As he walked toward the other door on the floor, which I was guessing led to the utility room, I leaned against the door frame. “Thank you.”
Ambling back my way, he wiped his hands on his pants. “Anytime.” He put a sneakered foot on the stair, then twisted around. “Great band by the way.” At my frown, he pointed to my T-shirt. “The Eagles.”
“Oh”—I stared down at myself—“yeah.”
“Pity they broke up.”
I toyed with the hem, trying to extend it past the edge of my boy shorts. “Three of them sort of . . . died.” According to Ama, one of them was basking in the Elysian sun, giving sporadic concerts to flyersby, while the other two were atoning for their earthly sins in Abaddon.
“Sort of?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Okay . . . they died died.”
His mouth quirked to the side. “Night, Naya. I was glad to meet you. In spite of the circumstances.”
I rested my temple against the side of the door. “Good night, Grayson.”
His jaw pinkened. He palmed it, flung me one last pleasant smile, then turned and climbed the stairs.
Why couldn’t my meeting with Adam have gone half as smoothly?
Chapter 5
Naya
There were times when I wished I could fly.
Right now was one of them.
Under the drumming summer rain, wings huddled around my sopping wet body, and arms curled around two soggy brown bags full of essentials, I hurried toward number 9 Queen’s Gate. It took about three minutes of jiggling my key inside the lock to get the door open, and in the end, it wasn’t even my key that did the job but Emmy’s stepbrother.
The water beaded off my black feathers and plopped onto the ground behind me. It would take a well-trained eye to spot the odd rain-splatter, but I whisked my wings away nonetheless. Especially since Grayson was standing right there. Even though humans could neither see nor touch our wings, I wasn’t keen on the staticky sensation of arms coasting through them.
“Let me get that for you.” Grayson reached over to take one of the bags.
“Glad to see chivalry isn’t dead.”
“Like half the members of the Eagles?”
I laughed. “Yeah. Like that.”
His blue eyes sparked in the watery sunlight that cut across his face.
“How’s Emmy feeling?” I asked, as he closed the door behind me.
“Like those bandmates. The dead ones.”
Death wasn’t a huge thing for us angels, but for humans, it was, so I found morbid humor peculiar.
Arms pinned around the other bag, which weighed as much as my five-year-old sister Lyla, I preceded Grayson down the stairs, my house keys jangling from my fingers, echoing through the narrow space. “You’d think with full autonomous driving in large metropolises and light-speed internet, people would’ve done away with keys and locks.”
“Keys can’t be hacked.”
I set down my bag in front of my door. “Oh, so you’re one of those . . .”
He cocked an eyebrow. “One of those?”
“TCRs. Turn of the Century Revivalists.” They were a worldwide group averse to technology and change. Some resisted in the name of whichever god they venerated; others by principle, because they didn’t trust big corporations or had ethical concerns about how technology affected their race.
He snorted and smiled. “I’m most definitely not a TCR. I’m all for progress and technology. As for the keys”—he nodded toward the one I was digging into my lock—“I’ve been on Emmy’s case about getting rid of them, but since her father cut her off, she’s been trying to save up, even though she claims she’s keeping them around because they’re decorative.”
“He cut her off?”
“Emmy was quite the party girl. She cleaned up her act a couple months ago.” His teeth sank into his bottom lip as he followed me into the kitchenette and set the bag on the cramped counter. “I’m praying her stint last night was a one-off and not a relapse.”
I briefly wondered if Adam had had a hand in that, but then cast him out of my mind, unwilling to let him stain my mood.
“I’m going to be sticking around for a few days to make sure.” He strode out into the narrow hallway that still reeked of Emmy’s nocturnal stopover. “You should probably air out the place.”
“That was my next move.” As I rifled through the grocery bags for the air freshener, sponge, and cleaning products, Grayson walked over to the patio door and slid it open.
I crouched and sprayed, then scoured the wall and floorboards, probably damaging both. What did I know? Worst came to worst, I’d buy paint. I may not have known much about human chores, but I was well-versed in art, thanks to Ama, who ran my home guild’s art department.
I didn’t have her talent, though, but I had her know-how. Lyla, on the other hand, had taken after our mother. Five-years-old, and she was already creating little masterpieces. My guild bedroom wall was full of them.
My nostrils tingled with the chemical smell of cleaning products, and my eyes watered. I rolled off the gloves and washed my hands repeatedly, and yet, I couldn’t get rid of the smell.
Grayson leaned against the doorframe. “Lunch upstairs? I make a mean omelet.”
My stomach growled.
His gaze dropped there, and he smiled. “I’m taking that as a yes.”
If only all humans could be as pleasant as Grayson. Then again, if they were, fletchings would no longer have a purpose. I made a mental note to check his score the next time I visited a guild. More out of curiosity than because I believed he was concealing skeletons in his closet.
“Are you certain Emmy will be okay with me dropping by?”
“Absolutely.”
Since I was supposed to be reforming her, and I could do with a warm meal, I thought why not? “Weren’t you on your way out earlier?”
“I was actually on my way to get you cleaning supplies.” He rubbed the back of his neck until the skin reddened. “You beat me to it.”
“That’s really thoughtful of you.” Before shutting the apartment door, I looked toward the window. I had nothing to steal, but it was raining. “Should I shut the window?”
“Your patio”—even Grayson recognized it was a far cry from a garden—“is only accessible through the garden of the ground floor tenants, so you should be fine.”
As I closed the door, not bothering to lock it, I asked, “Who lives upstairs?”
“A retired couple. Both crime novelists. She’s really famous.”
The mention of crime novelists lit up my synapses. How handy to have people fluent in criminology living upstairs. Sure, novelists meant fiction, but fiction was always steeped in reality.
“The lady on the third floor is a harpist with a lot of cats.”
“How many are we talking?”
“More than a dozen. She has a pushchair for them and everything. Last spring, when she broke her hip, she tried to get Emmy to take her pride-and-joys out for some air. Em wasn’t keen, so I ended up with the job.”
This man was kindness personified. If he had even one point on his sinner card, I’d be surprised.