Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

“What’s wrong?” Jackson asked quietly.

“Nothing, it’s fine,” Maddy said.

“Mads, I know you. And I know when things aren’t fine. Did she hurt your feelings? You can’t let her get to you; she’s always been a little . . . aggressive, I guess.”

Maddy was silent, looking out into the crowd. A sharp wave of laughter came from the direction of Emily and her cronies. Maddy stiffened.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Jacks asked, squeezing Maddy’s hand, knowing when his girlfriend wasn’t having a good time. “I know a nice place. It’s up in the Hills, where the Angels live. And there’s ice cream.” A slight smile danced around the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t we have to stay?” Maddy scanned the glittering courtyard for Darcy. She wasn’t exactly afraid of their publicist. But in close quarters, she didn’t want to see her mad. There was a reason Darcy always got what she wanted.

“We appeared, didn’t we? That’s what making an appearance is. And then we leave.”

“OK, bu— ”

Taking her hand in his, Jackson whisked Maddy out a side door of the courtyard.

Jackson’s house was dark as the headlights of the Ferrari sliced across the slumbering home and came to a stop in the garage.

Jacks flipped the lights on room by room as they entered his place. Maddy adored Jackson’s beautiful new home up in the Hills off Empyrean Canyon Drive. She took her heels off and walked barefoot into the house. She was starting to calm down after her run-in with Emily.

The lights in the massive kitchen flipped on, revealing two platters of fresh cookies under plastic wrap on the marble countertop. Jacks laughed. “Apparently Juan thinks I might starve. He’s always having Lola bring some cookies over from Mom’s house.” Jacks pulled back the plastic on the trays. “Chocolate macadamia or” – he tasted the other type of cookie – “peanut butter.”

Maddy wondered what the Godspeed fans would think if they could see him now, standing in his sexy slim-cut suit, simply eating a cookie in his kitchen.

He turned to Maddy. “What kind do you want?”

“Both, obviously. We’ve been dating a year and you don’t know me by now?” She came up behind Jacks and scooped her arms around him.

Jacks laughed. “There should be some milk in the fridge.”

Maddy opened the Sub-Zero and looked in, the tip of her nose getting cold. Everything was organized, colour-coded. It still was amazing to her how the house manager systematized everything from when the gardeners came to what order the cheese went in the refrigerator. She didn’t know if she could ever get used to having everything done for her like that. But for Jacks it was the most unremarkable thing in the world: it was just the way he had grown up and how things happened in his new place he had by himself.

Maddy extracted a carton of milk from the fridge and poured them two glasses. She took a long swallow.

Jacks looked at Maddy, who was still in her “event” dress, and chuckled, his eyes warm.

“What?” Maddy asked, wondering what she’d done.

“You’ve got a milk moustache.”

Blushing, Maddy wiped the liquid quickly away with her forearm.

Jacks leaned in and kissed her.

“It was cute,” he said. He put some of the cookies on a plate and grabbed his glass of milk with the same hand. Jacks flipped the kitchen light off. “Let’s go to the theatre. I’ve been DVRing a bunch of those old movies you like.”

Maddy and Jacks snuggled in together on the couch in the dark room, still wearing their clothes from the event. A blanket covered their legs and they nibbled on cookies, the glare of the black-and-white movie on the TV flickering across them in the dark room.

“You feel nice,” Maddy said.

“Thank you?” Jacks said, laughing.

“I mean it. It’s nice to feel you here. To have you here. It feels like . . . support.” Maddy looked up at the Angel she loved. “It doesn’t matter what the others think. As long as I have you.”

“Don’t let them— ”

“No, I mean it. I feel like you won’t let me go.”