InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 9: Subterfuge ❯ Status Quo ( Chapter 169 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

"You got laid."

Evan blinked and broke into a wolfish grin as Bitches stalked across the floor and planted herself directly in front of him, hands planted on her leopard-print, skin-tight, micro-mini skirt clad hips.  "Hey," he greeted, "and no, I didn't."

She arched an eyebrow that disappeared under the thick fringe of her crazy-wild hair.  "You did," she countered.  "I know that aura.  It's the, 'I-had-fantastic-sex-probably-with-multiple-women' aura."

He chuckled and shook his head.  "I swear to God, I didn't."

Bitches wasn't buying, if the expression on her face meant anything at all.  She opened her mouth to refute him, but gasped suddenly.  "Oh, my God . . . Did you do that delicious little V?" she demanded.

"I wish," Evan replied.  "No, I didn't—and I didn't do anyone else, either."

"Somehow, I just don't buy it," she insisted, "but if you don't want to 'fess up, then there's not much I can do about that, is there?"

"I'm sorry," he told her with a shake of his head.  "So what are you out doing, anyway?  Slumming?"

She laughed and perched on the edge of the sofa beside him.  "Do I have to have a reason to want to stop by to see you?  Besides, I haven't seen you in . . . weeks . . .?  Months . . .?  Since well before the holidays, anyway.  How was your vacation down in the Bahamas?"

"It was good," Evan told her, his grin widening a few degrees.  "Just what the doctor ordered."

"Excellent!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands happily.  "You work too hard, you know.  Dieter always said so, too."

"That's because my work isn't really work at all," he countered mildly.  "Hell, I get to play for a living.  Not too bad, if you ask me."

"I suppose," she allowed.  "So tell me.  What's going on with Zel Roka these days?"

"Zel Roka is good," he assured her with a cocky grin.  "Better than good, actually."

"Oh, that's right . . . you're leaving for Europe soon, aren't you?"

Evan sighed, mostly because, in the two weeks since they'd been back from their unscheduled detour to Maine, he hadn't made any headway at all in convincing Valerie to go with him to Europe.  "Yeah," he said, pasting on another grin and offering Bitches a little shrug.  "Don't suppose I could talk my favorite Zen guru into going with me?"

Bitches pressed her palms against her heart melodramatically.  "Oh, I'd love to go," she said, "but Keesha is dragging me off to meet her brother in Bloomberg."  She made a face.  "Bloomberg!  Do you know where that is?"

Evan cocked an eyebrow.  "What happened to Tess?"

"Tess?  She went straight on me, right before this huge Christmas bash at The Cage!" she lamented.

"That right?  A girl went straight?  On you?"

"I know!  Bugsy couldn't believe it, either!"

Evan grinned.  "That aside, I don't even know who 'Keesha' is," he pointed out.

Bitches gasped, eyes widening in shock.  "I didn't get to tell you about her, did I?  Oh, bad Bitches!"

"Very," he agreed.  "Why don't you bend over and let me spank you?"

She rolled her eyes but laughed.  "Keesha's the girl I met at The Cage—I went anyway, you know?  Just because Tess dumped me didn't mean I shouldn't have gone, right?  So I did, and I'm so-o-o-o glad I did!" she told him.  "There she was: this beautiful girl with this gorgeous caramel skin and chocolaty eyes and these big, lush lips that are as soft and smooth as butter cream pie!  Well, I just had to have her, so I asked her to dance, and a minute later, she's got her hand up my skirt playing 'Jingle Bells'—if you know what I mean."

"She sounds tasty," he teased.

Bitches gazed up through the thick fringe of her fake eyelashes at Evan with a coquettish smile.  "Oh, she is, Roka, I promise you that."

"And she wants to drag you off to Bloomberg?" he reminded her.  "Where the hell is Bloomberg?"

She heaved a sigh and nodded emphatically.  "Can you imagine?" she breathed, turning to face him, planting her hands on his thighs and leaning in so that her nose was less than an inch from his.  If he looked down, he figured he'd get a pretty good view of Bitches' bitches—if he was interested, that was . . . "Bloomberg, Tennessee!  Bitches is going to be smack-dab in the middle of Bible Bangers' territory!  And let me remind you, Roka.  Bitches and Bibles?  Well, they're not exactly synonymous, now are they?"

Evan chuckled.  "So Keesha batted those chocolaty eyes at you, and you agreed to go with her, right?"

Bitches blinked and leaned away, looking both highly amused as well as properly appalled, all at the same time.  "Of course not!" she insisted.  "I have my standards, you know!"

"So how did she talk you into it?" he couldn't resist asking.

She laughed again and rolled her eyes.  "Well, see, she has this trick that she does with her tongue.  Kind of rolls it into a long tongue-tube, like this—" Bitches stuck out her tongue and rolled it inward as far as she could to show Evan exactly what she meant, "—and I swear to God that it's harder than any cock I've ever felt!  So she takes her tongue and—"

"Hey, Roka, did you know that there's a hot pink motorcycle outside your—Oh, hi, Bitches," Valerie said as she breezed into the living room.

Bitches squealed and hopped up, dashing across the room far faster than anyone should really be able to do, given that she was wearing seven-inch heels.  She grabbed Valerie into an exuberant hug, and Valerie froze, casting Evan a, 'Help Me' kind of look that he summarily ignored despite the widening grin on his face.  "Just as scrumptious as ever, I see!" Bitches gushed as she leaned away far enough to give Valerie the once-over without actually letting go of her.

Valerie smiled weakly, and when she noticed Evan's leering grin, she narrowed her eyes for just a moment.  "It's nice to see you again, too," she said.

Bitches giggled then heaved a melodramatic sigh.  "Oh, I wish I could stay, but I promised Keesha I'd take her to the Bunny Hole tonight—she loves to pick on Bugs."

Evan laughed.  "You'd better not keep her waiting, then."

She gave Valerie another good squeeze then finally let go, sparing a moment to hurry over to kiss Evan's cheek before careening around to face the doorway.  "Bye, sweetie . . . bye, Zel!" she called over her shoulder.  A moment later, he heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, and only then did Valerie breathe a sigh of relief.

"Somehow, I feel completely and utterly violated," she admitted.

Evan grinned at her.  "She's good, right?'

Valerie snorted.  "I take it that hot pink monstrosity outside was hers, then?"

"Absolutely," he told her.  "So tell me . . . have you changed your mind about hanging out with me in Europe?"

This time, she sighed.  "Sorry, Roka," she said, rubbing her forehead in an infinitely tired sort of way.  "I just got three more cases dumped on me.  Even if I wanted to, I can't get away right now."

"Well," he said, striving for a nonchalant tone of voice, "you could fly out for a day or two, couldn't you?  I'll pay for it."

She gave him a long-suffering look chock full of 'pout', and he very nearly laughed out loud.  "Don't tempt me."

"First class," he tried again.  "And I know damn well that you love flying first class."

"Everyone loves flying first class," she retorted.  Too bad the wistful expression on her face gave her away.  "Anyway, I came over because I need you to sign this."

Evan blinked as Valerie pulled a blue backed court docket out of her attaché case and stuck it under his nose.

"What is this?" he asked, standing up and scanning over the first page.

"It's just an acknowledgment that you've been informed that the paternity case against you has been dismissed."

He snorted.  "Because everyone thinks I'm fucking sterile," he grumbled.

"We have the reports to prove it," she reminded him though not entirely unkindly—mildly amused, yes.  Unkind?  No . . . "Read it over if you want, but I promise you, I've already gone over it, and it's just a formality."

Evan flipped through the pages, reading through them in record time.  Sure, he trusted Valerie, but he'd learned long ago to read everything before he signed anything.  Call it a lesson learned.  But he did step over to the desk near the windows and grabbed the first pen he laid hands on, making quick work of signing the docket and thrusting it back at Valerie.

She took it without a word and carefully stowed it back in her attaché case.  "I'll make sure you get a copy of it once the judge signs it and enters it into public record."

He snorted at her injudicious use of the word, 'public'.

Valerie sighed.  "I'm going to go back to the office for a while," she told him, pulling a pair of expensive brown leather gloves out of her coat pockets.  "Call me if you need anything."

Evan nodded, crossing his arms over his chest.  "I think I'll be fine, woman," he grumbled.  "My pride, maybe not, but me?  Just fine, thanks."

She laughed and rolled her eyes at his surly claim.  "I'll come by after work if you'll be here."

"Okay," he agreed.

"Try not to cry," she said, unable to help taking that final potshot at him as she headed for the door.

Evan watched her go and sighed.  For ten bucks, he'd be more than happy to let her know just how 'sterile' he really was.  As far as he was concerned, Madison was still going to pay for that comment.  Even if she was trying to help him, Evan really wished that she'd come up with something a little less emasculating . . .

'Quit your bitching,' his youkai-voice told him.  'Just consider it to be a good thing—which it is.'

He grimaced.  Okay, so it was.  It didn't do a thing for his ego, but it was a good thing . . .

Evan brushed aside the irritation that still lingered and reached for the binder of demo shots that he'd promised Mike he'd look over.  Wicked Soundsations was getting ready to release the fourth single from V, and they'd narrowed down the cover shot to the ones they'd sent over for him to make the final selection, and while he wasn't in the mood to sit down and mull over pictures, he didn't really have a choice since he didn't necessarily trust them to pick the best one.  He knew them well enough to know that they'd go for the least risqué one.  It was strictly business; nothing personal about it.

They'd hired a new guy for the job; one that was rumored to be the newest, hottest rock photographer since Marty Keane, the undisputed best in the business, and Evan might have been more impressed with the man's work if the girls in the demos weren't so common.  Hot, sure, he'd give them that, but nothing that hadn't already been seen before.  He recognized one of the girls well enough. She'd done a few single covers for him in the past—and he'd fucked her on a few occasions, too.  Lying flat on her back with her long legs straight in the air, parted just wide enough to form the enigmatic 'v' . . . breasts bared, nipples hard, her crotch strategically hidden from view by the swell of those fantastic breasts . . . Before he'd met Valerie, he'd probably have taken one look at that picture and tracked her down for a night or two of fun.  All he could think now was that it would have been so much hotter if that woman lying there was Valerie instead . . . Another picture—same girl—this time, she was very obviously caught on film as she humped the hell out of a pillow . . . The third one, a profile shot of her naked body, her hands hidden between her legs, her face contorted in an intense orgasm . . .

Evan heaved a sigh and dropped the binder on the coffee table again.  There really had to be something wrong with him.  Provocative, yes, absolutely, but if his dick got the message, it putting on a damn good poker face . . .


Nine o'clock.

Heaving a sigh that was strong enough to lift the wisps that had escaped the knot she'd twisted her hair into this morning, Valerie took a moment to rub her right shoulder.  Whoever said that sitting behind a desk all day couldn't be considered 'work' was wrong, as far as she was concerned.  Having spent the better part of the day, reading through files and taking notes on the cases she'd been handed, she felt mentally drained.

Strangely enough, Evan hadn't called her all afternoon.  She hadn't really remarked upon it at the time, but she did now.  Usually, he called her at least once every couple hours, even if it was just to say hello—and it didn't bother her, which was more than a little surprising.  She wasn't entirely sure why that was.  After all, she never was one to check in with anyone that often, but Evan . . . Well, he made her smile, made her laugh, and that had to be worth something, right?

And maybe that was the real reason why she missed those calls . . .

She made a face as she stepped out of the car and pushed the button on the key ring to lock the doors.  Maybe he hadn't eaten yet.  She was famished, but she hadn't bothered to stop for food.  That was a direct result of her trip to Kentucky as well as the one to Maine.  She hadn't had the heart to tell her mother that she didn't really want to eat the mountains of food that she'd foist upon Valerie, and while Valerie hadn't eaten everything, she'd eaten far more than she normally did.

The night was mild.  Not quite warm, but not frigid, either, which was nice, she thought as she shuffled up the walk and onto the porch.   Reaching for the door handle, she paused for just a moment, blinking as it suddenly occurred to her that she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt as though she needed to knock on Evan's door.  When had things gotten so comfortable between them? she wondered.  He'd seen her at her best; he'd seen her at her worst, and yet . . .

Smiling wanly as she opened the door, only to be instantly surrounded by a welcome sense of comfort that only Evan could manage, she stepped inside. It was the same sense that she felt whenever they entered the Zelig family home.  Evan must have gotten it from his parents, she supposed.  It was rare—and it was beautiful.

He wasn't in the living room.  Valerie paused long enough to scratch Munchies behind the ear as she wandered through Evan's house.  Strangely enough, he wasn't in his music room, either.  The door was open, and the light was off, but somewhere in the distance, she could hear the sound of an acoustic guitar.  "Where's Evan, Munchies?" she asked quietly, as though she were afraid to speak louder—afraid of breaking through the magic that he created.

As though he felt the same way, too, Munchies tilted his head and gazed up at her before sauntering a few steps away, before stopping to stare at her over his shoulder.

He led her up the stairs and down the hallway to the left: the one that she'd actually never gone down before.  As far as she knew, those were only guest bedrooms.  Obviously, she'd been mistaken.  Munchies led the way to the cracked open doorway at the end: the one with the double doors that mirrored the other end of the hallway: Evan's bedroom.

She stopped just outside the door, though, leaning forward, peering through the crack.  It looked like a smaller version of the recording studio where he'd laid down the tracks for V.  'No . . .' she realized with a slight shake of her head.  This one was much rougher, and, while it did appear to have some recording and mixing equipment, it wasn't even close to the state-of-the art stuff in the studio, after all . . .

He was sitting on a nondescript, black, folding chair, and in front of him was a second chair with what looked to be a very small laptop computer situated on it.  From where she stood, she couldn't rightfully see the screen, but there was just something about him that stopped her.  Completely absorbed in the song he was playing, he had his eyes closed, his fingers seeming to move of their own accord.

She frowned.  Someone else was playing, too.  She hadn't really noticed that right away, likely because she was too caught up in watching Evan.  But as the song ended, she pushed the door open, then leaned against the frame, arms crossed over her chest as a little smile tugged on the corners of her lips.

"Hey, V," he greeted, breaking into a wide grin of his own.  "Lookin' hot, as usual."

She rolled her eyes despite the widening smile, and she pushed herself away from the door frame to wander over to him instead.  "Hiding up here, are you?" she asked dryly.  "Is this what you do on your days off?"

"That sounds like Valerie," a very familiar voice said.

Valerie froze in her tracks, her eyes widening as she pinned Evan with a questioning look.  "Why do I hear my father in this room?" she demanded slowly.

Evan grinned.  "Because, woman.  We're jamming, that's why.  Now be a good girl and get on out of here while the men do our thing, okay?  Okay.  See you later.  Bye-bye."

She snorted and crossed the room in about three long strides despite the skirt that hindered her movements just a little.  "Shut up, Roka," she retorted, kneeling down in front of the small laptop on the other chair.  "Oh!  Hi, Daddy.  How's Mama?"

Jack chuckled.  "She's doing just fine," he assured her.

"Whoa . . . V's head is huge!"

Valerie blinked.  "Garret?" she said, frowning since she didn't see him in the video feed.

She leaned back when Garret scooted into the frame beside his father.  He waved.  "Can you see me now?" he asked, grinning like a little dork—or a little Evan.  Both fit.

"Yes," she said, wrinkling her nose when Evan scooped the laptop out of her hands and set it back on the chair once more.  "Hey!" she complained.  "You can't hog my family!  You've got your own!"

"Yeah, but yours is way cooler," he told her with a wink.  "Anyway, I told you already.  We're jamming, and you're interrupting."

"Interrupting, nothing," she scoffed.

"Now, V, you look tired," Jack interjected before Evan could argue.  "Why don't you go relax a while, and we'll just finish up here?"

Valerie snorted again.  "Oh, you totally brainwashed them, didn't you?" she accused dryly.

Evan chuckled and looked entirely too smug.

"You should totally see this, V!  We've got it hooked up to the TV, and Zel's head's huge!  Like, huge, huge!"

"That's really not surprising," she muttered under her breath.

Evan grinned.  "She already knows that," he told Garret.  "She loves my big, fat head . . . It makes her scream every single night."

"He wishes," Valerie grumbled.  "You're such an ass!  Tell them that you're lying!"

"Aw, dude . . ." Garret half-groaned.  "That's my sister, remember?"

"And my daughter," Jack remarked with a sigh.

Evan didn't look even remotely sorry; not in the least.  "It's not like I told them about the time you jacked me off on the tour bus!" he protested.

Valerie could feel the explosion of blood in her cheeks.  "Roka, I swear to God, I'm going to—"

"Okay, be serious," Garret interrupted.  "Besides, if you don't, she's really going to kill you."

Valerie shook her head while Evan, ass that he was, kept howling.  "Forget it, Garret," she said, raising her voice to be heard over the din that Evan was creating all by himself.  "He thinks he's hilarious."

"Well," Garret drawled just before he grinned, too.  "He kind of is."

Valerie heaved another sigh.  "Don't encourage him, Garret."

Her brother cleared his throat, and he did try to blank his features.  He wasn't able to do it, but he did try . . . "Okay, V," he said, his tone entirely too indulgent for her liking.

She snorted and rolled her eyes, then turned on her heel and stomped out of the room.


"Fuck!" Evan yelled, shoving the keyboard shelf of his desk in with an unsatisfying 'thud' as he flopped back in the chair and heaved a loud sigh.  "Goddamned bastard!  I hope he fucking chokes on it!"

Valerie glanced up from the magazine she'd been leafing through, one eyebrow raised in silent question as Evan stood up and stomped across the room to grab a beer out of the refrigerator under the bar.

"Goddamn cocksucking, needledicked, butt-fucking, come-stain—"

"Wow, Roka.  That's quite the impressive list of swear words," Valerie interrupted dryly.

He snorted and downed half of the beer before turning a pouty look on her.  "Well, he is," he grumbled.

"Who?"

"URGonLoze," he replied.

She shook her head and blinked a few times.  "Who?" she repeated.

He snorted again.  "I almost had it!" he went on as though he hadn't heard her at all.  "I almost had it!  Damn it, do you know how fucking long I've been trying to get my hands on that?  And I was two seconds—two seconds—away from owning it!"

Setting the magazine aside, Valerie stood up and sauntered over to him.  "Okay, Roka . . . just what are you talking about?"

Plunking the now-empty beer bottle on the counter, he dragged his hands through his hair.  "A second issue of The Wall by Pink Floyd," he told her.

She crossed her arms over her chest.  "And what's that?"

That question earned her a rather incredulous kind of look.  "It's an album, V."

She nodded slowly.  "Okay," she said.  "You've got lots of money, right?  Just go to the music store and buy it."

He snorted again.  "Album, V," he repeated.  "As in, vinyl . . . and there hasn't been a real album pressed in . . . a hundred years or more."

"Oh, you mean an actual record album," she said, her tone indicating that she understood what he was talking about.  "But don't you have it somewhere around here already?"

Plopping down on the sofa, he snatched up the magazine and tossed it onto the coffee table.  "There's a certain sound that you only get from vinyl," he told her.  "When you put it on the turntable, and you hear the little scratching sound as the needle touches it . . ." He made a face.  "I had it!  Then that little bastard pops in an snatches it, right out from under my nose!"

"You were trying to get it off that online auction site?"

"Keh!"

"Then you should have bid more for it?"

He grunted.  "My max bid was ten grand more than what I was going to get it for," he told her, "and I would've paid more, too, but that little fucker outbid me, and I didn't have time to bid again."

She blinked and looked a little surprised.  Okay, a lot . . . "Ten grand more?" she echoed.  "Just how much was the bid on it?"

"Thirty."

Valerie narrowed her gaze.  "I'm going to assume you don't mean thirty bucks," she said dryly.

He scowled at her.  "Well, hell, no . . . If I had bid thirty bucks, I'd have been outbid a long damn time ago."

She stared incredulously at him.  "You bid thirty thousand dollars on a record?"

Ne snorted loudly.  "No, I bid forty thousand on it, and that little peckerhead bid more."

Valerie sighed and shook her head.  "That's insane," she told him flatly.

"I know," he pouted.  "I'd have paid double that if I'd had to."

"That's even more insane," she said.

He heaved a sigh, too.  "Well, I wanted a first edition, but the odds that I'd be able to get my hands on one of those is slim and none."  Then he sighed again, this one more resigned.  "Ah, well.  Whatcha gonna do?"

Valerie still didn't look like she understood his desire to spend that much money on something like an old record album, but she let it go, wandering over to the desk and idly picking up some of the papers left on it.  "You're not keeping these, are you?" she asked, holding up a copy of the Wall Street Journal that he'd dropped there earlier.

Evan leaned over the side of the sofa to retrieve the guitar he'd left there.  "Uh, nah," he told her.  "I already read them."

She nodded and gathered up the rest of the papers for the recycling bin, but stopped and slowly reached for another sheet of paper.  "What's this?" she finally asked without moving her eyes.

Evan glanced over to see what she was looking at and frowned.  He couldn't see what was on the paper, but he had a feeling it might have been the one he'd scrawled some notes on earlier when Bas had called . . .

Setting the newspapers down in a neat stack, she shuffled over to the sofa and sat down beside him.  "The national organ recipient waiting list . . .?" she read out loud.  "Evan?  What is this?  Who is Neil MacPhee?"

He let the guitar lean against the arm of the sofa and turned to face her.  "He's the guy I need to talk to about getting your father on the waiting list," he told her.

She shook her head, her eyes registering her confusion.  "But he doesn't qualify, does he?  I mean, that's what they said, right?"

Evan shrugged.  "There are other ways to get him on the list," he said with calculated nonchalance.  "I'm going to call him and talk to him about it."

She didn't respond right away.  In fact, she looked like she was contemplating what he'd said.  Then she slowly nodded.  "You mean, paying to get him on the list?"

Evan met her gaze and didn't look away.  "He needs a transplant," he stated flatly.

Valerie nodded.  "I agree," she said quietly.  "I've got that money from the pictures still . . ."

He shook his head.  "Don't," he told her with a smile.  "Let me take care of this one, V.  Besides, I doubt that'd be enough."

She didn't look like she wanted to agree, mostly because of the idea that Evan would be paying for it, but she also seemed to understand what he was saying about her money, and for once, she didn't argue with him, and he blinked in surprise when she leaned in and kissed his cheek.  "Thanks, Evan," she said quietly, her voice thick with emotion.

Evan slipped his arms around her and held her close.  "Don't worry," he told her.  "Your dad . . . I'll make sure he'll be fine."