I gaped at him. “Rude. And never.”
“And it’s your favorite color,” Angel said as he stepped into his boots and grabbed my leather jacket from the closet.
A flush spread across my cheeks as I took the shirt, putting it on over a dark tank. But he was wrong. My favorite color was the dark whiskey of his eyes.
Angel chuckled as my stomach protested again, the sound echoing through the apartment like a disgruntled bear. He held out the jacket and let me slide into it.
“Let me grab my keys,” I grumbled. His fingers trailed down my arm in reluctant release, leaving phantom heat in their wake.
I stuffed my keys in my pocket, noticed Ivan’s abandoned mug half full of now cold tea, and snatched it up. Peanut Butter’s tail twitched in his sunbeam on top of the small cat tower near the window. The faintest prickle of magic danced between my shoulder blades, Nox returning to his roost as a tattooed dragon on my back.
Then I saw Nikki’s sketch abandoned on the coffee table, pencil smudges capturing a moment I hadn’t realized she’d witnessed: Angel and me standing in the doorway. I stared at my own sketched face, at the way my pencil smudged eyes watched Angel with something terrifyingly close to worship.
This version of me in the picture looked tired—bags under my eyes, hair mussed—but more detailed than the Angel on the page. Like she’d had more time to study me and put me to paper. But Angel looked at me in the picture, gaze focused in my direction. The tilt of his head and softness around his eyes as he stared at me said something that made my heart flip over. Like no matter how crappy, tired, and plagued with self-doubt I might be, he saw me and somehow still liked what he saw.
Angel slid his hand under my jacket, settling at the base of my spine. “Wow, she’s good.”
“Amazing,” I agreed, shocked to the core.Did he really look at me like that?I gazed up at him, and he looked thoughtful.
“We can find a frame for it. Add it to your collection.” He pointed to the wall of framed art behind the couch.
“Ivan claims they’re all naked, so I don’t think this fits the aesthetic.”
“We should model for her nude next time? Okay.”
I gaped at him. “No. You’re not modeling nude for my best friend.”He was mine. All mine.Angel’s laughter curled around me like sunlight, warming parts of me I hadn’t realized were still cold.
“Seriously, though,” he murmured, his thumb tracing idle circles at the small of my back. “We should keep it.” His voice dropped, rough at the edges. “She’s very talented.”
My throat tightened. “I look terrible.”
He studied the picture. “You look tired. It’s what it means to be human. Not always performing or polished for a camera. That’s real.”
“But you look flawless.”
He shook his head. “Tired too. See the narrowness of my eyes? The hint of lines? The tightness of my jaw? Your friend sees everything.” He didn’t deny anything.
Including how his expression saidloveand mine saidhope. Holy fuck.
“Guess that settles it,” I said hoarsely. “Maybe we can hang it in my room?”
“Sure.” He leaned in to press a kiss to my temple. “Let’s get you fed; then we’ll worry about frames.” As Angel’s lips lingered against my temple, I realized this was the first morning where breakfast wasn’t just food—it was a beginning.
28
The Light Railrattled through downtown Minneapolis, familiar skyline warping at the edges where the Veil had seeped into reality. The haze over the old stadium district pulsed like a heat mirage interwoven with color. One moment the familiar arena loomed, the next something far older, with Gothic arches and ivy strangling its limestone walls.
“The train goes through the Veil?” I asked as Angel pressed himself to my side while the car slid through a tunnel I knew wasn’t there in the regular world, then back out into daylight again.
“Yeah. This line still runs like clockwork.” He squeezed my hand. “How’s your stomach?”
“The queasiness passes pretty fast,” I said as we disembarked near the convention center. “Attended more than my fair share of conventions here.”
The Veil split right through the middle of what I remembered had been an underground parking garage. And the day might have been sunny, but ozone hung in the air.
“They still have conventions, though the security gets a little wild,” Angel said, pointing out the hotel block that still decorated this side of the Veil.
“Do convention goers accidentally stroll through a Veil tear?”
