Page 98 of The Rut in the Road

He didn’t say anything to that, but I knew it was true. Instead, he pulled my face to him again, more gently this time, and gave me a soft, lingering kiss. “You’re…” He trailed off.

I frowned. “I’m what?” I asked, apprehensive.

He laughed softly, running the backs of his fingers over the furrow on my forehead. “Don’t frown,” he said. “It’s not a—well,” he laughed again. “Maybe it is, considering how fucked up I am sometimes.”

This only made me more confused.

He kissed my forehead. “You’re just… pretty much perfect for me,” he said, which was so far from what I’d been expecting him to say, that I must have looked utterly baffled, just not in such a negative way any longer.

For some reason, that made him laugh again.

I was glad we weren’t going to fight about this, but I had no idea what was going on as he took my hand and led me back to bed.

Raj was deeply asleep,his chest rising and falling slowly. I was—obviously—not. I wasn’t upset about the fact that he’d apparently decided I was perfect for him, whatever that meant. But I couldn’t reconcile that with the fact that we hadn’t actually finished the argument about me walking home from work.

I strongly dislike loose ends, because they leave me feeling like I don’t know whether or not the thing in question is something I have to come back to, and therefore keep thinking about, or something that I’m just supposed to never bring up again. I didn’t do well with the latter. People would tell me to forget about things sometimes, and I struggled to do that. I alsowasn’t ever sure if I was actually supposed to, or if that was just one of those things people said. Or if it was a thing some people said and didn’t mean, but something other people said and did mean.

I hated trying to navigate social expectations.

Navigating my own relationship was not proving to be any easier, just in different ways. Or, at least, about different things. Raj didn’t care about social conventions or politeness, and he never seemed to mind when I asked him to clarify things or explain phrases, but he did have certain expectations about our relationship that I didn’t understand and didn’t usually know to ask about.

Like how I had to accommodate his anxiety about my safety to what I viewed as an irrational degree.

I hadn’t asked, but I was pretty sure that those expectations wouldn’t go in the other direction, since his job periodically required him to be shot at.

I wasn’t sure if there was some rule about the fact that he’d already been doing that when we started dating that meant he could keep doing it, or whether it was because it was an expected part of his job and being kidnapped or run over by a car wasn’t part of mine.

Although maybe getting concussed by a brick was.

At least the stitches had come out almost a week ago, and the injury, while a fresh, pink scar, had pretty much stopped itching. The headache had lasted three full days, but had been less each day, and that had been gone for a while. I was still missing snatches of memory from the day or so after the concussion, but I’d felt completely fine for the last week or so.

But fielding angry protestors wasn’t something Raj seemed to be prepared to let me handle, either, and that wasn’t going to stop any time soon. We had séances for the next two days—Beck in one place, Ward in another—and I knew for certain thatthere was another protest scheduled against the one on Sunday. We would be on the top floor of a high-rise, so there was no danger of bricks, and after the last one, the client had promised a dramatic increase in security, both for our welfare and for the peace of mind of the party’s attendees. Even Mason had agreed to go with Beck, and I felt like he and Raj shared a similar overprotective streak.

None of these thoughts were going to help me sleep, so I carefully got out of bed, moving slowly so that I wouldn’t disturb Raj. He’d rolled over in his sleep so that he wasn’t curled around me, so it was easier than it sometimes would have been.

I grabbed a pair of sweatpants off the floor, waiting until I was in the main room before pulling them on. I went into the kitchen, where the light was less likely to disturb Raj, and made myself some tea, then sat at the kitchen table.

A squeak from the floor got my attention.

“Hey,” I whispered to Victor, who was sitting by my feet.

He squeaked again.

“You going to keep me company?” I asked the undead rat. Not that he could understand me.

He squeaked.

Could he understand me?If not the words, maybe the emotions? I tried to remember some of what Mason had said about revenants and zombies and other kinds of undead. Not that we actually knew what kind of undead Victor was.

I bent and picked him up, then set him on the table in front of me.

“You want to try some necromancy?” I asked him.

He blinked his beady little eyes at me, then squeaked.

I had no idea what that meant. Except, according to Mason and one of the books I’d finally managed to read at the Library of Virginia—found for me by Fiona—I should be able to get a sense for what Victor was feeling. He was a rat, so both Fionaand Mason thought he probably wouldn’t have any complex thoughts, but things like approval, disapproval, fear, and hunger should be things I could pick up from him, if I could figure out how.

I stared down at Victor, who just sat there, looking at me, as though staring at him would somehow reveal to me what his little ratty head was thinking.