Baka was easy to get along with and surprisingly, he and Storm saw eye to eye on most things. Including their mutual attraction to Elora Laiken. Perhaps there was a seed of commiseration over the loss of a shared fantasy.
Ram and Elora decided to put off the cord quest so that they could have a nice lunch with Baka, play hosts, and make him feel welcome. Ram stopped by an in-house phone to call the kitchen and request light fare for three in the solarium while Elora strolled that way with Baka. On the way, she gave him as much of the tour as she could, given that she, herself, was basically a guest as well.
She had loved the solarium on first sight. It was basically a glass room held together with white iron grids forming frames around individual panes of glass narrowing as they reached toward the sky to form the complex and beautiful shape of a convex roof. The room housed a lush indoor garden, peacocks and a large fountain featuring the statue of a young elf with bow and arrow.
"Here we are," she said as they stepped through the open doors. She gestured to the room. "Wonderful, isn't it?"
"Indeed it is, my la...Elora." Baka's smile was part conspiracy and part sheepishness. "It's hard to remember."
Elora smiled and nodded. "Come sit. How have you been? I still can't get used to the color of your eyes. I guess I always knew they'd be blue, but I couldn't have guessed the shade."
He pulled out one of the wrought iron chairs for Elora, then held up a finger to his lips to indicate that her slip was even worse than his had been. She laughed. "It is hard to remember, isn't it?" She leaned in closer. "What can we talk about safely?"
His eyes danced with laughter.
Elora leaned closer and spoke quietly. "Not the fact that this will be the first time I've seen you eat actual food."
His eyes sparkled with amusement. "No. Not that."
"And who is this?" The exchange was interrupted when Aelsong breezed into the room wearing a red silk dress, the slightest suggestion of expensive perfume, and as much self-confidence as can be contained in one personality.
Baka stood up as she approached saying to Elora under his breath, "Yes. This will do."
Elora smiled at Song. "This is Istvan Baka. He's a business associate of Ram's. Baka, meet Aelsong, Ram's sister, if there was any chance you couldn't tell."
Aelsong was captivated. She held out her hand. Baka took it and smiled, "Pretty name. And I love red." He glanced at Elora just long enough to insure she knew it was a joke intended for her.
Aelsong giggled a most attractive version of her tinkling, wind chimes laugh while Elora snorted as inelegantly as a person raised behind the bar at a roadhouse.
Song looked at her as if to say, "What's your problem?" Then, turning big, blue-eyed attention back to Baka she proceeded seamlessly, "An unmated associate?"
Baka stepped closer without breaking the connection with her upturned gaze, lowered his voice, and said pointedly, "Completely unattached."
Song's mouth spread into an appreciative, well-what-have-we-here smile.
Elora was thinking that this flirtation was fascinating to watch, as smooth as a professional tango.
Ram came in and without breaking his stride or acting as if anything was noteworthy, walked around Baka, who was still holding Aelsong's hand. "Song. You havin' lunch with us?"
She withdrew her hand and looked at her brother. "Absolutely," she grinned.
"Okay. I said three, not four, so go pick up the phone and get blessed out by Bridget for changin' the request. And while you're doin' that, tell her I forgot to ask for an extra chocolate for the baby." He sat down next to Elora taking her hand and looking at her like she was the first female in the history of the world to conceive life.
"She is probably goin' to say, 'What baby?'" Song said dryly. Turning back to Baka she cheered immediately. "Keep me company? 'Tis no' far. Just over there."
Baka gave Ram and Elora a quick glance. "Be right back."
When Ram and Elora were left alone he reached over and ran his fingers through her hair, like he couldn't stand to go for another minute without touching her. She noticed that he seemed completely relaxed about the fact that Song was aggressively flirting up a recently cured ex-vampire, one who may also be a notorious womanizer.
"The fact that Baka's trifling with your sister doesn't seem to bother you."
Ram looked confused. "Why should it? She's grown, healthy and unmated. And he's the poor devil who's spent the last hundred years whackin' off in a tower keep."
Apparently elves in this dimension were progressive about sex even when it came to younger sisters. She recalled the section on pre-mated sex from the book he had given her: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Elves But Were Afraid To Ask. It did seem to indicate that rampant promiscuity was to be expected from both sexes before mating.
Somehow the four of them managed to make conversation without discussing the subject of vampire, the business of The Order, or anything else about their lives that would be considered strange by civilians or treasonous by Black Swan. When it was time to leave to pick Storm up from the airport, Elora asked Baka if he would mind doing it as a favor because she and Ram had a handfasting task to complete.
She hadn't asked Ram about it in advance, but it seemed like a good solution, partly because Storm genuinely liked Baka and partly because the awkwardness had not yet been ironed out of their relationship. That sad fact was compounded by the fact that Storm was Ram's Best Man. What a cluster!