“May I have my wine, darling?” I requested quietly.
He looked down to his hand like he forgot he was holding it before he took the last step toward me and offered me my wine.
I took it and immediately sipped.
“Confirm you heard me, Frannie,” he demanded, not sipping his beer, instead glowering down at me.
“Come sit beside me,” I invited cajolingly.
“Nope,” he shook his head. “I gotta cook but I’m not doin’ that either until I know we’re both on the same page with this.”
“Noc, my dearest, I am quite good at this,” I assured. “I’ve had years of practice and I can’t imagine the skills I have do not translate to this world. I’ve watched carefully and I’ve planned everything precisely.”
“Right, this is the deal, babe,” Noc returned tersely. “You go into an attorney’s office, any attorney, but definitely an attorney known as the fuckin’ Savage, of all fuckin’ things, create a distraction in hopes that I’ll be able to follow you and go unseen into his office to hack into his computer to get his schedule so you can set something up so he runs into Circe, you’re an accessory to the crime I’m committing. A crime the fuckin’ Savage will lose his fuckin’ mind about if one of us is caught. And you do not piss off an attorney, Frannie. My guess, and I’m betting a pretty damn good one, you especially don’t piss off one known as the Savage.”
“It’s a crime to look at someone’s, erm…computer diary?” I asked.
“It’s a crime to break and enter, even if you don’t do any breaking in order to enter, and it’s also a crime to help yourself to unauthorized access of a private or business computer.”
I thought of all the many times I had found my way (stealthily, I will admit) into someone’s study to peruse their engagement diary (or into another room to view an altogether different kind of diary) and shivered at the idea of it being a criminal act.
“Find another way,” Noc demanded as he turned and prowled toward the kitchen.
I pushed up from his sofa and followed him, explaining, “I’m uncertain how to do that if I don’t know where he’ll be. In my crystal ball, they’re always tapping at their computers, but obviously they don’t dictate aloud what they’re tapping. I can hone in on it but when I succeed, I don’t understand what I’m seeing, and most of the time, by the time I acquire the vision, the screen doesn’t display the diary since the person I’m watching has moved on to something else.”
He opened his refrigerator, sticking his head into it and replying to its interior, “This is not my gig, baby, it’s yours. Find another way.”
I stopped at his counter-esque/cupboard-esque area (known, Noc explained, as an “island,” which it was, in a small sea of kitchen) and shifted my bum up to one of the attractive stools there, murmuring thoughtfully, “Well, from what I know of this towing business where Circe works, such a service would be needed if I could arrange for Dax Lahn’s vehicle to be incapacitated.”
I heard the slam and rattle of the refrigerator door closing and then Noc muttering, “And now she plans vandalism, at best, destruction of property, at worst.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Are all aspects of intrigue illegal in this world?” I snapped.
“Uh, yeah,” he fired back, coming to a stop opposite me at the island.
“This is most exasperating,” I shared, doing it most exasperated. “I simply wish to plot a love match. How can that be a crime?”
“Again, Frannie, I’ll suggest that you just let be what’s gonna be. If they’re fated for each other, that shit is gonna happen. Just let it happen and try to be cool even if you hate the bridesmaid gown she’ll eventually choose for you.”
His words took me out of our conversation.
“Bridesmaid’s gown?”
“You’re gonna get to know her, she’s gonna get to know you. Fact is, she texted me yesterday to suggest we all get together for dinner, including Valentine and Josette. We should do that. We do that, she gets to know you, she’ll love you. She’s awesome so you’ll do the same. When she falls in love with this guy, gets married, she’ll want bridesmaids and I suspect that time comes, one of them will be you.”
“What’s a bridesmaid?”
He gave a slight shrug that, with his broad shoulders, still was a powerful one.
“You wear a fancy dress and walk down the aisle in front of her before she gets married. As far as I can tell, this position has three duties. One, to get the bride slaughtered during the bachelorette party, and by slaughtered I don’t mean dead, obviously. I mean drop-dead drunk. Two, to throw a shower for her so, and I’m speaking from the viewpoint of the man here, she gets really fuckin’ good lingerie and not a bunch of mixing bowls for the kitchen. And three, to hold her wedding bouquet when her new husband puts the ring on her finger.”
Fascinating.
“A wife gets a ring too?” I queried.
He shook his head but said, “No. She gets two. The engagement ring, usually a diamond but it can be whatever, just as long as she loves it, and the wedding band.”
One thing was quite clear about the difference in our worlds, the bestowal of jewelry upon marriage was one I very much liked, the significance of the symbol and the fact the wife gets a diamond.
“I see you like that idea,” Noc observed, and I stopped thinking of diamonds and focused on him to see he no longer looked annoyed but now amused.