Thankfully, Jamaal made such a drastic action unnecessary.
“All right,” he said softly. “We’ll go to the exhibit. But this isn’t a date, and it isn’t the start of a beautiful friendship. It’s best for everybody involved if you and I stay at a safe distance.”
“Why?” I asked.
But I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer.
TWELVE
I had no idea what to wear for a private visit with a museum curator, so I decided to dress for comfort and warmth on this wet, gloomy winter night. I paired a teal cowl-neck sweater with soft black cords and water-resistant ankle boots, then examined myself in the mirror. I decided the outfit was dressy enough to be classy, but not so dressy as to look like I’d dressed up for a special occasion.
I met Jamaal in the foyer. He’d gone with what for him was a pretty dressed-up look, wearing black jeans with an orange polo shirt. Tiger colors again, I noted, though I kept the thought to myself. I didn’t bother arguing with him about who would drive. He liked to refer to my Mini as “the clown car,” and though he fit in it just fine, he liked his black Saab a hell of a lot better. He’d made a concession in agreeing to come with me tonight, so I made my own about transportation.
When we were in the car with the doors shut, I noticed the faint scent of clove cigarettes in the air. Before he’d learned to summon Sita, Jamaal had tried to keep his temper in check by chain-smoking clove cigarettes—or pot, when things got really bad.
“You still smoking?” I asked, though I don’t know why I was surprised. People don’t just quit without a concerted effort.
“Not as much,” he said defensively. “Just because I don’t need cigarettes anymore doesn’t mean I don’t like them anymore.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just curious.” Had he smoked tonight because he needed the extra help to stay calm in my presence? His body language told me he was agitated in a way I hadn’t seen for a long time.
We had to come to a brief stop while waiting for the gates at the head of the driveway to open, and Jamaal took that opportunity to roll his neck from side to side. The crackling sound made me wince.
Why was going out with me such an issue for him? If it wasn’t about my attempt to leave, and it wasn’t about our experiment with romance, I couldn’t imagine what it was about. The curiosity was killing me, and his continued reticence just made it worse.
“How did you get into art, anyway?” I asked, just to make conversation. “You don’t seem much like an art geek to me.”
“By ‘art geek,’ do you mean rich white guy?”
I suspected he was trying to start a fight—maybe so he could use it as an excuse to turn the car around and go back—but I wasn’t about to take the bait. “When I think of an art geek, I think of a sensitive beta male,” I said calmly. “You don’t fit the description.”
The comment won me a reluctant laugh, and a little of the tension eased out of his shoulders. “You shouldn’t put so much stock in stereotypes,” he said, but there was no rancor in his voice.
“I’m sure you’re not the only macho man who likes art. You’re just the only macho man I know who likes art. Or at least who admits it.”
“Macho man?” He sounded affronted, and there was no hint of a smile on his face, but I was 99 percent sure he was teasing.
“All right, you like ‘alpha male’ better. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”
He made a little growling sound as he shifted gears, giving the Saab a little more gas. If he got pulled over and made us late, I was going to be seriously pissed.
“You going to answer my question, or just brood in silence?”
He shot me a quick look of annoyance. “You must be the most persistent female I’ve ever met.”
I grinned. “Is that supposed to be an insult?”
He shook his head in resignation. “If you must know, I got into art because it’s something I would never have dreamed could be a part of my life when I was a kid. I tried every highbrow cultural door that would open for me. I went to the opera and ballet. Learned to play golf. At least, tried to learn. I sucked at it, and it’s not a good sport for someone with a temper problem. I went to fancy restaurants to eat foods I couldn’t pronounce. And I visited art galleries. The art’s the only thing that stuck.”
“And you got into the Eastern stuff because you’re descended from Kali, right?”
He nodded. “I thought I might collect paintings of her, because being an art collector was about as far from being a slave as it was possible to get. I went to an auction and bought the painting that’s in my sitting room, but when I hung it, I decided I’d rather let the art go to museums. I should probably donate the one I have, but . . .”
“You’re allowed to do something nice for yourself every once in a while.”
He didn’t say anything, but I saw the small smile on his lips. Maybe the walls he’d built around himself were starting to show cracks. Tiny ones, to be sure, but I was going to do my damnedest to widen them.
We were to meet Dr. Prakash at one of the side entrances to the museum. Jamaal and I arrived there a little before seven. Standing outside waiting in the rain wasn’t my idea of a good time, especially not with the damp chill in the air.
Jamaal, of course, had no umbrella. If we’d just been walking straight from the parking lot and into the building, I’m sure he would have refused to share mine, but even he wasn’t macho enough to stand around waiting in the rain as the temperature dipped toward its predicted nighttime low of thirty-five.
Sharing the umbrella meant Jamaal had to stand closer to me than he would have liked. I think he was trying not to show his discomfort, but I couldn’t help noticing the stiffness of his posture, or the way the fingers on the hand that wasn’t holding the umbrella were dancing nervously at his side.
“Do you need a cigarette while we wait?” I asked.
My question must have cued him in to his unconscious hand movements, and his fingers came to a stop. “I’m fine,” he said.
I was debating whether to try to push him into telling me what was wrong when the door to the museum swung open.
I hadn’t realized I’d built an image of a curator of Indian art in my head until I set eyes on a woman who looked absolutely nothing like that image. I’d pictured a petite Indian woman of mature years wearing a sari and sporting a red dot on her forehead. The woman who beckoned us into the museum was indeed of Indian descent, but that was about all I’d gotten right.
Dr. Kassandra Prakash was plump without being fat, and if she was over thirty, she was some kind of cosmetics genius. She wore a thoroughly Western wrap dress with ugly sensible shoes, and she had a smile that made her face look pretty despite an oversized nose and black eyebrows that were just short of being a unibrow.
I darted inside, leaving Jamaal to wrestle the umbrella into submission.
“I’m so sorry to leave you waiting in the rain!” Dr. Prakash said earnestly. “I’ve been indoors all day and never realized it was raining.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said as Jamaal won his battle with the umbrella and joined me inside. “We just got here. And we can’t thank you enough for taking the time—”
“Nonsense,” Dr. Prakash interrupted with a cheery smile. “I’m like a proud mama showing off her baby.” She held out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Kassandra Prakash, but you can just call me Kassie.”
“Nikki Glass,” I answered as I shook her hand. I could tell the moment she got her first good look at Jamaal, because her generically friendly smile turned into something with a hint of hubba-hubba behind it.
“And you must be Mr. Jones,” she said.
I highly doubted Jamaal had been born with either his current first or last names, and I sometimes wondered why he’d chosen something as dull as “Jones” for his surname. It didn’t fit his exotic good looks, but then I don’t think Jamaal realizes just how attractive he is.
“Nice to meet you
,” Jamaal said dutifully as he shook Kassie’s hand. There was a hint of strain behind his smile, and I wondered how long it had been since he’d had a normal, social interaction with someone other than Anderson’s Liberi. He certainly wasn’t used to smiling at people, and I was glad he’d made the effort, even if it did come off a little forced.
If Kassie noticed Jamaal’s awkwardness, she didn’t acknowledge it, instead leading us through the empty halls of the museum toward the exhibition. She chattered almost nonstop, and I decided Jamaal’s lack of social graces probably wasn’t going to be much of a handicap tonight. I didn’t get the feeling that she was overly enamored of hearing herself talk, just that she was so excited about the exhibit that she couldn’t contain herself. I wondered if she was always like this, or if she’d been overdosing on energy drinks to get her through her long and busy day.
I’d imagined this evening’s outing as a chance for Jamaal and me to spend some time together and maybe try to ease ourselves back into something resembling a normal relationship. I thought maybe we’d bond a bit over this shared experience. I might even have thought Jamaal would be grateful to me for giving him this opportunity. Instead, I ended up feeling like a third wheel on someone else’s date.
Kassie proceeded to give us a guided tour of the exhibit, which consisted mostly of paintings, with some bronzes and some stone carvings for variety. I knew absolutely nothing about Eastern art of any kind, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t find the Indian paintings all that interesting to look at. A lot of them were pretty primitive, with stiff figures and wonky proportions. If I’d been on my own, I’d probably have been in and out of the exhibit in fifteen minutes, tops. Jamaal, on the other hand, was enthralled, and within minutes had forgotten all about being his normal surly self. His face was more animated than I’d ever seen it as he hung on Kassie’s every word. He was even able to make intelligent conversation and ask intriguing questions whenever Kassie paused to take a breath.
I followed along beside them in silence, feeling inadequate and uncultured. Kassie tried to include me in the conversation a few times, and I appreciated the effort, but I didn’t have much to contribute. Anything I said about the art would either make me look stupid or reveal that I wasn’t that impressed with it, and with the two of them geeking out so much, I didn’t think bringing in inane small talk would help.
Eventually, they kind of tuned me out. I told myself that tight feeling in my gut was just because of my inability to join the conversation, but I was pretty sure there was a hint of jealousy in there, too. Jamaal spoke more words to Kassie in those couple of hours than he’d spoken to me in the months I’d known him. And he smiled a lot more, too. I’d have loved to see him smiling at me like that.
Not that he was flirting, though. I’m not even sure Jamaal knows how, and though he was clearly enjoying his conversation with Kassie, his enthusiasm was directed at the paintings, not at her. That didn’t stop me from feeling jealous, especially not when Kassie put her hand on his arm here and there. I didn’t think she was flirting, either, at least not consciously, but it raised my hackles anyway.
I tried to hide my own discomfort, smiling and feigning interest whenever either of them glanced at me. Whether I was enjoying myself or not, I couldn’t help feeling like this was good for Jamaal, and that was supposedly the reason I’d invited him out here. When we’d finally seen the last of the exhibit, I thought the ordeal was over, but then Kassie offered to show us the reserve collection—paintings the museum owned but that weren’t currently on display. Jamaal’s eyes lit up even more, and I had to suppress a groan. For Jamaal’s sake, I faked my way again through the next hour or so, trying not to let myself glance at my watch every five minutes.
It was almost ten by the time we escape—I mean, by the time we regretfully said good-bye and thank you to Kassie. The rain had slowed to a desultory drizzle, but the temperature was close enough to freezing to make the damp night air feel thoroughly unpleasant. Despite the success of my plan to draw Jamaal out, I was in a crappy mood thanks to three hours of feeling like a moron while Jamaal and Kassie bonded over stuff that was over my head. Not to mention that I’d failed to eat dinner before we’d set out, and my stomach was howling in protest. I had planned to ask Jamaal if he wanted to grab a bite to eat when we left the museum, but now I just wanted to get back to the mansion and lick my wounds.
We didn’t speak on the walk to the car, and I figured that meant Jamaal was back to his habitual brooding self already. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered trying to draw him out. Maybe it had done no good whatsoever and had just made me miserable instead. Maybe I really should butt out of his life as he’d repeatedly told me to do.
Okay, so maybe just this once, Jamaal wasn’t the most broody person in the car.
“Thank you,” he said softly as we pulled out of the parking lot.
A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed hard and tried to respond in a normal tone of voice. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you had fun.”
We drove for a couple more minutes in silence, then Jamaal pulled into an illegal parking spot against the curb. I looked around, trying to spot whatever had inspired Jamaal to pull over, but instead of parking the car, he left the engine running and turned toward me in his seat.
“That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” he said, meeting my eyes only briefly before looking away. “And I know it must have been painfully boring for you.”
“It wasn’t—” I started to protest automatically.
Jamaal met my eyes with a look of frank skepticism that killed my protest.
“You did a good job trying to hide it,” he assured me. “And I’m an asshole for taking advantage of you and making you wait while I looked at the reserve collection.”
“No, you’re not. If I didn’t want to do it, it was up to me to say no.” And as badly as I’d wanted to escape, I couldn’t have denied Jamaal the opportunity to see things the public might never see.
He straightened in his seat and leaned his head back into the headrest, closing his eyes. He was bracing himself for something, but I didn’t know what. He opened his eyes and huffed out a breath.
“You remember you said once that Sita’s attitude toward you might have something to do with how I feel about you?” he asked, looking out the windshield instead of at me.
“Yeah,” I said, then held my breath, wondering if somehow, miraculously, he was going to talk about his feelings after all.
“You weren’t wrong.”
Even though I’d figured all along that Sita’s dislike of me was a reflection of Jamaal’s own feelings, I still felt a stab of pain. Things had been strained between us lately, but I’d allowed myself to hope that there was still a spark of friendship underneath it all. The ferocity of Sita’s attitude toward me suggested maybe that had been wishful thinking.
“Okay,” I said. My voice came out a tad raspy, and I cleared my throat.
To my shock, Jamaal reached out and brushed a strand of my hair back behind my ear. The touch sent a shiver through my whole body.
“You weren’t wrong about Sita’s attitude being related to my feelings,” he said. “But you were wrong about what the feelings were. She’s jealous, Nikki.”
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. “Your phantom tiger is jealous of me?” That might have been one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard. And it made me feel almost giddy with relief.
Jamaal graced me with one of his small, wry smiles. “Yeah. She’s jealous of anyone who might steal any of my attention from her, and you’re Public Enemy Number One.”
“Oh.” I wanted to say something more intelligent and useful, but my brain refused to feed me any words.
“I’m trying to learn to control her better. That’s why I’ve been practicing so much. Right now, I can keep her focused on me and obeying me as long as I’m concentrating my full attention on her. But if I let my concentration waver . . .”
“Or if you pract
ice so hard that you pass out?”
He grimaced. “Yeah. That, too.”
“I don’t get why you’ve made this into a state secret. Why wouldn’t you just tell me what was going on?” He gave me a long, condescending look, until I answered my own question. “Because you didn’t want to admit feeling anything that would make her jealous.”
There was another long silence between us. I didn’t know what to say to Jamaal’s admission, and he didn’t seem to have much idea what to say, either.
“I’m glad you told me,” I finally said.
“It doesn’t change anything. It’s going to take everything I have to keep Sita under control the next time I summon her after tonight. It would be best if you weren’t even in the house when I do it, just in case I can’t stop her from going to look for you.”
Trying to manifest his death magic in the form of an animal had been my idea in the first place, and I’d thought it had turned out to be a pretty good one. It was nice not having Jamaal ready to fly off the handle at any moment. Now I was beginning to wonder if an out-of-control phantom tiger was really any better than an out-of-control temper.
“It’s an improvement,” Jamaal said. Obviously, it was clear what I was thinking. “I feel a hell of a lot better. And Sita may be hard to control, but at least I can control when and where I let her out. When I was fighting the death magic instead of cooperating with it, everyone knew I could snap at any moment.”
That was a bit of an exaggeration. Sure, his temper had been volatile, and he could be dangerous when his death magic got antsy, but he didn’t go off without provocation. Of course, it hadn’t taken much to provoke him . . .