“I thought you liked reading on your E-reader.”
She didn’t lift her eyes, but she pointed at the device on her desk with the cord plugged in and charging. “This is my back up.” She jiggled the book. “Which I need today because the reader is charging. You know what back up I don’t need today?”
Now her gaze flicked up, and the blue, lighter than mine, held me pinned. “Any idea what back up I don’t need today, Delaney? Any idea at all who I might not need around here,” she spun her finger in the air, “interrupting me all day when they aren’t even supposed to be working today?”
“I don’t want to leave you short-handed if there’s another emergency.”
“If there were another emergency, you know I’d call you. We’ve been working together for years. You know this. So why are you really here?”
I shrugged.
She shook her head and went back to reading.
I tried to stay quiet, really I did, but it felt like I had electricity popping under my skin. I was on edge, wishing there was something I could do to settle my nerves, but I didn’t even know why I was so jumpy.
Okay, that was a lie. I was jumpy because a fricking car had just fallen out of the sky.
My wedding was coming up, maybe, probably, if we picked a date. But—and for reasons I couldn’t fathom—I was dragging my feet. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Myra licked a finger and turned the page. Loudly. Like maybe she was hoping I would get the hint.
I would not get the hint.
“I know I should be happy. I love Ryder. I want to be with him. Spend my life with him, but everything feels wrong.”
She closed her eyes and tipped her head down for a minute before gamely lifting her head again and going back to reading.
“I don’t know why I feel like this.”
The muscle at her jaw tightened.
“What should I do?”
“Go home.” She glared at me, waited a second, then went back to her book. “I will call if I need you.” She lifted her mug of tea that smelled of lavender and orange and took a sip.
“I just…wish I could figure out the mess in my head. I keep thinking in circles. Some of it is the car falling out of the sky. Some is that we now have three demons living in Ordinary.
“I know they’re hiding from the King of demons. But they signed our contract. Just because they had a hard past, doesn’t mean I can turn them away when they’re seeking asylum.”
She sighed. “Delaney.”
“Do you remember Bathin’s brother showing up when Ryder proposed to me?”
She licked her finger one more time, turned the page, then placed a red silk ribbon down the center of the book, leaving part of it hanging over the spine.
“Okay, now we’re doing this?”
“Doing what?”
She turned her chair and faced me. “You are avoiding working on the falling car situation, while avoiding planning your upcoming wedding situation by thinking about our demon situation. And the question you’re asking me is if I remember Bathin’s brother appearing out of thin air during your engagement and stabbing Bathin with a sword while I was standing there beside him?”
I winced. “I know you remember it.”
“I thought he was going to die. Yes. I remember it.”
I didn’t know how she could sound so calm about it, but that was part of how Myra handled things. She compartmentalized and intellectualized.
Unlike me. My emotions got in the way. Oh, not at work. I was all logic when it came to enforcing the laws of Ordinary. But when it came to personal hard stuff, my emotions were all over the place. I’d get them sorted out, but I had to work through them. I had to process.
