Chapter 14 #3
“What the hell is going on here?” Kelly’s voice demanded, a wave of cooler air hitting Morgan as the door flew open.
“I was getting these, uh—” Luke tried to explain.
“Paperclips,” Morgan managed to interject. “He knocked over the paperclips and then we both tried to pick them up and I slammed my face into the top of his skull by accident.”
“Uh huh.” Kelly’s voice was dry. “Are you OK?”
“I think so.” Morgan managed to blink her eye open. The vision on the right was fuzzy, but there. It hurt a lot.
“Let me see.” Kelly crouched effortlessly in her stilettos, a testament to her diligence on leg day. She tilted Morgan’s head up. “It’s already swelling. You’re going to have a heck of a shiner.”
Hayley hovered nervously in the background. “I’m going to need you to fill out some paperwork attesting that you did not receive this injury in the course of company duties.”
Morgan was pretty sure that wasn’t how workers’ comp worked, but she wasn’t particularly interested in fighting over a black eye.
“She can do paperwork later,” Kelly said briskly as she stood back up.
“For now, Luke, take her down to the Duane Reade on the corner and buy an instant ice pack. The faster you get a cold compress on that, the less it will swell, and Ronaldo has always used all the ice in the freezer by this time of day. Here’s the company card. Stop sitting there, go.”
With one eye closed, Morgan could still tell that Luke was avoiding eye contact on the way down in the elevator. Once they’d gotten onto the street, she turned to him.
“Are you OK?” she repeated.
He looked at her like she had said something crazy. “I gave you a black eye. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve had one,” she admitted. She had been ten, and it had turned out the kelpie had been extremely uninterested in playing horsie. “And I wasn’t the one in the crying closet.”
“I thought it was for supplies?” His eyebrows knitted together. It was cute. She tensed her cheek and the bolt of pain pulled her mind back on track.
“Any office supply closet that’s big enough to stand in with the door closed is also for crying,” she informed them as they entered the Duane Reade.
She’d learned to love the ubiquitous New York pharmacy in college, despite the distressing lack of potions.
It was entirely possible the zoning laws of Manhattan required every block to choose between a Duane Reade, a Starbucks, or a Bank of America kiosk.
“I’m fine,” he said as they snagged a box and got in line. “It’s my job.”
“Just because it’s your job to take all his stupid requests doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck, and that it isn’t draining,” she said. “You’re allowed to complain—at least when you’re not in the office.”
“I guess I never realized how demeaning it would feel,” he confessed. “He can’t even remember my name.”
“Or my name,” she reminded him. “Also, he’s an asshole.”
“At least you get a paycheck,” he grumbled.
“I know,” she commiserated. It wasn’t fair that her job should be getting better even as his got worse.
Luke took the box from her as they left and peered at the directions. “You know, if Brad had wished for your eye to feel better, I could have done something about this.”
“Brad would never think of it,” Morgan said. A thought occurred to her. “But I think Kelly would have, if she knew.”
“Kelly doesn’t strike me as someone who would sign that contract,” Luke said, twisting the ice pad in his hands until it cracked, as per the instructions. “Whoa, that’s cold! Where did the cold come from? You said they didn’t have magic!”
“Mumble mumble chemicals,” Morgan said, pressing the wrapped pad against her eye and wincing. “You’d be surprised how much mundane humans have managed. Sometimes I wonder why the magical folks bother.”
Luke nodded. His steps slowed as they approached the office.
“You don’t want to go back, do you,” she said.
He shook his head. “Not much of a choice.”
“Maybe not yet,” she said. “Kelly wouldn’t mind, at least.”
“Is it safe?” They’d last seen her mother around here, after all.
She weighed it in her head. Her mother still didn’t know. There was only so long you could sustain yourself on panic. “Enough. There’s a little park a block over. Want to go sit for a few minutes?”
“That would be nice.” He sighed. “Brad will mind.”
“Screw Brad.”
“You know, you already had one boss die,” he said hopefully.
“What, is that how people get promotions on the Infernal Plane?” she teased.
“Well, the bosses are otherwise immortal unless you kill them, so yes.”
That was a little sobering. They sat down on one of the unoccupied benches. A few optimistic pigeons wandered over.
“Are you allowed to kill clients?” she asked, unsure if she wanted the answer.
He sighed. “No.”
“Damn.”
“That is the idea,” he said. He gave her a crooked grin that made her heart flip over. “Thank you.”
“For what?” She shifted the cold pack a little.
“For asking if I was OK.” He stared at the pigeons. “I’m not sure anyone’s ever asked that before.”
“You realize how sad that is, don’t you?” she said, a little alarmed.
“I’m starting to, yes.” He bit his lip. “Can I ask for something, and it’s OK if you don’t want to?”
“You can ask,” she said cautiously.
“Can I try a hug?”
“Try?” She looked at him quickly.
“We don’t really do hugs,” he admitted to the ground. “But they look nice.”
She gently fitted the arm that wasn’t holding a cold pack around his shoulders.
He tentatively lowered his head onto her shoulder.
He was warmer than a human would be, though not unpleasantly so.
Kind of comfortable, like an electric blanket.
They sat for a moment. She savored it, refusing for his sake to wish for more.
She could feel the curve of his bicep under her hand.
She was allowed to take pleasure in how it fitted into her palm.
It was like a mindfulness exercise. She could let the satisfaction of the feeling of his breath, soft against her neck, pass through her and then let it go.
She was being supportive to her friend. That was all. Truly.
He continued to eye the pigeons. “Those aren’t going to try to eat us, are they?”
“No, I promise the pigeons won’t eat you.” Her phone vibrated.
“What is it?” he said, with dread.
“Brad wants to know where we are.” She took a deep breath and let it out.
Luke’s bracelet glowed orange.
“What is it?” she echoed, with even greater dread.
“Bel’aliol wants to know when the second contract is going to be signed.”
“Shit.”
He nodded. “How’s the eye?”
“Painful,” she admitted. “I’ll survive.”
They disentangled and she tried very hard not to feel a sense of loss. It was just the warmth of his body against hers that she missed.
As they walked, a thought struck her. She pulled a search, considered briefly, and then clicked Buy Now. Luke glanced at her, and she put away the phone before he could see.
When they got upstairs, Kelly caught her. “Eye OK?”
“It’ll be fine,” she said. The eye, at least. Maybe not everything else. “The ice pack definitely helped.”
Kelly nodded. “Good work on the analyst deck, by the way.”
Morgan gave her a shocked smile. But then Brad came out and caught Luke’s eye. He gestured Luke into his office. Morgan followed him and he didn’t stop her, at least.
“First,” said Brad, “why do I have an invitation to the Swiss Marathon?”
“You said you wanted to go to Davos,” Luke said guilelessly.
“I want to go to the World Economic Forum in Davos!” Brad said. “In January! I don’t want to run up and down twenty-six miles of mountains.”
Luke blinked at him, his face a picture of innocence. “My apologies. I didn’t realize that the Davos resort had multiple events. Ronaldo said alpha men like marathons.”
“Ronaldo is, like, a baby alpha at best,” Brad rolled his eyes. Morgan kept her face very, very still.
“Again, my apologies.” Luke bowed slightly.
“Fine, but get it right next time.” Brad huffed.
Something above them slammed and all three of them jumped.
“And do something permanent about those construction noises!”
That one, she could get behind.
“But more importantly—you promised me investors.”
“Indeed.”
“So I need that investor meeting. Pronto, ASAP, whatever you understand. I want a meeting with Ravenfell. And you’re going to make sure it goes perfectly.”
Ravenfell. The vampire venture capital group. Morgan tried to keep her swallow from being visible.
“Ravenfell meeting, next week,” Brad repeated. “We’ll go there. Our offices aren’t impressive enough. Yet. Got it?”
“As you wish,” Luke said.
“And you,” Brad rounded on her. “You’re running the deck. You’ve got something better than that to wear, right?”
She nodded, her mouth going dry. Although if she walked into a boardroom full of vampires, the last thing she was going to worry about was if her shoes had cost enough.