"You should have ordered the fish.  It is ahh-mazing." Another piece of the branzino glistening with cream sauce disappeared between her lips.

He dragged his steak knife through his meat, carving out a bite of pork.  "Not a fan." 

"Still traumatized from working on that fishing boat?"

"I didn't work on a boat."  R.J. put a drawl of fake irritation into his voice.  She was teasing him—poking fun of his past and possibly his courage.  He could have ignored it, but that wasn't the game.  If he didn't act annoyed, what fun would there be?  "They're much less appealing after stinking like fish for a few years, trust me."

"How's the pork?"  Nikki gestured with her fork like she was planning on piercing a piece and sweeping it away. 

"Good."

"Just good?"

The description on the menu was medallions of Berkshire pork, with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, in an apple and port wine sauce, hey foam, and crispy pig ear lardons.  Other than the foam it was good.  R.J. simply didn't have the vocabulary to discuss food as she did. 

"Do you want to try some?"

"Absolutely."

She rarely turned down the opportunity to taste his food, especially when her excitement was overflowing like tonight.  They were at a trendy new place on Camelback Road called Gout.  After The Star had given it a glowing review, it had been one of the most desirable and hard to get reservations in town.  This meal was one of the most anticipated dinners they'd eaten yet.

Dating had sent them on a tour of the best restaurants in the area.  R.J. had never thought much about the money the DTAA was paying him, but he had learned to appreciate it once he started seeing Nikki.  The bloated paycheck meant he could afford to take her to all the places she could never imagine going to on her own.

"So what's the verdict?" he asked.  She was in the process of savoring every flavor, rolling the bite across her palate.

"The meat's cooked perfectly—tender still has a good amount of pink.  The mushrooms are wonderfully earthy, but I wish they'd gone with something more local."

"Are there local mushrooms?"

"No.  But he could have used any of several different cacti instead and achieved the same result."  She shook her fork at him and said in a scolding voice, "And don't interrupt."   

"I don't think your branzino is all that local either." R.J. glanced over at her fish with a disapproving frown.

"Well, I have to forgive them some things.  There aren't a whole lot of locally sourced proteins in this part of the country.  Even your little piggy has come a long way."    

"Tell me about it."  R.J. looked down at the meal hiding a sour look and a creased forehead.  Thoughts of pigs being imported into Arizona brought with it the memory of stacks of paperwork.

Nikki didn't seem to notice and continued with her critique.  "Now, stop interrupting.  The sauce is nicely balanced and has a good hit of acid to cut the richness of the pork.  The lardons have great crunch and provide some texture.  But this hay foam is just stupid—who wants to eat fucking hay?  Overall the plate's too busy, but I can't fault the flavor of the main components."

"So good then."  R.J.'s voice radiated his triumph.

A sound of exasperation left Nikki's mouth while she looked up at the ceiling and clutched her cutlery as though holding on for strength.  "Yeah, it's good," she said with an exaggerated sense of defeat.

R.J. loved hearing her talk about food.  Her face lit up and she was so animated when she discussed the subject.  Food was her passion as much as lake monsters and Bigfoot was his.

Nikki used to own her own place: The Ranch House, a small forty seat bistro in Scottsdale.  In 2008, not long after the market collapsed in the subprime crisis—or as she put it when civilization began to collapse—she had to shut it down and declared bankruptcy.  Since then, she'd been plying her trade in franchise joints and diners, taking work where she could find it. 

The experience was completely soul-crushing for her and R.J. related only too easily.  So he was happy to be able to stoke the embers of her ardor and help wash away the memory of standing in front of a griddle all day long.  Days of drudging through a mountain of cheeseburgers and patty melts, sandwich steaks and uniform, reprocessed chicken breasts.

At least she had gotten off of the nightshift. 

"Bored?"  She'd caught him checking his watch and her annoyance wasn't playful.

"Sorry."  He gave a sheepish smile and an apologetic shrug. 

"What time are you cutting out on me tonight?"

When they both had erratic schedules, things ran smoother between them.  Now that she had normal hours there was friction.  It seemed like R.J. was the bad guy for still working nights.   

"I have to be at the lab for ten.  Sorry."

She shook her head and speared some julienned carrot with the trident of her fish fork.  "I just don't understand what the hell you can be doing that you need to be there all night long."

"We've been over this.  Aira keeps the lab understaffed.  We all have to take up the slack.  And as manager, I have to be there more than the others."

"You're the boss.  You should make your underlings do this crappy stuff.  That's how it works, believe me.  You don't see the manager of Whitman's Grill taking out garbage, or cleaning the grease trap, or pulling the graveyard shift."

"I'm sorry.  I've cut back on it, but tonight's important.  I need to be there."

"It's not just tonight.  This is the third night in a row."

"I know.  I know.  I just have to do it tonight, then starting tomorrow I can take any shift I want."

"What will change tomorrow?"  Her tone was edging towards being combative.  A weak answer would push the conversation over the border into an unpleasant and hostile territory.

The truthful answer was: after tonight, it wouldn't be a full moon anymore.  But he couldn't say that.

Maxwell had cautioned him about this relationship when it started back in June.  At first, it seemed like Wiley was just being a prick, but the deeper things got, the more sense he made.  R.J. couldn't believe how hard it was to constantly be lying about his work.

"Szymanski will be heading back to headquarters."  R.J. had resurrected the grim shade of his old boss to play a fake corporate bogyman.  "Once he's back in San Francisco.  I'll be able to make my own hours again."

"You should tell him to go fuck himself."

"I should.  But then I would have to beg to get my job in Dutch Harbor back.  And the fishery doesn't pay nearly as well."

"I still can't believe you get paid so much to put lipstick on monkeys."

He smiled at her.  "Yeah, well, it takes talent to make those monkeys look good."  Then more seriously he said, "And it's why I don't want to piss anyone off."

They went back to eating.  R.J. polished off his plate, leaving only a dissolving puddle of foam and a smear of sauce.  Nikki ate slower, relishing every bite.

"Oh, that reminds me.  I need more of that mascara—the moonlight blue.  Steal some from one of the monkeys for me."

"Will do.  Coco won't miss it.  She prefers a violet to bring out her eyes."

His joke earned him a warm chuckle that lifted a weight off of his heart.

The past few months had been one of the best summers of his life.  Nikki had been just what he needed.  Especially with how dead things had been in the Music Box.  Ever since the night of the big eclipse, the lycanthrope had been lethargic and inactive.  It had changed five times since that night and each time it spent the night barely moving.  All its fight was gone.  Last night, it went so far as to sleep on Amy's mat like a house pet.

The bunker had become a dull place.  There had been no breakthroughs—just routine.

Tonight was the last transformation of the current cycle.  After two uneventful nights, they had decided to do something radical.  LARS was going to be fed while in wolf form.  With any luck, the experience would snap some life back into the animal.

They skipped desert and said their goodbye's in the parking lot.  R.J. felt the chill even with his sport coat on.  The early September night brought a mid-seventies temperature, making him realize how quickly he had adapted to life down here.  He would have been happy in shirt sleeves back in Alaska if it had been this warm.

They kissed by Nikki's car.  Her warm mouth pressed against his.  For a moment time fell away.  There were only lips and tongues and saliva—breaths competing against each other and learning to work in unison.

"Play hooky.  Come home with me."

"I can't."

"Come on. Live a little before the world comes to an end.

"The world isn't ending,"  R.J spoke through pursed lips, moving in for another kiss.

"Yes, it is."  She poked his chest with her finger, as she made her point.   "The Mayans predicted it."

R.J. cringed. 

It was a strange game they played—this constant needling.  Nikki was drawing on a thread from a few weeks ago when she got R.J. worked up over a junk science article she'd read. It had bothered him a little when she seemed to believe in this doomsday prediction, but when she spoke at length about how the alien's helped the Mayan's design their soon to end calendar, it really got under his skin.

R.J. had no doubt that aliens existed but even with a cursory look at the evidence linking the ancient civilization of the Mayans to extra-terrestrials, it was clear that it was bogus.  A carving of a king surrounded by traditional Mayan symbols became an astronaut in a space capsule to eyes that wanted to see it.  It was laughable to all but the most gullible.

Words were forming on his tongue, reaching the end of any calendar, whether it was carved into an ancient stone or featured the logo of a bank and a picture of dessert flowers won't cause anything to happen.

But instead of trying to correct her, he simply said, "Tomorrow."

"And the next day?"  She kissed him again.

"And the day after that and the day after that."