Chapter 11 #3
He smiled back at her. “Getting things done even locked inside a freezer.”
Her smile faltered when her teeth started to chatter. “Okay, it’s really freaking cold in here. I never stay in here this
long.” She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed up and down.
Without hesitating, Cole stepped toward her and folded her into his arms.
“Oh!” she said in surprise at first, but then softened into him, not really caring if it was impossible for him to actually
warm her, being dead and all. “Thank you.”
“Mm-hmm,” he hummed. “I don’t know if this will accomplish much, but we can at least pretend until Jason gets here.”
“No, it’s definitely helping,” Dell said, being honest. Her skin might have been icy, but his touch was warming her from the
inside. She tilted her head up to meet his gaze and found him staring down at her. Thanks to the woman’s heels, her face was
a lot closer to his than normal—and she was right: She could wear four-inch heels next to him and still feel dainty. His lips parted, and Dell got another vision of him outside in the
snow. His mouth was so close to hers—in the vision and real life—that she might have kissed him if she hadn’t been borrowing
someone else’s body.
A loud, metallic squeal followed by a sucking pop interrupted their moment. A rush of warm air came in the door and set Dell’s
skin rippling with goose bumps.
Cole let go of her as if they’d been caught, even though he was invisible to Jason standing in the doorway.
“Dell?” Jason quietly and cautiously asked.
Her head was still in the clouds, but her host’s body was an icicle. “Yes,” she said through frozen lips.
“Oh my God, you look like Rose floating on the door in Titanic. Get out of there!” Jason scolded, and waved her over. He was wearing his customary front-of-house suit, looking chic and
classy with his hair smoothed back.
“Thank you,” she said.
They stepped back into the busy kitchen, and the heat from all the bodies and open flames instantly began to thaw her.
Jason pulled her over to a quiet corner and rubbed her arms for good measure. “What were you doing in the freezer? And please
tell me why you are coming to me in the body of a snatched Mrs. Maisel instead of Robbie. Also, why are you not alive yet? Having Tommy and his mommy hauled to prison didn’t do the trick?”
“Clearly not. And I told you, I wanted to eat something, because ghosts can’t eat, so I had to possess this body to be able
to taste the food. I was hiding in the freezer.”
“That is top five weirdest things you’ve ever said to me. Maybe top three. But okay, I’m following.”
“Right. Cole and I were at the hospital when we saw the news about Tommy on TV. We expected clearing up that whole mess would
reunite me with my body, but it didn’t. Oscar was there, so it made me think maybe there was something here that I needed to learn a lesson about, so we stopped by. By the way, did you know Sasha and Oscar are in love? Like really in love?”
“I’ve heard things,” he said with a casual and knowing shrug.
She clucked her tongue. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I probably did and you weren’t listening.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, that seems to be a pattern in my behavior, I’ve learned.”
He held up his hands in defense. “It’s not a bad thing. You’re busy. I get it. But you do tend to overlook things at times.”
“Like how my fiancé wanted to kill me.”
“Yes. Good example.”
“And how we totally misjudged Robbie.”
“In your defense, that was on both of us.”
“Fair. But there’s a bunch of stuff, Jay. I didn’t even know two people I work with every day have a life together.” She held
her arm out toward the kitchen, knowing Sasha and Oscar were back there.
“Well, they weren’t exactly advertising it.”
“Stop justifying.”
“Okay, but I can’t tell what you want from me here. Pep talk saying you’re a busy bee and it’s understandable you miss some
of the less obvious things in life? Or a list of all the ways you don’t pay attention.”
“All the ways?!” she blurted.
“Okay, door number one, then. Forget I said it.”
“No. Too late. What are the ways? You better not be about to tell me you’ve got a secret boyfriend and you’re running off
to Maui to elope.” She shoved a threatening finger in his face.
“No, it’s nothing like that. But I have been dropping some heavy hints lately that have gone over your head.”
She blinked at him in surprise and felt like she’d missed the last step on a staircase. He really was keeping something from
her? “Hints about what?” she asked.
Jason looked over his shoulder and sighed. “I’d rather have this conversation with you when you’re you and not speaking to me from inside a stranger, but if you insist—”
“I do insist.”
“Well, remember yesterday when I asked for fifteen minutes to talk to you?”
Dell mentally fought through the minefield of everything that had happened since then and remembered he had, in fact, asked
to talk to her. She swallowed a lump of guilt. “Yes.”
“And remember how you caught me reading that book while I was spying on Pierrick Moreau?”
“Uh-huh,” she confirmed, and narrowed her eyes at him, unsure where he was going and a little worried about it.
“Well, I applied to business school, and I got in.”