“Hey, Faith?” Dan called out before I could latch the door behind me and make my escape.
“Yeah?” I turned around and pushed the door open a crack so that I could see him.
“If you come up with any ideas about what happened, maybe we could discuss it over dinner?” Dan’s eyes widened like he was surprised he’d actually managed to ask me out.
My jaw sagged and I stared at him, dumbfounded. The first time we’d started dating I had to ask him, because he’d been so shy around me. It had taken months of accidentally bumping into each other, and pouring an almost full bottle of tequila down his throat for him to work up the nerve to ask me out for coffee. Now he was just suggesting dinner like it was no big thing?
I suspected the Alpha had done more than wipe out Dan’s memories of me. He’d changed his whole personality. Which could be a good thing since that meant he was no longer My Dan. He was just some guy who looked like the man I once loved.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my hot pink scrub pants. “I’ve got a boyfriend. A serious boyfriend.”
I didn’t bother waiting for him to answer. I flew down the hall as if a score of the Heavenly Host had appeared with the intent of converting me by force. Or even worse, the Girl Scouts on a cookie selling expedition.
I passed the nurses’ station and made my way to the stairwell, threw the door open, and hurried inside. I sprinted down three flights of stairs and stopped on the landing above the cafeteria. I bent over, breathing heavily, and put my hands on my knees. The last thing I needed was anyone else to see me going right around the bend and into a mental breakdown.
…
“You’ve got to tell Matt,” Harold said. The cool breeze of him shimmered into existence behind me when I clocked out after my shift the next morning. Instead of answering, I scrawled my name on the signup sheet to do training on the new MEDTECH system Thursday morning at nine. That would give me time to get a cup of coffee after my shift ended and maybe grab some breakfast. Hopefully it would only last an hour or two so Brenda and I could be on the road to Philly before lunch.
“Tell Matt what?” Lisa asked. She swiped her own badge and followed me to our lockers, which were side by side in the bowels of the hospital.
“She had a run-in with Dan.” Malachi floated next to my shoulder with the hood of his black cowl pulled low, doing his best impersonation of a cartoon grim reaper.
“Dan? Dan who?” Lisa asked.
“Dan-the-Formerly-Mentally-Incapacitated,” Malachi said.
I pulled my locker open and let it swing through where his body would be if he inhabited a physical space. The metal door banged against the locker next to mine and bounced back toward me, smacking me in the shoulder. I winced at the sting of metal against flesh, then emptied out the pockets of my pink kitten-covered scrub top, throwing various odds and ends into the locker.
“Dan’s here?” Lisa asked, her voice flat. “In Pittsburgh?”
“Well, she didn’t fly to Chicago mid-shift, did she?” Harold asked from his place in front of the door to the women’s showers. If my mind wouldn’t have been other places, I might have scolded him, but I knew it would do no good. Harold had been a pervert in life, and death hadn’t changed his personality in the slightest.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I slammed my locker shut. “I want to get out of here and go home.”
“But I don’t understand. What is Dan doing here?” Lisa shoved a couple of pairs of surgical gloves and a few pens into her locker. “Oh shit, he’s the MEDTECH consultant they sent? I thought he was strictly an R&D guy?”
“Again, I don’t want to talk about it.” I grabbed her hands. I’d driven into work earlier, but right now I wanted to get home lightning-quick so I could start making plans to get rid of my unwanted houseguest. Glancing around to make sure we were alone, I let a tear in the fabric of reality open with its unpleasant, burnt plastic-like smell, and ushered her and the rest of my paranormal entourage through it. Once we’d all stepped into my living room, the hole shrank to the size of a pinprick and disappeared with a pop.
“You have to tell Matt about this,” Malachi said before I’d even caught my breath. “He deserves to know.”
“I deserve to know what?”
I looked up to see him sitting at my kitchen island, drinking coffee. Brenda was at the stove fixing a plate of food. She scampered over to put the plate in front of him, making sure to lean over enough that, if he were interested, he would be able to see a less-than-modest amount of cleavage. Accidentally, of course.
I narrowed my eyes at the two of them and sauntered over to the stool next to his. I bent down to give him a long, slow kiss to mark my territory for the deluded little angel waiting on him like he was some sort of king.
“Nothing,” I said. There was no way in Hell I was telling Matt about my ex-fiancé showing up with Little Miss Wonderful soaking it all in to use against me. “Not a thing.”
CHAPTER SIX
I leaned into him, so that our shoulders were pressed together. He wrapped his arm around my waist and grabbed the far side of my stool, dragging me closer to him and nuzzling his nose into the side of my neck.
Brenda stared at us, her eyes filled with hurt and jealousy. When she caught my eye she spun back around to the stove. I was pretty sure if she stirred that pot any harder food was going to start flying, and not in that cool high school food fight or weird sex sort of way. Lisa stood by the coffee pot, watching the silent exchange with a look of amusement on her face.
“Are you eating breakfast here?” I asked Matt. It sounded dull, but given our conflicting work schedules—with me working nights and him working normal people hours—breakfast was actually some of our best quality time together.
“You weren’t here when I got back from my run, but Brenda invited me over and said I should wait.” He kissed my cheek once before letting me go and grabbing his fork. “She’d made breakfast, and it smelled so amazing I couldn’t resist.”
“That was nice of her. I really appreciate that, Brenda. Let me and Lisa fix ourselves some plates and then we can have breakfast together.”
“Oh, there isn’t any left.” Brenda gave me a tight smile.
“Excuse me?” Lisa said, putting two coffee cups on the counter next to the pot.
“Well, it would have been rude to feed Matt any old thing since he has such a long day ahead of him, making sure justice is served.” Brenda beamed at him, fluttering her lashes. “Now he’s had a good, healthy breakfast to start the day.”
“He’s in labor law,” Lisa said. “It’s not like he’s facing down hardened drug dealers and putting away serial killers. You could have saved us some breakfast. Since some of us were busy saving lives last night.”
“Well if you’d bring a doctor home with you next time I’ll make sure that he’s got plenty to eat.” Brenda gave her a bitchy smile and even Matt tensed. “But Matt practices law and that’s an important job. It affects the lives of other people, and to do it properly he needs a good breakfast.”
I looked over at the four eggs and what had to be a half a pound of bacon heaped on his plate. Forget about serving justice—he was going to need a nap if he ate all that.
What did this twerp think she was getting away with, anyway? Just because she was sleeping on my couch for the next few days didn’t mean she was going to take my boyfriend to Philadelphia with her as a door prize. Besides, if she dissed my nursing career one more time we were going to be making that trip to Philly with her strapped to the roof of my Civic in a dog carrier.
“I can fix you something else if you’d like? Some oatmeal, perhaps? Or maybe a low-calorie fruit smoothie? I know how it is when you’ve packed on a few extra pounds and are trying to watch your waistline.” Brenda batted her eyelashes at me like some sort of demented housewife.
I froze, the piece of bacon I’d snagged from Matt’s plate halfway to my open mouth.
You c
ould have heard an angel fall in the sudden silence. My face flaming, I swallowed, stunned. I’ll admit—I’m not a tall, slender goddess like my sister and Lisa, but I wasn’t obese. Hell, I wasn’t even chubby.
“Faith is perfect.” Matt coughed and draped his arm over my shoulder.
“She doesn’t need to count calories,” Lisa added, her voice a low growl. Her body was enveloped in a brilliant blue-black corona of hellfire. “Her weight is fine.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest there was anything wrong with the way Faith looked.” Brenda’s voice tapered off, and she looked around, shifting her feet back and forth.
Lisa’s horns curled upward. “Of course there isn’t, Pollyanna.”
“Lisa…” My tail slipped down the length of my leg and my wings itched.
It wouldn’t do any good for Lisa to pick a fight with Brenda. In a few days we would drop Brenda off at Deidre’s and then she’d be someone else’s problem. But if she and Lisa were fighting, it would lead to nothing more than a tense ride there between the two of them and awkwardness between me and Matt. He might not want her here, but I knew that if she left on bad terms he’d feel guilty. That’s just the type of guy he was. “I’m sure Brenda didn’t mean anything by it. Let it go.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt Faith’s feelings.” Brenda’s voice faltered. “I thought all women who lived in the big city were super obsessed with things like watching their weight and shoe shopping.”
“Sure you weren’t,” Lisa said, hellfire still enveloping her. She turned back to the now full coffeepot to pour us both a cup. She opened the freezer and pulled out two chocolate-filled frozen pastries and dropped them onto a pair of plates before slathering them in chocolate peanut butter and pointing her index finger at them, giving them a quick zap.
She handed me a plate and sat on the remaining stool, making sure Brenda was going to have to stand through breakfast. My spirits perked up. I sighed at the beautiful culinary triumph sitting in front of us. Leave it to Lisa to warm my favorite breakfast.
I ate half of mine and then fed Matt a bite. I sniffed—yep, Brenda had gone out and bought turkey bacon for him. I knew there wasn’t any of that stuff in my kitchen. I didn’t even have regular bacon. That stuff took way too much time to cook when I could zap a frozen confection of yummy doughy goodness instead.
I finished my pastry and Matt grabbed my left hand and kissed the tips of each finger before leaning in to kiss the tip of my nose. I picked up my coffee cup and smiled when the heady smell of Kona Select reached my nose. Lisa had brewed my emergency stash. Talk about a wonderful roommate. My half-brother seriously didn’t deserve to marry someone this good.
“Hey, Lisa?”
“Yeah?”
“Have I ever told you you’re my hero?”
“Am I everything you wish you could be?”
“But she doesn’t need you to fly higher than an eagle,” Matt cut in, killing our Bette Midler sing-a-long. “My girl has got a set of wings for that part.”
“You’re killing the love, Matt.” I pulled my hand away from his and punched him lightly in the shoulder before turning to give Brenda my sweetest smile.
She narrowed her eyes at me, and if she’d have been a cartoon, smoke would have poured out of her ears.
“What? You have wings. They’re awesome. I’m just stating the obvious.” Matt shrugged. He pushed his plate full of healthy breakfast away.
“And mine are still molting,” Lisa grumbled. “I tried to say something about it to Tolliver yesterday evening, but I don’t think he was listening.”
“Yeah.” Matt gave her a weak, what are you going to do? smile. “Guys just molt. It’s like shaving. Or nose hair. You accept it and go on.”
“Yuck.” I wrinkled my nose at him before turning back to Lisa. “Try that bubble bath we got and if that doesn’t work we’ll get you some olive oil. That stuff always works, but you have to eat two tablespoons like cough medicine and it’s nasty to drink straight.”
“Or, you could just let your feathers replenish themselves,” Brenda said. “Wings are meant to be tools to spread the message of love and deliverance to others. It’s vain to worry about their appearance beyond their usage as a tool.”
“No.” Lisa shook her head. “I’m marrying the Crown Prince of Hell in twelve days, and I’m not going to be molting when it happens. Besides, my wings are one of my best features. Call me vain, but a girl’s got to work her best attributes where she can.”
“Well.” Brenda swallowed. She brought her right hand up to gnaw on her thumbnail. “I think I’m going to go. Matt said that if I didn’t use my powers at all, and stayed within a five-mile radius, then no one should notice my presence. I just have to be discreet.”
“Very discreet,” he warned her, gold sparks of power crackling along the lengths of his arms. “An absolute wall flower.”
“No one will even see me. I’ll just fade right into the background. Besides, I’ll be less than three blocks from the library where Faith’s sister is working as a volunteer so she should mask me without any problems.”
“Of course.” I nodded, eager for her to go so that I could get some quality time with Matt before he left for work. “What did you have planned for the day?”
“I was going to visit the Art Museum and then the Natural History Museum,” Brenda said. “After that I thought I’d spend some time at the Carnegie Library to catch up on my reading. Then maybe I can find Hope and she’ll show me around the city?”
“Sounds like a blast.” I suppressed a giggle at the idea of Hope and Brenda sightseeing together like a couple tourists. “We’re shorthanded on the PICU again so I’m working a double shift. If I’m not here when you get back just have Matt let you in.”
“Right.” Brenda hurried toward the door. “I’m sorry about bringing up your weight problem, Faith. I didn’t think it was something you’d be too sensitive about.”
I clenched my fist and fought against the very real urge to shoot a bolt of hellfire at her. Not only would it be bad manners, and potentially start a war with the Angale, hellfire stains were a bitch to get out of the carpet.
“I don’t like her,” Lisa ground out once Brenda was gone. “And when I say that I don’t like her I mean that I’m a feather width away from outright hatred.”
“She’s not normally this bad,” Matt said. “I think she’s just edgy because she’s in a new situation and she doesn’t know how to act. I’ll say something to her tonight.”
“Don’t worry about it. If being called fat is the worst thing that ever happens to me, then immortality is going to get dreary pretty damn quick.” I shook my head and glanced over to see the poodle across the alley staring at me through the window over my sink. The little monster looked frazzled and that meant I was going to have to talk to Malachi about laying off his torment of the mutt. Fritzi was much too fragile for grim reaper peek-a-boo.
“You’re letting Brenda walk all over you,” Lisa huffed. “Matt, tell her she’s letting that girl walk all over her.”
“You’re letting Brenda walk all over you.” Matt picked his coffee cup up and took a drink.
“I’m not. But I don’t want things to be any more awkward than they need to be.” I tried to push down the growing sense of dread in my stomach that told me the two of them were right and she was walking all over me. Even if she was, it was only for a few more days and then we’d never have to deal with her again.
“Things won’t be awkward.” Matt grimaced. “Well, anymore awkward than having her staying on your couch is, anyway, but I appreciate how much you’re trying to help out with this whole mess. It means a lot to me.”
Lisa pretended to stick her finger down her throat. “Look, you two love birds, I’m going to go take a hot bath and then I’m supposed to meet up with Tolliver to finalize the décor for our wedding. We’re between a replica of the Sistine Chapel and the Hagia Sophia. That means you have thirty minutes before I’m going to be walking back i
nto this living room so I can phase into Hell.”
I shot Lisa saucy grin. “So should we be done by then or just out of the living room?”
She pushed herself up off her stool, leaving her dishes stacked on the countertop with mine. “If he’s done in thirty minutes I’d demand a do-over if I were you.”
She left the kitchen, her shoulders drooping and grayish black feathers peeking out from the bottom of her scrub top. Two feathers fluttered onto the floor. I grimaced. If she was molting this bad already she’d be sporting nothing but leathery, featherless wings by her wedding.
I turned to Matt. “So?”
“So?” His gaze trialed down to the V-neck of my scrub top. He licked his lower lip and my breath caught in my throat.
“Want to try for a repeat of yesterday? Without inconvenient interruptions by Celestial beings this time?” I lifted my leg over his hip and scooted to sit in his lap. “You, me, couch?”
“I wish I could.” Matt gave me a brief kiss, his eyes full of regret. He dropped his head back and groaned. “But it’s already eight, and I’ve got to leave if I’m going to get to work on time.”
I decided to take the incubus by the tail and tell him about Dan. I was going to be honest and assure him that there was nothing for him to worry about. Dan and I were the past and the past wasn’t going to come back and kick us in the wings if I had a say about it. We were going to be open and honest with each other, no matter how icky it made me feel. “What if I opened a phase portal for you? Because I think we need to discuss some stuff and I really think we should maybe do it now.”
“Can we do it later?” Matt sighed. “I really do need to get to work and I can’t take the chance of someone noticing that my car isn’t in the lot again. The last time I barely managed to get Fitzsimmons in Accounting to let go of it without zapping him. I don’t want to risk it.”
Devil May Care Page 6