High Shine and Honey (A Muse Series Character Short)

Part 2.

"Sylvie, how many times I got to remind you to keep this stoop clean? I'm 'bout to fall over all yo shoes!"

Sylvia's head had been all the way back, mouth partway open, one hand grasping the table and the other tangled in Monroe's curly hair between her legs, but now she snapped upward in her chair with a different kind of a gasp.

"Holpepper! Damnit, baby, get gone 'fore she finds you!" She pushed him away from her and stood up at the same time, spilling tea all over the table.  "Shit! Come one, Monroe, please now."

He stood quickly, wiped his chin with a sorrowful sigh, and high-tailed it back to the bedroom as the sound of heavy footsteps started on up the steps to the kitchen door. He stopped midway, though, turned on his heel and grabbed his lady once again, planting a slow, Sylvie-scented kiss on her lips. "Oooh la la," was what he whispered.

Fast now back to the bedroom, stripping off his shirt and pants, naked as a jay bird as he dashed toward the back wall.  His profile disappeared just as the door started to creak open in the next room, and a little brown mouse with green eyes ran through a hole in the floorboard and out of Sylvie's apartment.

Monroe hated those times, when he had to shape shift to get out of a situation, mostly because where was he gonna go all bare-ass naked? This time he'd have to somehow get all the way from Lorraine Street to his place on Le Fleur, a good two miles walking.  He couldn't go all that way as a mouse, so he'd need cover to get into whatever shape he needed to be.  And every damn time hurt.

An hour and a quarter and three shifts later--a bird, a dog, and another mouse this time--he was back to his tiny downtown flat, and thirty minutes after that, was walking back down the street toward the French Quarter in a fresh new suit, humming as he walked.  He licked his lips a couple of times and smiled to himself, marveling that even after all of that, he still tasted of Sylvie.

Marie-Claire Rousselot worked in the cafe next to the joint where his band rehearsed, and he could count on getting a couple of free beignets from her every day.  All he had to do was look in her eyes and ask her if she was having a good day.  That was all.  That was it. That was her key.

"Bonjour, Monroe. Ca va bien?" Her eyes were always hopeful, like this was the one single time in her day when someone gonna pay her some mind. He smiled, spoke to her nice and low across the counter, and that pretty face of hers lit up like pyro on the Fourth of July.

As he walked on out of the cafe he got that feeling again, same as earlier in the week, that one tellin' him that there were eyes on him somewhere. He just couldn't figure where it was coming from. Looking back into the shop, he saw a red headed, pale white lady with a lot of makeup on, sitting at a table with a coffee cup in her hand and a little dog in her purse. Next to her, a couple of teenage girls with powder all on their faces from their beignets. Only other person in the place was a skinny 'ole man now talking with Marie-Claire at the counter. But she didn't have the same look for him as she did for Monroe. No sir.

Never mind. He noted this feeling and figured he'd keep an extra eye open, just the same.
Monroe le Chatelaine trusted folks naturally, but sometimes that was a troublesome thing when you had magic. You couldn't just walk on down the street tellin' people you were a shifter or a fae, could you? Sylvie was different--she was a witch, so she got it. She understood. But normal folk? That was a different story.

Take Abe Anderson, for example. Abe was from Macon, Georgia, son of a sharecropper and grandson of slaves. And the best blues singer in the whole of the South. He was Monroe's closest friend in the world, but had no idea Monroe had magic. And that was how it was gonna stay. They had a hundred other things to talk about, anyway.

Timing was one of them. Right now, as soon as Monroe walked through the juke joint's beat-up front door, he could tell Abe was counting too fast. Always ahead of himself, ahead of Max the drummer's reliable beat. Too fast. In too much of a hurry.

Everything had its right rhythm, Monroe thought to himself as he jumped up on the stage to join his band mates. Sometimes you got to push, like when somebody chasing you, but that ain't always. Sometimes, he smiled as he clicked open his case, you got to find somebody else's groove and move to that beat. But other times, he said to himself as he put his trumpet to his mouth and licked his lips, the groove got to find you.