I nodded, flattered he knew my name.
“I’m Damiel. I don’t think we’ve formally met.” He offered me his hand with an elaborate flourish. I shook it. “What do you normally do for fun around here on a Friday night?”
“Nothing,” I said, then cringed inwardly. With both Heather and Fiona dating, my social life was pretty much non-existent these days. But that wasn’t something he needed to know.
He pulled up a chair beside me and leaned in close. “How about we make our own fun then? Go for a ride?”
I looked down at the keyboard. Having him so close made me hold my breath, a little freaked out. “I don’t know.”
He leaned back but reached his hand out on the desk so it rested hardly an inch from mine. Eyebrows raised, mouth open, he paused dramatically before he spoke, as though making sure he had my attention. “You know, I once heard this myth about the afterlife…”
“The afterlife?” I shifted in my seat and pulled my hand away, not wanting to give him the wrong idea.
“Yeah. You believe in one, don’t you? Heaven? Hell? Reincarnation? Or do you think when you die it’s all over?”
“I–I don’t know,” I stammered. Many ancient cultures did believe in an afterlife, but I wasn’t sure what I believed. “I wasn’t raised religious or anything.” My mind flashed back to Farouk’s comment about Michael’s near-death experience, the idea of Michael coming back different. What did it mean?
“Well, some cultures used to believe, at the time of death, that instead of being judged on how well you abstained from the pleasures of life…” He leaned in closer. “…you would be judged by how well you enjoyed them.” With a smile that could boil glaciers, he ran a finger up my arm from elbow to shoulder. It left a path that tingled all the way down to my toes.
“Interesting,” I said, surprised by how fast this was going. No one had ever touched me that way before. All the blood rushed from my head, leaving me dizzy and more than a little scared of him. “W–where did you hear this?”
“Read it somewhere.” He shrugged. “In order to honor the gods, they believed you should live your life to the fullest.”
“They did?” I asked, trying to recover from the swooning his touch had brought in me, the way it clouded my thoughts. I was reminded of a show I’d seen on TV about sharks. There’s a way of hypnotizing them called “tonic immobility.” Some sharks use it for mating, where the male would roll the female onto her back and she would be paralyzed in a serotonin-induced euphoric state. On the show, when people learned how to do it to them, the sharks would seek them out so that they could experience this bliss, sinking deep into the water until the human could hold on no longer.
In that moment, I knew exactly how those sharks felt.
“So how about you, Mia?” he asked, a slow, seductive smile forming on his lips. “Do you live your life to the fullest?”
I thought of Michael, how much I’d hoped he’d talk to me, and now here was Damiel offering me pleasures I’d only fantasized about. Despite my feelings for Michael, a voice in my head said Of course not. Show me how! All hotness aside, ten minutes ago he was just another guy at school, and now that he was asking me out I was enthralled by him. How did he do it?
Across the library, Michael was leaning against one of the stacks with his arms crossed, as beautiful and unattainable as ever, his mouth set into a hard line. Why was he watching me now when he seemed to care too little on regular days? Was he judging me for flirting with Damiel when he hardly spoke to me himself?
My mouth dried up and I swallowed hard, not sure what to say next.
“Relax,” Damiel said, startling me. “I won’t do anything unless you want me to.”
I laughed. It was more of a nervous trill that rang out through the quiet library. The librarian at the desk put her finger to her lips in admonishment.
When I looked back to where Michael had been standing, he was gone. I was so flustered I hadn’t seen him leave.
Despite the fact that Damiel seemed interested in me, I wished Michael was the one asking me out. But that would never happen. My attraction for Michael was pathetically one-sided. It took a crisis for him to even come near me and I half wanted to put myself into some kind of crisis to be near him again.
“Tell me something?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Damiel gave me a suggestive smile that made my face heat up. “Sure.”
“What’s with you and Michael?”
His smile wavered slightly. “Why do you ask?”
“Something about the way the two of you look at each other—”
“That makes you think Hallmark card?”
I stifled a grin. “Not exactly.”
He chuckled, a low throaty sound. “I can’t help it if he acts like he’s in a spaghetti western.”
“A what?” I gave him a puzzled look.
“You know. Clint Eastwood. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”
“Sure.” A memory of Bill watching old Clint Eastwood movies with Dad when we were kids clutched at my throat. I swallowed. “Which one are you?”
He leaned in to me and said in a low, sexy voice, “Definitely not the ugly.”
I had to agree with him, but his ego didn’t need the boost. I focused on the computer screen, logged myself out, then asked, “So you two know each other?”
“We met last year in the hospital.”
He lifted his booted foot up to his chair and pulled up the leg of his jeans. My attention was drawn immediately to a large serpent tattooed on the back of his calf.
“Did that hurt?” I said, taking a closer look. The serpent was highly detailed, its scales shades of black and gray against his olive skin.
“Wasn’t bad at all compared to this.” He pointed to the six-inch scar that ran from his shin all the way past his knee.
“Oh.” I blushed again when I realized the scar was what he’d meant to show me. His tattoos were none of my business. “How’d you get that?”
“Had an accident this past spring. Michael and I shared a room, became friends even.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged and covered his leg. “He doesn’t want to remember it, so he avoids me.”
“That’s strange.”
“It is what it is.” Leaning in toward me again, he whispered in my ear, “Want to come out tonight?”
I took a deep breath, bracing myself against the onslaught of his charm. “I really can’t.”
He wore an astonished expression, as though surprised I could resist. Considering how many other girls were all over him, I guess he had reason. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a haze around him, as though he were bathed in a faint smoke, but when I blinked and refocused it was gone.
Leaning forward, Damiel touched my hand, then my hair, all the while smiling at me like he was sharing a secret. It would have been so easy to lean into that smile, let it take me places. How could I be so crazy about one guy and so affected by another?
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” I said, getting up. I couldn’t get Michael’s expression out of my head.
When I returned to my locker, Michael was waiting for me. His jeans fit him perfectly, and the red sweater he wore showed off his broad shoulders and the line of his chest—muscular but lean. Standing there, he did more for me than Damiel’s touch. He cast his gaze down as I approached, as though he couldn’t even bear to look at me.
“How was your little chat with Damiel?”
“How is it your business?” I asked, wishing this wasn’t the first thing he’d said to me in weeks.
His scrutinizing glare was as cold as the morning sky. “This isn’t a game.”
“What isn’t?” I flicked my hair over my shoulder, trying to act casual. “Talking?”
He leaned in until his face was inches from mine, and my heartbeat went off the scale like a Geiger counter measuring a solar flare. It was all I could do to breathe. I didn’t want him to be angry. I wanted that moment we’d had at Fiona’s car after he helped me out of the woods. Staring into his eyes, I held onto the memory of that side of him. The gentle, caring side that I knew was in there. Even if he hadn’t shown it to me since, I still remembered.