Chapter 17
Joyce knew, or at least it appeared that she knew, because for the past three hours at Rupert’s Rarest Remarkables, Ltd., she had yet to say a word to Spike. She said plenty with her body language. Her feather duster flitting over the furniture in rapid, avoiding strokes, told Spike that she was none too pleased with him. The wrinkles in her mouth when she pursed her lips hinted that she was garnering the strength not to give him one hell of a lecture.
Spike would welcome her anger, if only to hear some news about Buffy. He would accept a scolding, would gladly take whatever insults she had for him, just so that he could hear her name. It was awfully frustrating for him to realize just how sick in love he was, and even more frustrating to try giving Buffy some time to herself to sort things out.
He was quite sure that one more moment similar to the one they shared in the dance room would push her over the edge and knock some sense into her, but Rupert insisted this was a very bad idea. It was easy for Rupert to come to that sort of conclusion when he was on the outside looking in. For Spike, things like rational thought constantly tested his burgeoning libido, and often lost to thoughts of Buffy in the throes of orgasm.
God, the taste of her was intoxicating, the feel of her skin and the sounds she made when he’d been especially amorous were only a sample of what he knew they could have together. The way she breathed his name, how her fingers twined into his hair to hold him against her wet pussy, how she looked with red cheeks, her image reflected in all directions around him so that all he could see was her, her sweaty brow, breasts heaving and begging for another kiss…
And if he could just stop thinking about it, he could make it through the day without an embarrassing hard-on, which wouldn’t help him at all, because he was stalking Joyce.
He kept busy with antiques, following Joyce around in the hopes that he’d annoy her so much she’d break down and tell him everything. It was amusing, watching her huff and try to find something to do away from him, but he was always right there, right behind her, smiling innocently.
“Spike,” she said at noon, no doubt worn ragged from three hours of having two shadows, “why don’t you take a lunch break?”
“Not hungry.”
“Smoke break? You haven’t had one in an hour.”
“You’re encouraging me to smoke?” he said, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “Bad influence, you are.”
She folded her arms and closed her eyes, the feather duster peeking out beneath one arm. “Then, will you just leave me be? I don’t know what you want, but you’re driving me crazy!”
“Don’t want anything. Just watching you work. Taking notes. Doing my job.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t play innocent with me. I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
She sighed sharply, turned around, and began dusting a perfectly clean armoire.
“Mrs. Summers,” he said, hoping the formality would win her over. Of course it wouldn’t, but at least she turned back around. “Can you just tell me if Buffy is all right?”
Her posture relaxed a fraction, and she licked her lips, mulling over the proper way to answer him.
“Buffy is a strong girl and she’ll be fine in a few days.”
In a few days…in a few days? What did that mean? He’d made her so upset that it would take her days to get over it, or he was so insignificant that it would only take a few days to get over it?
“Is she…” He swallowed. “Did she tell you what happened?”
Joyce cocked an eyebrow. “Y-yes.”
So, she was totally lying to get information out of him. Which meant that she didn’t know anything. Which meant that this entire conversation was pointless.
“Never mind,” he said, digging in his pocket for the pack of smokes Rupert was kind enough to buy on the way to work. “I guess I’ll come by in a few days to talk to her.”
“That’s…you can’t do that!” She chewed on her lip, looked at him sadly as one might when they watched those commercials about starving children that only needed pennies a day to survive. Pennies!
“Why not?”
She sighed. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, but…you’re not allowed on the property any longer.”
He blinked, felt his chest start to burn from the implication. He was being blacklisted?
“What?”
“Buffy won’t talk to me at all and Hank calls me up this morning, screaming at me about you, and says that you aren’t allowed on the premises, that I’m to tell Mitchell not to allow you through the gate. What did you do, Spike?”
“That mother fucker,” he muttered in a dark and quiet tone, wishing that he’d been stupid enough to beat the fuck out of Angel when he had the chance. He was a fucking idiot. Angel knew he could get shipped back to London if he slipped up, but Spike had been too out of sorts at the time to question just how he knew about that.
Mitchell had to be the one responsible, the one to clue in Angel about the information he collected when he ran the background check. Fuck, Angel could have been the one to tell him to run the check in the first place!
“I didn’t do anything, except come for a visit and get my face pounded by your precious Angel.” He was wise to leave out the more colorful and X-rated parts of that story. His fingers flicked the lid on his pack of smokes repeatedly, each flick an imaginary punch to that git’s short and uglies.
Joyce took a moment to let that sink in as she narrowed her eyes in thought. “Angel hit you?”
“Yeah,” he said, pointing to the purple, dotted bruise beneath his lip. “Didn’t fall down the stairs to get this.”
“But he didn’t have a scratch on him.”
Spike threw his hands in the air in relieved thanks. “That’s because I never touched him!”
“But—”
Joyce never finished that thought, because the annoying jangling sound of bells alerted her to a customer coming through the front door. Joyce turned around, walked forward, and suddenly came to an abrupt stop. She squeezed the carved wooden stick on the feather duster so hard her knuckles whitened.
Curious at her odd behavior, Spike looked to see who had her so rankled. It was a woman, about Joyce’s age with short black hair, well sculpted eyebrows, nice figure, smart suit, pretty smile, and…oh, well that was interesting. She was speaking with Rupert as if they were old friends. Suddenly, it all made sense.
Spike slowly walked up behind Joyce and whispered, “Who’s that?”
Joyce mumbled, “Jenny Calendar.”
“You don’t like Jenny Calendar, I take it?”
When Rupert’s eyes crinkled and he casually leaned against the counter, looking about ten years younger than his age, Jenny Calendar laughed prettily about something he said and Joyce shook her head at the display. When she whirled back around to face Spike, he could see the tension in her muscles and he almost felt sorry for her.
“She’s an archaeologist from Romania. And it looks like somebody got work done on the crows feet,” she said haughtily, grasping for something insulting to say to lighten her mood.
“Ah, so Rupert likes her, then.”
Joyce scowled. “He’s just being polite. She’s not fooling anyone with that fake accent of hers.” Joyce picked up where she left off on her dusting, her eyes darting to the couple by the door.
Spike was awfully intrigued by this, and certainly wanted to know more about it, but what was more pressing was his own predicament. He wasn’t going to let that go.
“So, about Hank—”
“Oh, Rupert, you are too funny!” Jenny said, laughing loud and tinkly, drawing Spike and Joyce’s attention to her right when she touched Rupert’s chest. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Likewise,” Rupert said, giving her a dreamy and goofy smile that had Spike snorting a little laugh.
Joyce slammed her duster down, grabbed Spike’s arm, and ushered him to the break room. He sputtered in confusion, took a moment to catch up to her quick stride, and once they were in the break room, he frowned and rubbed his arm.
“That hurt, you know! Think you pinched me,” he said, craning his chin over his shoulder to inspect his triceps for damage.
Ignoring him, Joyce said frantically, “She’s a crocodile! Rupert is smart enough to see who she really is. I can’t believe he’s…oh, that idiot!”
“Mind giving me a bit more to go on?”
She exhaled heavily to calm down a peg. “That woman out there is a shark. Trust me, I know from experience. She’s no good for your uncle.”
“What happened?”
“She just…well, look at her! She wasn’t always an archaeologist, you know. Her family is a bunch of gypsies and they all live in those…” She wiggled her hands in the air. “Pup tents! Because they run from the law and steal and pillage and make ugly jewelry.”
“They pillage?” Spike said, smiling teasingly.
“You know what I mean! They’re vagrants. No good comes from people like that. She can put on as much Prada that she wants but I know who she really is.”
“She seems like a nice lady.” Spike shrugged.
“Oh, what do you know? You’re just a kid!”
“So why the hell did you bring me back here?”
“Because I want you to see how stupid your uncle is being!”
“He can make his own mistakes. Not my say to tell him how to live his life.”
“But…” She sighed, and her frantic desperation dissolved into what she was truly feeling. Her chin trembled, and Spike froze, hoping to God she didn’t start crying.
“Who am I kidding? She’s perfect!” Joyce made this high-pitched, wheezing noise when she inhaled sharply to compose herself, and then started to pace the tiny kitchen. “She likes all the same things he does. She even gets his stupid jokes. And she’s pretty and single and…Romanian!”
Spike didn’t know very much about women, but he did know that when one was crying out of insecurity, it was a good idea to tell her that she was mistaken. But this was Joyce, Buffy’s mother, the woman who probably never really liked or respected him, and he didn’t exactly know what to say that would sound sincere.
Then she sniffled, and Spike rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and said, “Now, now, Joyce. You’re a looker, too.”
“You’re just saying that,” she said, sniffling. “I’m…oh, God I’m so unhap-unhappy,” she barely said, choking on her almost comical sobs.
“There, there,” Spike said, patting her on the back awkwardly. He had a weakness for crying women, even if the woman in question hated him, and usually found himself consoling them more often than he’d like to admit. He just hoped it was over before he started speaking to her as if soothing a spooked horse.
“I’m a terrible person. And my husband doesn’t even care that I have affairs. Hell, he has them, too! And Rupert just slipped away from me because I’m too set on…” She looked at him suddenly, her face a wreck but her eyes were bright and searching. Joyce seemed to have experienced one walloping epiphany.
He really didn’t want to hear any of this. Not at all. In fact, his lungs were calling out desperately for a smoke, he could probably take a piss if he tried, and if Joyce was about to tell him all her dirty secrets, he might slit his own throat just to end it. It was clear that she was about to tell him something big, though, and he braced himself for the worst.
“Buffy’s recital is tomorrow night at Royce Hall.”
It took him a moment to register what she just told him. “What?”
“Tomorrow,” she said slowly as if he were a child, “Tuesday, Buffy is performing at Royce Hall at seven.”
Spike’s lungs expanded and contracted heavily, and he searched Joyce’s words for booby traps. Finding nothing but an honest proclamation, he asked her the obvious question.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because my daughter deserves to make her own decisions.”
Joyce patted him on the hand, smiling at him in a way she never had before. It was genuine and warm, but there was something else there that had nothing to do with him at all. She sniffed with a little flourish in her now straightened spine, smiling even brighter.
“That’s enough tears for today,” she said.
She walked to the doorway, Spike remaining behind, stunned.
She turned around and said, “I think you and your uncle have it handled here, don’t you?”
“You’re leaving?”
She smiled softly at him, nodding. “Thank you for talking with me.”
“Sure,” he said quietly, watching her walk away.
He wouldn’t find out until the following morning that she wasn’t simply taking the rest of the day off.
Joyce would never work at the Triple R again.