A few hours passed after making it back home, during which Joey had stared unseeing at a book with a mindless show on in the background to keep him company. Eventually Netflix threw a message onscreen to ask if he was still watching, which Joey only noticed because the noise ceased. As he was about to click ‘yes’, though, his phone pinged. It was probably Mac checking in on him. Joey unlocked his phone.
It wasn’t Mac. It was an unknown number.
i’m sorry
Joey stared at the screen for a long moment until it went blank, then unlocked his phone again to stare some more. Finally, he found it in himself to reply.
Why did you lie?
A long pause, in which the ellipses indicating the other person was typing appeared repeatedly. Then:
many reasons
i’d rather not say over text
Joey blinked at the phone, then closed the text conversation, locked the phone, and put it face down on the couch next to him. Picking up the remote, he clicked ‘yes’ and Netflix played the next episode, which Joey continued to not watch.
----------------------------------------
A week went by. Fortunately, the arm that Joey had in a sling was his right, so he could still use his left to work his brush against their assignments. Unfortunately, the pain was extremely distracting, and ibuprofen could only do so much.
The gigs were so plentiful at this point that they’d had to divide and conquer just to keep up. Most of the time Joey was paired with Mac, who had heard of the fight Joey had had with Frankie and was wisely keeping the two apart. Everyone was running on too little sleep and whenever they met up at HQ they had to endure the frosty silence between Frankie and Joey.
A few times Frankie did try to speak to Joey, but he always responded by walking into another room. After the first three times he did this, Frankie learned to shut up.
As he was leaving HQ for his next (very welcome) day off—they’d all been reduced to one day off a week, what with the volume of work—Joey finally opened the text conversation with the unknown number again. He was standing on the street outside the antiques store.
Why did you lie?
many reasons
i’d rather not say over text.
Before he could chicken out, Joey typed slowly:
Can we meet?
yes
The reply came almost instantly.
Where?
ralph’s? half an hour?
God, the site of their first date. Opening his contacts app, Joey added the unknown number under the label ‘Lying Liar who Lies’. Then he replied:
K.
Throwing up the hood on his jacket, Joey turned toward Bryn Mawr and started to crunch over the icy sidewalk.
----------------------------------------
Caden was waiting in the same booth they’d sat in last time. Joey wasn’t sure why he’d expected him not to be wearing his disguise, but he just looked like the usual handsome white guy Joey knew him as. As Joey walked in, Caden slid from the bench seat and stood awkwardly next to the table, running his hand through his hair. His brown hair. Which Joey now knew was actually black.
As Joey approached Caden’s eyes fell to Joey’s arm, still in its sling from the previous week. “What happened?” said Caden, reaching out to touch before he caught himself and dropped his hands.
Joey couldn’t stop staring. When he snapped out of it, he shuffled into the booth and sat, Caden quick to sit opposite him. “Messed up my shoulder,” Joey muttered. Now that he’d sat down he found himself focusing on the table, which had soap marks on it from where it had been wiped down. “It’s getting better.”
“May I?” Looking up, Joey saw Caden with the same worried expression he’d had when he’d healed Joey’s arm that first day.
Joey wasn’t sure what made him say it, but he relented with a “Fine.”
Standing again, Caden took a step closer to Joey and placed his hand lightly on Joey’s shoulder. Joey tensed at the touch and he felt Caden’s hand draw back, then once more gently touch where Joey’s shoulder ached. Caden’s hand skimmed across Joey’s jacket and Joey felt the pain ease abruptly, as if it had never been there in the first place.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Caden took a deep breath then moved away, settling again across the booth from Joey. Meeting Caden’s eyes, Joey mumbled, “Thanks.” He shrugged off the sling, folding it up and tucking it into a pocket. Both were silent for a moment. “I guess you’re so good at channeling since you’re a—” Joey cut himself off.
“Since I’m a,” Caden agreed with a faint smile.
Joey didn’t laugh. Instead, he asked again, “Why did you lie?”
Taking a deep breath, Caden broke eye contact with Joey, dropping his gaze to the table and starting to trace the lines the soap had left with a finger. “My family always taught me to hide. I can’t walk around—looking like I do—in public.”
“You could have told us,” said Joey, meaning you could have told me.
At this Caden looked up at Joey once more, brow creased in a frown. “You saw what Frankie was like. You can’t expect me to tell someone like that.”
Joey started chewing his lip. “I guess not.” Another deep breath. “You fixed your ring.” He gestured to Caden’s hand, which had gone back to tracing lines on the table.
“Everyone in my family has one.”
“Just your family? Not every gobl—?”
“We don’t call ourselves that,” said Caden sharply, catching Joey’s eye once more.
“Okay,” said Joey slowly. “What do you call yourselves?”
Caden shrugged and pulled a napkin from the dispenser on the table, beginning to shred it. “I don’t know if there is a name. My parents always just said ‘people like us.’ There aren’t a lot of us left. Most people think like Frankie does about us.”
“Oh,” said Joey softly.
A server appeared at the table above them, asking if they’d like to order anything. “We need the table for paying customers,” they explained, not meanly.
Joey glanced at Caden. “Fries?”
“Chips,” Caden said, smiling that faint smile again.
“Fries,” Joey told the server. “With malt vinegar.” The server thanked him for the order and took off.
“You don’t seem angry with me,” said Caden, tilting his head.
“I was,” admitted Joey. “But I don’t think—I don’t think you meant to hurt—well, anybody. But I want to know why you’re here. In Chicago. Why did you fake your papers?”
Briefly, Caden went back to shredding his napkin, but then he heaved a sigh and looked into Joey’s eyes once more. “You’re right, I owe you an explanation. There’s an heirloom, it was in my family for hundreds of years,” he began. “When my parents were little they lived in a building with a large-ish group of—people like us. Several families together. Then…people found out who they were and…there was a raid. I never met them. My grandparents.” Caden went back to his napkin and Joey shocked himself by reaching across the table and covering Caden’s hand with his. Surprised, Caden looked back up at Joey.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s just,” said Caden, and swallowed. “It’s just what happens.”
“So the heirloom?”
“Yes, it was, it was taken, not destroyed like most of…well, it was taken. It had kept the families safe in the past, a very powerful relic. Then it was passed from hand to hand in the paranormal and the normal world. My mother tried to find it, but she eventually gave up. So I decided to find it.” His green eyes flashed with determination. “And I did. I tracked it down. It was sold at auction 80 years ago.”
The penny dropped. “The watch.” The one in the safe. The one that Caden had indirectly asked to see. “It was stolen from you.” Abruptly, Joey looked down and realized his hand was still on Caden’s. He withdrew it to wring his hands, but he imagined he could still feel the heat of Caden’s skin on his. “That’s why you’re still in Chicago. You want it back.”
Nodding, Caden pulled his hands to his lap. “It belongs to my family.”
At this point the server swung by and deposited their fries on the table, but Joey wasn’t feeling especially hungry. Neither of them made a move toward the basket.
It all made sense now, and Joey almost wished that it didn’t. “But we can’t—we can’t give it to you,” said Joey. “The Company thinks it’s theirs, and we—the shields at HQ are strained as it is. I mean, we could write to Home Office, but they kinda…suck.” Understatement of the year. “I don’t know if they would give it back even if they knew the truth.”
“I have some money,” offered Caden. “My family has savings.”
“I want to help you,” Joey said in a rush. “But I don’t know if I can.”
Caden watched him for a long moment and Joey’s breath came short despite himself, despite knowing that he wasn’t even looking at Caden’s real face. “You were right. I never meant to hurt you,” said Caden softly, barely audible over the music in the bar.
“I want to see you.” Joey set his hands flat on the sticky table. “I want to see how you really look.”
Glancing around at the rest of the bar for a moment, Caden’s eyes shot back to Joey and he nodded, slipping once more out of the booth. Joey followed him down a hallway then they stepped out into the chilly night in the alley behind the bar.
Putting his coat hood back up again, Joey dug his hands into his pockets and waited. Their breaths were puffing steam into the air. Caden looked around them briefly, then drew out his hand and slipped off his emerald ring.
There stood that stranger again, with the angular face. Joey had never seen a gobl—someone of this species before. He vaguely remembered reading about them in a book at HQ, but they were so rare that he’d deemed it astronomically unlikely that he’d ever meet one. Now he took in the sight as Caden waited patiently, tucking his hands into his pockets and keeping his eyes on the ground.
“Your hair is longer,” observed Joey stupidly. Never mind that it was a different color.
Caden huffed a laugh. “Yeah.”
Slowly, as if trying not to spook an animal, Joey raised his hand to touch Caden’s face. Startled, Caden met his eyes. The gray of Caden’s cheek looked otherworldly next to Joey’s deep brown skin, though it felt just like normal skin against Joey’s fingertips. After a beat, Caden leaned into Joey’s touch, closing his eyes. “It’s still you,” said Joey, hushed.
“Still me,” breathed Caden, opening his eyes again.
Quick like pulling off a bandaid, Joey pulled his hand back and stuffed it in his pocket. “Give me…some time to think about this,” he said, eyes anywhere but on Caden. His nose was getting chilly in the frigid air.
In his peripheral vision, Joey saw Caden slip his ring back on, and was almost shocked to see pale skin once more. Now that he knew, it seemed almost wrong for Caden to wear his disguise. Bracing himself, he turned back to the other man. Caden looked up at him with those same green eyes. “I’ll be here.”