Caught in the Glow (The Glower Chronicles Book 1) (6 page)

“Top 40 radio as background noise, that’s about the limit of their interest.” He gave a rough chuckle, and then slid a curious glance toward me. “I guess it’s... different, growing up right in the middle of the industry.”

The thought of Dad made my breath catch for a second before I could answer. “Well, there are different problems too. Expectations. Comparisons. Pressure. And parents are still parents. It’s not as if seeing a musician’s career from the inside made my mom less nervous about me maybe taking that route.”

Ryder paused, scuffing his shoe against the velvet carpet. “Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have just tossed that out there. I know about your dad— I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

I guessed he’d done a little research after I’d turned up at his door. “It’s okay,” I said, and found, because he sounded sincerely concerned, that I meant it. “It was a long time ago.”

Silence hung between us as the elevator dropped the last several floors. As it eased to a halt, Ryder exhaled and said, “Well, here we go. They’ll probably keep the visit short. I was planning to meet some friends at a club when we’re done.”

“Whatever you want,” I said, “as long as I come with. I’m not trying to cramp your style, you know. I’ll be around if you need me, but I can fade into the background when you don’t. I won’t get in your way.”

He nodded and surprised me by saying, “Thank you.”

So I was feeling pretty good about my progress as we crossed the lobby to the wide glass wall that stretched across its front in a mimicry of the penthouse’s windows. Ryder was accepting my presence without protest, offering actual consideration to my feelings. Trust and respect—that was the foundation I needed.

We were almost at the doors when my gaze caught on a petite form on the sidewalk outside. My arm automatically whipped out in front of Ryder as I halted in my tracks.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, giving me a puzzled look and then peering outside. I motioned him back a few steps, and he followed, but his forehead had furrowed.

Standing beyond the tall windows, some ten feet down from the lobby doors, was the Glower I’d seen at the club my first night with Ryder. She’d pulled her sleek, light red hair into a high ponytail, rimmed her eyes with thick liner and painted her lips crimson. Beneath her cropped leather jacket, a bustier that looked more like lingerie than a proper shirt clung to her amble chest. The pale skin above it glittered, and so did her pale blue eyes as she peered through the lobby windows. The angle of the sunlight would be reflecting her surroundings back at her, or she’d have spotted us already.

She was confident. Glowers didn’t have to keep the same appearance each time they traveled to this plane, though they often had a template they preferred. This one wasn’t worried about my recognizing her if I was with Ryder, which she should have realized I was likely to be.

Ryder let out a low whistle. “Hot chick at two o’clock.”

“Hot chick you’re steering clear of,” I said firmly. “I know her. She’s trouble, and not the kind you’d like. The last couple guys she went after ended up in the hospital missing a few appendages.”

It was probably metaphorically true, and it was from the Society’s set of standard lines for warning off a client. Frame the Glower as a criminal of some sort, unstable and ill-meaning. It was the explanation closest to the truth that an ordinary person would believe when they couldn’t see what we could.

“I don’t know,” Ryder said, sidling past my still-extended arm. “A little time with a girl like that might be worth a bit of a trade.”

Was he kidding me? “I’m not joking,” I said. “Can you keep it in your pants for one minute? I’ll get Security to escort her away from the—”

“Oh, come on, Ave,” he said, his gaze still fixed on the Glower. “I promise I won’t talk to her, all right? But the car’s right there. I think I can manage to walk past a woman half my size without sustaining any bodily injuries.”

He strode forward. “Ry—
Colin
,” I snapped, grabbing at his arm, but he’d already barreled past me.
It isn’t your body I’m worried about getting injured
, I thought as I dashed after him.

He was already pushing past the lobby doors when I caught up, too late to drag him back without a commotion. So I hurried out with him, clinging to the fragile hope that we might make it to the waiting car without the Glower noticing us.

“Hey!” Ryder said, turning toward her as he grasped the door handle. He raised his other hand and saluted her. “Looking good.”

My teeth gritted. The Glower looked over and grinned wide. Ryder kept moving, at least, ducking into the car before she’d taken more than a step toward us. My stomach was churning, but I followed him in, I threw her a glare meant to remind her of how easily I’d kicked her out of this plane of existence the other night before. She halted, watching the car pull away. Still smiling. My fingers curled into my palms.

If she hadn’t been sure he lived here before, she knew it without a doubt now.

6.

“D
on’t give me that look,” Fee said as I let her into the penthouse a couple days later. She held up her arms, bangles the same bright magenta as her structured skater dress clacking around her skinny wrists. “You can’t invite me to his
building
without letting me see his place. That would be a total violation of the friend code.”

“I think the Tether Society code might have something to say about client privacy,” I retorted, but I was mostly teasing. Hell, if I screwed up this assignment, Fee might
be
Ryder’s Tether before much longer.

I’d invited her to brunch at the bistro downstairs not because it had particularly good food but because despite Ryder’s promise to hang out up here all morning, I didn’t feel comfortable so much as crossing the street from where he was. Not after seeing the Glower staking out the place the other day. Not after he’d already ignored my warning about her once. We obviously still had some work to do in the trust and respect department.

Fee shook back her fine black hair as she circled the kitchen island. She poked at the pots dangling from the rack fixed high on the wall. “These look like they’ve actually been used.”

“They’re not just for decoration,” I said, but I couldn’t blame her for being surprised. Most celebs in a position to have their fridges stocked by outside help didn’t deign to touch the kitchen appliances. Ryder usually ate out for dinner, but I’d seen him make a few breakfast omelets and lunchtime pastas since I’d arrived. He washed the pans and pots afterward too, which was even more impressive. I guessed six months after the big deal, he wasn’t that removed from regular life yet.

“A rock star who cooks,” Fee said, raising her delicate eyebrows. She peered across the length of the living room. “Pretty sweet. So you didn’t get
any
dish on his parents?”

“
Fee
,” I protested, dropping my voice. I was mostly sure Ryder was still sleeping off last night’s partying, but only mostly. If he was awake... Fee’s voice was known to travel.

She grimaced at me and gestured for me to go on.

“It’s not as if I was part of the conversation,” I said, keeping my tone low. “I was sitting at the other end of the restaurant. Do you hang around for the Starlet’s family dinners?”

“The Starlet doesn’t have family dinners,” Fee declared. “She has family shouting matches and family bodily target practice sessions. I swear, they make my family look almost functional. I nearly got clocked in the head by her mom’s purse the other day.” She touched her temple gingerly. “So where
is
the rock god? Don’t I get to meet him?”

“Definitely not if you’re going to talk about him like that,” I muttered. “Come on, Fee, let’s—”

The intercom buzzed. I paused, glancing toward the hall that led to Ryder’s bedroom. No sound of stirring reached me. At the next buzz, I hit the answer button.

“Yes?” I said.

“There’s a package here for Avery Harmen.”

I blinked. I hadn’t been expecting anything—and I’d have remembered giving someone this address as mine. I shot Fee a look, and her eyes widened.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I know nothing about this.”

Maybe it was from Mom, or someone at the Society? Or maybe my Glower ‘friend’—could she have found out my name?

My gut clenched. I guessed I’d have to see.

“Okay,” I said into the intercom. “Bring it up.”

Fee poked around in the cupboards while we waited. The courier employee who came to the door handed me a cardboard box with my name and Ryder’s address on it. I signed for it and watched him leave, checking for stray glimmers. Nothing. I frowned. The box itself was non-descript, not even a company logo printed on it.

“That’s the kind of box they ship adult toys in,” Fee said with a nudge. “Avery, darling, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Shut up,”
I said, but I was kind of glad she was here in case the box’s contents were meant as a threat, not a gift. She trailed after me as I went to my bedroom, where I could minimize how much Ryder might be exposed.

I set the box on my bed. The tape ripped off the flaps easily enough. I jerked them open... and lowered my head with a groan.

“Bathing suits?” Fee said, lifting out a bikini top that was little more than two triangles of fabric, and then another. The first was leopard print, the second a dark pewter with a metallic shine. She cocked her head. “These aren’t exactly your usual style. Maybe you
do
need to tell me something, Ave.”

“I need to tell you that Colin Ryder is infuriating,” I said with a wince. “He decided my current suit isn’t risqué enough. I guess he figured just telling me that wasn’t sending a clear enough message.”

Fee gave me a measured glance. “
Is
something going on with him? I mean, it’d be totally understandable if you were into him. There can be fun in infuriating.”

“Nothing’s happening,” I said, but a blush had crept across my face. Fee jabbed my shoulder.

“But you like him,” she said. “Don’t deny it.”

“Maybe he grows on a person a little,” I said, waving her off. “I’m pretty sure acting on that would be against the Society rules. Not that
he’d
be interested in acting.”

“Ah, the only rule anyone there really cares about is whether you keep the client safe,” Fee said. “Sometimes you can do that better if you bend the smaller rules. No one’s complained about my approach yet.”

She flipped over the tag on the top she was holding, and then flopped onto the bed with a cackle, twirling it around her finger by the strap.

“It’s the right size!” she said. “Go, Avery! Colin Ryder bought you skimpy bikinis and he was ogling you enough to figure out exactly how big your boobs are.”

“Or how big they’re not,” I grumbled, checking the other top. She was right. He’d guessed my size correctly.

Fee kept laughing, covering her eyes as she gasped for air. As I stared at her, a chill prickled over me. It was kind of funny, sure, but not
that
hilarious.

“Fee, are you on something?” I said carefully.

She managed to stop laughing after a few sputters and peeked at me through her fingers. “What?”

“Did you take anything? Before you got here?”

“I might have popped a pill in the cab. Mmmm, yes, I think it’s starting to kick in.” She sighed at my expression and stretched her arms against the bedspread. “What does it matter, Ave? It’s nothing hardcore. They just add a little... sparkle to the day.”

“And having brunch with me is such a chore that you needed to add sparkle to it?” I said. The question came out more bitterly than I intended.

“Don’t take it as an insult,” Fee said. “It’s not about you. I’m just having fun.”

“Fee...”

She pushed herself upright, looking suddenly serious, but in a slightly spacey way that only chilled me more. Her gaze didn’t quite focus on me.

“I should be allowed to do that, right?” she said. “Have fun? We’ve got the most depressing job on the planet and we have to constantly be making sure no one stops the clients from having
their
fun, so, why not?”

“How can you have seen everything we did in training and think like that?” I said.

“Because I’m not getting
really
messed up.” She frowned. “This is about your dad, isn’t it?” she said with a matter-of-factness that felt like sucker punch. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, Avery. No Glower is going to come along and suck me down into the spiral of darkness. It’s completely clear I don’t have a creatively talented bone in my body. I’m one hundred percent safe. So don’t be a spoilsport about it. Please?”

It wasn’t about Dad. It was about my best friend of seven years, the person I’d shared joys and worries with since we started training a few months apart—the girl who’d told me jokes after a session had me on the verge of tears until I was crying with laughter instead of pain, the girl whose jitters I’d hugged away the day before her first official Tether assignment started, the girl who’d never once treated me as if our two year age difference and the vaster gap in various life experiences made me any lesser—acting like someone I didn’t know. Acting like hanging out with me wasn’t a sparkly enough activity to be worth her time while sober.

“I’d just rather you weren’t high when we’re hanging out,” I said. “That’s all.”

“Well, I’m here like this now,” she said. “Are we brunching or what?”

“We’re brunching,” I said, kicking the box of bikinis under the bed with the resolve to pretend it had never arrived. But as I walked Fee to the door, my stomach was tying itself into a string of knots.

It was hard enough trying to tether Ryder. I didn’t know how to tether my best friend too.