Infinityglass (14 page)

“Listen.” I took a huge step back. Breathed. Breathed again. In that moment, honesty outweighed sense. “I’m not going to pretend like this isn’t something I want. You’re amazing.”

“Okay.” She looked confused.

“I thought you should know.”

“You’re either feeling sorry for me or buttering me up, and only one of those options makes sense.”

“It’s neither.”

“Okay, then,” she said. “I’m amazing. Know what else is amazing? My kissing. Are you going to find out or not?”

“No.” I backed up another step. “Because you’re frustrated, and I don’t know if I’m the cause or the cure.”

“Maybe you’re both.”

“Maybe that’s not good enough for me.”

“Oh my damn.” She dropped her head into her hands. “A guy with standards.”

“A guy who likes you.” It was out before I could pull it back.

She jerked her head up. “You like me?”

I didn’t answer.

“I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry I … tried to jump you, or whatever.” She picked up her bag. “Let’s just get the job done, and then I’ll … I don’t know what.”

Before I could say another word, she disappeared into the bathroom. I went to the bedroom and changed into my suit, then came back down to wait. When she opened the door fifteen minutes later, I lost all feeling in my extremities.

“I … you.” I cleared my throat. “It … um. Hi.”

“Hi.” The fire had mellowed, but I could still feel it. “Does this work?”

The shirt wasn’t low cut or black, but dark blue. It shimmered, and covered her from collarbone to hip bone. Classy.

But when she did a slow spin, a cutout showed off most of her bare back, the one that had started haunting my waking moments as well as my dreams.

“It works.”

The tie on my suit had barely been snug, but now it was
insanely tight. Maybe I needed to compliment her. Girls usually responded well to compliments. I had no idea what the protocol was for intended theft or retrieval.

“That shirt is like … a mullet. Business in the front, party in the back.”

“That is an absolutely terrible comparison.”

I swallowed really hard. “It was supposed to be a compliment.”

“You don’t date much, do you?”

I stared at her, unsure of what to do next. “Do you need a jacket or something?”

“And mess up the look?” She batted her eyelashes dramatically.

Definitely didn’t want to mess up the look. “I’ll give you mine if you get cold.”

“No, you leave your jacket on. Any bodyguard worth his salt is going to be carrying.”

“I don’t have a weapon. I don’t need one.”

“I realize that you’re He-Man sized and all, but your role in this little drama is to act as my bodyguard. If something bad goes down and you aren’t armed, we’re both in trouble.” She sighed, dug around in her bag, and shoved a stun gun into my hands.

I stared at it. “I have no idea what to even do with this thing.”

“Just make sure the safety’s on so you don’t tase your nuts off.”

As I often found with Hallie, I had no idea how to respond.

“I’m not going to lie and say that most often I find it disgusting when men can’t look above my shoulders. But above my shoulders is where you usually look.”

“That’s where your eyes are.” I sounded like an idiot.

“Do you know anyone who has eyes elsewhere?”

“I mean that’s where your intelligence is. I can see it there. I like that part of you.”

“I know. And that might be where your focus is right now, but I have to be honest. After our earlier conversation, I’m hoping your thoughts are somewhere else entirely.”

Chapter 11
Hallie

I
needed to be 100 percent to do a job, and I had to do this one well to keep Dune in my father’s employ. Now he had my thoughts spinning, and other parts of me aching. We were alone in a hotel. I’d thought there was something happening between us beyond a working relationship, but I couldn’t even convince him to stray a smidge into moral ambiguity. All he could think about was the job. I just wanted a kiss. So I would have an answer.

Not that I knew the question.

“Ready?” Dune asked.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind about the kissing.”

He put his hand on the doorknob.

“Fine. Now is the perfect time to go down, anyway. People will be leaving for dinner, checking in, and there’s some sort of reception in the lobby.”

“Why do you want more people instead of less people?

Shouldn’t you wait until the dead of night?”

“No.” I checked my lipstick one more time in the mirror, and caught Dune checking out my bare back. “Too much security camera action if we do it that way.”

“Why does that matter? You can change your appearance.” He picked up the key card and dropped it into his pocket.

“Right. But you can’t. If you were Poe, this would’ve been simpler.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint.” He sounded so touchy I had to grin.

“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it.”

We took the guest elevator to the second floor and wandered down the hall until we found the staff elevator. We needed to take it to the lobby so we could enter from the back.

“I like being with you,” I said. “I like you in general. I wasn’t trying to be insensitive. I was merely speaking truth, and as previously discussed, I can show you how not disappointed I will be later. If we get through this without any incidents.”

When the elevator doors closed behind us, I gave into my urge, turned to face him, and traced one finger along his jaw line.

His expression was stoic. “If you want to avoid an incident, you should probably not touch me.”

“But that’s the kind of incident I could get into.”

“Hallie.” He grabbed my fingers and lowered our joined hands.

“Saved by the elevator,” I said as the doors opened.

The lobby was hopping. A few businessmen, a couple of families, and a trio of transvestites all gathered around the piano in the corner. The man behind it played “When the Saints Go Marching In” at a roaring clip. I shook my head in disgust.

“People feed off stereotypes in the Quarter, and we grow them like algae. When I see things like that, I wonder if it’s the irony of the locals or the idiocy of the infiltrators. Plus, it’s a little hard to cause a distraction when there’s a sing-along happening.”

“You could get on top of the piano,” he said, without missing a beat.

I laughed, a real one. Dune could pull them out of me like magic. “We can wait until it’s a little calmer.”

“Nope.” He unbuttoned his suit jacket. I glanced at his pants pocket to see if I could make out the Taser, but realized too late that it totally looked like I was checking out his assets.

“I was making sure you had your weapon,” I blurted out when he raised his eyebrows.

He grinned.

“I was looking for the Taser in your pants.” When he snort laughed, I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Oh hell, can we just get out of here?”

“I said no. I have an idea. Do you have the replacement crystal in your purse?”

I nodded.

“Go stand by the case and get ready to make a move.”

“Excuse me?” I put my hands on my hips. “Did you just try to boss me on a job I brought you on?”

“I see a way to solve the problem right now. Trust me.”

He turned and walked away, did a check of the lobby, and then stared at the largest vase of flowers.

It took me a minute to figure out what he was doing, and another ten seconds to figure out it was going to work. I took off for the display case.

Every vase in the lobby started to wobble back and forth—the ones at the entrance, on the piano, on the check-in desk, and on every table. The next wave of movement touched the vases in the niches on the walls, and on each table in the restaurant. Finally, the giant water dispenser with fresh-cut lemons and limes started to slosh its contents furiously back and forth.

And then they all crashed to the ground at once.

I switched the crystals in fifteen seconds easy, and turned back to the lobby.

The people around the piano were jumping around, trying to keep their feet out of the puddles. “Was that an earthquake? Does New Orleans have earthquakes?”

“My suitcase is soaking wet!” A woman at the check-in desk looked like she expected the trusty Olga to suck the excess water up with her mouth, while Olga ran for an armful of cloth napkins.

Dune stood smiling, as chaos reigned. Then he met my eyes.

He crossed the lobby and took my hand.

I followed him up a staircase to a couch on a landing, nerves swirling. The sounds from the lobby echoed up to us, but otherwise the quiet was heavy.

“What’s going on?” he asked, sitting down.

“You’ve worked for Chronos for five minutes, and you figure out how to do a job on the fly. I was going to cop out because of a sing-along.”

Dune’s emotions were controlled, while mine were bouncing off the inside of my chest like a rubber ball.

“Did I make you angry by going off plan?”

“No.”

“You have the crystal ball, isn’t that all that matters?”

“No, I’m just … I don’t … this is
my
thing, not your thing. The Hourglass doesn’t steal.”

“Retrieve.” He grinned and pulled me down beside him. Close beside him. “You’re acting like doing jobs for Chronos is the only thing that defines you.”

I rubbed the skin above my sternum and wondered if I was too young for a heart attack. “It feels like it is. Like it always will. I’ll have to be the one to take it over, the one to carry it into the next generation, whether I want to or not. I’ll inherit all my parents’ choices, and more seclusion, more bodyguards, more attempts on my life. All that good stuff. I look at my life and the only thing I see in front of me is Chronos.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Hallie. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“You want to know why I think my mom is such an unfortunate human? She has the lamest ability ever.”

He took my hand away from my heart, held it.

“She’s a human clock. Ask her what time it is. She knows it to the second. It was fun when I was little, but the novelty wore off. I think she resents what I can do. The point is, she made up for her lack of ability by taking over. Having the most power. Wielding it over me. I don’t want to be her. I don’t want Chronos to define me. Ever.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“To go to Newcomb. They have an amazing dance program. And then I’d dance professionally, anywhere—it doesn’t need to be prestigious—and truthfully, I want to stay in New Orleans. There’s so much art here, and so much room to create all kinds of things. Not that I’ve seen much of it in person lately. But I know what the nightlife is like in the Quarter, and I remember all the performance art in the square.” I hadn’t set foot in it since Benny died. I could barely manage seeing the statue of Andrew Jackson along the skyline if I glimpsed it from a side street. “This city breathes, and I’m oxygen starved.”

“Then do it.”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “I can’t.”

Dune

“You’ll find a way.”

“What makes you so sure?” Hallie asked.

“Because … you’re challenging.” I paused to rephrase when she frowned. “Let me explain. Poe told me before I met you that you were smart. A genius. That’s true.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“That you were … ah … sexy.”

She pulled her hand away and her eyes went wide. “Did he—”

“He told me that whatever happened between you didn’t work out, and that he cares about you and considers you to be one of his best friends. That’s all I need to know.”

“Oh. Okay. I didn’t realize you were that close,” she said.

“It was a debriefing.” I kept going, hoping she wouldn’t dig deeper into my connection with Poe. “He also told me that you know what you want and how to get it. I haven’t seen anything that tells me differently. Whatever you decide to do with your life, you’ll do.”

“You’re one of the few who knows non-Chronos Hallie. I was frustrated upstairs, and I’m sorry I took it out on you. But you need to know that I like you.” She lifted her hands and let them flutter to her lap. “I think … you’re solid. You’re pretty. In a very manly way, of course.”

“Have you noticed how often you render me speechless?”

“It’s not purposeful, I swear. My brain overloads my senses sometimes.”

“I have a friend who says her edit button is broken.”

“I never installed mine.” She smiled.

“If you like me, why were you so … combative today?”

She exhaled. “Because I’m pretty sure you like girls, and I keep flirting with you, and so far, you’ve responded with a really, really terrible
mullet
reference and those nice things you said a minute ago. But you could have said those in friendship.”

“I said them because I believe them. I’m trying to keep things friendly because my purpose is to help you find out what being the Infinityglass means. But …”

“But?” She sounded hopeful.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to take her face in my hands, thread my fingers through her hair, and kiss her until neither one of us could see or breathe or worry about what was coming next. Then I wanted to go back to the room and … yeah.

“But maybe my purpose has skewed a little.”

“Why did the Hourglass send you?” She looked up into my eyes. “Why not someone else?”

“My knowledge base is broadest.” I was quiet for a minute. “And I’m glad, because I wouldn’t want anyone to be here but me.”

“Why?” She leaned in, and her eyes were on my lips.

“Because I wouldn’t have met you. The Infinityglass would’ve been cold and impersonal to me, and I needed it to have a face.”

Because now that it did, everything had changed.

“I’m glad you’re here, too.” She stopped for a moment, thinking. “What you did in the lobby was so
amazing
. I know you don’t like to use it, but you can control it.”

“Just the small things.”

“Then you practice with the big things. It’s a gift, Dune, not something you can shove in between your mattress and box spring like a diary. You can’t lock it up and forget about it. There could come a time when you need it.”