“What do you think?”
“That I can’t deal with this right now,” she sniffs. “I just broke up with my boyfriend. I can’t handle your anger, too.”
I grasp her chin with two fingers, turning her face toward me. Her eyes are wet with tears, like the sky after a storm. “I’m not angry at you, Little Trouble. I just want you to be safe and to stop making my job so damn hard.”
She moves her head away. “Yeah. To stop making your job so hard. Work, work, work.”
I exhale. “What do you want me to say?”
“You know what I want. You feel it, too, the attraction between us. You’re just not willing to say it.” Her voice is tired, resigned, and it kills me.
“Little Trouble...”
“No,” she says. “Don’t call me that. You want a work relationship? You’ll get a work relationship. You’re just my bodyguard. Call me Cora.”
Fuck. She’s so out of my league. Even if she says now that she wants me, in a couple of weeks, when she realizes I don’t fit into her world, she’ll get bored and move on. And I’ll be left with nothing. No job. No woman. And yet the temptation to say yes, to cross the line and take her, is immense. Overwhelming. She could be mine. Just for a moment, but mine.
“Take me home,” she says, her voice cold and final.
I start the engine, my mind racing as fast as my heart.The drive ahead stretches out like a metaphor for the distance between us—a gap I’m not sure I can, or should, try to bridge.
Thirteen
CORA
“Finally. This should’ve happened ages ago,” Bailey says, leaning back in her chair.
Jill nods, her blonde ponytail bobbing. “Absolutely. I was this close to staging an intervention.” She holds up her thumb and forefinger, barely a hair’s breadth apart.
I frown, looking between them. “I thought you two were on my side.”
“We are,” Jill says, reaching for her wine glass. “We’re on the side of you dumping that loser. Team Cora all the way.”
“Yeah,” Bailey chimes in. “We’ve got ‘Cora’s Ex-Boyfriend Sucks’ t-shirts and everything.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
Bailey grins. “Maybe. Maybe not. You’ll never find out unless you come to our next team meeting.”
“Speaking of team meetings,” Jill interjects, “I brought reinforcements.” She reaches into her oversized tote bag and pulls out three pints of ice cream. “I’ve got ‘Chunky Monkey’for the hungry, ‘Cherry Garcia’ for the heartbroken, and ‘Phish Food’ for the... well, I don’t know what it’s for, but it has little chocolate fish in it, so cute.”
“You’re a saint,” I say, choosing a spoon.
Bailey rummages in her own purse. “I brought reinforcements too,” she announces, producing a small, ragged-looking cloth figure.
My eyes widen. “What the hell is that?”
“A voodoo doll,” Bailey explains, her face dead serious. “You’re supposed to stick pins in it where you want him to hurt. I was thinking the dick.”
Jill plucks the doll from Bailey’s hand, inspecting it. “You need to attach something of his for it to work. Like hair or clothing. Otherwise, the spell won’t take.” She looks at me. “Do you have anything?”
“Give me that.” I snatch the doll away. “I don’t need spells or voodoo. Where did you even get this? And more importantly, why?”
Bailey’s face falls. “Fine. Can we hold a séance instead, then? Got any dead grandmas who’d like to weigh in on your love life?”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You’re a pilot, for God’s sake. No one’s going to want to fly with you if they hear about this. ‘This is your captain speaking. We’re experiencing some turbulence, so I’m going to consult my Ouija board for landing advice.’”
Bailey shrugs. “They don’t need to know what I do in my free time. I saw a Ouija board when I bought the doll. Thought it might be fun to try. Summon the ghost of relationships past and stuff.”
