“You don’t, but don’t let your anger cloud what she was trying to say. We miss you, Felipe, and hopefully, after this assignment, you’ll take some time off.”
Wrapping the scarf around his neck, Felipe avoided her gaze and the dog’s.
“And will we see you on Sunday for dinner?”
Sunday was only a day away. The thought of having this entire conversation again tomorrow made his head hurt. They both needed to cool down. “I don’t know, Agatha. I don’t think so. I think we need some time apart.”
She straightened his collar and kissed his cheek. “I’ll set a place for you just in case. Stay safe, Felipe.”
With a final good-bye, Felipe escaped the confines of the house. The moment he was out of sight, he leaned against the cool brick and closed his eyes. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t. In the late afternoon gloom, he headed for the Paranormal Society as fast as his legs could carry him and tried to convince himself that was true.
Chapter Six
La Petite Mort
“I’m going to do it,” Oliver said and took a long, calming breath. “I am going to do it.”
Raising his gaze to meet his reflection in the mirror, Oliver’s bravado faltered. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“But he said he wanted to have lunch with you. That means he’s interested,” Gwen said behind him from her perch on the lab table. “Ergo, when you ask, he should say, ‘Yes, Oliver, I would love nothing more than to go to the chophouse with you, where we will talk about the inner workings of the human body. And after, I’d like to invite you back to my room for a nightcap.’”
Oliver’s face flushed as his heart kicked up to an uncomfortable pace at Gwen’s exaggeratedly sultry impression of Galvan’s voice. “If he actually said that to me, I think I would die.”
“They do call itla petite mort.”
“Gwen, that isn’t helping.”
Closing his eyes at her laughter, Oliver scrubbed his hand over his face. Since he told Gwen about the time he spent with Felipe Galvan on the monastery case at breakfast, she had been warming him to the idea of asking him out to dinner. He had repeated his conversation with Felipe several times in case he had misunderstood what Galvan had said, but Gwen was thoroughly convinced he should ask him.
Why wait for him to ask? Strike while the iron is hot and he’s still here.
Oliver had spent the whole day in a state of agitation, much to his dismay. He accidentally cut what remained of Mr. Henderson’s liver in two trying to excise it when he couldn’t stop thinking of what he might say to Galvan. It should have been easy.Would you like to go have dinner at Mather’s?But, instead, he found himself cycling through every restaurant and tavern he had ever eaten at. Which had the best food Galvan might like? What would be too loud for Oliver to stand on a Saturday night? If he picked somewhere nicer, would Galvan read into it or automatically say no because it was too expensive? Should he pay their bill or let him split it?
Then, Gwen had mentioned his appearance, that he might try looking a little less... formal. He didn’t understand it since he wore the exact same outfit every day, apart from his tie color, and the rest of him never changed. Any other outfit he owned was rarely used because it was either uncomfortable or impractical, mostly the former. Standing at the mirror with his hair in loose waves across his forehead and the color rapidly rising in his cheeks, a muscle in Oliver’s throat hitched. He looked different this way. He looked like himself, half-dead and stark, but his hair felt wrong even if he liked how it looked. That wasn’t how he came to work. Oliver dove for his bag.
“I’m fixing my hair!”
