“It helps remind me how I saw it when I wrote it, even if that changes.”

“And you add in these little boxes like the ones on the art.”

“Helps with the layout. That may change, too. Just like the story line took some turns on me.”

“You added Steve. You added the Immortal. He’s going to be so… well, insane over that.”

“She needed the bridge, the link between Cass and Brid. A character who can straddle her worlds, and help the two sides of our heroine understand each other.”

Not unlike, Ford thought now, how Steve helped Cilla. “Adding him changed a lot of the angles, added a lot of work, but it’s stronger for it. And something I should’ve thought of in the first place. Anyway, it’s still evolving. The story’s down, and now I have to tell it with art. Sometimes, for me anyway, the art can shift the story. We’ll have to see.”

“I especially like the one up there, of Brid in what’s almost a fouetté turn, as I assume she’s about to kick out her leg against a foe.”

“Fouetté turn?”

“A ballet move.” Cilla crossed over to tap the sketch she spoke of. “This is very close, even the arms are in position. To be precise, the supporting foot should be turned out slightly more, but-”

“You know ballet? Can you do that?”

“A fouetté? Please. Eight years of ballet.” She executed a quick turn. "Of tap.” And a fast-time step. “Jazz.”

“Cool. Hold on.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a camera. “Do the ballet thing again.”

“I’m mostly naked.”

“Yeah, which is why I’ll be posting these on the Internet shortly. I just want the feet business you were talking about.”

He had no idea what an enormous leap of faith it took for her to do the turn as he snapped the camera.

“One more, okay? Good. Great. Thanks. A fouetté turn. Ballet.” He set the camera back down. “I must’ve seen it somewhere, sometime or other. Eight years? I guess that explains how you did those high leaps in Wasteland Three, when you were running through the woods, trying to escape the reanimated psycho killer.”

“Grand jetés.” She laughed. “So to speak.”

“I thought you were going to make it, the way you were flying. I mean you got all the way back to the cabin, avoiding the death trap and the flying hatchet, only to pull open the door-”

“To find the reanimated psycho killer had taken a convenient shortcut to beat me there. Sobbing relief,” she said, miming the action, “shock, scream. Slice.”

“It was a hell of a scream. They use voice doubles for that stuff, right? And enhance.”

“Sometimes. However…” She sucked in her breath and let out a bloodcurdling, glass-shattering scream that had Ford staggering back two full steps. “I did my own work,” she finished.

“Wow. You’ve got some lungs there. How about we go down, have some wine, while we see if my eardrums regenerate.”

“Love to.”

SEVENTEEN

She didn’t think about the vandalism. Or when thoughts of what waited for her across the road crept into her mind, Cilla firmly slammed the door. No point in it, she told herself. There was nothing she could do because she didn’t know what she wanted to do.

There was no harm in a day out of time. A fantasy day, really, filled with sex and sleep inside the bubble of rain-slicked windows. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been content to spend the day in a man’s company, unless it had been work-related.

Even the idea of wine and video games held an appeal. Until Ford severely trounced her for the third time in a row.

“She-what’s her name?-Halle Berry.”

“Storm,” Ford provided. “Halle Berry’s the actress, and really hot. Storm is a key member of the X-Men. Also really hot.”

“Well, she just stood there.” Cilla scowled down at the controls. “How am I supposed to know what to push and what to toggle, and whatever?”

“Practice. And like I said, you need to form your team more strategically. You formed your all-girl alliance. You should’ve mixed it up.”

“My strategy was gender solidarity.” Under the coffee table, Spock snorted. “That’s enough out of you,” she muttered. “Besides, I think this controller’s defective because I have excellent hand-eye coordination.”

“Want to switch and go another round?”

She eyed him narrowly. “How often do you play this?”

“Off and on. Throughout my entire life,” he added with a grin. “I’m currently undefeated on this version of Ultimate Alliance.”

“Geek.”

“Loser.”

She handed him her controller. “Put your toys away.”

Look at that, she thought when he rose to do just that. Tidy hot guy. Tidy straight hot guy. How many of them were there in the world?

“Saving the world worked up my appetite. How about you?”

“I didn’t save the world,” she pointed out.

“You tried.”

“That was smug. I see the smug all over you.”

“Then I’d better wash up. I got leftover spaghetti and meatballs, courtesy of Penny Sawyer.”

“You’ve got a nice setup here, Ford. Work you love, and a great house to do it in. Your ridiculously appealing dog. The tight circle of friends going back to childhood. Family you get along with, close enough you can cop leftovers. It’s a great platform.”

“No complaints. Cilla-”

“No, not yet.” She could see in his eyes the offer of sympathy and support. “I’m not ready to think about it yet. Spaghetti and meatballs sounds like just the thing.”

“Cold or warmed up?”

“It has to be exceptional spaghetti and meatballs to warrant cold.”

He crossed back, took her hand. “Come with me,” he said and led her around to the kitchen. “Have a seat.” He took the bowl out of the fridge, peeled off the lid, got a fork. “You’ll get yours,” he told Spock as the dog danced and gurgled. Turning back, he set the bowl on the bar, then wound some pasta on a fork. “Sample.”

She opened her mouth, let him feed her. “Oh. Okay, that’s really good. Really. Give me the fork.”

With a laugh, he passed it to her. After adding some to Spock’s dish, he topped off both glasses of wine. They sat at the counter, eating cold pasta straight from the bowl.

“We had this cook when I was a kid. Annamaria from Sicily. I swear her pasta wasn’t as good as this. What?” she said when he shook his head.

“Just strikes me weird that I know somebody who can say, ’We had a cook when I was a kid.’”

She grinned around more pasta. “We had a butler.”

“Get out.”

She raised her brows, inclined her head and stabbed at a meatball. “Two maids, chauffeur, gardener, under-gardener, my mother’s personal assistant, pool boy. And once, when my mother discovered the pool boy, whom she was banging, was also banging one of the maids, she fired them both. With much drama. She had to go to Palm Springs for a week to recover, where she met Number Three-ironically, by the pool. I’m pretty sure, at some point, he also banged the pool boy. The new pool boy, whose name was Raoul.”

He gestured at her with his fork until he swallowed. “You grew up in an eighties soap opera.”

She thought it over. “Close enough. But, in any case, Annamaria had nothing on your mother.”

“She’ll get a kick out of hearing that. What was it like, seriously? Growing up with maids and butlers?”

“Crowded. And not all it’s cracked up to be. That sounds snotty,” she decided. “And I imagine some woman with a house and family to run, a full-time job and the need to get dinner on the table would be tempted to bitch-slap me for it. But.” She shrugged. “There’s always somebody there, so genuine privacy is an illusion. No sneaking a cookie out of the jar before dinnertime. Actually no cookies for the most part as the camera adds pounds. If you have a fight with your mother, the entire household knows the details. More, the odds are that those details will be recounted sometime down the road in a tabloid interview or a disgruntled former employee’s tell-all book.