and decorated, but throughout my childhood my mom and I had gotten good at salvaging and rehabbing stuff from thrift stores, yard sales, and, yes, even Dumpsters, and I thought it looked pretty decent. After checking in vain for Mogwai, I gave Sinclair the tour—living room, kitchen, screened porch, bedroom, and bath—then left him to poke around while I found a bud vase for my rose and poured us each a few inches of single-malt scotch, my one mature indulgence.
In the living room, Sinclair was examining my music collection, the neat array of CDs I’d never gotten around to digitizing. “Thanks,” he said absently when I handed him a glass. “So you really do like the blues, huh?”
I’d told him that on our first date. “Why would I make that up?”
“Yeah, well . . .” He looked amused and a little apologetic. “Chalk it up to shit white girls say to impress a brother. Which is funny, because I know fuck-all about the blues. But you’ve got quite a collection.”
“Yeah.” I took a sip of scotch. “It belonged to a guy my mom dated for a while. A jazz bass player. He left it to me.”
“He took off?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He was killed in a car accident. It’s okay,” I added, forestalling his sympathy. “I mean, it’s not okay, but it was twelve years ago. He was a good guy. It turns out the blues calm me down, especially the female vocalists. He helped me figure it out.”
“Must have been a good guy to recognize this would mean so much to a kid,” Sinclair mused. “Play me something? One of your favorites?”
Feeling self-conscious, I fussed over my choice. Of course, now that he’d mentioned it, my immediate impulse was to pick something out of the pop culture mainstream, something like Ma Rainey’s “Deep Moaning Blues,” that would establish my blues credentials. But I didn’t want to be that girl, and if Sinclair really knew fuck-all about the blues, there was no point, so I went with something obvious instead.
Strings swelled in a simple, familiar arrangement, paving the way for Etta James’s effortlessly powerful vocals as she sang with impassioned tenderness about how her lonely days were over now that her love had come at last.
Okay, I really hadn’t thought about the implications of the lyrics. Way to go, Daise.
“Ah . . . don’t read too much into it,” I said hurriedly. “It’s a classic, that’s all. You know, she just passed away a couple of years ago. Etta James, that is.”
“Daisy.” Sinclair set down his glass on a bookshelf. “It’s okay. It’s just a song.”
Out of habit, I tucked my tail between my legs, clamping it tight as his hands curved around my waist and pulled me close to him, just like I’d done at every high school dance I’d attended, at every nightclub I’d ever danced in. And it may seem like a small, silly thing, but it was a moment of pure bliss to realize I didn’t have to.
I unfurled my tail and slid my arms around Sinclair’s neck, gazing up at him as we swayed slowly together. He lowered his head to kiss me, tasting of scotch tinged with a faint hint of chocolate, while Etta sang in the background.
Hands down, most romantic evening ever. Way better than a funky satyr booty call. Although that had had its merits, too. Just thinking about it, I felt my temperature rise a few degrees. But this time I wasn’t going to be the one to make the first move. I’d wait for Sinclair to do it.
I didn’t have to wait long.
The song ended, and Sinclair tilted his head toward the bedroom with an inquiring look. “Shall we adjourn?”
I smiled up at him. “Love to.”
Eleven
“What the holy hell?”
“What?” Jolted awake, I sat upright, looking frantically for my phone, or dauda-dagr, or . . . I don’t know what. “What?”
“This . . . thing!” Sinclair was lying flat on his back beside me with Mogwai perched high on his chest, paws neatly tucked, purring contentedly as he gazed down at Sinclair with slitted eyes.
I laughed out loud. “I told you I had a cat!”
“That’s a cat?” He took a sharp breath, Mogwai rising obliviously with his chest. “More like a duppy.”
“A what?”
“Nothing.” He let out his breath in a sigh. “S’okay. Is he your familiar or something?”
I lifted Mogwai off Sinclair’s chest and set him on the bed between us. It was true that he was a pretty big