Honeyed Words Read Online Free Page A

guards.
    When I got back to the table, Katie was talking with a couple at the next table. They were both con-folk—dressed for a pageant. Damn fine costume work; not an amateur stitch to be seen. Katie introduced Carol and Paul, who hailed from Surrey and were erotica writers. We exchanged pleasantries, and then settled down as the house lights flickered. Nearly time for the main act.
    Katie sipped a glass of wine, and I took a quick gulp of my third Long Island. “Katie?” I asked, touching the side of her face. “I have a surprise for you.”
    She set her drink on the table and scootched her chair around to face me. “I love surprises.”
    “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”
    I stared at her, studying the way her nose crinkled as she scrunched her eyes closed. God, she was beautiful. I so needed this moment, this chance to give her some joy. The last few months had been hard.
    Katie kept her pain buried deep, side by side with her fear. She woke crying some nights but allowed me to hold her, and her nightmares had begun to go away. She kept her shields tighter these days, more brittle.
    It killed me to see her spirit so fragile. Doubly so because it was partly my fault.
    The last five months have been a struggle, that’s for sure. But Katie has been a trooper through the whole thing. Teaching me to knit alone should get her the Nobel Prize. But she kept her own stuff bottled up—always cheerful, but distant. I could see the haunt in her eyes, the pain and the fear—that more than anything kept the pain alive. I couldn’t fix her. Didn’t even know where to begin. While I rescued her from the dragon, I hadn’t found a way to free her soul. Not yet anyway, but I was working on it.
    I could see Paul and Carol watching, so I pulled the passes out. “Hold your hands out,” I said. Katie leaned forward, groping my breasts and giggling. Carol laughed, and I swatted Katie’s hands. “Be nice.”
    “This is the best birthday ever,” she said.
    I placed the two plastic cards into her hands, and she opened her eyes.
    I never saw her move. One second her eyes got as big as headlights: the next she was in my lap, arms around my neck, kissing me like a porn star.
    Paul wolf-whistled as I wrapped my arms around Katie and kissed her back. After a moment, she broke the kiss, nuzzled my ear, and whispered, “You are so getting laid later.”
    Maybe this filking thing wasn’t so bad after all.

Three
     
    The concert didn’t suck. That’s all I kept repeating to myself as Ari performed. The boy had a voice like an angel, even if he dressed like Jack Sparrow’s gay hairdresser. Despite the paisley trousers and the wide-cuffed pirate shirt that was opened to his navel, or maybe because of them, the crowd was in lust with this boy. He did nothing for me, but hell, he could belt out tunes and give Robert Plant a run for his money. He did some covers—sure, Zeppelin, Grand Funk, some old blues stuff—but his filk stuff, the fantasy lyrics with known tunes, or the original stuff really had the crowd wowed.
    The last echoes of Ari’s voice were barely fading when the house lights came up and Katie went into overdrive.
    “Can we go now?” Katie asked, bouncing in her seat. “Can we? Huh? Huh?”
    I laughed, feeling a little twitchy. “You’d better remember who you came here with.” I didn’t mean to be jealous, but there was something inside me that began to wake up and take notice.
    She leaned into me, planting a sloppy kiss on my lips, and grabbed my hand. “Come on,” she said, pulling me out of my chair. “Let’s go party.”
    The house lights were a little too bright, and I was a little buzzed from the drinks, but it had been a couple of hours. Most of it had burned off.
    Katie had drunk more than I had, but she was solid on her feet. Actually, once the crowd was pushing toward the exits and we’d managed to slip upstream toward the back of the club, she began to dance. I loved to watch her move. I