“It looks good?” he asked, sounding a little unsure.
“Yeah, it looks great. You should do it like that more often.”
He looked pleased. I couldn’t help but wonder what had brought this on. I’d been planning to attempt a makeover on him, if I could figure out a way to do it without hurting his feelings, but if he was going to do it himself, I could provide positive reinforcement. “You look good, too,” he said. “Is that for your dinner with Owen tonight?”
I didn’t need to ask how he knew about our date. Gossip flew at light speed around MSI, and Rod and Owen were best friends, so it was a given that Rod already knew, and I knew he approved of the two of us. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, what the rest of the company would think about our office romance. “Thanks, and yeah, it’s for dinner,” I said. “I just, um, borrowed it from a friend and was going to look for some accessories. I needed to be sure whatever I got would match.”
“It’s a perfect choice. He’ll love it. Have fun tonight.”
Fortunately, my roommates weren’t around when I got back, so I was able to give them an almost-true story about borrowing the dress from a co-worker when they arrived as I was doing my hair.
“You look great,” Gemma assured me. “Your co-worker has fabulous taste. Maybe you should invite her shopping with us sometime.”
Oh, I could see that happening. “Maybe,” I hedged. The buzzer from the front door downstairs kept me from having to come up with an excuse. Owen was right on time, in more ways than one. I got to the intercom before Marcia had a chance to interrogate him. “I’ll be right down,” I said, making it sound as decisive and final as possible. I wasn’t in the mood to have to shelter him from my roommates.
“You’re no fun,” Gemma pouted, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “Have a good time and remember it’s a school night.”
“Yes, Mom,” I promised as I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. When I stepped out the front door downstairs, I was immediately glad that I hadn’t invited Owen up. He looked even more handsome than he normally did. He was clean-shaven, the glasses were gone, and he wore a silk suit with an open-collared shirt that made him look like a photo spread from GQ. My roommates might have fought me for him. I was glad Ethelinda had worked her magic on me. Otherwise, I would have felt awfully frumpy next to him.
A slow smile spread across his face when he saw me. “Wow. You look amazing. Not that you don’t always look nice, but you look really nice tonight.” That was my Owen, absolutely adorable and delightfully awkward.
“You’re not so bad, yourself,” I said, feeling my face grow warm. Giving compliments like that wasn’t as easy as it looked.
He stepped toward me and gave me a gentle kiss that more than made up for the lack of a kiss Saturday morning. Up close to him, I could see I was right about the dark circles under his eyes. “Did you get any sleep at all this weekend?” I asked.
“Some.” He didn’t meet my eyes and instead turned toward the street. “I’ll get a cab.” That was an area where magical powers really came in handy in this city. He barely waved one hand, and suddenly a taxi practically jumped the curb to get to him.
He took me to a Village restaurant that was upscale in a classy, unobtrusive way. It was different enough from the kinds of places we’d gone together when we were going out as friends to make this very clearly a special date, but not so fancy that it looked like he was trying too hard. The prices on the menu were almost high enough to make my eyeballs bleed, but the food was described in plain, unpretentious English.
We spent several minutes discussing the menu and deciding what to order, then after we’d given our orders and the waiter had brought our drinks, an awkward silence descended over the table. We’d never had trouble talking to each other before. What had we talked about before we were officially dating? Oh yeah, work. Well, whatever it took to get the ball rolling.
“How did things go this weekend? Did you find anything interesting?” I asked.
He looked so relieved and grateful to have a topic of conversation that it was almost funny. “Interesting, yes, but I’m not sure how valuable it was. I’m now certain that someone I don’t know broke her out magically. I’m not sure yet how they got past our defenses.”
“You don’t think Idris was involved?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“He doesn’t seem to know anything about it.” I told him briefly about my earlier encounter with Idris. “So now in addition to having a rogue wizard with a short attention span to deal with, we also now have his girlfriend, who has more than enough reason to have a vendetta against both of us, and who’s capable of staying focused on one thing for more than five minutes at a stretch. Plus, maybe another player entirely who’s capable of getting past all our security. Fun.”
He made a rueful face. “You said it. We’re trying to track them down, but I’m also curious to see what they do next. I imagine we’ll know soon enough.”
“I guess it’s too much to hope that their big plan is running away to Fiji and leaving us alone.”
He laughed at that. “It would be nice, but I doubt it.”
I had something incredibly witty and clever to say in response, but before I could say it, there was a scream from the back of the restaurant, followed by a whooping alarm and a burst of cold water as the sprinkler system came on.
“Fire!” someone yelled, and I somehow doubted they were testing their First Amendment right to yell “fire” in a crowded restaurant.
Three
Astampede to the exit began immediately, with people knocking over chairs and tables in their haste to escape from the restaurant. Fortunately, our table was against the wall, so we weren’t in the traffic pattern to be trampled. As usual, Owen remained calm in the crisis. “Get your coat,” he reminded me. “It’s cold outside.” Meanwhile, he put on his own coat. I threw my coat over my arm and grabbed my purse, then we plunged into the melee. Owen kept a protective arm around me as we moved through the crowd. The real holdup seemed to be the front door, which was so narrow only two people could get through at a time. It created a bottleneck as people pushed forward in a panic. All the while, the sprinklers drenched us.
“This isn’t good,” Owen muttered. He waved his right hand and whispered something in a mystical language under his breath, and the glass in the front floor-to-ceiling windows vanished. Another wave of his hand and the tables and chairs in front of those windows relocated to another part of the restaurant. “This way!” Owen called out as he guided me toward one of those open windows, but he was so soft-spoken by nature that his voice didn’t carry over the noise of the crowd, the fire alarm, and the approaching sirens.
I put my fingers to my lips the way one of my brothers had taught me and gave a piercing whistle. “This way!” I bellowed. The crowd split off and followed us as we stepped onto the sidewalk. The police and fire engines had arrived by then, and the police officers directed everyone to the sidewalk across the street from the restaurant. Nobody questioned the glassless windows without any shards on the ground below. “Are you going to put those back?” I asked Owen, my teeth chattering as the cold outside air hit my thoroughly soaked hair and clothes.