InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Purity Short: Cacophony ❯ Stardust ( Chapter 16 )

Cartham stepped inside the apartment, carefully maneuvering the pale green garment bag through the door without accidentally crumpling it.  He could tell from the feel in the air inside that Kelly wasn’t home from work yet, and that, he figured, was all right.  Hanging the bag from one of the hooks near the door, he kicked the door closed as he pulled off his jacket then sat on the nearest chair to pull off his boots.  To be honest, he still wasn’t entirely sure if ambushing Kelly was a good idea, but Bellaniece had insisted that Kelly would like it—at least, once she got over the initial surprise of it.

She still hadn’t mentioned the gala, and, while Bellaniece’s words had made sense, there was still just the smallest part of him that wasn’t entirely sure that he really bought into it.  What if she honestly wasn’t interested in attending it, after all?  She’d think that he was overstepping her boundaries, wouldn’t she?

Frowning as he strode over to grab the small remote that controlled the Christmas tree lights, he cycled through the settings till the lights glowed softly but remained lit.  Kelly liked to make them flash, but he couldn’t say he was as keen on that.  Of course, it was the first year ever that he’d even bothered to buy a tree.  It was kind of pointless, he’d always thought, when he lived alone and had no real family to speak of.  He didn’t hate the holidays.  He supposed he held more of an apathy regarding them.  To be honest, he couldn’t remember having ever even bought a Christmas present before, but he had this year.  A few of them, actually, and they were wrapped, courtesy of the stores where he’d bought the things, and were waiting in his closet for the holiday that was still a couple weeks away.

Funny how it hadn’t even occurred to him, not to buy a tree for her.  Funny, too, how shopping for her presents had seemed like the most natural thing in the world . . .

She was the one, however, who had wrapped the front doors of the warehouse in mylar paper, even the huge dock doors, as giant presents, complete with big, red velvet ribbons.

‘She didn’t do it alone.  You watched her struggle for all of a minute, giggling to yourself like a little girl, and then, you helped her.’

Cartham snorted to himself.  ‘I don’t giggle.’

‘You did that day, tough guy.’

He didn’t reply as he headed over to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

He had a bit of time before he needed to hit the shower, to change into the suit that he’d bought, and Kelly ought to be home any minute.

The biggest question in his head was just what she’d think of what could easily be perceived as a level of high-handedness on his part.  After all, she hadn’t mentioned the gala to him, even in passing, and a portion of his brain still argued that she really just didn’t want to go at all.  He wasn’t sure why Bellaniece was so positive that the only reason she held back was due to the difficulties in finding something suitable to wear.  In his mind, that just didn’t seem to match up, though, and he’d be lying if he tried to pretend that he wasn’t more than a little worried that she wasn’t going to end up, pissed as all hell at him for taking it upon himself to arrange things.

Bellaniece had wasted no time in discussing the clothing issue with Gin, it seemed, but she had the idea to give a designer acquaintance of hers a call.  Apparently, she’d met the woman at one of the Zelig Foundation fundraisers, and she was more than happy to do a favor for Gin, though whether it was for Gin herself or maybe to ingratiate herself and her mate to the tai-youkai, Cartham didn’t know.  It didn’t really matter, anyway, but Cartham had just picked it up from a small shop that was co-owned by the woman and her mate.  Calla Henning—the designer—had even flown in to deliver the dress personally, and when Cartham had asked how much he owed her, she’d waved him off with a good-natured smile, even though he had wanted to compensate her for her efforts.

He actually had no idea, just what it looked like.  It had been shipped directly to the shop, and when he’d stopped in to pick it up, it was already packed into the garment bag along with everything else she’d need, whatever that meant.  Shoes, he’d guessed, since he’d felt something that seemed like a shoe box, but the rest of it?  He couldn’t say he was well versed enough in women’s clothing to have any real idea at all.

He was leaning on his forearm, lifting a steaming cup of coffee to his lips, when the door opened, and Kelly stepped inside.  Carrying a couple brown paper shopping bags, she shot him a quick smile, transferring the raffia handles to one hand as she leaned against the door to close it as she kicked off her shoes and scooted them out of the way with a pointed toe.  “Hey,” she greeted, dropping her purse on the table.  “I saw that the contractor masked off the dimensions of the new rooms.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he agreed, blinking a few since it took him a moment to make sense of her words.  The contractor had been over earlier with a couple of his guys to mark out the additions on the first floor, but Cartham had been in such a hurry to go pick up the outfit that he hadn’t really gotten a chance to look at the contractor’s work too closely.  He’d do that tomorrow and give the guy a call back to let him know what he thought.

“What’s this?”

Setting his mug down so that he could pour a cup for Kelly, he grunted.  “It’s for you.  For the, uh, gala tonight.”

“The . . . gala,” she said quietly, almost under her breath.  “Oh . . . How did you know about that?”

He shrugged and held out her cup of coffee.  “Belle told me about it,” he replied.  “Hey, if you don’t want to go, it’s cool.  I just thought maybe you might.  I mean, it’s for your work, right?”

She shuffled toward him and took the cup he offered, but her expression wasn’t exactly easy to read.  Well, that wasn’t completely true.  She looked thoughtful, sure, but he wasn’t sure, just what it was that she was thinking . . . “Belle asked Gin, and she had a friend who offered to design something for you,” he went on, careful to keep his tone as casual as he could.  “If you want to go, then I’ll go get changed.  If you don’t?  No big deal.”

She didn’t answer him.  Instead, she pulled out her phone and dialed a number, but Cartham figured he knew who she was calling.  “Hey, Belle,” she said when her friend answered her phone.  “What did you do?”

Cartham drained his mug and refilled it while Kelly stomped off, phone to her ear.  Even so, she didn’t seem angry, really, but she did veer over to pull the garment bag off the hook before heading for the stairs.

He wasn’t entirely sure, just what he was supposed to do.  His own phone chimed, and he frowned as he pulled it out of his pocket and opened the text from Bellaniece.

‘She’s going to look at it, and I’m sure she’ll love it, so go ahead and get changed,’ she said.

Cartham wasn't as sure as Bellaniece seemed to be, but he sighed and followed Kelly upstairs.  She was already closed in her room, and he had no idea, just what to make of that.  ‘Yeah, well, in for a penny, in for a pound,’ he muttered to himself.

He hadn’t done anything particularly taxing, but he had gone to the shooting range early in the morning, and he didn’t mind the lingering scent of gunpowder, however, Kelly might, especially for something that seemed to be pretty fancy.  Even so, he still headed for the bathroom adjacent to his room, stripping off his clothes as he did so, letting them fall on the floor in a careless disarray, figuring that he’d get them later.

The gurgle of the water pipes echoed in a nondescript kind of way as the water streamed from the showerhead and down the drain, gurgling almost melodically as it filtered down the pipes when he stepped into the still-cold flow.

It didn’t take long to finish up his business, mostly because, given the temperature of the water, he had a tendency to hurry unless he was soaking injuries, anyway.  Of course, when that was the case, he did tend to let the water warm a little, too.  Either way, he was clean by the time he shut off the tap and gave himself a brisk little shake to rid himself of excess water.

Drying himself off with a thick and soft dark blue towel—one that Kelly had selected for his bathroom, saying that the color was very masculine—he used the same towel to drape over his head, to scrub vigorously at his wet hair, as he stepped back into his room once more.

The suit he’d bought was hung over the top edge of the closet’s slightly-open accordion door.  Though the invitation had indicted that the occasion called for formal dress, he’d opted out of the traditional tuxedo and had chosen a very nice suit of rich black, wool cashmere, instead.  He’d gotten it fitted, which was a process he hadn’t really enjoyed, by a designer named Phillipe Estes, which really meant nothing at all to Cartham but seemed to be a pretty big deal, according to the sales clerks.  He couldn’t really complain, though, given that he liked the fit well enough—better than the others he’d tried on, he figured, since it lent him just a little more mobility than any of the others had.

He dropped the damp towel on the floor before tugging open a drawer to grab a pair of boxers and some black dress socks.  The only thing he wasn’t too keen on, really, was the idea that he had to wear a pair of shoes that kind of felt a little too lightweight, given that he was used to wearing heavy boots.  He’d compromised by picking out a pair of dress boots that only reached his ankles, but it was enough to hide a pair of small, youkai daggers that were specially treated so that they would not ever set off any kind of security sensor since he figured that packing his gun was out.  Still, the need to carry something was a little too ingrained in him after centuries spent, always being armed, but there was literally no way he’d be comfortable if he didn’t have any kind of weapon on him at all . . .

After a moment of deliberation, he opted to forego an undershirt, and he carefully pulled the pitch-black silk shirt off the hanger.  The sales clerk had kept trying to steer him toward a lighter shirt, also one with a tabbed collar that would accommodate a tie, but Cartham had opted instead to go with one with a modified banded collar with a longer tab of fabric that fastened off to the side.  He had gotten an emerald and silver button cover for it along with a matching pair of cufflinks—ones that just matched Kelly’s eyes.

The outfit on a whole?  He had to allow, as he frowned at his reflection in the full-length mirror, attached to the back of the door, he didn’t look too bad.  Granted, he didn’t really look like himself, but he supposed that he’d have to do.

‘Maybe, but you should probably do something with your hair.’

He sighed to himself since his normally unruly hair looked a little more wild than normal since he’d only toweled it dry.  Grabbing the brush off the dresser, he made a face.  There wasn’t much he could do with it, he supposed.  Since his hair only brushed the top of his shoulders, it wasn’t nearly long enough to club back, and in the end, he called it good, dropping the brush once more before finally sinking on the edge of the bed to pull on the shoes—and to stash his daggers.

By the time he was finished, it was nearly six, which meant that they’d have to leave soon if they were going to arrive when the gala started.  He still hadn’t heard a thing from Kelly, though, and he headed for the door, only to stop, and, on impulse, he pulled open his closet and grabbed a black velvet jeweler’s box off the top shelf—a gift he’d bought for Kelly, but maybe it didn’t need to wait till Christmas . . .

Then he strode out of his room and down the stairs, slipping his wallet into his pocket as he took the steps, two at a time.

He’d just finished, texting to order a cab when Kelly’s youki brushed over his—a tentative, almost nervous kind of sensation, and he turned on his heel, only to stop short, eyes flaring slightly when he caught sight of her.

She stood, just inside the living room, her hands clenched before herself, biting her deep red, bottom lip, hair, drawn up softly on the sides, spilling down around her in a mass of slightly curling, shining light brown locks, even as the fine wisps of hair fell to frame her face, giving her an even more delicate visage, but her dress . . .

It was nothing more than an artful assembly of off-white lace, slightly darker than a cream color, that hugged her figure like a second skin.  The lacing, lying thicker over her neck down to around mid-thigh, where the pattern of the lace grew more delicate, more ethereal, down the long sleeves that flared out from her elbows down to her wrists, and the skirt echoed the same shaping, ending just above her ankles, even as the back of it dipped down to brush the floor, flowed around her with even the vaguest of movements as she shifted her weight from one of her simple black velvet, three-inch heeled pumps to the other.  Underneath the dress, though, was a simple, not quite sheer body stocking with little sparkles of iridescent thread shod through it that complimented the dress absolutely perfectly.  As she stood, as she waited for Cartham to say something, he could feel her nerves, and yet, there was something else underneath it all, something he could feel.  She . . . She felt . . . She felt beautiful, didn’t she?  She felt those things that maybe she hadn’t for so very long, if she ever had before.

They were literally designed to be worn as one—the same dress—not something created, just to help her to cover what she perceived to be her own imperfections, he realized, and something about that . . . It was a humbling feeling, wasn’t it?  The gratitude that he felt toward Calla Henning for so carefully creating such a thing—something that was able to give Kelly back a sense of normalcy that she so desperately needed—the understanding that Bellaniece had for her friend . . .

He had to clear his throat before he could speak.  “You . . . Uh, wow,” he said, realizing on some level that he sounded kind of stupid.  “You look . . . uh, damn fine . . .”

Her cheeks pinked, but her emerald eyes sparkled.  “Thank you . . . You look great . . .”

He smiled, but something about it felt almost . . . nervous?  And again, he cleared his throat when he glanced down and realized that he was still holding his phone in one hand and the jewelry box in the other.  After hastily dropping the phone into his pocket, he held out the box.  “Here,” he said when she shot him a questioning kind of glance.  “Call it an early Christmas present.”

She stared at him for another long moment before she hesitantly reached for it and took it from him.  “Oh,” she breathed, popping open the lid to reveal a pair of drop emerald and silver earrings.  “They’re beautiful,” she told him, setting the box on a table so that she could pull the earrings out of it.  “Thank you!”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, content to watch her as she carefully put the earrings on.  “You’re welcome,” he told her, smiling gently as she worked the clasps.  “You’re welcome.”

“Oh . . . my . . . God . . . Who is that?”

Blinking as she glanced up at Lyza, who was staring past her at someone behind them, Kelly frowned thoughtfully.  Turning to look, she wasn’t surprised at all when she spotted Cartham, who was buying some credits for the night’s festivities and was being chatted up by Kelly’s boss at the moment.  She also noticed that a number of other women were also busy, giving the man in question very objectionable attention, and she smothered a snort.  “That’s Cartham,” she said, hoping that she sounded more nonchalant than she felt.  “He’s my . . .” Trailing off for a moment, she cleared her throat.  “My roommate.”

“Your . . .?  Just your roommate?” Lyza pressed, a hint of amusement in her tone.  “Don’t say that too loud around here.  Even the girls from the hotel manager’s office are giving your roommate the eye, and everyone says that they’re the snootiest girls, anywhere . . . Oh, my . . . He’s beautiful . . .”

The snort she was trying to hold back slipped out since she had, indeed, noticed that the other women were far too interested in Cartham, and didn’t that just figure?  “Where’s Miles?” she asked, prodding her friend with a not-so-subtle reminder that she was very engaged.

Lyza waved a hand and giggled.  “Oh, he’s around,” she replied airily, but she did finally look back at Kelly once more.  “That dress is gorgeous!”

Satisfied that she’d made her point, Kelly smiled just a little.  Lyza’s compliment seemed genuine, even if it had felt slightly off-handed, like she’d finally deigned to notice what Kelly was wearing after finally being able to drag her attention off of Cartham, anyway . . . “Thanks.  You look great, too.”

Lyza wrinkled her nose and shook her head, but she did laugh.  “This is the same dress I wore last year,” she murmured in a hushed voice.  “I mean, I’ve only worn it once before, so what was the point of buying something else, right?”

Kelly nodded since she knew that Lyza used to work at the hotel until the casino had opened up, and they had hosted the same kind of gala last year, as well, at a nearby venue.

“Oh, my God!  Who is that?” she heard, though the woman—Kelly thought that she might work up in the offices, but she wasn't sure—had obviously not meant for her to do so since she was talking in a hushed whisper to her friend, but Kelly’s youkai-hearing hadn’t allowed her to miss it, at all.

“I don’t know, but he’s delicious, isn’t he?”

They giggled.  “Who’s he here with?”

The second woman heaved a little sigh.  “Carey told me that she thinks he came with the cashier manager—Kelly, isn’t it?”

“Who’s that?”

Another indulgent giggle.  “Oh, you know, that really quiet girl?  Not quite brown hair, not quite blonde?  Really serious all the time?  I sincerely hope that her regular personality isn’t as dull as her work one is . . .” The two laughed, and the very sound of it made Kelly bristle.  “Um, oh, she’s right over there . . .”

Grinding her teeth together when she felt the women’s sudden attention, it was all she could do to keep her back straight, even as the slight smile on her face felt more and more stilted and wooden . . . She didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to know just how those women judged her, especially when they didn’t even know her.  That old and too familiar sense that she simply wasn’t good enough rose up, despite her desire not to allow it.  Hadn’t she outgrown that back in school?  Hadn’t she already heard the same kinds of things from the girls in the popular crowds?  As they wondered why a girl like Bellaniece Zelig hung out with her or they’d put her down, saying that she was only being friends with Bellaniece in the hopes that she could maybe land some of Bellaniece’s cast offs, even while they snipped and sniggered and took their shots at Bellaniece, too, and these women . . .

They were just like them, weren’t they?  The ones that Kelly had convinced herself didn’t matter a damn bit, and yet . . .

And yet, she still couldn’t quite shake it off, as much as she wanted to.  Somehow, just the demeanor of these women was far more familiar than it ought to be, and, glancing around in a slow, surreptitious kind of way, she saw those same kinds of looks, those same sorts of peeks—ones that were directed at her, full of those same kinds of questions, of judgements, of assessments, or worse—those longing sorts of expressions as they stared so brazenly and blatantly at the hunter . . .  

“Hey, ladies . . . Here,” Cartham said as he slipped up beside her and held out the casino card.  “Let me know if you want more added to it later.  I mean, it’s for a good cause, right?”

Kelly took the card and forced a smile, just for him, as she glanced up at him, but the expression felt tight, stilted, given that she could feel so many eyes on him and, by proximity, on her, too, and that was enough to set her almost entirely on edge.  In the corners of her mind, she could hear the sneers, the snide comments, even if they were little more than a dull roar in her head, and even if they were actually there or not.  Maybe.  “Oh, Cartham, this is Lyza Carr, my friend.  Lyza, this is Cartham.”

Lyza nodded and shot Kelly a knowing glance as she shook Cartham’s hand.  “Right, right, your roommate.  Nice to meet you, Cartham.  That’s an unusual first name, isn’t it?”

“It’s not,” he remarked simply.  “Just what everyone calls me.  That’s all.”

“I see,” Lyza said, though she didn’t really look like she understood it.  “Oh, excuse me,” she apologized, gesturing across the room where Miles had beckoned her over.  He was deep in conversation with someone Kelly didn’t recognize, but he did spare a moment to nod at her in a friendly way.

“So, you want to try out the slot machines or something?” Cartham asked, apparently oblivious to the other women in the room who were so blatantly staring at him.

Kelly frowned, noting not for the first time, just how well Cartham’s suit fit him.  When she’d first seen him, waiting for her in the living room, she’d been dumbstruck for a few seconds, as though she couldn’t quite reckon the man she saw with the one she thought that she knew.  However much that suit had cost, it was money well spent, she surmised, but it had been just a little too much of a stretch to hope that other women wouldn’t notice him, too, she figured.

Tucking a long, errant strand of hair behind her ear, Kelly bit her lip, debating whether or not she ought to excuse herself to check her makeup in the ladies’ room.  Considering it was her idea to ride the motorcycle, though, she figured she only had herself to blame if her hair or face was in complete disarray, but when they’d stepped outside, she’d suddenly thought that she’d rather arrive to the gala on the bike than in a cab, after all, and Cartham hadn’t seemed to mind, even if he was wearing what had to be a very expensive suit . . .

From the moment they’d arrived not even an hour ago, though, she’d been faced with the absolute gall of a lot of the women in attendance who had no shame when it came to their unabashed gawking at the man she’d arrived with.

She sighed.  Then again, just what had she been thinking, anyway?

After seeing the dress that Bellaniece had arranged for her, she’d forgotten for a moment that she just didn’t make a good heroine, had never been the beauty, the girl that men sought out.  Putting on a fancy dress certainly wouldn’t change any of that, and the truth of it was, Bellaniece had admitted that she’d told him all about the gala, and just what was he supposed to do when she’d all but bullied him into it, knowing Bellaniece?  She knew her friend well enough to understand on some level that Bellaniece probably hadn’t given Cartham a chance to say no, even if he didn’t want to go, and worse?  Well, worse was the idea that the only reason—the only reason—he’d agreed was because he’d felt sorry for her.

“Hey, if you don’t want to go, it’s cool.  I just thought maybe you might.  I mean, it’s for your work, right?”

He’d said it more than once, hadn’t he?  If she didn’t want to go . . . but maybe what he meant was . . .

“I don’t really want to go, but if you want to, then I’ll humor you . . .”

Sparing him a sidelong glance, she stifled a sigh, not missing the way he kept tugging at his cuffs, and if he’d straightened his collar once, he’d done so a number of times.  The way that his eyes kept darting back and forth . . . Well, she’d noticed that, too, not to mention the very thin little smile that he refused to relinquish as he nodded now and again at people—mostly women—who caught his attention . . .

If she were smart, she’d just ask him to take her home, she figured.  He didn’t seem to be having any more fun than she was, so maybe he wouldn’t mind.  Then again, what if she was the reason he wasn’t having a good time?  Did he think that, because he’d arrived with her, that she expected him to stay by her side all night?

But before she could ponder that too long, Peter Watkins, the manager of the casino, tapped on his champagne glass to draw everyone’s attention.  “Good evening, and welcome to our Christmas gala!  If you’d all be so kind, please follow me into the dining hall for a dinner and a brief presentation!”

Without a word, Cartham reached out, slipped an arm around her waist and fell in line with the crowd that was moving to follow the general manager, and Kelly stifled a sigh.  ‘After dinner,’ she supposed.  Maybe then, she could slip out without anyone realizing . . .

‘If I catch one more guy, leering at her, I swear to God, I’m going to rip someone, limb from fucking limb . . .’

Cartham’s youkai-voice heaved a longsuffering sigh.  ‘What do you expect?  She’s gorgeous, stupid.  Of course, they’re going to be staring.  But she’s not going home with any of them, now is she?  So, control your temper and just behave yourself or Zelig’ll be issuing a hunt for you.’

‘Yeah, well, most of those bastards are here with women of their own.  They can damn well stop looking at her, or—’

‘Oh, for the love of—You know, why don’t you just go ahead and piss on her?  Mark her as your territory, right?  It’d be a far sight easier than glaring at every damn man in the room, don’t you think?  And you know what?  Do you think Kelly hasn’t noticed?  Because I’m pretty sure she has.’

‘I’m not going to—That’s not even—Shut up!’

Beside him at the table, Kelly set aside her fork and cleared her throat.  “If, umm . . . If you want, you don’t . . . don’t have to sit here with me,” she said in such a low tone that he had to lean toward her to hear her.

His gaze shot to her face, only to narrow when he saw her, cheeks a very becoming shade of pink, as she stared down at her barely touched plate of food.  “What?” he snapped, more surprised by what she’d said than anything else.

She instantly started gnawing on her bottom lip, and still, she refused to look up at him.  “There are a lot of . . . of single women here,” she went on, her voice, dipping even lower in register.  “They all think you look nice—I-I mean, you do—look nice, that is . . .”

“I really don’t care what anyone else thinks,” he growled, his frangible hold on his temper, barely hanging on.  “What the hell are you babbling about?”

She grimaced.  He could see it in the sudden tightness around her eyes, even if he still couldn’t rightfully see her face.  Suddenly, though, she stood so abruptly that her chair slid back a few inches with an audible screech.  “You know, I . . . I have a headache,” she blurted, forcing a smile as she finally glanced up at him, but the darkness in her eyes that lay just below the entirely fake expression was far easier to discern.  “I’m just . . . Just going to go to the ladies’ room . . .”

He stood up, too, but he could only frown as he watched her as she hurried out of the banquet hall.