Chapter 13 #3
After spending time with him, and because of the fact he’d (maybe) plowed into her on the slopes, she couldn’t disagree with him.
“And the professor thing fits, obviously,” he said, and gestured at himself.
“Glad I got that one right,” Dell said with a smug smile. “English lit too, so the poetry thing wasn’t far off.”
“Yes, but don’t ask me to recite anything.” He chuckled, and she swooned at the thought of him quoting something classically romantic, or even better, something he’d written himself.
“And there’s no . . . uh, partner listed in that article, so I guess you were right about that too,” she said, finally naming the relief she’d felt since reading
it. He’d told her he didn’t have a wife or girlfriend because he couldn’t feel her absence.
He reached out and wrapped his hand around her waist to pull her close. “Like I said, the pull I feel is toward you, Dell.” He leaned down to kiss her, and it crackled all the way to her toes. She wondered if it would be rude to push him down on
Robbie’s bed and have her way with him. It wasn’t like anyone could see them.
Cole might have been having the same thoughts with the way he leaned into their kiss. He gripped the nape of her neck with
one hand and stroked his thumb over her cheek. His other arm held her waist like a brace she didn’t want to be freed from.
“So, what are we doing with this photo?” Robbie said, interrupting them.
They pulled apart, both of them dazed, and looked over to see Robbie waving the sheet of paper with Cole’s photo on it.
“The plan,” Dell said. “We’ve got to show Jason to confirm, then maybe he can help us find your parents.”
“Sounds good,” Cole said. His lips were bitten and plump, and Dell wished she could keep kissing them, but there were bigger
things to worry about.
“Great. This is more than I can signal to Jason, so I’ll need Robbie’s help. Hopefully Grandpa Charlie won’t mind if he skips
out on breakfast.” She turned toward Robbie only to feel Cole pull her back.
He tugged her body until it was up against his again and looked deep into her eyes. “Thank you. For helping me.”
That soul gaze of his penetrated even deeper than normal. Maybe because she’d kissed him. Maybe because she remembered him.
Maybe because every single thing since she’d woken up dead was meant to bring them together.
“Thank you,” she said back.
He didn’t have to ask her for what, so he simply kissed her again.
A few minutes and some inner-monologue explaining to Robbie later, they were walking to Jason’s place. Dell was back in Robbie’s
body, fully in control now, and the photo of Cole neatly folded in Robbie’s pocket. Cole walked in stride beside her.
“Why couldn’t we just zap ourselves here again?” Dell asked in Robbie’s voice. It was only a few blocks to walk, but they
had a much more efficient form of transportation at their fingertips.
“Because it doesn’t work on living beings, remember?” Cole said.
“Right. Well, there’s a good chance Jason isn’t out of bed yet, and he won’t be happy to be woken, so I guess it’s to everyone’s
benefit to take our time getting there.” Sunday was the one day they skipped their morning jog together. He’d easily be asleep
until 10:00 a.m.
“Nice day for a walk too,” Cole said, and gazed around the street with a smile.
Dell had noticed an uptick in his mood since Robbie’s bedroom.
She had to figure finding out he had a family and a life—people missing him, surely—outweighed the revelation of how he’d died.
And if they were about to find out it was all connected—the crash with her on the slopes, his becoming her specialist, the pull they felt toward each other—what wasn’t there to look forward to?
“Just another block,” Dell reported as they turned a corner. Jason lived in the bottom floor of a split-level. Like many San
Francisco apartments, it was a shoebox, but with him spending most of his time at the restaurant or with Dell running around
the city or hanging out at her place, it served the purpose it needed to.
“What do you usually do on Sundays?” Cole asked.
“Try to rest, but I’m not very good at it.”
He snorted. “You not good at resting? I can’t imagine.”
“Ha. Ha,” she said, and punched his arm.
When they made it to Jason’s front door, Dell took a bracing breath before she used Robbie’s hand to knock. “This probably
won’t be pretty,” she muttered to Cole. She noted he took a step back.
Nothing happened after she knocked, but she hadn’t expected it to. She knocked again. “Jason, it’s me—well, it’s Robbie, but
also me. I need you to open up.”
Still nothing.
She pulled out Robbie’s phone with a grumble, knowing the screen would unlock for her because she had his face. Jason’s was
one of the few phone numbers she had memorized. She entered it and tapped out a text.
It’s me, Dell. I’m at the front door. With Robbie.
She hit Dial on the new contact and held the phone to her ear, hoping he’d see the text and know to answer a call from the same number.
“Not answering?” Cole said after half a dozen rings.
“Nope.” She knocked on his door again. “Jason Ulysses Marshall, open your door!” she called.
“Ulysses?” Cole asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes. He hates it. It was one of the things we first bonded over—terrible names. At least his is a middle name and not a first
name though.”
“I think unique is a better term than terrible.”
She turned to him with a teasing frown. “You would like the name Ulysses, Dr. Lewis. I bet you named your stuffed animals Bronte and Dickens and Shelley as a kid.”
“If I knew those names as a kid, I will seriously question what my parents were letting me read back then.”
Dell shrugged Robbie’s shoulder and knocked on the door again. “Maybe they’re lit professors too, and you raided the Lewis
family library.”
“Maybe,” he said right as the door wrenched open.
“For the love of Sunday, what?” a very angry Jason yelped at them. He wore a silk robe with a matching eye mask pushed up on his forehead. “Robbie?” he
said with a frown.
“No, it’s me, Dell. Which you would know if you’d checked your phone.” She waved Robbie’s phone at him and smiled.
He scowled and folded his arms. “If you were really my best friend, you’d know not to come calling before ten a.m. on a Sunday.”
“I am your best friend, and we’re here because we need your help.”
Jason took a second to gather himself, wrapping his robe tighter and redoing the sash. “We?”
“Yes. Cole is here with me. We need to ask you something very important. Can we please come in?”
He eyed her suspiciously, but Dell knew it was mostly out of grogginess. “Yes, but I literally just rolled out of bed, so
no commentary on the mess, please.”