Eden laughed. “Everyone needs a nemesis, right? She’ll keep me on my game.”
“You could totally take her, you know.”
This was an old and stupid and much-loved joke between Eden and Avalon. It started when they were kids when Avalon, already in a cranky mood, had crashed her hip into her desk in her bedroom and bellowed “STUPID DESK IN MY WAY!” and Eden, her voice oozing faux sympathy, had said, “I bet you couldtotallytake that desk.”
For pretty much no reason, it still cracked them up.
“Oh, I know I can. See you in a bit, Ava.”
Eden pressed the call to an end and deliberately installed her phone in the correct little handbag pocket. She stared for a moment down the hallway she’d once thought she’d left behind forever, more than a decade ago. It was rather dreamily lit courtesy of the tall window at the end of the hallway, and for a moment of vertigo she was back in school again, the entire world—and a few really great guys—at her feet. The same gunmetal-gray lockers, the slightly less gray floor. Redolent of literal student bodies—sweat and gum and fruit-flavored drugstore lip gloss—with a top note of disinfectant courtesy of Carl the janitor’s mop.
Frankly, it wasn’t the song from theMan of La Manchathat worried her.
It was the song Annelise had written last night: “Invisible Dad.”
And boy, if Jan Pennington knew aboutthatsong. Talk about gossip fodder. And Jan used gossip like currency.
“Icouldtotally take Jan Pennington,” Eden muttered to the bank of lockers in front of her.
“With one arm tied behind your back, even.”
She whirled around.
Oh shit.
Gabe Caldera was standing behind her, incongruously backlit by the beam of light from the hall window, which was exactly the way she’d always thought an angel visitation would be staged.
They stared at each other for a full, silent three seconds or so. It occurred to her that she’d happily go on doing that indefinitely. She’d better speak.
Chapter 2
“Were you a navy SEAL or a ninja?” she said finally. It emerged a little more irritably than she’d intended.
“One doesn’t necessarily preclude the other. But I’m not at liberty to divulge.”
His eyes literally seemed to fill with lights when he was teasing.
And they were green.
“Wow Green,” she would call it. Because she was too tired for metaphors, and because she couldn’t imagine a better description.
She was staring again. She needed to say more words. “Um, thank you for your time today. And sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Any time, Ms. Harwood.”
“Hopefully there won’tbeanother time.” This emerged a little more adamantly than she’d intended.
To her astonishment, he looked faintly stricken for a split second.
“I mean...” She touched his arm gently, an instinct to take that expression from his face. “...I hope Annelise’s behavior or song choices won’t inspire more meetings.”
He glanced swiftly down at her hand, and she pulled it back swiftly.
It had felt a bit like touching a brick.
A brick covered in warm, smooth skin.
A fraught, interesting little silence ensued, and a breath-stealing sensation skittered up her spine.