Chapter 35 Captain Backfire
In the cab on the way home, Spike slid the window to the front seat closed and made love to Buffy again there in the back, ignoring the driver’s occasional glances.
They were well on their way to doing it again in the hotel elevator when an elderly woman with two pugs got on at the second floor lobby. He settled for enjoying watching her try to make casual conversation while he fondled her ass beneath the back of her skirt.
They fell through the door of his room and onto the rug, all hands and mouths and flying clothes.
It took them an hour to make it to the couch. It took another two to get to the bed.
It was nearly four a.m. before they finally fell asleep, blissed out and replete, wrapped in each other’s arms.
He woke to the feel of her warm mouth moving slowly across his chest, the soft feather of her hair tickling his shoulders. He reached up to tangle his fingers in her hair and pull her up to his mouth, but she looked up and mouthed a silent “Shh” before bending back to her work. So he gave himself up to her ministrations, gently stroking the tangled silk of her head as she slowly stoked the passion within him.
As she moved down over his ribs and onto his belly, he felt the heavy curve of her breast brushing against the outside of his hip and thigh. He dropped one hand to lightly cup its weight in his palm. “Feels so good.”
He felt her smile against his pelvis as she moved down to brush her lips along his thigh. She mirrored her actions on his other leg, then eased herself between his knees to lean forward to breathe the faintest caress along his erection. A moment later her lips followed the same path, barely touching as they skimmed from root to tip. “Buffy, please!” he begged shamelessly, his voice hoarse with his need.
“I will,” she promised, her own voice sultry and intense. She dropped a gentle kiss on the tip of his cock before sliding the tip of her tongue down the shaft and so slowly back up, repeating the pattern with the wide flat of her tongue. He groaned when she wrapped around the head in languid strokes. She finally slipped him into her wet, welcoming mouth, and it was all he could do not to thrust up into her. In short, even passes she drew his full length into her, easing the motion into long, pulling strokes that drove him mad. He could tell she wasn’t trying to get him off, just thoroughly arouse him, and so he resisted holding her head and forcing his way deeper down her throat. But he did rest a hand on her hair, rewarding her with soft moans of pleasure at each caress.
Finally she released him, now hard and wet and ready, and straddled his waist, guiding him to her own drenched sex, whimpering desperately as he filled her.
He pulled her close and rolled them over, seating himself more comfortably in the bowl of her hips as she wrapped her legs around him. “You’ve done your part,” he purred in her ear. “My turn.”
She nodded and arched up against him as he pushed deep inside her, slowly drawing out to push back in. He set a slow, luxurious pace, using the time to return all the kisses she had worshiped on him.
It could have been minutes or hours when he felt her start to hitch under him. “Are you ready, love?”
She nodded violently, all words lost, her eyes wide and unseeing.
He gathered up her hips and changed the angle of attack, driving along the top of her channel in short, hard strokes. She sobbed her pleasure as he moved faster, harder.
“Want to . . . God! . . . love the way you make me feel,” she gasped, arching to meet each thrust.
“Come for me, Buffy.” He buried his face in her hair, his mouth next to her ear. “Make us both feel it.”
His words made her tremble, and with one last drive she erupted, her paroxysms pulsating into his cock and driving him to his own explosive release.
Her arms wrapped around him, drawing him down to the bed next to her and curled up around him, her breath easing from exertion into sleep.
He kissed the top of her head and followed her.
When he woke again, it was to the sound of water shutting off in the bathroom. He reached out, but found he was alone in the bed. Damn, he’d missed shower time.
The hair dryer sounded from the other room, and he dragged himself up to look at the clock. Almost one thirty. They had slept and sexed the morning away. He dropped back onto the pillows with a contented smile.
He dozed lightly listening to the sound of her doing her hair, a comforting domestic sound. Finally the drier shut off and a few moments later she stepped out, her hair a soft cloud around her head, her body wrapped in an oversized hotel towel. He propped himself up on one elbow to watch her.
She grinned upon seeing him awake and began snaking her hips around, dancing to music in her head, possibly the same music she had danced to last night. Her hands came up to grasp the top of the towel, and she opened one side of it, then pulled it closed while opening the other side. She teased him, her hands moving so quickly he barely caught sight of skin before she was covered again. He chuckled, and she smiled happily before she got too close and he grabbed her, pulling her into bed with him as she squealed in laughter.
He pinned her to the mattress. “You’re beautiful when you’re playful.”
She scoffed. “You’d probably say that even if I was old and wrinkly and smelled funny.”
“That’s because I love you.”
Everything froze.
He cursed himself as she stared at him with shocked, horrified eyes. So much for caution.
“Buffy . . .”
She pushed him off her and scrambled from the bed to begin snatching up clothes and dressing abruptly.
“Buffy, we need to talk about this . . .”
“No!” She stopped him, one hand raised to silence him, the other holding the waistband of the slacks she was pulling on. “No talking! I can’t . . .” She looked away again, pulling up the pants and buttoning them forcefully. “I can’t even think about it right now.”
“There’s nothing to think about.”
“Just stop!” She pulled a sweater over her head with a jerk. “My husband,” she spat the word at him, “is going to be home in a few hours, and I have to get back to meet him.”
He rose up from the bed and grabbed her arms, holding her tight despite her struggles. “Buffy, just listen. I didn’t mean to tell you this way, but I’m not sorry you know.”
“Please don’t.” The words were weak, and she didn’t meet his eyes.
“I love you,” he continued. “And I just want you to be happy. So if that means letting you go back to your husband, then I will, gladly. But if you aren’t, then I want you to know that there is another option. You don’t have to be unhappy.” He released her, taking a step back. “I don’t expect anything from you, Buffy. I knew the score when we started this, and I haven’t forgotten. I don’t want anything from you except one more week of your time. Can you do that?”
She dropped her gaze. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She snatched up her overnight bag and moved toward the door.
“Will I at least see you tomorrow?”
She paused, and he could tell she was torn even without seeing her face. Finally she turned and walked back to him, kissing him apologetically. “I’ll meet you for lunch. We can . . . talk then.”
And she was gone.
He collapsed onto the edge of the bed, his head buried in his hands.
Fuck.
Chapter 36 Black Cat in the Path
He loved her.
The words had become a mantra for Buffy. Over and over and over and over the words ran through her head even now, almost twenty-four hours later.
Angel had gotten home just after four the day before, looking smugly satisfied and crowing about the success of his trip. He didn’t seem to notice her distraction, so she thought she must have nodded and smiled and congratulated him in all the right places, although she couldn’t remember a word either of them said. They went out to dinner, then home so he could catch up on paperwork and phone mail before work the next day. He didn’t try to touch her, for which she was grateful.
It was just so confusing. How could this happen? She wanted to deny it, but she knew she couldn’t. Now that her eyes had been opened, she couldn’t help but see it. All the attention, the encouragement. The playful affection. The almost frightening jealousy. Why hadn’t she seen it before?
Because she hadn’t let herself look.
She had kept things surface, kept it safe. She never had been good at introspection, and once she had rationalized their relationship for herself, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about it again.
But that hadn’t stopped her from feeling.
Buffy was happy around him. She missed him when he was gone; she hurt when he was sad, smiled when he laughed.
He was in her heart now.
She couldn’t deny it. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Buffy had never realized before how unloved and unlovable she had always felt. Angel told her he loved her, but then he put her on a pedestal, made her change everything about herself. Their marriage was cold and distant. And she had always thought it was the best she could ever do.
She had had more passion in three weeks with William than she’d had in her entire five-year marriage to Angel.
William was offering her a chance to have that passion always.
But what about her vows to Angel? Didn’t they mean anything to her anymore? This thing between her and William, she knew it was wrong. But did it irretrievably destroy all the obligations of her marriage? Angel hadn’t done anything to her to deserve to be abandoned while she went off to chase a fantasy.
Maybe she should just be grateful for what she had and not expect anything more.
It was too much, too overwhelming. All the questions, all the doubts swirled around in her head, leaving her breathless and dizzy. The only peace she found was in knowing that she didn’t have to commit to anything now. She had a week. And she could talk to William about it. He understood. Maybe he could help her make sense of it all. If nothing else, she knew she would find solace in the comfort of his arms.
Buffy’s name was already on the visitors list when she arrived at the office lobby. She dialed his cell phone. “I’m here,” she said softly when he answered.
“I’ll meet you at the elevators.” His words were equally quiet, but she thought she heard the weight of emotion behind them.
The elevator ride up to seventeen seemed interminable. No amount of cheery music could ease her anxiety. Only one thing could.
William was pacing in front of the elevator doors nervously when she arrived. She stepped out of the car, letting the doors close behind her as he drank in the sight of her. Slowly he stepped towards her, and she felt the comforting familiarity of her body’s awareness of him. He didn’t touch her, just stared deep into her eyes. “Are we okay?”
She gave him a watery smile, then wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close as his own arms enfolded her. “Not yet. But we will be.”
She felt his breath hitch in a silent sob before his mouth was on hers, gentle, comforting. Loving.
They were both smiling when the kiss ended. He gently stroked her loose hair away from her face. “I have to get back to this meeting, just for about ten more minutes or so. And then we’ll go someplace, wherever you want, and talk this out, yeah? All afternoon and all night if we have to.”
She cupped his cheek gently. “I’d like that.”
He glanced around surreptitiously before capturing her lips again, this time with more passion. It was the most natural thing in the world to surrender to him.
“You have to go,” she murmured against his soft mouth.
He sighed, pulling back but not letting her go. “Wait for me in my office?”
She nodded, slipping out of his arms. She could feel him watching her as she walked away.
Her heart felt so much lighter. He loved her, and suddenly for the first time, that made her feel strong. They would talk, and they would figure things out. And maybe she could be happy.
She slipped past Harmony’s unoccupied desk and into William’s empty office.
Except that it wasn’t empty.
A woman stood there, tall and slender to the point of anorexia. Her night black hair hung in curls about her shoulder, one large piece of it gathered into an elaborate knot at the crown of her head. When she turned, Buffy saw she had delicate, almost childlike features, enormous eyes and a full, red mouth in the middle of her tiny face. But those eyes were sharp, and everything about her screamed predator.
Buffy hung back hesitantly. William had asked her to meet him here, but didn’t say anything about someone being here already. “Can I help you?” she asked uncertainly.
“Oh, no thank you, my sweet. I’m just waiting on Spike.”
Her musical accent was similar to William’s, which sent a frission of unease across Buffy’s nerves. “He’s in a meeting,” she explained. “But he’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
“Wonderful!” The woman clapped her hands girlishly. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen him. We can wait together, can’t we, you and I? And you can tell me wonderful stories about yourself.” She hefted herself up to sit on the front of the desk, hands curled around the edge, feet in narrow heeled granny boots kicking lightly, causing the lace of her long skirt to ripple in erratic waves.
“I don’t have any stories.” Buffy felt more uncomfortable the longer she talked to this woman. But she seemed to be a friend of William’s, and while his friends were unusual, she had ended up liking them all. So she tried to quell her discomfort for his sake.
“Now, now. Mustn’t lie. Everyone’s life is a story. You just need to know how to tell it.”
“Oh.” She looked around everywhere except at the raven-haired beauty.
“You don’t work here, do you?” The woman sounded as though she already knew the answer.
“No. My husband does.”
“But this isn’t your husband’s office, is it?”
“No. I’m meeting William for lunch. We’re . . . friends.”
“Tsk, tsk. Little doves shouldn’t tell such tales.” She hopped down off the desk and slowly stalked Buffy. “I know who you are, Buffy Summers. I know you are Angel’s wife. And I know what you want with my Spike.”
“Your Spike?” Confusion gave way to understanding in an instant, and Buffy’s eyes widened in misgiving. “You are his ex-wife.”
“He still talks about me.” She seemed genuinely moved. “My darling, darling boy.”
“He told me you cheated on him. And he caught you.” Buffy was angry now.
William’s former wife clapped excitedly. “Oh, the story gets better and better! But did he tell you who I was with when he found me?”
“Why should I care?”
“Oh, you should, naughty dolly. You should. For I was with your own sweet husband.” Her manic grin lit up her face. “And he was very sweet.”
Buffy froze.
The woman went on, though. “Oh, poor Spike was in such a terrible state. He wanted to smash and bash, but he just stood and watched. And planned his wicked, wicked plans.”
“What . . .”
“Poor poppet. You didn’t really think he had feelings for you, did you? An innocent child like you? No, pet, he likes his women with a bit more bite. But he thought he could reach Angel through you. Have his naughty, nasty way with you and rub Angel’s nose in it. My poor Spike. He does try.”
“Just stop!” Buffy insisted. “I don’t believe you!”
“Which part, little girl?”
“All of it! I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I don’t believe you. Angel wouldn't cheat on me. And William . . .” Buffy’s head was reeling again, her composure lost.
“But it doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters is what Spike believes. Isn’t that right, my love?” This last was directed over Buffy’s shoulder.
She spun to see William standing in the open door, his face a murderous cloud. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
The sight before him was a tableau out of his worst nightmares. Dru, with her sharp verbal fangs deep into Buffy. Buffy was white and trembling, while Dru just watched, detached. “I asked you a question, Dru,” he snarled, advancing on her. “Why are you here?”
She moved gracefully back to the desk, picking up a sheaf of papers wrapped in blue cardstock. “We had some details to finish up on the property settlement, so I though I would bring them myself. And I got to share lovely stories with your comfort dolly. She’s very lovely, Spike. Did she make all the hurt go away?”
“Shut the fuck up, Dru.”
“Tsk. Such language. I don’t think your dolly likes it very much, do you, dolly?” She leaned close to Buffy. “See? You were just telling your story wrong. It’s so much better now. Go on, dear. Ask him.”
Buffy looked ensorcelled. “Is it true?”
His look softened. “Is what true, love?” He tried to make his voice soothing.
“What she said. Did you pick me up to get even with Angel?” The words dropped like stones from her mouth.
He stepped toward her, one hand out. “It’s not that simple . . .”
“Yes. Yes, it is. It’s a very simple question with a simple yes or no answer. Did you use me to get back at Angel?” Each word was emphasized with bile and revulsion.
He couldn’t answer her.
“Oh my god.” She covered her mouth in horror.
“Buffy. . .”
“No!” Her hand stopped him. Slowly she backed away from him. “No more words. No more lies. Just . . .” She hesitated at the door. Without looking back, she added in a small, resigned voice, “Have a safe trip back to England. Spike.”
And she was gone.
Her last word a knife in his heart, he started after her. “Buffy, wait!”
Dru’s sharp voice calling his name stopped him. She waved the legal document at him. “Business before pleasure, my Spike.”
He was on her in two steps. He snatched the papers out of her hand and tore them to bits, throwing them back in her face. “I oughtta rip your head off and piss down your throat. You stay the hell away from me from now on or I’ll do just that. You got something to say to me, go through my solicitor. I never want to see you again. And you can forget about any more of your little additions to the divorce agreement. You’ve gotten everything you’re gonna from me.” He snatched the door open. “You may have taken too much already.”
When the elevators didn’t respond instantly to his call, he banged through the fire door and down the stairs. Sixteen flights of stairs at full speed took him three minutes to reach the ground. He slammed through the crash bar on the emergency exit and out into the street, ignoring the alarm his exit triggered.
The street was crowded, a typical New York lunch hour. Cars and cabs flew by, and masses of people blocked his view as he turned, looking for any sign of her gold blonde head. But there was no sign of her.
She was gone.
Chapter 37 Stalker
“Buffy! Open the door!”
The side of Spike’s fist was livid and swollen from pounding on the brownstone door for the past half hour.
He had to find her, had to explain it all, try to make it right. But she wouldn’t answer the fucking door.
“Buffy, please, pet. We need to talk!”
“Excuse me, sir,” a brusque voice spoke behind him. He spun to see a beat cop standing at the foot of the stairs, looking at him sternly.
“Good afternoon, officer.” His eyes shifted back to the house. Had she called the cops on him? “What can I do for you?”
“Neighbors called in a disturbance.” The heavy-set black man didn’t change tone or expression. “I’m thinking that would be you.”
Spike pointed to the house. “Just need to speak to the lady of the manor and I’ll be on my way.”
The officer crossed his arms. “The lady doesn’t seem to be home. Time to move on.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Time to move on now.”
Spike growled in frustration but came down the steps. The officer turned and watched as Spike walked down the street away from the house. He was still watching when Spike turned the corner.
Spike followed around the block until he found the narrow access alley that ran through the middle of the block. He counted off houses until he found hers, surrounded by a high brick wall with a padlocked iron gate at the door.
He vaulted up on some abandoned boxes and swung over the top of the wall. He crushed the dead, dry husks of the summer’s growth of asters and baby’s breath, skeletal remainders of the passing year. The path to the house, which must have been crowded in with plants in warmer times, was now clear straight up to the empty patio. He tried the bulkhead doors to the basement as well as the back door, but both were locked tight. The logo and thin strips of silver tape in the window warned him that trying to break in would only bring the beat cop and a crew of his mates in a hurry. Spike peered in the sunroom windows. The house seemed to be dark, and there was no sign in the kitchen of her purse or jacket. Maybe she really wasn’t home, and he was wasting his time here.
He used the gate to climb back out of the garden, then returned to Eighty-Seventh Street and began walking east until he caught a cab. He gave the driver directions down to Buffy’s studio, then pulled out his cell phone and dialed hers.
“This is Buffy,” she answered after the fifth ring. He could hear that she was crying, her normally lyrical voice harsh and cracked. Another knife slipped between his ribs.
“Buffy, I need to talk to you. Please, let me. . .”
The dial tone interrupted him. He dialed her again and got the voice mail. The whole way from the Upper West Side to Soho he tried, getting her service time and time again. Finally, within blocks of the studio, someone answered.
“I’m sorry,” the mechanical voice recited, “the cellular phone number you have reached has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”
He jammed the end button and dialed another number.
“You have reached Angel and Buffy’s residence,” Angel’s voice intoned. “We aren’t available to come . . .”
He swore and threw the phone across the seat.
The driver pulled up in front of the studio, and Spike shoved a wad of bills he hoped was roughly the equivalent of the amount on the screen through the window and got out, grabbing the phone again on his way by.
He rang the buzzer, waiting impatiently for her to respond, and then rang it again. After the third time, he began pressing all the buttons on the pad until someone buzzed him in. He jerked the steel door open and flew up the stairs two at a time.
He tried the knob, but it was locked. He knocked, gently at first but with growing force, repeating the pleas he had used at the house.
A dark head peeked out of the door behind him, glaring angrily. “Hey, my friend, could you not be shoutin’ so loud?” she asked, her voice a lilting West Indian accent. “You are scarin’ de children.”
“I’m sorry, but look,” he crossed the hall to talk to her as she came out, “Have you seen Buffy here at all today?”
“Wot, da painter lady? I have not seen her taday. She was in for a bit on Sataday, but she’s not been around since, I tink.”
“It’s really important that I talk to her.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her one of his business cards, trying to keep the tension and frustration out of his voice. “If you see her, could you do me a favor and call me at that number?”
She looked confused. “You want I should have her call you?”
He shook his head. “She’s royally brassed off at me. Which is why I need to talk to her. Think you can help?”
She looked hesitant, but finally agreed. “Anyting just so’s you stop frightenin’ my girls!”
“Thank you. I won’t forget it!”
He stopped in the alley, uncertain of what to do next. They didn’t have any special places aside from her studio and his hotel room. And he was pretty damn sure she wasn’t there. Still . . .
He dialed the room number and let it ring until it went through to the answering service. At the prompt, he pushed zero and asked the operator to connect him to the front desk.
“Yes, Mr. Fitzwilliam, what can I do for you?”
“Did anyone come in to see me today? Maybe leave me a message?”
“There was one young lady who came to drop off your spare key. She said it had come to her in error.”
“Blonde girl? Petite, pretty?”
“Yes, sir. Is there a problem?”
“Not that you can help with. Thanks, mate.”
Okay what next? He didn’t know where her friends lived. What was the redhead’s last name? Oswald? No, Osbourne. Willow Osbourne.
Directory assistance didn’t have a Willow Osbourne listed in any of the five boroughs, nor on Long Island.
He wanted to howl in frustration and barely restrained himself from flinging the phone across the alley to shatter into a thousand satisfying pieces. Where else? Who else? He had to find her.
Wait.
Their guardian angel. Miss Cordelia Chase, Esquire.
He wasn’t surprised that she was listed. She probably had her name outlined in one of those sodding boxes in the directory. He pressed the button to be connected. It was answered after the third ring.
“This is Cordelia.”
“Miss Chase, this is Spike Fitzwilliam. I’m not sure if you remember me . . .”
“Of course I do, Mr. Fitzwilliam. You’re Buffy’s honey. What can I do for you?”
“’M hoping you might have seen or heard from Buffy this afternoon.”
“No, I’m sorry, I haven’t. Why? Is something wrong?” She sounded genuinely concerned.
“I just need to talk to her and I can’t find her.”
The line was quiet for a moment before her voice came back to him, a little harder, a little colder.
“Funny, you not being able to find her. Seemed like you two were joined at the hips.”
“Well . . .”
“And now you need to talk to her.” Sarcasm and fury now dripped from every word. “You went and did it, didn’t you? After all my warnings, you still went and hurt her.”
“Pet, if I can just talk to her . . .”
“Oh yes, because words always make the pain go away. Just leave her alone, Spike.”
“Cordelia, you have to help me!”
“No! What I have to do is look out for my friend. If she gets in touch with me, I’m going to give her the advice I should have given her two weeks ago and tell her to stay the hell away from you.”
“But . . .”
“And Spike, you’d better hope I never see you again. Because if I ever do, I will make you suffer in ways no living male wants to contemplate.”
The dial tone buzzed in his ear, effectively cutting off all his attempts at persuasion.
The phone hit the far wall and smashed into dozens of pieces that scattered across the alley, glittering metallically in the cold November sunlight.
Chapter 38 The Other Shoe
Spike’s eyes were gritty as he hunched blindly over the columns of figures he needed to check before the final presentation to the Robaartsman board of trustees on Thursday. He was tired, and he just didn’t care about any of this right now.
He dropped his glasses onto the desk and drilled the heels of his hands against his eyelids. Out of options, short of going to Angel and demanding her whereabouts, he had done the only thing left that he could think of.
He staked out her house.
From about four o’clock on, he had hidden in the shelter of a basement apartment stairwell catty-corner from the house and just watched. As night fell, the house remained dark, no lights coming on to indicate she was there already.
Angel returned home around seven, and then lights started coming on, in the living room and through the dining room window from the kitchen. Finally after a few minutes, the master bedroom light snapped on. Spike saw the shadows of only one person moving around. He pulled his coat tighter against the deepening chill and continued to wait.
But she never came home. He waited until almost four a.m. before he finally gave up, frozen and exhausted, and went back to the hotel.
He’d had no choice but to come into the office. He needed to be near a phone in case the dance teacher called, and since his cell phone was now in tiny bits across a Soho alley, he had to be reachable at the office, the only other number the woman had for him. Telecommunications was replacing the cell phone, but it wouldn’t be ready until the afternoon. So until then he was stuck here.
It took most of the morning before Angel came to gloat.
“Are you actually in the office for a full day?” Angel asked in mock astonishment.
“Probably not.” He didn’t look up.
“Got something going on?”
“None of your bloody business.”
“Hunh. Because I figured with Buffy out of town, you’d be at loose ends.”
He stopped pretending to work. “What do you mean, out of town?”
“Oh, I put her on a plane to California this morning. She decided she needed to go visit her mother. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”
Spike calmly put his pen down. ”When did this happen?”
Angel remained standing, arms crossed over his chest, a look of cruel pleasure shining in his dark eyes. “Last night. I think she had a bad day yesterday. I came home and found her all curled up in a ball on the bed. She hadn’t even taken off her coat. She must have been crying for hours. She looked like hell.”
He could see in his mind’s eye her broken, delicate body wrapped in the white cashmere coat in the middle of that big burgundy comforter, weeping like a child. One more black mark against his soul.
But he refused to let Angel see his pain. “I hope she has a good visit. From the sounds of things, she doesn’t see her mum enough. Whereabouts in California does she live?”
“Some little bedroom town. Sunnymead? It’s north of San Francisco. Or is that San Diego?” He shrugged. “I can never remember. California is like a foreign country to me. Can’t keep all the geography straight.”
Spike seethed. He was absolutely certain Angel knew exactly where Buffy was, but he wasn’t about to let anything slip.
“Well, thanks for the visit,” Spike said insincerely. “But if you don’t mind, I’ve got work . . .”
“Saw your ex-wife yesterday. Boy, she looks great. Single life really seems to agree with her. Did she come see you?”
And suddenly it all clicked into place.
Spike rose up from the desk, fury roaring through his veins. “You did this!” He advanced on the larger man. “You brought Dru here, set this whole thing up.”
Angel sneered. “Of course I did. What, did you think it was just a coincidence? You needed a lesson. I let you play with my toys and you show me no respect.”
They paced around each other. “You don’t deserve any respect, you buggering bastard.”
“No? Face it, Spike, you’ll always be the lesser man. What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine. The sooner you remember that, the better off we’re all going to be.”
“So you set Dru loose on Buffy?”
Angel grinned. “Talk about a bonus. I brought Dru here for you, but when she found Buffy? Well, your girl does know how to improvise. Buffy got a much needed lesson in the error of her ways, you lost your groin buddy and I got to keep my hands completely clear of it. I doubt my dear wife will be stepping out of line again any time soon.”
“While you step out with your whores.”
“All women are whores. You just have to find the right price to get them to spread their legs.”
“Buffy is not a whore.”
“She fucked you, didn’t she?”
Spike backhanded him.
Angel turned back, wiping the blood from his lip. “What did she cost you, Spike? Dinner? A few drinks? Secret promises you could never keep?” He caught Spike’s second punch and slammed his own fist into his gut.
Spike doubled over, but shouldered into Angel’s hip, missing his crotch by inches but still knocking the wind out of him.
The two of them backed off, fighting to catch their breath. “She hates you, you know.” He lashed out, catching Spike’s temple with a huge fist just as Spike landed a blow to his jaw.
“That’s your fault!”
“Is it? I’m not the one who lied to her. I’m not the one who used her.”
They pounded on each other now, fists flying in time to their words.
“You’re so full of shit! You use her more than I ever could.”
“She’s my wife. She belongs to me, and I can use her however I choose.”
“You stupid sot! She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself. And if you can’t understand that, then you don’t fucking deserve her!”
“But I’ve got her anyway, don’t I?” A huge roundhouse punch knocked Spike off his feet to crash to the floor on his back. “Give it up, Spike. She’s gone. And she’s not coming back until I tell her you’ve gotten on a plane back to England. You might as well give it up.”
Before Spike could reply, the door crashed open to reveal two security guards, a murder of employees clustered around behind to gawk at the spectacle. The guards braced themselves as Spike slowly rose to his feet. The two combatants glared murderously at each other, both bloody and swollen and ready to continue. But the guards prevented it.
Angel finally turned to leave. Without looking back, he said “Face it Spike. You lost to me again. And you always will.” He pushed through the crowd, never looking back.
Spike stared after him as the crowd dispersed, feeling the last threads of hope he held onto slip out of his hands. Finally he gathered up his coat and his few personal possessions and left the office, never to return.
He felt like he had been knocking on doors for months. Years.
This one opened.
He looked her in the eye, his battered face showing every ounce of remorse and despair. “Someone pulled my weeds.”
Tara just wrapped her arms around him and drew his broken soul into the apartment.
Chapter 39 A Mother's Love
Buffy sat on the back porch of her mother’s house and stared up at the stars.
This had always been her refuge as a child, from the time they moved here after the divorce. When the world became too much, she would come and sit out here and stare up into the vastness of space and feel quiet, reminded that, while she was small, so was everything else.
The stars looked different in New York. There, even on the darkest night, only the brightest stars shone through the glow of manmade light that suffused the city, distracting the eye from the dimmer lights above. Last summer’s blackout had been a revelation to her. She had stood out in the pitch black garden with a candle in her hand, gazing up into the velvety blackness, overwhelmed by the multitude of stars she’d never seen, never even imagined before. She had longed for a camera and the courage to go down into the canyons of Midtown and capture the starry bowl of night through the darkened shapes of the looming buildings. That something so beautiful could be found in an evening so frightening astounded her.
She knew there was a metaphor in there somewhere, but she didn’t want to look at it.
It was a comfort to sleep in her own bed again. The green stripes in the wallpaper had faded from neon to soft melon over time, and the bedspread and linens had been replaced, but nothing else had changed from the day she had moved out. “I have a guest room,” her mother insisted. “What do I need two for? This is your room, Buffy. If you want it to change, change it yourself. I like it.”
She and Angel had never shared this bed. When they came to visit, they always stayed in a hotel. So she could crawl into her bed now and pretend that she was Buffy Summers, cheerleader and Buffy Summers, homecoming princess and Buffy Summers, class artist. She could ignore for a while all the stupid choices she had made that brought her back here, looking for escape and solace.
It was Thursday. He was due to leave tomorrow night. She knew he was looking for her. Angel had complained about it when she had talked to him last night. “He hasn’t been in the office in two days,” Angel griped. “Totally missed the final presentation. And when he does show up, he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. I don’t know what his problem is.”
She did.
She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid. How he must have exulted when she threw herself at him that first day. He hadn’t even needed to work to get in her pants. Just a wink and a come hither look and she was ready to throw everything over for him. Angel hadn’t said anything about her infidelity. She wondered what Wi . . . Spike was waiting for.
Spike. The name made her stomach roil. The name of the man he was. William was a fiction perpetrated against her to get what he wanted from her. He didn’t really exist, and she had to remember that. For her sanity’s sake.
She didn’t even know what to think about Angel. If she accepted what that woman, Dru, had said about Spike, then she couldn’t deny that Angel had been untrue to her without being a hypocrite. But that had been two years ago. He had stayed with her. And now she had no right to be indignant. Not when she kept looking for the invisible red A on her own clothes. They were on the same foot, both adulterers. But he had come back, tried to make the marriage work. She owed it to him to try to do the same.
“Here.”
She looked up to see her mother offering her a cobalt mug that steamed fragrantly in the cool night air. She took it gratefully, the warm ceramic a comfort in her empty hands. She inhaled deeply, then looked back at her mother in surprise. “Mulled wine?”
“You’re a grown-up now,” Joyce said, sitting next to her on the step with her own mug. “Besides, this didn’t strike me as a hot chocolate problem.”
Remembering the last time she’d had hot cocoa, Buffy couldn’t agree more.
“You know, this wouldn’t be the first time a man has done a number on the woman he loves.”
Buffy looked at Joyce, startled. What did she know? Then she realized Joyce was taking a shot in the dark. “It’s not Angel, Mom.”
“Oh. Since you didn’t want to be in New York, I assumed . . .”
“It’s not Angel,” she repeated. “I just . . . I couldn’t be there right now.” She took a sip of the wine, letting the warmth and alcohol burn down her throat, savoring the sensation for a long moment. “Did you ever do anything you were ashamed of? So ashamed you couldn’t look at yourself in the mirror afterwards without feeling sick?”
“Of course I have, honey. We all have. It’s part of being human.”
“Well, I don’t feel very human. I cheated on Angel, Mom. I let myself get seduced by someone who hates him.” She laughed derisively. “Let. God, I went running after him. I couldn’t stay away.” She dropped her head, not able to look into her mother’s face. “You must be so disappointed in me.”
Joyce’s warm arms wrapped around Buffy, drawing her into a comforting embrace. “Oh baby, no. You want me to tell you what you did was foolish? You don’t need me to tell you that. That’s why you’ve barely spoken in two days. Did you end it? With this other man, I mean.”
Buffy just nodded.
“Alright then. You put it behind you and you go on. But you learn from it.”
“I’m not ever going to cheat again, I swear.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Joyce lifted Buffy’s chin to look into her eyes. “When I found out your father was cheating on me, I was furious, and hurt, and confused. But later when I stopped to think about it, I realized that even before that, I really didn’t like him touching me. I didn’t like him all that much. Some people cheat because it’s in their nature. But that’s not you, Buffy. So you have to ask yourself, what was missing in your own life that this other man provided?”
“God, Mom, I can’t even stand to think about him.”
“That’s understandable. But you will. Just think about what I said. I only want to see you happy.”
“I don’t deserve to be happy.”
“Of course you do, Buffy. We all deserve to be happy. We just have to be willing to accept it.”
I just want you to be happy. Spike’s words came back to her. So if that means letting you go back to your husband, then I will, gladly. But if you aren’t, then I want you to know that there is another option. You don’t have to be unhappy.
She looked at her mother sadly. “But what if the thing that makes me happy never really existed?”
“Then you keep looking.” Joyce stroked her hair with a comforting smile. “Look at me. I got a bad egg, but I’m still trying. And in the meantime, I find a lot of joy in other things. Like the gallery. And you. There’s a lot of joy in the world if you just look for it. You can’t give up, Buffy. You can’t ever give up.”
She curled into her mother’s shoulder with a wistful sigh. “It’s just so hard sometimes.”
“Nothing worth having comes easy.” She gave her one last squeeze, then stood up. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“I was treating this with the wrong medication. This isn’t an alcohol problem; this is an ice cream problem. Let’s go get fat.”
Buffy chuckled in spite of herself. “With hot fudge and whipped cream?”
Joyce agreed. “We’ll eat until we’re sick. That’ll make us forget about all our problems.”
Buffy had to agree. She’d take a stomachache over heartache any day.
Chapter 40 Bump in the Night
November in New York was cold and empty.
It was raining when Buffy got off the plane at LaGuardia, a bitter cold, soaking rain that blew in all directions, foiling all her attempts to stay dry.
It continued to rain steadily the whole month.
Buffy tried to go back to the life she had led in September. But shopping and lunch with the girls and spa days at Elizabeth Arden didn’t bring her the same pleasure, if indeed it ever had. It didn’t help that she had to keep squelching thoughts of him, how he might laugh at some story, whether he’d like some outfit, if he’d want to see some movie. She wanted to forget him, but he was so infused into her mind now that he seemed to have always been in her life. Her childhood, her schooling, her whole life had his presence imprinted on it. How do you forget someone that’s tied into every part of you?
Cordelia called several times, but Buffy avoided her calls. How could she explain that Cordy had been right, that Buffy had let her heart get involved and had had it destroyed? She should have listened to her worldlier friend. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t hurt so much now.
Angel took her to Barbados for ten days over Thanksgiving week. They participated in activities she had no interest in and dined every night on rich foods that she pushed aimlessly around her plate. And he made love to her every night. She felt suffocated, crushed under the weight of his massive body, but she did her best to respond how he expected and to please him in return. She thought of her mother’s words. Buffy didn’t like Angel’s touch anymore, either.
She went back to Pearl to dance several times, looking to reclaim the power she had felt up on that stage. After the third time, Faith forbade her from coming again. “You aren’t going to find what you’re lookin’ for here, B,” she had said, her arms comforting around Buffy’s collapsed and sobbing form in the dressing room. “This isn’t you. You’ve gotta find peace in your own world.”
Joyce came to stay with them over Christmas. Buffy put her up at the Waldorf instead of the Plaza like she usually did. Angel didn’t like to have guests in the house. They interrupted his routine. Buffy had a happy few weeks, visiting museums and shopping with her mother. In Joyce’s presence, she could make new memories that had nothing to do with him.
But January came and Joyce went, and Buffy was left on her own again. With the new year, Angel became immersed in the corporate machinations that preceded tax season, and so he was rarely home except to sleep. He was usually too tired even to demand his marital rights, for which Buffy was grateful.
So she turned back to the one thing that was truly hers.
Her art.
The first time she went back to the studio, she almost couldn’t open the door. The memories assaulted her as soon as she went in, the air still holding a hint of his cologne. But she opened all the windows and the door and let the bitter cold January air wash the scent of him out of the room. Then she rearranged all the furniture and changed the linens on the small bed.
Finally she thought she was ready to take on the canvasses.
She spread out the stack of frames, standing them up to lean against the back of the sofa. Two large horizontals, one vertical and a four-by-five foot portrait. All him, yet all different.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at them directly. Instead, her eyes circled around, tracing the edges of the frames, slowly spiraling in until she couldn’t avoid him anymore.
Her breath stopped as she took in the sight of him, softly sleeping, beautiful and peaceful. Her eyes devoured him hungrily, and suddenly she could smell him, all musk and faded smoke, taste the salty tang of his damp skin, hear his soft groans of pleasure, feel him thrusting up along the tight muscles of her inner thighs.
She sank to her knees, the sensations overwhelming, sobs and screams fighting for dominance in her throat until all she could get out were primal wails of suffering. She still wanted him. Her body craved him. The thought of him ever touching her again made her stomach churn. She hated him more than anything ever in her life.
She had wept before, out of shame, out of hurt, but this was the first time she let the rage out. It filled her, red and swollen and angry, and she roared in fury even as she sobbed, a harsh, guttural gasping sound. Her hands clawed at the carpet, beat on her own body. She wanted to destroy the canvasses, wreak her vengeance on these two-dimensional representations of him, false, deceitful mockeries of his true face, surrogates for the real thing beyond her reach.
His true face.
Her cries slowly quieted as she stared at the images with new eyes. Art was a way to show truth, wasn’t it? She rose slowly, never taking her eyes from the canvas as she crossed to the art carrel and took out a gum eraser and a pencil. She crouched in front of the angelic canvas and slowly, deliberately began erasing the face, redrawing it to fit her new image.
She became obsessed with the work. Every day she spent hours in the studio until she was home as little as Angel. Days would go by with them spending no more than a few minutes in each other’s company. When she finished the canvasses she had, she started new ones, pouring all her pain and rage into her artistry. But Spike slowly stopped being the sole focus as she began dealing with her feelings about herself through the art as well. By the end of the day, she was emotionally wrung out and exhausted, often crashing in the studio for the night when she didn’t have the energy to get home to sleep in her own bed.
February started frigidly cold, the snow of three major storms iced over on the sidewalks to make walking treacherous. Another storm was due to begin after midnight, so Buffy pulled herself away from the studio early to make sure she could get home.
The house was dark when the cab dropped her off. She let herself in, dropping her keys and purse negligently on the hall table, shrugging out of her coat to toss it over the back of the couch. Her shoes followed before she dragged herself up the stairs to bed.
There were noises coming from the bedroom. Sounds of a struggle. Angel cried out.
She raced down the hall to help him, flinging the door open as she threw on the lights.
To reveal a lean, nude, tapered back topped by a long chestnut bob of hair sitting upright on the bed facing the headboard.
Straddling Angel.
With a squeal of surprise, the woman scrambled off to hide under the sheet, making Angel curse in surprise. “Dammit, Lilah, that hurt!”
“Oh my god.”
The woman hid behind Angel’s back as he sat up. “Hey, baby. I didn’t expect you home tonight.”
“Obviously.” Buffy felt sick, spurred on by his casualness.
He looked puzzled. “What’s the matter?”
“What’s the . . . I just found you in bed with another woman!” She hesitated. “Lilah? Lilah Morgan?”
The woman moved out from behind Angel, resigned. “Hey, Buffy.” Neither of them looked at her. “Ooookay. Think I’ll go get dressed, let you two talk.” She slipped out of the bed, indifferent to her nudity, and went into the bathroom, gathering up her clothes as she went.
When the door shut, Angel finally replied. “I don’t understand. I thought this was what you wanted.”
“What I wanted?” Her voice cracked with indignation. “Why would you think I would want go find you in our bed with that . . . that bitch!”
There was a muffled exclamation from the bathroom.
“So the problem is Lilah? I didn’t know we had approval rights on each other’s sex partners.”
“I didn’t’ know we had partners! I thought we were the only two partners involved.”
“I just assumed when you started sleeping with Spike that you were ready to move up to an open marriage.”
Buffy froze.
“Frankly,” Angel continued, “when I gave Spike permission to have sex with you, I was relieved. I thought you’d finally grown up enough to understand how marriage is supposed to work. Sharing the benefits without being tied down.”
“You knew I was sleeping with him? And you never said anything to me?”
He shrugged. “Well, apparently neither did Spike.”
“But you’re my husband!”
“So I shouldn’t have to tell you, should I? Look, Buffy, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t whore yourself around and expect me to be waiting at home for you. I’m just a man, after all.”
It all became too much for her. With one last look, nauseated and heartbroken, she turned and let the room.
“Buffy!” he called, but didn’t try to follow her.
She stepped back into her shoes, pulled on her coat and gathered up her purse and keys, closing the front door behind her without looking back.
She dialed her cell phone mechanically. “Hey.” Her voice was wooden, dead. “I know it’s late, but could one of you come pick me up? . . . No, not at home. Where should I meet you? . . . Okay. Thanks, Willow.”
She didn’t notice the snow gently falling all around her.
Chapter 41 Free Agent
Spike had been back in London for a week.
One long, interminable week. Each day an eternity and each one its own hell.
The soot-choked London of Dickens had never been completely cleaned away, and the invisible haze coated his throat and dulled his hair. New York was a city of opportunities, of chances. London was more about the status quo, of things that never changed. Generations, centuries and nothing changed.
Just the place for him.
He walked along the Thames on his lunch break, desperate to work off the nervous energy that built up whenever he sat behind a desk. Working gave him too much time to think, and the only thing he thought about was her.
Of course, he thought about her when he walked as well. But if he was walking, he didn’t have to keep jumping up to pace.
He wondered if she had gone back to New York yet. And what Angel had told her. Had she confessed? Had he confronted her? Was she all right? All questions he would never have the answers to.
She didn’t want anything to do with him. She had made that abundantly clear. And he had to respect that. After everything he’d taken from her, all the pain he had caused, the least he could do was honor her wishes and leave her alone.
But thoughts of her never left him alone, and he didn’t want them to. The small photo album went into his pocket every morning as automatically as his wallet. And her sweater lived beneath his pillow.
Tara must have packed it among his things when they checked him out of his hotel room. Spike had left all of Buffy’s clothes to be taken to the lost and found by the cleaning staff. Tara must have found the blue sweater on the floor and put it in his bag, thinking it was his. It still smelled of her, floral and spice and a hint of turpentine mingled with her natural essence. He went to sleep touching it every night, the soft cashmere reminiscent of her velvety skin against his hand.
He had gone back to work as soon as he got back, hoping it would distract him from thoughts of her. But she was too much a part of him, and work just made him miss her companionship, the stories of his day filling him up and choking him with no one to share them with.
But as he trudged back to the main entrance of the Wolfram and Hart facility, he realized that this was all he had left.
Jess handed him several pink phone slips when he came back in. “Boss wants to see you.”
“Trouble?”
She shrugged her slight shoulders.
He handed her back the messages and dropped his overcoat over her divider. “Best go see what he wants.”
The door was standing open, so Spike stuck his head in as he knocked. “You wanted to see me?”
“Come on in, Spike. Shut the door.” The tall, spare black man rose from his chair and came around to lean on the front of the desk. “Have a seat.”
Robin Wood was the head of the International division of Wolfram and Hart in the UK. He got that way by being fast, smart and sharp. Spike respected the man. He always played it straight, and did his best to be upfront and aboveboard. Spike didn’t like him, but he respected him.
Spike unbuttoned his suit coat and sat. “What’s up?”
“I had a phone call from New York today. Henry Masters. He wanted to bring me up to speed on how things went on the joint project. I was very surprised by some of his comments.”
Spike didn’t say anything.
“He said your work was exemplary,” Robin continued. “Which I wasn’t surprised to hear. You’ve always been one of my best attorneys. But he added how surprised he was at the quality, considering how spotty your attendance was for the last month of the project. You never miss work, Spike. So what’s the story?”
Spike shrugged. “I had personal business.”
“Which is fine, but you have to arrange it. But you didn’t talk to anyone. Not your supervisor, not your partner, not your team, not even your assistant.”
“Wasn’t their business.”
“And we could have overlooked this, thanks to the quality of your work, if you hadn’t beaten the crap out of Masters’ golden boy. In the office. In front of the whole staff.”
Spike’s fists clenched. “Bastard had it coming.”
“Look, we all know Stevens is the biggest prick in the firm,” Robin said soothingly, “but you can’t just take him out like that. You know better.”
“I wasn’t the only one there.” Spike gingerly touched the sickly yellow and green bruise still lingering high on his cheekbone.
“So you’re going to tell me he threw the first punch?”
“No.”
Robin sighed. “Masters wanted your head. But I think I’ve salvaged the situation. I’m going to put a severe reprimand in your employment file, and you are going to apologize to Stevens. With any luck . . .”
“No,” Spike interrupted flatly.
“No?” Robin was surprised.
“I won’t apologize to that wanker.”
“Spike, you understand that if you don’t, it’ll cost you your job. You’re up for a partnership next year, and you should get it, even with this reprimand. I don’t want to be the one who has to sack you . . .”
“Let me save you the trouble then, mate.” Spike rose smoothly out of the chair. “I quit. There’s nothing you could possibly offer or threaten to make me apologize to that son of a bitch. I’m just sorry I didn’t put him in hospital.”
“Spike . . .”
He turned and left the office, stopping by Jess’ desk to grab his coat. “Could you get me a box, pet? Gotta pack up.”
He didn’t have much that was his. A handful of books. Some files. He threw a disk in the computer and downloaded his personal mail and files.
Jess came in, two white bankers’ boxes in hand and a look of concern on her face. “You’re quitting?”
“Only choice, luv. Thanks.” He took the boxes.
“But why?”
He laughed at himself derisively. “For the honor of a lady.”
“Is she worth it?”
He stopped. A vision of Buffy, happy and laughing, swam before him, and he closed his eyes to savor it. “Oh, yes.”
Jess started loading books into one of the boxes. “So what are you going to do now?”
He picked through the contents of the desk. “Don’t know. Find a job that doesn’t make me snip off a piece of my soul with every assignment.”
Jess turned to him, sad amusement in her dark eyes. “Spike, you’re a lawyer. You don’t have a soul.”
He turned and met her gaze. “Well, maybe it’s time I got one.”
Chapter 42 Today's the day
Warm arms enfolded her as she slept.
With a soft smile, she burrowed deeper under the covers, snuggling back against the strong, hard body spooned up behind her. She was overwhelmed by a sense of contentment and comfort. The small niggling voice trying to tell her this was wrong was smothered beneath thick waves of satisfaction. Anything that felt this good had to be right.
“Buffy.” His distinctive voice hummed in her ear, drawing a soft sigh from her.
And he poked her.
It took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t the familiar prod of his insistent cock, trying to tease some attention from her. This was a sharp, hard poke in her shoulder.
“Aun’ Buffy.”
His voice changed, rising up to a young soprano that Spike could never manage.
The poke came again.
“Aun’ Buffy, you awake?”
She pried one eye open to see a tiny little body sitting next to her, shaggy brown hair falling in his face, dressed in Pokemon pajamas with two fingers poised to nudge her again. “No more poking,” she grumbled, her voice still thick with sleep as she reached up to catch his hand and drag it down to a less threatening position. “Morning, Devon.”
“Morning, Aun’ Buffy. Breakfast?”
She rolled onto her back and stretched, glancing at the clock. Six forty-three. He’d let her sleep in this morning. “Yeah, baby. Let Aunt Buffy get dressed and I’ll make you some cereal.”
“Pancakes?” he asked hopefully.
“No way, Jose. You want something cooked, you have to ask Mommy.”
He thought about it for a minute. “Cereal’s okay.”
She kissed him on the head and gave him a light swat on the behind to get him moving along out of the guest room.
It only took her a few minutes to get dressed. She’d been staying with Willow and Oz for a week now. Instead of going back to the house, she had simply bought new things, nothing fancy. A couple pairs of jeans, some blouses, a nightshirt. Plain white underwear. But today was moving day. She was excited and scared in equal measure.
Cereal attained, she settled on the couch with Devon to watch his favorite video. She’s seen it at least twice a day since she’d gotten there, but it was amusing, so she didn’t feel fed up with it yet.
Today’s the day!
What kind of day?
The kind of day, the day
For the You Can Be
Anything You Want To Be
Shoooooow!
“So, today’s the day, huh?”
Buffy looked up in surprise to see Willow standing in the doorway, echoing the song’s sentiment. She got up off the couch, bowl in hand, and followed her friend into the kitchen.
“Thanks for starting the coffee,” Willow said, pulling the carafe off the coffee maker. “I’m sorry Devon keeps getting you up. Normally Oz is his favorite target, but you’re new.”
“It’s all right,” Buffy replied as Willow filled two mugs. “The least I can do is play buffer, considering you guys took me in in the middle of the night.”
“It really wasn’t a problem.” She pushed one mug over to Buffy. “Are you ready for today?”
Buffy sighed, toying with the cup. “I don’t know. But it’s for the best, isn’t it? I can’t be the kind of wife he wanted me to be. We’ll both be . . . happier apart.”
Willow scowled and looked like she wanted to respond, but held her tongue. “So, what’s the schedule for today?”
“Well, Angel usually leaves the house by eight thirty, so by nine thirty the coast should be clear. It shouldn’t take more than two or three hours to pack up, so we’ll be back to the studio by early afternoon.”
Willow dropped bagel halves in the toaster. “Why don’t you give me the studio keys? I can head down there after I drop Devon off at the sitter’s and get started on things there.”
“I really appreciate both of you taking time off from work to help me. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“Oh, I’m sure there will be lots of babysitting involved.”
She smiled. “Well, I’m in need of a new man in my life. Devon’s as good as any of them.” Buffy took a sip of coffee and winced. “At least he hasn’t learned how to lie yet.”
She unlocked the door to the brownstone and pushed it open hesitantly, listening for any sound.
Oz nudged her gently. “Alarm code?”
“Oh, right.” She stepped into the hallway and tapped the seven-digit code into the security pad. All the lights switched to green.
Still she hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” Oz encouraged her, a warm hand on her shoulder. “He won’t do anything around me. I’m a client.”
She took a deep calming breath. “You’re right. Let’s do this.”
Oz brought boxes in from the van, and slowly they began emptying the house of anything that was hers. A box of books. Some Asian sculptures that had been a gift from her mother. Her grandmother’s silver. A photo album of their trips. She might be leaving him, but she had to believe they had been happy once.
It didn’t take long for them to gather up everything from the first floor that she wanted. The bedroom was next.
“I’m not going to have enough room for everything in the studio,” she said, looking around the room critically. “Why don’t you pack up the dresser, and I’ll pick and choose through the stuff in the closet.” She hesitated. “You okay with packing my underwear?”
He smiled in gentle amusement. “I’m sure it’s more tasteful than what most of my clients wear onstage.”
She didn’t quite smirk. “You might be surprised.”
“Then I won’t look,” he deadpanned.
She stood in front of the long rack of clothes, uncertain what to take. Slacks and blouses mostly. A couple of dresses. Two suits. The black crepe for formal wear, should she ever have the opportunity again. She didn’t care about the hats. Would three purses be enough?
She had just started sorting through the shoes when she heard Oz call her from the other room. “Do you want to take this?”
The bottom drawer of the dresser was open, and he held in his hands the red and black silk box.
She took it from him silently, all the memories flooding back. It felt full, heavy with remembrances despite having little more than five books and a couple of scraps of paper in it. The weight of nostalgia gave it heft.
What surprised her was that it didn’t feel like a burden anymore.
“Yeah. I definitely want to keep this.”
They dragged the first load upstairs when they got back to the studio.
“Is it sad that my entire life fits into six boxes and three suitcases?” she asked as they finally mounted the last landing.
He shrugged. “Leaves you more room for the new stuff.”
Her arms full of box, she kicked the door for Willow to open. A moment later the door swung wide and Willow greeted her with an excited smile. She took the box and moved aside. “Welcome home, Buffy!”
She stood in the doorway, astonished.
The studio had been transformed. The ratio of art space to living space had shifted, and it now looked like a residence instead of a warehouse. The drywall on the dividing wall had been painted in blocks of bold color and softened with sponges of gold. One long wire had been run the length of the window wall, and panels of white nubbly scrim hung over each window.
Anya was on top of a ladder up in the loft, nailing more scrim to hang from the ceiling from strips of white molding. The fabric hung down on either side of the wood, creating translucent “walls” for Buffy’s new bedroom.
Xander was on the bottom level, bolting together a small dining room table to set up in the new dining area. The kitchenette had been reconfigured to a square layout instead of a galley, the square continuing on in an invisible line out into the room to where the dining area was now marked out by a large sisal rug edged in blue, an enormous wrought-iron candelabra suspended from the ceiling above it.
The bulk of the area under the loft had been turned into a living room. The leather chairs and sofa as well as the oriental rugs had been moved under there and some soft lighting added to give it a cozy, old world feel. An armoire in the corner stood open, revealing a computer, printer and fax machine set up.
“How . . .” She was stunned. “How did you do all this?”
Xander rose and came over to her. “Never trust an architect and a designer with plans to your place and a key. We’ve been at it since about six thirty, picking everything up and getting things together until Willow got here with the key.”
“Yes, we should be on one of those home improvement shows,” Anya added, climbing gingerly down the ladder. “We didn’t even need two days!”
“To be fair, we did have about ten guys helping us until noon. And the cable and phone guys were here, so your land line is in, as is the cable and DSL which Willow insisted we have installed.” He put his arm around Anya. “So, what do you think?”
Buffy felt tears welling up in her eyes. “It’s wonderful. I never imagined . . .” She couldn’t speak further.
“We gave you as much storage as we could,” Anya went on eagerly. “There’s an armoire in the bedroom, and the kitchen cabinets are backed with shelves. And look!” She moved to one of the existing storage units. “We mounted some of your paintings as doors to hide the clutter!”
Buffy noticed for the first time rows of her paintings affixed to the cabinet fronts.
And just above and to the left was the half finished portrait of Spike.
Her breath stopped as her eyes met his cobalt blue ones, smiling down at her with a gentle smirk. It was the oil version of the diptych she had created of the two of them. She hadn’t come up with a way to do it over, so had simply left it, burying it under a stack of old works to be forgotten. It was only half finished, but she hadn’t been able to resist doing the details of his elegant face. Before he hurt her. Before she didn’t care about him.
And they had made him a part of her home.
“Buffy?” Willow’s voice came to her, concerned. “Is everything okay?”
Anya picked up the concern. “We can take them down if you’d rather. The hinges are on short screws, so the canvasses aren’t permanently damaged. . .”
“No!” Buffy interrupted, turning her back on those compelling eyes. “It’s perfect, really. It’s just so much. I can’t thank you guys for this.” She hugged them each in turn, tears in her eyes.
“So, is this where the party is?”
They all turned to see Cordelia Chase standing in the doorway, a bouquet and a bottle of wine in tow.
“Cordy!” Buffy wiped her eyes, careful of her mascara. “How did you find me?”
“A little bird’s secretary told me.” She glanced at Anya, who rolled her eyes. “I’d talk to that girl about client confidentiality.”
“I haven’t been trying to avoid you,” Buffy started awkwardly. “It’s just . . .”
“Yes, you have. But I understand why.”
“Um, guys?” Oz interrupted. “Let’s get the rest of the stuff out of the van, let these two talk.”
They trailed out, Willow hesitantly turning back, protective of Buffy.
“I’m sorry about Angel,” Cordelia said without preamble.
“You knew all along, didn’t you?” She took the flowers and crossed to the kitchen with them.
Cordelia followed. “I had some pretty reliable information.” She set the wine bottle down on the counter, not looking up. ”And I’m sorry about William, too.”
“Spike.” She didn’t take her eyes off the vase filling with water. “His name is Spike. And you were right. I let my heart get involved and it was all pain and misery. He was just using me.”
“I don’t know, honey. He sounded pretty distraught when he called me.”
Buffy looked up in surprise. “He called you?”
She nodded. “Looking for you. He said he needed to explain something to you. I pretty much knew what that meant, so I hung up on him.”
“He was upset?” Buffy focused on the flowers she was arranging.
Cordy looked at her sharply. “Do you care?”
“No! Yes. I don’t know.” She sighed and gave up on the flowers, leaning back against the sink. “I don’t want to. He destroyed me. So why does his betrayal hurt more than Angel’s?”
“Maybe because it was more of a surprise.”
Buffy opened her mouth to argue when the others came back, their arms full of boxes and garment bags.
“But I’ve missed all the hard work!” Cordy turned back on her performance face. “Lucky me! So I guess that leaves the celebratory dinner to me. We’ll have a lovely meal with lots of wine to christen Buffy’s new home and new life. My treat!”
There was agreement all around, but as they finished the last touches and emptied the boxes, she felt Cordelia’s watchful eyes following her.
And Buffy knew she hadn’t missed the painting.