Chapter 26

I gazed up at Monroe's door briefly before knocking. The wolf on the stained glass looked regal, more like a lion than a wolf. The blue crest gave it a sense of valor. The door opened as I was looking at the trees behind the crest.

"Hey there. Umm, why are you just standing outside?" Monroe asked, curiously.

"How did you know to open the door?" I answered his question with one of my own.

He pointed to his nose and gave me a knowing look. "Vanilla body wash," he commented with a smile.

"That's a great trick," I replied while slowly stepping inside.

He shot me a wink. "Oh, the nose knows." His sense of smell was definitely acute.

As I walked into the living room, my eyes fixed on the far wall. Less than twenty-four hours ago Monroe had me pinned there, and I was back again about to have dinner. My eyes moved across the room, replaying parts of last night. I shook my head in spite of myself, trying to hold the negative thoughts back.

Monroe noticed where I was staring, and he rested his hand on my shoulder. "Why don't you get comfortable?" he suggested, motioning me forward.

I eyed his green-striped apron over his red and black plaid shirt. Red? Wasn't that color just a little too ironic to wear after last night? I just about said so, but I held my tongue.

"Nice apron," I commented instead and took off my jacket to reveal my green cardigan.

"Yeah, I don't want to get the plaid dirty." He chuckled, looking down at his shirt. "The green is nice," he said approvingly. "You look lovely tonight."

"On the color spectrum, green is the opposite of red," I replied. He wasn't the only one who knew useless facts.

"Well, whatever spectrum it's on, it brings out your eyes," Monroe remarked and that trademark smile of his appeared.

"Thanks." He'd never mentioned my eyes before tonight, and I couldn't help but smile back. I relaxed a little and laid my jacket on the cedar chest by the window.

"Dinner is almost ready," he said as I pulled out the Tuscan Chianti from my bag.

"I need to chill this up quick then," I said. "This kind tastes better that way. Do you have any salt?"

He looked puzzled. "Salt?"

"There's a great little trick to speed up the chilling process," I replied. "You'll like this one."

We moved into the kitchen, and Monroe pulled out a canister of salt from the cupboard. With a little ice, water, and salt I combined everything in an ice bucket and added the bottle of chianti.

"It'll be chilled in about ten to fifteen minutes," I said proudly.

"You're a regular Mr. Wizard," he replied. "Err... Miss Wizard," he corrected himself.

"She blinded me with science…"

I sang the tune and gave Monroe a grin.

Monroe laughed and shook his head at me. "Is there any song you don't know?"

"I know a few," I modestly replied. "Every song tells a story."

"Yeah, from that playlist in your car, you know, it tells quite a tale." His eyes gave me a shrewd look. Oh, no. We were going to discuss the playlist again.

My face flushed automatically. "Why, Monroe, I don't know what you're talking about," I said, trying not to sound too concerned.

"Well, let me try to jog your memory. First it was Duran Duran, which I'm still offended at, by the way," he scoffed, raising his eyebrows. "Then what was next? The Faint, I believe? What does that story tell us, Renée?" His tone was mocking and so incredibly adorable, but I wasn't about to admit anything.

"Hey, that song has a great violin solo at the beginning," I replied, still blushing. Hopefully this red wouldn't set him off.

"And the One Republic song… What was it? Oh, right. 'Secrets.' So are there any other secrets you need to confess?" Okay, now he was just taunting me.

"Tell me what you want to hear, Monroe," I said, quoting the song just to be a bit sarcastic. "I love music. All lyrics can be interpreted differently. And if I recall, that playlist had some Haydn and Beethoven mixed in there as well."

"'Moonlight Sonata'? Nothing with any meaning there, I'm sure. You know, we don't need full moons," he told me, shaking his head, "or silver bullets for that matter." He was trying to hide his grin, but he was failing miserably.

"Hey, you didn't seem to put anything together during that car ride, Sherlock." I was pushing it, and his eyes were flaring red, but my recklessness wanted to see how far I could go.

"Too bad I didn't choose the farmer's market that was an hour away." He placed his hand in front of his mouth to hide his smile. "You know, I bet I wouldn't have had to be Nancy Drew to figure things out after a few more songs."

Even with the events of last night, being here with Monroe, and us bantering back and forth, brought out all the good feelings I had for him. When he smiled it made me want to smile right back. I really did adore him. Maybe we could make this work.

"So, are ya gonna let me listen to the rest of that playlist?" His eyes twinkled at me as he continued. "I mean, I think it's only fair after Duran Duran."

My face was burning now, and it didn't take a Blutbad to recognize what I was feeling. "So, dinner… How are we doing on that?" I asked, trying to find anything else to distract from this music conversation. "You need me to prep a salad or anything?"

"Changing the subject. Oh, I see." His eyes were back to piercing through me again, trying to get inside my brain. "I already started on the salad. It just needs a few extras, so, you know, if you'd like to help, be my guest."

I breathed a sigh of relief and went to work on peeling carrot sticks over the bowl on the kitchen island. I still felt his eyes on me as I worked. I hummed 'Hungry Like the Wolf' as I started dicing the tomatoes.

"Really?" Monroe scoffed.

I smiled as I continued humming. It was going to be a long night.

(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)

We moved plates and dishes to the dining room. He'd cleaned up quite a bit in here. There was even a tablecloth draped neatly over the round table. Monroe lit the taper candles in the center. He'd really gone all out to make it a nice evening. Despite the effort, the pit in my stomach was growing again. My eyes took in the color of the walls. Burnt orange. Sure, I'd go with that, too, considering the company. Either way, I was in a room with a Blutbad, who was wearing a red plaid shirt, which didn't seem right at all after everything that had happened last night.

Monroe did the serving while I poured the chilled chianti. Sitting across from each other, we were both silent, but our eyes did all the talking. The jokes were over, and the realization of last night crept back into my thoughts. From the look on Monroe's face, they were impregnating his thoughts, too. We continued to eat in silence while the ticking of the clocks were the only sounds in the dining room. The meal was absolutely amazing, but we made no mention of it. One of us had to say something, but my mind was blank. All I could do was stare back into Monroe's eyes, waiting to see if they would flash red again.

"So, umm, how was work?" he asked finally, nervously reaching for the buttons on his white undershirt.

"It was all right. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night," I said, but then I wished I hadn't.

Monroe nodded with a serious face. "Yeah, it was a tosser and turner for me as well."

"Did Nick have you out very late at his… trailer?" I asked. That was where he'd said he'd gone, right?

"It wasn't for very long. You know, Nick likes to over-react, using the term 'life or death' when it's really not warranted." Monroe shook his head. "He had some excerpts from a few books for me to go over, and they really didn't spell out all that much to me, but, I mean, Nick felt like it helped, so..." He stuffed a bit of salad into his mouth.

"Well, it was good you helped," I awkwardly replied. His work with Nick was vague, but I could respect that. I'd asked him not to tell Nick anything about me, so Monroe probably felt the need to not share all of Nick's secrets, either.

"Look, umm, I know you said you didn't want me talking to Nick about… you know," Monroe started, almost as if he'd read my mind. "But, uh, he was asking what I was busy with last night and… Well, your name kinda came up." His pitch went high on the word 'kinda,' so there was more discussed about me than he was letting on.

"So, what was kinda said about me?" I asked, placing the same high-pitched emphasis on the word.

"Well, like I said yesterday, he already knows about you to some extent," Monroe said.

I nodded slowly. While I was flattered he'd discussed me with his friend, this had to be leading up to something, so I kept listening.

"So, umm, I mentioned you were over last night, and we, you know, had some things going on… He asked if I'd told you what I was, and... Well, I…" Even now Monroe couldn't lie to me about what was said. So if Nick had asked him straightforward if I knew, then Monroe hadn't been able to hide that, either.

"What did you say, Monroe?" I calmly asked. He was stammering all over the place.

"Okay, so, uh, I kinda told him that you had figured out there was something, you know, umm, different about me. But Nick knows how to grill a dude, and well, it may have slipped out that you know about me being a Blutbad." Monroe looked as guilty as the cat caught in the goldfish bowl. "But he doesn't know that you can, like, really see me," he quickly added, "or anything else for that matter."

"So, if I can't see you," I began while resting my chin on my hand, "then how did you tell me what you were so that I, as a plain old human, would believe it?"

"Oh, if I want a human to see me, I can," he stated.

I blinked a few times as my hand dropped down. "You can?"

"Sure." He grinned slightly. "You didn't know that?"

"Not officially, no." I scowled under my breath. Darn you, Chloe. She'd always pushed that humans couldn't see Wesen no matter the circumstances. And here I was dumb enough to fall for it. Oh, we'd need to have a little chat about that one later. The legends had to start somewhere, and surely the Grimms weren't spreading all the rumors around. It made sense. "And Nick wasn't surprised that I took the news well?" I probed, clearing my other thoughts.

Monroe took a swig of wine. "I started asking him about the books and avoided the details."

"Okay, well…" I took another sip of wine, too. "At least that's over with."

"He wants to meet you now." Monroe's eyes fixed back on mine as if he was waiting for my reaction.

"So, when does he want to meet?" I was good at not reacting to things, and this was no different. I was completely terrified, but my features stayed smooth and calm.

"Tonight…" His face was like stone. So the movie night was a ruse to get me to come over. Well, at least I got a last meal before being interrogated by a Grimm.

"Tonight…" I repeated. "He's on the way here?"

"He's at the door," Monroe murmured.

Just then, there was a knock on the front door. I whipped around in my chair, and Monroe scurried toward the living room to open it.

Crap... It was going to be a very long night.

A/N: So I know what all of you are saying... "NICK!" (;

The salt/water/ice thing actually works. I challenged myself to find a way to put Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me with Science" in my story. It's an awesome song, and I was quite proud of myself. Don't hate! LOL!

Stayed tuned for the next chapter. 4 more to go!