“Don’t say ‘everything’s fine’ like that. It makes me concerned that you’re plotting something nefarious.”
“Me? Never.” Morrie’s gaze flicked over my shoulder again. His fingers slid down my arm, and I wasn’t thinking about his criminal empire anymore. His hands on me, his strong body guiding me around the dance floor… that was all I wanted…
What is he looking at?
I stomped on his toes, a little harder than I was intending. Morrie winced, but his gaze didn’t falter. As Heathcliff clomped past, spinning Dotty around in his arms, Morrie leaned over and hissed, “Isn’t that Miranda, from the Argleton Arms Hotel?”
I glanced over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see with all the shifting lights. Heathcliff didn’t even bother to look. “Who cares?”
“We do. I happen to know that she works the front desk most weekdays. It’s likely she was working the morning Danny was killed.” Morrie craned his neck. “She was probably the last person to see him alive, apart from the murderer. She’s heading toward the drinks table. Heathcliff, take our woman. I’m going in.”
Heathcliff dropped Dotty like a stone and wrapped his arms around me. We danced closer as Morrie ducked through the crowd and went straight up to Miranda. I could see now Miranda was a leggy blonde with impressive cleavage spilling out of her v-neck sweater. In moments, she was tossing her hair and laughing at something Morrie said. Morrie handed her a glass of Champagne and she touched his arm, smiling up at him while running her tongue along her bottom lip. Watching them laugh and flirt sent a flash of anger through my veins.
Huh. That’s weird.I’d never felt like that when the guys talked to other women before. Even though I knew Morrie was over there trying to get information from Miranda by any means necessary, seeing him do it made me feel… not jealous exactly, but possessive. I wanted to go over there, drape my arm across his shoulders, and casually mention that he was mine, mine, mine.
But that’s not fair.I was dating all three of the guys, and they were completely fine with it. They bickered about me all the time, but they bickered about everything, so that didn’t make me special. They’d happily declared that they’d be exclusive to me, and I… I didn’t even want Morrie to pretend-flirt with a hot blonde in order to get some important information?
I didn’t like this needling sensation running down my spine. I suspected it had less to do with wanting to keep Morrie all to myself and more to do with my fear that one day they’d make me choose between them, and I wouldn’t be able to do it.
I needed something to distract me. Luckily, I had just the something in my arms.
“Did you ever try to date?” I asked Heathcliff, leaning against him and resting my head on his shoulder. Heathcliff couldn’t dance the way Morrie could, but he allowed me to stand on his feet while he shuffled awkwardly to and fro. “Before you met me.”
He shook his head. “Never wanted to. Morrie made an online dating profile for me.”
“No, he didn’t!” I couldn’t picture it.
“He did. He made me sound like a brooding, soulful artist. I went out with one girl who left me a no-star review.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. She said I wasn’t a tortured bad boy, I was just a dickhead gypsy and it was spending time with me that was the torture.”
“It sounds like she was the problem, not you.” I tangled my fingers in his tousled hair. “I mean, I can’t believe you can give someone a no-star review. Surely you’d get one star for at least showing up.”
“Apparently I have that effect on people.” Heathcliff’s lips brushed the top of my head. The gesture was so uncharacteristically soft that it made my heart skip. For a moment, I forgot all about Morrie and that weird niggling sensation in my spine.
Then I happened to glance over at Morrie and Miranda. They had their heads bent together in deep conversation. The niggling feeling returned with full force.
I spun Heathcliff the other way, so I didn’t have to watch. “Do you ever think about what you’d like to do if you didn’t run Nevermore?”
He snorted. “Why bother? Your father gave me a job to do. I’m not going to leave. What else would I do, go to the moors and look for my birthright – a house and land and ex-lover that don’t exist?”
“I’m serious. Consider for a moment that the upstairs bedroom wasn’t a porthole into space and time, and this book magic – whatever it is – didn’t randomly bring fictional characters to life, and there wasn’t a cache of dangerous occult books hidden in the storage room, and a spring of ancient mystical water somewhere under the foundations. If Nevermore was just a normal bookshop and you were just a normal guy, would you want to run it?”
“Yes.”
His answer surprised me. “Why?”
“Because you’re there.”
“Heathcliff Earnshaw, that’s not an answer. I asked whatyouwant. You can’t stand customers. You don’t want to learn how to use the computer. Half the time you’re not really even interested in the books.”
“I told you. I want to be with you, Mina. And you love the bookshop. Before you came it was just dusty shelves filled with paper, Morrie and Quoth being annoying shits, and customers who seemed sent from hell specifically to torture me. But then you came along, with all your crazy ideas. You make itfun.”
“Did you just use the word fun unironically? I think I might faint.”
“It’s true. You make me want to enjoy life, even if I never will use that bloody computer.” The hint of a smile played across Heathcliff’s mouth. “If what Grimalkin says is true, you, love, may have even brought me here in the first place, brought me to you. Why would I want to leave?” He glowered at me. “Do you want me to go? Is that it?”
