Hannah Jayne: Under Wraps

“Oh, it’s—”

“No, no. I mean, you look great. That’s a nice dress. Why don’t we go?”

I nodded gratefully, and Eric walked me to his car.

As we drove to the restaurant, I squinted into the darkened streets, my heart skipping a beat. I sucked in a sharp breath and bonked my head against the passenger window.

“Are you okay?” Eric asked.

I rubbed my forehead. “That was stupid.” I forced a smile. “I thought I saw … an old friend out there.”

An old friend. Huh.

I thought I saw Alex. Alex Grace, angel: fallen from grace, destined to walk the earth until he made his peace with heaven, buns of steel, lips that made my mouth water just thinking about them. Alex Grace who had walked out of my office and disappeared into thin air.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Eric asked again. “You look a little glazed.”

I hoped the heat radiating through my body wasn’t apparent, and I clamped my knees together. “I’m fine, thank you.”

I glanced over my shoulder out the window again and sighed when the man I thought was Alex turned and grinned a toothless, definitely not-Alex smile.

It had been six months since Alex left San Francisco, and I had been mostly fine until about two days ago. Suddenly, I saw Alex everywhere. He was the barista at the Starbucks on Geary. He was eating a ham sandwich at Mel’s on Lombard. Folding laundry at Wash’n Royal on Fillmore. Walking a three-legged beagle on Chrissie Field.

I turned to Eric and forced a smile. “So, Eric, tell me a little about yourself. We’re neighbors, and other than the fact that you read the New York Times, I don’t know anything about you.”

Eric smiled, and I liked the stern set of his profile. “I get the New York Times,” he said. “I rarely have time to read it. I’m a resident over at UCSF. Um, I’m from Pacifica, on the coast, originally. I like long walks, puppy dogs, and thunder showers turn me on. Now you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Thunder showers, huh?”

He waggled his eyebrows.

“Okay, well, I’m not particularly turned on by weather patterns, but puppies are all right. And I’m originally from”—I pointed toward the red glow of the towers on Twin Peaks out through the front windshield—“over there.”

We drove in uncomfortable silence for a moment until Eric tried again. “So, what is it that you do for a living, Sophie?”

Oh, right.

Well, Eric, I considered saying, I work at a demon detection agency. My boss—recently gone missing—is a werewolf. There’s blood in the office fridge, someone brought eye of newt to the office potluck, and I know, firsthand, that it is nearly impossible to get hobgoblin slobber out of linen.

“Oh,” I said instead, “administrative. But you’re a doctor—that sounds way more interesting. Tell me about that.”

I listened to Eric describe his medical career all the way to the restaurant, and pasted on a smile as he continued while the maitre d’ showed us to our table. I tried to keep my eyes focused on Eric’s shiny, disheveled hair while a guy, who looked very much like Alex Grace, bussed the table over Eric’s left shoulder.

“Could you excuse me for a moment?” I asked Eric, breaking into his breathtaking description of the cyst he had lacerated yesterday.

When Eric nodded, I crumpled my napkin and hurried to the women’s restroom, my stomach in knots, my palms sweating as I rubbed them against the Banana Republic sheath dress I had borrowed from Nina.

“You’re not here, you’re not here, you’re not here,” I muttered as I sank down on the toilet seat, my index fingers making manic circles against my temples. “You’re a figment of my undersexed imagination.” I clamped my eyes shut. “Figment of my imagination …”

“Are you through?”

I opened one eye, and my heart dropped to my knees as figment-Alex, now in the women’s restroom stall with me, raised an eyebrow.

“What?” I stood up, the backs of my calves ramming against the cold toilet, the automatic flusher going crazy. “You’re not here,” I tried, jabbing a shaking finger at figment-Alex. “You’re not here….”

Figment-Alex grinned and took my index finger in his hand, kissing the tip. His lips were warm, moist, and they felt very real.

“Alex?” I asked, my heart starting to thump.

“Hi, Sophie.”

“What are you doing here?” I rose up on tiptoes in a halfhearted effort to look over the stall wall. “You shouldn’t be here. And you really shouldn’t be here, here.”

Alex looked unfazed.

“I have a date out there,” I hissed.

Alex shrugged, looked nonchalantly over his shoulder. “Shall I tell him you’ve been detained?”

“No! No! You can’t tell a guy that I went to the bathroom and never came back. He’ll think I have explosive diarrhea or something.”

Alex leaned an elbow against the stall door. “So tell him you have to end your date because you ran into an ex-boyfriend.”

I could feel my eyes bulge, feel the color rising in my cheeks. “Ex-boyfriend? Look, buddy, you were not my ex-boyfriend, let alone any kind of ex—”

“Buddy,” Alex chuckled, stepping closer to me.

“Boyfriends do not poof! Disappear. And they do not return again in a public restroom. Especially not in the ladies’ room.” I dropped my voice. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“This was the only place I could get your undivided attention.”

I blew out an annoyed sigh. “Not here, here.” I spread out my arms, my fingers banging the stall walls. “Here. In San Francisco. On Earth.”

Alex looked around, the corner of his mouth pushing up in that deliciously annoying half smile of his. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.

I unlocked the stall door, steadied my hands on Alex’s chest, and pushed him out. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh!” A woman pushed through the bathroom door and gaped at Alex and me. “You people are disgusting!” She turned on her heel and sped out of the bathroom, clucking the whole way.

I pointed to the bathroom door as it clapped shut after the disgusted woman. “Isn’t it things like that that are going to keep you out of heaven? Or, wherever it is you’re headed?”

“Sophie, I need your help.”

I glanced at myself in the mirror, frowned at the bright-red blush of my cheeks as the blood surged through. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it. You disappeared. Gone—without a trace. Or a phone number.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving the way that I did. I just didn’t think you’d understand. I thought it would be easier if I just … wasn’t there.”

I put both my hands on my hips. “I work in the demon realm. I live in San Francisco. There are very few things that I don’t understand. But, ironically, you disappearing was something that I didn’t understand.”

“I have a chance to go back. To restore my grace.”

“To go back to heaven?”

Alex nodded slowly.

“Heaven?” I said again, one eyebrow raised.

“Can we talk about this, please? Maybe somewhere that isn’t”—Alex looked around the she-she pink powder room—“here?”

I tried my best to stay solid, not to lose myself in the cobalt blue of his eyes, in the firm set of his jaw. “Meet me back at my apartment in about an hour,” I muttered.

Alex grinned. “What about your date?”

“I’ll think of something,” I told him.

Eric was gnawing on a breadstick when I went back to the table.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his mouth full of bread.

“I’m sorry, Eric, but I’m just not feeling very well.”

Eric swallowed, his eyes sympathetic and locked on mine. “Oh.”