Love Junkie (Mattie)

[Hayley Everett]

Who ever thought that paneled ceilings would be such a hit? Only in New England, and only Jacob Smirnov…

Shaking her head, she downed the last bit of her second glass of wine as she lay on her brown leather sofa staring up. Her father had tried to put a masculine touch in this place, but frankly it was still just too feminine for any man to have lived in. She wondered if he had a lot of women over, sure would explain the sparkling chandelier above her head and the corny looking Beauty and the Beast candles above the fireplace.

Swinging her legs over the couch she stretched her body to lean over the velvet footstool, poking the fire with an iron to get it sparking up again, it was cold in the winter in Massachusetts; and she needed the house to warm up, and another glass of wine. There had to be over a hundred choices in the basement-made-cellar, which to her were all the same at the end of the day. Wine is wine is wine, she thought while browsing through the selection, settling on a light wine she knew she liked. Turning to head upstairs, her mouth gaped open… ew. Jacob was such a freak, who has a freaking wine cellar with half of the cellar installed with chains and purple flowers? Jacob apparently had weird and kinky hippie hobbies. She didn’t even want to know and hoped the bottles of wine were sanitary.

Even though her father didn’t live here anymore, God only knew if he were dead or not, the place still smelled like him, thanks to the pillow he used to douse cologne in for mom when he was away for work. Musky cologne smelling of lemon, amber, and cedar wood, maybe a hint of his man smells too. That pillow needed to go, and she needed to get out of this place.

**

Tonight was probably not the best night to make her debut on the Boston scene, she was having one of those drink your problems away kind of nights, but there was no way in hell she was staying cooped up in that house like an alien baby on a new planet. She looked good, and she was going to party and make friends—temporary friends at least, the kind you call your BFF’s after 10 minutes of knowing them when there’s too much alcohol in your system. Oh yeah, this was going to be a fun night. Hopefully she wouldn’t end up sucking face with every person at the club. Oh Hayley, you’re too friendly sometimes.

She found a parking spot by the Boston Commons Park which was actually really creepy at night, and she prayed she wouldn’t have to walk home through it, especially in heels. Regardless, she packed a pair of flats in her large purse, and it would be vise versa on different nights. Heels were a good weapon to have on you, those suckers could gauge someone’s eye out in a heartbeat. Oh yeah, women were walking weapons with their clothing and accessories, she couldn’t understand why it was still legal to walk around in the heels with spikes protruding from every centimeter of fabric. Dangerous and self-hazardous.

Her cheeks flushed at the sight of the line for the club, there were at least 30 people waiting… and suddenly they were all looking at her. Crap. Of course they were looking because she came alone, how freaking lame. She fumbled with her phone a moment as she pretended it was going off, answering with a “Hello? Hey, yeah I’m here,” as if there were someone on the other line… this was such a bad idea, and she hoped she would make a friend quickly before she was stared at to death for being the “new girl who came by herself”.

[Matthias Walker]

Boston’s sky is already dark, lit up at the edges by the city lights and the distant moon, but for the creatures that lurk in the city’s shadows and those that hunt them, the darkness signifies a beginning, not an end.

It has been days since Matthias last felt the restlessness settle deep enough to demand action; he is bizarrely content most days in Boston, learning the roads and remembering how to call anywhere home again without the once-omnipresent deadlines of finding a place to sleep and food to eat. But between the memories of lonely highways stretching for miles and the euphoria of going somewhere and a small case that promises to resolve itself in a matter of hours with the right strings pulled, the night finds Mattie back in the streets, ignoring the familiar chill of the wind as he slips through the alleys to the lit-up club.

There’s a line and it draws him up short, head tilting in surprise before he cracks an amused grin—of course. Should have known: Popular place. He has a fake FBI ID tucked in the pocket of his jeans with the keys to Silas’s apartment and his cell phone, but it’s more natural and more inconspicuous playing like he’s any other guy in his twenties chasing a good time and a few drinks. Besides—his gaze sweeps speculatively across the line of people as he approaches, lets the familiar tension and edge of adrenaline seep from his shoulders into casual looseness—it means he’s allowing himself company, and that he can afford to be picky without dinner and a bed on the line.

People arrive in pairs and more, laughing college-aged girls with generously dipping necklines to sleek dresses and young men with slicked hair, and comparatively Mattie appears underdressed with Silas’s Washington Medical hoodie and dark jeans, his hair ruffled by the wind. Fingers hook casually into the hoodie pockets as he steps up onto the sidewalk, looks up in time to see a girl approach on her own—young, dark haired, pretty—and pull out her phone. He’s not close enough to hear her but he catches the trace of words in the curve of her lips as he steps casually to her side, glancing past her at the slowly dwindling line; the novelty of the girl’s appearance (and his) has worn off for most of them, and their faces turn back towards each other.

“This is new,” he says, in lieu of, say, hello, “Most people tend to come in, you know—” The dismissive tilt of his head towards the others is tempered by the warm amusement in the curve of his smile, the mischief in the flick of blue eyes towards the girl, “—small hoards. Don’t need a wingman, or are you meeting someone?”

It’s probably, if he thinks about it, the first time for some time now where the offer of company has been a remotely subtle one. Overture of friendship or not, Mattie knows enough of the demands of catering to many people to know that he just can’t do it—not tonight, not with the case and the man he needs to keep an eye on and ultimately leave with—and it’ll be easy to slip away, if the girl is meeting someone, be it jealous boyfriend or gaggle of girlfriends. He’s not looking for company for the night or the sting of a fight, and without the consequences of failure and rejection, it’s infinitely easier to nod towards the club and offer her his hand with an easy, lopsided grin, “Matthias. Buy you a drink?”