido, but she's normally quite proud of how well she's mastered hers. What the fuck is going on with her today? "I can probably get you a meeting at the beginning of next week. Tuesday, maybe?"

“Whenever you want, I’ll be there,” Evan says, that determined set returning to his jaw like the first night he stayed with her. I’ll show it, he’d said. I’ll put in the work.

They say their good nights. Then Thekla lays alone in the dark of her room, the tempest inside her tossing her one way, then the other.