Chapter 7 #2
“I’m heading to the office right now. In the elevator,” Mr. Sterling said to his phone. “I need to shower, then I’ll be busy.”
He listened for a moment. “Yes, well, we’ll have to reschedule pickleball this afternoon, darling. I’m sure the Millers will
understand.”
Dell frowned at him, offended he was worried about his pickleball game when the fate of her mortal existence rested in his
hands. Maybe. They really needed to see that prenup.
The elevator dinged and emptied them out onto the floor Dell was familiar with.
“It’s this way,” she said to Cole, and turned for the office at the end of the hall at the same time Mr. Sterling turned the
other way.
“God damn it, Tommy, what did you put in there . . . ?” she muttered as she marched toward the polished double doors.
“Ms. Rodgers, wait!” Cole called, already several paces behind her.
“I should have paid more attention,” she said through gritted teeth, already seeing red again at the mere thought of such
betrayal. She was three paces from the door, ready to pass through it and upend Mr. Sterling’s office in a rampage to find
what they needed.
“Dell!” Cole desperately shouted as she walked full speed into the closed door with a loud bang.
Her forehead cracked off it, and she saw stars. She stumbled back, reeling, and felt Cole grip her waist from behind to steady
her.
“Why didn’t that work?” she said, and threw a hand to her throbbing forehead. Her vision was still dotted with fading sparkles.
“I could walk through my own door.”
“Yes, your own door,” Cole said from behind her. He held her until she had her feet back under her. “You can pass through walls of your
own property but can’t enter other spaces without permission.”
“What?” she said, and rubbed her head. She wasn’t sure if a ghost could get a goose egg, but surely, she should have one from
that collision.
“He has to let us in,” Cole clarified, and gently led her over to the leather bench lining the wall. “Or he at least has to
open the door and we can slip in after him. Here, you should sit.”
“Huh. So it’s like vampire rules?” she asked, and let him lower her onto the bench.
“Something like that.”
“So, it’s yes on my own door, yes on standing and sitting on things, like this bench, but no on other peoples’ doors?”
“Yes. And it should be no on moving objects, but somehow, you are able to. And definitely no on touching people—even though you can, you shouldn’t.”
“I might need you to write that down for me,” she said, and gently touched her fingertips to her forehead. “Will I bruise?”
“No. Your body is preserved, remember?”
“But I can still feel pain?”
He shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. “I don’t make the rules.”
Dell took a deep breath to settle herself and leaned back against the wall. “No, you just follow them. So, what do we do now?”
“We have to wait.”
“I am not good at waiting.”
“Yes, I’ve ascertained that about you,” Cole said, and shot her a coy grin.
She glared at him, but only half-heartedly.
They sat in silence for a few moments, Dell very aware his thigh was mere inches from hers. At least this floor of the building
seemed empty for the day, save Mr. Sterling in the shower. She assumed they had a private bathroom stashed away somewhere.
The little sconces on the dark paneled walls shone upward, lighting the stylish waiting room. Dell noted the orchids on the
reception desk matched the ones from Mr. Sterling’s office she’d admired the day before, when she was still alive.
Cole gently cleared his throat. “How did you meet your fiancé?”
“Ex-fiancé,” Dell quickly corrected.
“Yes, sorry. Ex-fiancé.”
Dell sighed, still overwhelmed by it all. “We met at a fundraiser gala. Our parents basically shoved us together. I was mostly
going to marry him to make them happy.” The honest truth came spilling out before she even realized it.
Cole looked at her with wide, sympathetic eyes. “Really?”
“Really,” she said with a sad nod. “My family is kind of a big deal—and I don’t mean that in an egotistical way.
I mean, the expectations are high. My brothers are real estate moguls, my dad is a retired mogul, and my mom runs more nonprofits than she knows what to do with.
Even if it’s unspoken, there’s pressure to keep up. ”
Cole sat quietly for a moment before speaking. “Pressure from them? Or from yourself?”
Dell turned to him to see the honest question on his face. Normally, she might have snapped at him for suggesting her concern
was misguided, but looking into his eyes, she wondered if maybe he was right.
Was the pressure to achieve self-inflicted?
She frowned at him. “Maybe we should add ‘has masochistic tendencies toward overachieving’ to our wrong-turn list.”
Cole leaned back against the wall with a quiet laugh.
“When you were alive, did you have a girlfriend? Wife?” she asked in an effort to change topic.
“No,” he said with a degree of certainty she hadn’t expected.
“I thought you couldn’t remember anything about your life.”
“I can’t, but I know that part is true.”
“How?”
This time, he sighed. “Because I don’t . . . feel it. I feel like I’d know, on a visceral level, if I was missing someone
who’d once held my heart. I would sense her absence, even across planes of existence.”
Dell blinked at him, thinking that was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard and wondering anew if she’d been right about
the poetry professor thing. “Well, clearly, you’ve at least been in love before, whatever your past life was, because anyone
who says things like that must know what it feels like—or knew what it felt like at some point.”
He softly smiled at her. “I like to think so, even if it didn’t last.” He stared at her with his soul-searching eyes again, looking like he wanted to say something else but couldn’t figure out how.
Dell stared back at him, feeling conflicted over wondering what his lips felt like and having just gotten out of a relationship
that same morning. But if she was honest with herself, her relationship with Tommy was more performative than built on anything
real.
“I didn’t love Tommy,” she confessed. “And, clearly, he didn’t have deep enough feelings for me to stay faithful.” She bitterly
laughed with a shake of her head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about Nikki. But it’s not just that he was cheating on
me; he had some plan to—” She couldn’t even finish her sentence. She thought back to her conversation with Jason during their
jog the day before, when he’d questioned if Tommy was really the one for her. She huffed another bitter laugh. “Jason is going
to have a field day with this. He hates Tommy. He’ll probably do a Told you so dance.”
“I’ve only just met him, but I seriously doubt your best friend is going to say Told you so in this scenario,” Cole said.
Dell snorted. “Then you don’t know Jason. But it won’t be malicious. It’ll be more Told you so, now let’s go kill him. In fact,” she said, and turned to him, “we might not want to tell him in case he gets arrested for murder.” She was only
half joking.
Cole grimaced. “I like to think I had a best friend like that,” he said in an effort to lighten the topic. “The ride-or-die
type, like him.”
A smile lifted Dell’s lips and mood. “Yeah, Jay is the best.”
“What do you think he’s doing? For a diversion?”
A laugh bubbled out of her. “Whatever it takes. He’ll probably have them convinced I’m in a coma, even if they hook me up to a monitor and find zero brain activity. At least it will buy us some time.”
Cole pivoted toward her so their knees touched. He gave her a sincere look. “Ms. Rodgers, I am terribly sorry about all this.
I—”
“You can call me Dell,” she said with a soft smile. “Like you did when you were trying to stop me from walking headfirst into
a door.”
His cheeks pinked. “I thought it might get your attention better.”
“Too bad for you, when I’m on a mission, nothing can stop me.”
She hadn’t moved her knee from touching his, and neither had he.
He softly cleared his throat. “Do you think that might—don’t take this the wrong way—be important?”
“What?” she asked.
His words came out hesitantly. “That you’re a bit of a . . . steamroller?”
Dell gasped in offense. “I am not a steamroller.”
“Ms. Rodgers—Dell, forgive me, but you insisted on possessing that boy in the park within an hour of passing, even when I
told you not to. And then the teleporting—”
“Well, excuse me for taking charge.” Dell folded her arms over her chest in annoyance.
Cole moved his knee away from hers, and she instantly missed it. His voice came back calm. “I’m just saying, if we’re working
on learning a lesson here, maybe that’s part of it.”
A retort waited spring-loaded on Dell’s tongue, but her lips kept it in her mouth.
Am I a steamroller?
Certainly, she was passionate and determined and got things done, but that was just part of who she was. If she’d been any less ambitious there’d be no way to accomplish all the things on her list. But she could admit she got a little . . . pushy sometimes.
She folded her arms and sourly frowned, doubting be less awesome was a lesson she needed to learn but wondering if maybe there was something there worth considering.
She didn’t have much time to dwell on it because a door at the end of the hall opened, and Mr. Sterling came marching out.
He’d changed into a suit and was still tying the tie around his neck.
Dell and Cole popped up from the bench like a pair of prairie dogs, ready to follow. When he passed them, Mr. Sterling smelled
like expensive cologne and shampoo. His hair was only half dried and his cheeks still rosy from what must have been a quick
and hot shower. He swiped a key card at the door’s side and pulled it open once it beeped. Dell and Cole hurried in behind