Flirt (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #18)

"You keep saying women," Micah said. "I thought you were training up some of the male dancers, too."

"We are, but most of them came from Guilty Pleasures, and Jean-Claude always made us put on a real show there. The other wereanimals aren't arguing about it, either."

"They know if they don't do what they're told, it will get back to the head of their animal group," Micah said.

Jason smiled at him. "Yeah, Caleb is sooo not happy that you made him move from waiter at Guilty Pleasures to dancer, O Leopard King."

Micah gave a small frown. "I didn't make him change jobs; I gave him a choice of jobs that would make him more money, because he was complaining he needed more money. I'm his Nimir-Raj; I helped him brainstorm some alternate jobs. He thought stripping was the lesser evil."

"We got tired of him bitching," I said.

Jason grinned. "He does like to bitch, O Leopard Queen."

I was queen to Micah's king, but I was still technically human and didn't change shapes. Blood tests had proved I carried several different kinds of lycanthropy inside me, but I stayed human. The lycanthropy virus protected its host from all disease, which should have meant that I couldn't catch a second kind once I caught the first, but my body seemed able to collect them. I was one of about forty people worldwide who had managed to be carriers of multi-strains but not shapeshift. We'd been the inspiration for the lycanthropy vaccine that had begun to be used worldwide. My bit for medical science. With every new animal, there was the potential that I could call that animal to me like a vampire. I was really trying not to do that again.

I turned to Nathaniel. "You recognized Bennington 's wife, didn't you?"

He nodded, face serious. "She was a fur-fucker."

"A what?" I asked.

Jason explained, "They're like badge bunnies for cops, or group ies for bands. They just want to fuck us because we turn furry once a month."

Nathaniel said, "She had money so she got private dances, but she was like most of the fur-fuckers. She seemed to think that we were animals and wouldn't be able to resist our baser urges, as if because we have a beast inside us we can't say no, or don't have the right to say no."

Jason frowned. "I used to do it after work, never for money, but just because a woman was hot, and she wanted me. But after a while it was as if they'd fuck the tiger in the zoo if it wouldn't eat them, and they didn't think of me as much different from that."

I hugged Nathaniel with one arm and put my other arm past to draw Jason into the hug. "I'm sorry that people are so stupid."

Micah leaned in at my back, and we did our best to do a group hug in the booth, which didn't quite work, but still got the job done. Nathaniel and Jason were smiling when we pulled back, and that was the goal.

"Did anyone at the club cross the line with the wife?" I asked.

Nathaniel shook his head. "Jean-Claude's really strict about that, so no. There are a few dancers and bouncers that will do the fur-fuckers, but she wanted one of us to do it in the private dance area right then. That was her fantasy and she wasn't settling for fucking one of us later in a hotel room, or so she informed Graham, after he offered to meet her after work."

Graham was a werewolf and a bouncer, not a dancer, but he was cute enough.

"A blow to his ego," I said.

"Not as bad a hit as the fact that you keep refusing him," Jason said, and he grinned, knowing it was a sore point with me.

I frowned at him, and then got back on point. "Did she get kicked out?"

Nathaniel nodded. "Security had to escort her outside, because she wouldn't take no from us, and she just kept trying to up the price as if we were whores."

I leaned my face in against his, not sure what to say, because when I'd first met him he had been a prostitute. He'd been a high-priced one catering to an elite clientele, but in the end there had been too many clients who wanted him because a wereanimal could take a lot of damage and still survive. It was too much rough trade, even for someone who enjoyed pain the way Nathaniel did.

"A lot of people think that about strippers," Jason said.

"I know," Nathaniel said.

"I thought we were supposed to cheer up Anita," Micah said, "not be the gloomy ones."

They both looked up, exchanged a glance, then Jason grinned at me. "I think we promised to flirt outrageously."

"You said that, and just assumed I'd go along," Nathaniel said.

Jason aimed the grin at him. "Won't you?"

Nathaniel smiled, shrugged, and nodded.

"Then let the flirting begin," Jason said.

I was a little nervous about what outrageously might mean, but I'd take silly and a little embarrassing over them being sad. But as usual the flirting confused me.

When Jason had said he and Nathaniel would flirt outrageously, I thought they'd meant flirting within our little group, but when the waiter came to our booth, the plans changed. The waiter started out very sure of himself: "I'm sorry that no one's been to your table." I was sitting beside Nathaniel, so I got a very good look at what happened to the waiter's face when Nathaniel looked up at him. That's all he did, just raise that face, and those eyes, and stare directly at the waiter-who went from reasonably intelligent and competent to stammering. No, I'm not joking. The waiter began to stammer, a lot of uhs, and hmms, and words not in their right order. Nathaniel, having noticed the reaction, smiled at him, which didn't help at all. The waiter finally, in desperation, said, "Drinks, drinks, can I bring you drinks?"

"Yes," I said, we all said, "drinks would be good."

He took our drink orders while staring at Nathaniel, which meant he didn't write anything down, which led me to wonder if we'd actually get what we ordered, but we were all merciful and let him flee the table for somewhere safe from Nathaniel's charm.

Jason turned to me and Micah. "Can he flirt with the waiter?"

"No," we said in unison. Micah said, "Please don't, because we'll either get great service or terrible service, and we need to get Anita back to work."

Then, of course, it being me, I felt compelled to ask, "Do you want to flirt with the waiter?"

"Before I was with the two of you I would have, but I know it makes you uncomfortable."

"Which is why I asked for him," Jason said.

I looked at Micah, and we had a moment of what I thought was understanding, but being the girl I couldn't trust to silent communication. I had to say something. "Do we take some of the fun out of things for Nathaniel?"

Nathaniel answered, "No, I would never trade being able to flirt with strangers for living at our house with you guys. When I could flirt with whoever I wanted, I wasn't very happy; now I'm happy."

I kissed him, gently, since I was wearing bright lipstick. His mouth came away with a faint hint of red. Jason said, "Waiter is coming this way; if you want to play with him, you can't be hanging all over Nathaniel."

I didn't argue with Jason, because if anyone knew the rules for teasing people, it was him. By the time the waiter got to us, we were just sitting there. He had our drink orders correct, which meant we might get good service after all.

He took our orders while looking at Nathaniel as if the rest of us didn't exist. He spoke to us, even wrote down what we said, but he never looked at anyone else. Nathaniel didn't do anything but just looked pleasantly at him. It had taken me a while to figure out that was flirting, too. Just letting another human being know that you "see" them is perhaps the most important part of flirting. Nathaniel had taught me that not all flirting is about sex. You flirt, in a way, with friends, family, even a job interviewer; you want them to like you, or you want them to know that you are listening, that you care. I'd learned that I wasn't very good at letting anyone know I liked them unless I was trying to date them. Learning to flirt in a more broad sense had made me a more pleasant person all around, but then it would have been hard to be less pleasant.

There was silence around the table, and I realized that everyone was looking at me; finally even the waiter looked. I blinked up at him. "I'm sorry, what?"

"What do you want to order?" Micah said.

I had no idea. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what I want."

The waiter's eyes flicked back to Nathaniel, then at me, as he said, "I'll give you a few minutes, then check back."

I smiled at him encouragingly. He smiled, gave me a brilliant smile that lit his face up. I think it was only because I was sitting close enough to Nathaniel so he could flash that smile at both of us, but I smiled back, and I noticed that he was tanned and his hair was almost black, straight and tucked into a short ponytail, with a long wisp of hair escaping to trace the edge of a triangular face. His eyes were dark, and sparkling with his desire to catch Nathaniel's attention. He was cute, and that was the problem with this kind of flirting. I couldn't figure out how to let someone know I "saw" them without really seeing them. I couldn't pretend to notice someone. I either noticed them, or I didn't. He smiled flashed that brilliant white smile in his tan and left me to my menu.

"I'm glad we didn't bet on this one," Jason said, "I'd have lost."

Nathaniel looked at him. "You thought he was gay."

"The way he reacted to you-yes."

I was studying my menu, trying to remember what I'd wanted. Some kind of salad, I think. Or had it been the pulled pork sandwich? That was always good.

"But he smiled at both of you, so I'm betting bi."

"Pulled pork sandwich. I'm going to back to work, so I don't have to eat light. But the waiter wasn't smiling at me, he'd noticed he had only looked at Nathaniel and I was the only one close enough to let him look at me and still see Nathaniel."

"You made him see you when you looked up and smiled," Nathaniel said.

"Not on purpose," I said.

"We've all started adopting some of Nathaniel's charms," Micah said.

I looked at him. "You, too?"

He nodded, smiled, and looked down, as if he were a little embarrassed. "I've found that a little charm helps a lot in politics, and you want people to like you; no one is better at getting people to like them than these two." He ended with a wry tone and a look halfway between amused and disgusted, but ended with a smile.

Jason batted blue eyes at him. "Aw, that's so sweet; you've been taking lessons in luuvv from us."

Micah scowled at him, and I realized it was a look more reminiscent of me. Did all couples begin to pick up mannerisms from each other? I knew I'd picked up things from Jean-Claude, but I was his human servant, which meant that personality and psychic gifts literally mingled, or were contagious. But then I was Micah's Nimir-Ra, leopard queen, and Nathaniel was my animal to call, so maybe it was the metaphysics still. I'd learned that my initial attraction to Micah had been vampire powers-mine, not Jean-Claude's. The powers of Belle Morte's line were lust and love, with the caveat for most of them that you could only control someone to the degree you were willing to be controlled. For me it truly was a double-edged sword, and with Nathaniel and Micah I'd been willing to be cut to the heart. By the time I'd made Jason my wolf to call, I'd had more control so we were still just friends. Though I'd bound him to me during a crisis, by accident, just reaching out for the metaphysical help that was closest, I hadn't made us fall In Love with each other. I was relieved and I think so was he.

"Do you really not understand that he was flirting with both of us?" Nathaniel asked.

I gave him a look. "He could smile in your direction looking at me, without staring at you. I think he'd noticed he was only staring at you and it finally embarrassed him."

Nathaniel looked across me to Micah. "You saw it. What do you think?"

He took my hand and kissed it, gently. "I think she doesn't see herself the way we do."

I tried to pull my hand back. "I see myself first thing in the morning, and trust me, I don't roll out of bed looking that good."

He held my hand tighter. "Haven't we proved by now that we find you fabulous in the morning?"

I scowled at him, but stopped pulling on my hand. "I was told all my childhood that I wasn't pretty, and you guys love me because of vampire powers. You may not be able to help it."

Nathaniel's arms encircled me from behind, as Micah came in from the front for a kiss. "You are beautiful, Anita, I swear it's true," he whispered. I was tense in their arms, almost panicked; why? My father's second wife had been blond and blue-eyed, tall and Nordic, as had her daughter from her first marriage, and the son they had together later. I loved my brother Josh, but I'd always looked like the dark secret in the family pictures, and Judith had been very quick to explain to friends that I wasn't hers; that my mother had been Hispanic. I'd always blamed my lack of self-esteem on that, but now I realized that wasn't all of it. It wasn't like a buried memory, just one I hadn't looked at before.

"My Grandmother Blake took care of me while my father worked for about a year. I'd just lost my mom, and she told me that I was ugly, that I better not count on finding a husband, but get an education and a job and take care of myself."

"What?" Micah said. Nathaniel's arms tightened around me.

"Don't make me say it again; it's such a shitty thing to do to a little kid."

"You know it's not true," Micah said, studying my face.

I nodded, and then shook my head. "I guess, not really. I mean, I see how people react to me so I know I clean up well, but I can't really see why you guys react to me. I just see what my grandmother and then my stepmother told me wasn't tall enough, white enough, pretty enough." The tightness in my chest eased the panic flowing away on the realization that even if I'd been an ugly little girl, a grandmother who loved you wouldn't have said it. She might have encouraged you to study hard and get a career, but she wouldn't have told you it was because you were ugly and no man would have you.

Nathaniel kissed the side of my face as Micah kissed my lips. I stayed motionless in their arms, letting the knowledge of that childhood memory wash over me. "Why did I remember that now?" I asked, softly.

"You were ready to remember," Nathaniel whispered. "We bring up the pain in pieces so we can look at it in small bites."

Jason spoke softly from just behind Nathaniel. "First, you are beautiful and desirable, and that was evil of her. Second, one thing I've learned in therapy is that when you feel your most safe, most happy, is when the really painful stuff rears its head."

"I remember Nathaniel's therapist saying that when you started having bad dreams. Why does it have to work that way?" I asked, still held between the other two men.

"You feel safe enough and you believe you have enough of a support network to look at the really bad stuff, so when your life is going its best, we all have a tendency to dredge up the worst of our pain."

I turned in their arms so I could see Jason's face. "That sucks," I said.

He smiled, eyes gentle. "Big-time suck, yes." He studied my face. "You aren't going to cry, are you?"

I thought about it, figuring out how I felt. "No."

"It's okay to cry," he said.

I shook my head. "I don't want to cry."

"You never want to cry," Nathaniel said.

I couldn't argue that, so instead I let myself soften in their arms, and kissed first Micah, and then turned so I could lay my cheek against Nathaniel's face and whisper, "I'll cry later, at home."

"You'll cry when it finally hits you," he said.

"I don't feel like crying now."

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"You could read my feelings."

"You've taught me better psychic manners than that," he said.

"I came with better manners than that," Micah said.

I nodded, and then started to sit back on the bench. They moved back to let me. "I feel sort of hollow, like there's this empty space inside me that I didn't know was there. Fragile-which I hate."

Jason reached past Nathaniel to pat my thigh, just a friendly touch. "It's okay, we're here."

I nodded. That was the problem with loving people: it made you weak. It made you need them. It made the thought of not having them the worst thing in the world. I heard Bennington 's words in my head: It's a terrible thing to lose someone you love. I knew it for truth, because I'd lost my mother to death when I was eight, and my fiance in college to his mother's pressure. Come to think of it, that had been because I wasn't blond and Caucasian enough for his family. They hadn't wanted their family tree darkened quite that much. Was it any wonder I had a complex about it? It would have been a miracle if I hadn't.

For a long time after that first love, I'd protected my heart from all takers; now here I sat in a restaurant with two men I loved, and a third who was one of my best friends. How had I been willing to let so many people get so damn close?

The waiter was back at the table. He smiled that brilliant smile at me, and I could see that he was looking at me, not Nathaniel. I started to do what I'd done for years when men reacted to me-scowl and give him The Look-and then I realized that I didn't want to be angry. I smiled at him, let him see that I saw him; I understood he was wasting smiles on me, and I appreciated it. I let myself smile up at him and let the pure happiness fill my face all the way up. The smile wasn't entirely for the waiter; it was for the men around me, yet it made the waiter smile even wider, his eyes shining with it. It wasn't a bad thing to share; in fact, it was a pretty nice thing to share, even with someone you didn't know at all.