I picked myself up off the chair and gave the chief a sharp nod. “I have a column to draft,” I said. I shut the door on him and his sigh, and slid back behind my desk.
But I didn’t work on my column. Instead, I stared blankly at my screen and my office “friends.”
The Raven saved me, saved many people, and now—now we had to thank him by warning him about the threat to his life. And we had to save him by getting him to stop.
“You okay, Liam?” Hannah asked, shutting her laptop.
I glanced over. “I need to find The Raven and warn him.”
She gave me a sharp nod and looked toward the piles of paper on her desk. “If I come across anything that will help, I’ll tell you.”
“Thank you, Hannah.”
Her smile was coupled with rosy cheeks, matching the hair tie she wore to pull her mahogany hair off her face and into a bun.
“Off now, are you?” I asked, picking up the phone, fingers itching to press the buttons and dial. I needed to call Beckman Hall right away.
Hannah pushed back her swivel chair and grabbed her messenger bag as she stood. “I’d better get back to my apartment else Lotte will complain I have no life at all. Not even a slumming-it-on-the-couch-in-front-of-the-TV life.”
“But if you’re happy, right? It shouldn’t matter.” I glanced from my laptop screen, glowing with the number for Beckman Hall, to Hannah, who was nervously rounding her desk toward mine. I gave her a small, curious frown and she blinked her gaze away from me. Shyly. Coyly.
I tensed.
What was happening here?
“You’re right, it doesn’t matter.If you’re happy.” She blushed and focused on me. “But I do want more than just working. Like... like maybe going out on a date sometime.”
I clutched the phone tighter as she tapped her fingertips on the edge of my desk. “Liam? Do you maybe want that too? To go out sometime”—her voice shook at the edges—“with me?”
I swapped the phone to my other hand as if it would help methink of a reply. I wasn’t sure how I felt about dating. Hannah was sweet; she always brought and shared oranges and grapes. I enjoyed talking to her during the day, and she often gave insightful thoughts on my work. But going out on a date?
I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose, even though they were sitting high enough already. Before I knew it, I’d laid the phone down and was clicking my pen.
Click, click, click.
“I’m not sure, Hannah. How about I think about it and get back to you?”
“Oh, um—”
I brought up my calendar on the desktop and scanned all the meetings, classes and deadlines I had coming up. “How does the end of next week sound?”
She frowned lightly. “So you’ll get back to me about us going out not this Friday, but next Friday?”
“No, Friday I’ll have to research for the party page, but Sunday would work.”
That way I’d have time to weigh up the pros and cons of dating. I’d made the mistake before of dating someone who worked in the office. Bad idea. But I couldn’t ignore the warm ache at the thought of someone wanting to spend time with me. Someone who actually seemed to like me.
Someone who would discover my dead body before it started to rot in my apartment.
“Okay, Liam.” She gave a small chuckle, then turned and left. “Next Sunday it is.”
The door shut behind her with a softclick, and I stared at it for a good ten seconds before the chief brought me back to the present, snapping his fingers in front of my face.
The chief left soon after, leaving me and the dodgy light alone in the building. Finally, I picked up the phone and dialed Beckman Hall.
The girl who answered sounded almost identical to Hannah,and I did a double take before introducing myself. She recognized my name right away. “I just loved the piece you did on ghosts of university past and present and that. Really great.”
What was it with that Christmas piece? Had no one any real taste? I cleared the strange mix of delight and disappointment from my throat, and my voice came out deeper than its usual baritone. “Thank you. I’d like to speak with a Dylan MacDonald?”
