Chapter 12: "Dinner"
October 21st, 2006 - evening
I had called Professor Martin and agreed to give a guest lecture in one of his first year classes on the difference between 'history' and what was in the text books. I had been at a few key moments of British political happenings, and it was necessary for ickle firsties to understand that the facts in the text book weren't always right. Then again, a priomary source was always biased, too.
I honestly thought that this was Prof. Martin's not so invisible ploy to get me to talk about my past.
I didn't call Garret back yet. I wasn't ready for it. Besides, I was on my way to have dinner with Adam. It just felt... wrong.
When six o'clock rolled around I threw on my outerwear, strapped on my sword, grabbed a cloth bag off the table, and locked up after myself.
I was walking to Adam's - it wasn't too far, and the fresh air was nice.
Adam was on the phone when I knocked on his door. I heard him say, "Hold on Mac. COME IN! It's open!"
"Mac?" I asked as I entered, pointing to the phone.
He put his palm over the receiver. "Duncan MacLeod." He listened for a second then said, "Yeah, she's here. I gotta go. Say hi to Joe for me, eh? Hm? Okay ... and Amanda's there too? Hail hail. Okay, yeah. Try not to kill anyone.... try anyway. Bye."
He hung up the phone and smiled over his shoulder at me as he poked at something in a pot. "Almost ready. Have a seat in the living room - there's nuts on the table, if you want."
I stepped into the apartment, and glanced around. It was tastefully decorated, not all that different from mine. To my left was the entrance to the kitchen, a semi-wall between it an a small dining room created by breakfast bar and three stools. The dining room set was worn looking, made of a light wood. The walls were mostly bare, and a thick cream colour, but there were a few framed pictures sitting in a corner, as if waiting to be hung. There was a single bookshelf filled with all sorts of Latin and Greek school text books, piles of notes, and every single copy of Ovid, Horace, Euripides, Virgil, Homer, or any other Classical poet or playwright to be had.
Beyond the bar was the kitchen, white and clean and new looking, except for the disaster that looked like an attempt at cooking on the honey-coloured counter top. I smiled and looked away. Well, not every 70 year old man was a gourmet chef. I just hoped he didn't kill either of us.
The dining room table was set with ikea-esque blue plates with little red squares around the rim, mismatched wine and water glasses, and two very expensive and out of place looking silver candle holders.
I slipped off my shoes, which were slightly muddy from my walk to his apartment, and instead of following his invitation to the living room, walked up behind him and handed him a cloth sack. He gave me a funny look, and I rummaged in side the bag.
I held up a bottle of wine, and a small wheel of cheese. "Hope you don't mind - it's a '98, though. Okay year for the Niagra Wine. I picked up this at the deli market - the best Camembert I've tasted this side of the Seine."
He set down the fork and tea towel he'd been juggling and took the bottle and cheese from me with a smile of thanks. He set it on the kitchen counter, then took my coat. There was an awkward moment was we tried to figure out if the gentleman was also supposed to take the lady's sword. I finally unhooked my hip holster and just set it down on the coffee table in the living room.
The living room was on the other side of the apartment, with what I assumed was his bedroom and bathroom beyond it. The sofa and love seat were dark green and well-loved, the walls lined with bookshelves and a rather large TV, potted plants, and a bizarre neon sign that flashed, spelling out "Bartender Says: Free Beer Tomorrow!"
I plopped down on the couch and picked at the nuts as Adam finished up playing around in the kitchen. He came to join me, sitting down right beside me with a soft smile on his face. He was wearing, I noticed, for the first time not a sweater and jeans set, but I nice pair of dark trousers and an untucked button down shirt in a soft charcoal.
Yum.
I had deliberately worn pants, although mine were also dark dress trousers. It had seemed silly to wear a skirt - I was going to be walking outside in the chill October air, and it sent fewer 'signals'. In my three hundred and something years on this planet, I had learned that wearing skirt around a man usually was treated as an invitation to stick a hand under it.
Not that Adam wasn't cute. He definitely had lots of cute.
And if we drank more than just that bottle of wine, I'd definitely be on the receiving end of a whole lot of stupid. Adam's cute my stupid ... possibly trouble? Lots of fun, yes. But... maybe guilt too.
Again, the hurt expression that had been on Garret's face when he caught us in the hall flashed across my mind. I closed my eyes briefly. Goddamn Garret anyway. I was still peeved at him, though not as angry as before and... and now I was peeved for a different reason. He claims he has loved me for three years. Even for an Immortal, three years is a long time.
I felt sorry for Garret - to finally confess his feelings, only to find me playing tonsil hockey with the new Immie in town. But it was his own fault, right? I mean, if you're not gonna act, then you have no right to bitch.
...right.
Only when I thought of Garret being in love with me, I got squirmy little worm-butterflies who could do precise in-formation loop-de-loops in my tummy. When I thought of Adam, the squirmy warm feeling moved considerably lower.
I was in lust with one, and possibly in love with the other? Or was I falling in love with Adam, too? And could I ever actually lust after my best friend?
I decided once and for all to push these annoying little thoughts to the back of my mind for the night. I was here with Adam. ADAM. Not Garret. I was going to have fun, dammit.
I turned my smile to Adam and he chuckled. "Hello, there you are."
"What?"
He leaned back against the arm of the chair, managing to lounge gracefully despite the cramped quarters. He wasn't quite comfortable enough to put his sock feet on my lap, so he opted instead to twist slightly at the hips (which threw the planes of them up in sharp contrast against his trouser front - yeow) and rest his feet on the coffee table next to the hilt of my sword. "You were gone for a bit - off in flashback land?"
"Flashback land?" I repeated, tearing my eyes away from the wrinkles in the fabric of his waistband. "That's cute. I like that."
Adam smiled and laced his fingers together. He lifted his arms above his head and stretched, yawning slightly with closed eyes, his toned chest muscles suddenly visible behind the waterfall of his shirt. He cracked one lazy eye in my direction.
Oh, he was good.
He let his joined hands slip behind his head to cradle his neck and one corner of his lips pulled up. "So, what did you do today?"
"Some phonecalls, some homework. Worked out for a bit. Then you."
He smiled. "You did me?"
I closed my eyes and groaned. I had walked into that one. I didn't know which hurt worse, my gullibility or the fact that he actually told that horrible joke. Slightly desperate - and slightly surprised at my desperation - to get beyond my goof I asked, "What did you do?"
He smiled again. "I got to sleep in for the first time in a while. It was nice. Then I went shopping. Then you."
I chose not to comment on his flippant throwing of my words back in my face-ness and reached over his long legs to get at the mixed nuts on the table. I popped a few into my mouth and said, "What's for dinner?"
I saw his cheeks suck in and could tell he was refraining from making a lewd comment. Well, well - restraint. An uncommon trait in Immortals. He was saving the seduction for the dinner table ... well, the brunt of it.
Did he know how sexy he looked, just ... sprawling like that?
He was still smiling.
Of course he knew. Bastard.
I continued to suck on the nuts, not to be outdone. If Seduction was to be the name of the game for the night, then I was a pretty damned good player when I wanted to be. He reached over and stole a peanut from my palm and slipped it in his mouth.
I may be a decent player, but this guy was profession, pure and simple.
Thank god the smoke alarm came to my rescue.
Adam cussed and sprang up to his feet, leapt over the back of the sofa, slipping on the hardwood floor of the dining room in only his socks, and into the kitchen. I laughed as he pulled the pot off the stove and frantically waved a tea towel under the smoke alarm in an effort to make the thing shut up.
He muttered at the pot for a while, called out and said, "Sorry, I'll just be a bit," generally made noises in the kitchen, and then came back to the sofa with the tea towel still draped over his shoulder and two glasses of the wine I'd brought. I looked over my shoulder and noticed the cheese was now on the table, with a fresh-looking baguette. I quirked my eyebrow - normally the cheese wasn't served until after the entree, and before the desert.
This whole affair was teeter-totterign between formal and casual, which was weird, fun, and kinda endearing. He was like a fumbling kid who didn't quite know what to do. Okay, so he was like a fumbling under-a-century kid, which is long enough to become one of those over obnoixious I',-so-suave-because-I-can't-die Immortal prats. Obviously, Adam had stayed pretty true to himself, and it made me wonder if I was still true to the essance of who I was.
"You're gone again," Adam said softly, and I looked up from where I had been staring into the depths of my rich red wine.
I sighed and leaned back against the arm of the sofa. "Sorry - I was just... thinking."
"About?" he took a sip of his own wine, held it in his mouth for a moment, then swallowed it with a small lip-twitch of approval. "You're right, this is pretty good. So what were you thinking about?" He watched me over the rim of his glass, and I realized how...well... pretty his eyes were. Such a nice shade of nutty-green.
I shook my head, "You'll think I'm a moron. I mean - I know I look twenty or so, and you look like you're in your late twenties, but... and, I mean, don't get me wrong about this, because I'm not so superficial as to care about something like that... but... I was jsut thinking how strange it was that you were... so young."
Adam smiled a sort of amused secret smile and set down his glass. He sat up and took my glass out of my hands and set it aside with his, then turned back and wrapped his long slendign fingers around my hand. "I really don't think age matters in this case."
"Oh, no, it doesn't BOTHER me, per se. It's just... kinda weird ... that you're still within your mortal lifetime, you know?" He nodded and one of his thumbs stroked the underside of my wrist gently. I shrugged, deciding to lighten the mood a bit. "Besides, I've always liked older men."
His eyes got huge and his lips parted with ... I don't know... shock? Humour? He quickly slapped a hand over his mouth and his body was wracked with violent shudders.
"Adam?" I said, sitting up, worried. What had I said that had caused such a violent physical reaction? I heard a choking gafaw slip through his fingers and scowled. He wasn't SICK... he was LAUGHING. I punched his shoulder. "WHAT is so funny?"
Adam laughed and only shook his head. A timer went off in the kitchen and with hand gestures he excused himself to go pull a sheet out of the oven.
My scowl became a smile as I watched him try to lift the meal while he was shaking with laughter.