His Sumerian name, I thought, and whispers of last night’s dream came over me.
Jana gave him a friendly smile. “Where are you from, Cas?”
“Yes, where on this earth did you get those eyes?” Abby asked with less subtlety.
“Sumer,” Cas answered.
I coughed. “Iraq. Sumer was in southern Mesopotamia, which is now present-day Iraq.”
“Thanks for the geography lesson, Luce,” Abby muttered, then turned her full attention to Cas. “How interesting! I’ve never met anyone from Iraq before. You’ll have to tell me all about it. I have, like, a million questions.”
I hid a smirk behind my hair. Take a number.
Guy and Kimberly had migrated toward us, both staring. Guy thrust his hand out. “Guy Baker. Cas, was it? Good to meet you.”
Cas smiled thinly, leaving Guy’s hand suspended in midair. “Ah, the infamous Guy Baker. Lucy has told me so much about you.”
“Has she?” Guy withdrew his hand. “Only good things—”
“About all of you,” Cas added dismissively. “Nothing but praise for her coworkers, striving to make a difference in the world. A commendable endeavor.”
I shot him a look not to overdo it, but the team seemed enraptured. None could peel their eyes from him, as if they weren’t quite sure he was real.
Take a thousand numbers.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Cas,” Kimberly said, starting for her office. “Lucy, perhaps you’d like to show him around?” She shot a look at everyone else: Stop staring and get back to work.
Abby swatted my arm. “Lucy, you’re such a tease, to keep your friend all to yourself. Cas, you must stay for lunch and tell us all about yourself.”
“I cannot stay,” he said. “I was merely in the neighborhood.”
“Dinner, then,” Abby said. “Let’s all go to dinner tonight!”
Jana waved her hands. “Not I. I have to pace myself with social endeavors these days.”
“Then the four of us,” Abby said. “Guy, you’re down, right?”
He shrugged with a grin. “I could eat.”
I looked to Casziel. I’d never been out with Guy socially. For the purposes of our plan, this was a good thing. Monumental. “Do you want to?”
“How could I say no?” he muttered with all the enthusiasm of someone about to undergo dental surgery.
Abby beamed. “Then it’s settled. The four of us will go out. Get to know each other better. And of course, Cas, you’re coming to Buzz Night tomorrow too.”
She was gazing at him with the kind of brazenness I’d never have, but Abby may as well have been a potted plant for all the attention the demon gave her.
“Of course,” he said. From behind his back, he presented me with the single red rose. “I saw this and thought of you.”
“Oh.” I’d read about fluttery stomach butterflies a hundred times in my romance novels, but I’d never felt them until that moment. I took the rose. “Thank you, Cas. It’s beautiful.”
“It almost does your beauty justice,” he said. “Almost.”
I could feel glances being exchanged all around me, but I was falling into the honeyed depths of Casziel’s eyes and not doing a thing to stop myself. If he were putting on an act, it was a flawless performance.
He pressed the back of my hand to his lips. “Goodbye, Lucy.”
“Bye,” I said faintly.