Chapter Five

Sitting with my friends, we had a pleasant evening. They were all shocked to see Davey there. I failed to mention that he was technically a client. Davey was completely at ease. He didn’t try to seduce my married friends. Instead, he sat beside me, his hand on the back of my chair. I tried to follow the flow of the conversation, but I could feel the warmth coming off of Davey’s body. I could smell the scent of his skin; a clean but masculine scent, spicy.

I dared to glance over at him, and he looked back at me. I startled. His eyes—they were yellow, with black slits for the pupils…

“Your eyes…” I said, raising a hand to my mouth. He blinked, and they had returned to normal.

“What about them?” he said easily.

“I…um, nevermind.” I realized that he was supernatural, like me. What he was, I was not yet sure, but it definitely complicated matters farther. He leaned in to say something to me, and I could feel my skin tingle.

“Do you want to shadow me?” he asked suggestively.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Right now,” he said.

“Okay.”

“We’re going to head out,” he announced to the table, standing up.

“Well it was lovely having you,” Frank, one of the happy husbands said.

“Truly,” Bethany echoed. Hands were shaken, winks were given, and we left the restaurant. We stood out on the sidewalk. It had rained while we were inside of the restaurant, giving the city a musky smell. Davey stood beside me easily, his hands in his pockets as we waited for a taxi to pass.

“So how will this work?”

“I will pretend to be your personal assistant. You can call me Naima. That’s my middle name.” he nodded as I went on. “I’ll keep the attention away from me, but check out the women around you. See if any are a match.” He nodded, raising his hand as the taxi arrived.

“Do you need to go and change?” I looked down at what I was wearing. A little black dress with a pencil skirt silhouette.

“I’m working, remember?”

“Okay.” He held up his hands, as though I were threatening him with a weapon.

~*~

The women at the party that he took me to flocked around him. They wore skimpy clothes, and shot jealous looks at me, even though I was supposed to be working for Davey. He walked over to me, two champagne flutes in hand.

“So? What do you think?”

“A party at a Porno producer’s mansion is decidedly not the place to search for a future wife,” I said, taking a glass from him and taking a sip. A man walked by me, giving me the up and down, and I shot him the finger. Davey looked at me.

“What if that’s the type of wife that I want?”

“These women aren’t serious,” I said. “They want to be in the tabloids.”

“I’m in the tabloids,” he replied.

“Do you want to stay there?”

“I’d have to think,” he shrugged. “I mean, bad attention is better than no attention at all, don’t you think?”

I stared at him for a moment, realizing that he was serious. His attention was caught by a woman waving at him.

“I have to go and say hello,” he explained. I nodded. A woman in a halter dress with a plunging neckline walked over to me.

“I’ve heard that you’re Davey Allred’s new assistant.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are the rumors true?”

“Which ones?” her laugh was husky.

“The ones that say he’s looking to get married.”

“They might be,” I looked at her, inspecting the threads. Too thin. Red, but not pink.

“Is he seeing someone?” she asked, tilting her head a little. “You, perhaps?”

“Absolutely not.” I replied vehemently.

“Mmm.” The woman smiled at me, her eyes glittering. I wondered if she were a vampire. “Just thought I’d ask.” I kept trying to scan the threads of the large group of people who were surrounding Davey. He was regaling them with a story, which they were all laughing at. I felt all of the threads through a fog. It was my own attraction to him, I realized. I was never going to be able to find a good match for him. Taking deep, calming breaths, I noted a few women who had visible pink threads and no obvious dates. I walked up to the first one confidently.

“I love your dress,” I said. “Who designed it?”

“Oh, thanks,” the woman said. She was wearing a sparkly short dress. “It’s vintage.”

“Cute,” I replied.

“So you’re here with Davey,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, yes and no,” I said. “He recently hired me as his personal assistant.”

“Oh,” she said, immediately becoming more interested.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Yeah? That’s cool. You want me to introduce you?”

“I’d love that,” she replied. I got Davey’s attention. He walked over.

“Davey,” I said. “This is…”

“Caroline,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Hello, Caroline,” Davey said, giving his wide stereotypical grin. I walked away, moving on to the next woman that I could sense the potential love matches with. She was standing on a table, dancing. I waited until she climbed down, flicking her long black hair over her shoulders. She walked over to the bartender, who was just handing out drinks.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing a drink from the bartender.

“Hey,” she replied.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a singer, even though tonight, I’m a dancer.”

“That’s interesting.”

“So people say.” She seemed pragmatic. Davey would hate it…eventually. I looked over at him. He was talking to one of his close friends, who was another actor. I wondered what had happened with Caroline. There were a few other women with pink threads running toward Davey, but I could see that they wouldn’t be long term. My heart sank as I realized that there was a pink thread running in between myself and Davey. Not good. I couldn’t see where it was going, since Davey’s Fate was already so hazy. I was going to have to try harder.

Davey was walking toward me. He was rubbing his nose.

“Are you ready to move on?” he asked me.

“Did you just do coke?” I exclaimed.

“Well, we’re at a party,” he said. I rolled my eyes. I felt like I needed to babysit him.

“Let me get Caroline’s information,” I said. “She might be good for you.”

“Veronica said no call girls,” he replied. I stood there, staring at him in exhaustion.