I looked away a little too fast, making it awkward enough that she laughed, the kind of laugh that a certain kind of beautiful woman seems to practice: throaty, sensual, as if the sound should only be heard in high-end bars and bedrooms. It was a sound that would make men and some women turn to look for its source. I looked before I could catch myself. Her blue eyes were solid on mine, the look on her face a challenge, or an invitation. I still couldn’t always tell the difference, and sometimes there was no difference, because some women see dating like a game with winners and losers, and them as both the prize and the contestant. I didn’t know how to date women like this, but sometimes they hunted me even when I ignored them, something again about being tall and in shape, or so Reggie had tried to explain to me.
I was blushing by the time I offered my hand to Emma, not the way I wanted to introduce myself to her.
She laughed, but her laugh was just laughter, not practiced, not throaty, but it made me smile automatically, but what she said next cured my smile.
“You look like one of the men Shelby would date, but you aren’t, are you?”
I frowned at her as I let go of her hand, not sure what to say, except, “Who’s Shelby?”
“The blonde.”
I glanced back and found the blonde in question still looking at me. I turned away and felt the blush start to flare up again. For the love of Heaven, you’d think after being married with a kid I wouldn’t react to certain things like I was still fifteen and didn’t know that girls liked me.
Emma used one arm to hug Jamie to her. “You didn’t tell me he was so cute.”
Jamie pulled a little away, studying her face and frowning. I realized he was jealous. She noticed it, too, because she took his hand and said, “I meant he’s charmingly awkward, I thought police detectives were all worldly and sophisticated.”
Jamie relaxed, then looked from her to me, and then finally to the woman behind us. “Oh, she’s checking Zaniel out.”
She bumped her head against his shoulder, smiling. He was five-eight, so that made her about five-six because she was wearing jogging shoes, so no heel to cheat.
“I love how oblivious you are, Levi,” she said, pulling him down beside her on her side of the table. I slid into my side of the booth so that I could put my back pretty much to the wall and keep a view of the rest of the restaurant. It was a cop thing that Reggie hated, but she knew that if she wanted me to eat out in a restaurant in peace, I had to sit where I could see around me and feel as secure as possible in a crowded restaurant.
The blonde, Shelby, was still looking at me, as if she thought I’d sat like this to keep a better view of her and not everything else. I raised my left hand up to touch my face, so my wedding band showed more clearly. Her smile just curled up a little more at the edges. Either she didn’t care that I was married, or she liked that I’d felt I had to flash my ring at her. I did the one thing that beautiful women who are very sure of themselves hate most of all: I ignored her and turned to give all my attention to Jamie and Emma.
They hadn’t noticed the little exchange between me and the blonde because they were smiling at each other, their shoulders touching. I was betting they were holding hands under the table. It made me smile just to see Jamie like that with someone. We hadn’t been allowed to date each other at the College, and when he’d been cast out, he’d been too sick to worry about it. I realized in all the years I’d seen him on the street I’d never seen him with anyone romantically. I’d seen other homeless people that managed relationships, but Jamie had never been one of them. Was this the first relationship for him? I’d have asked, but I didn’t want to point out anything unhappy as I looked at them together. The shy happiness of them together, the obvious newness of their attraction, made something tight and sad inside me lighten up. I wasn’t jealous of it, or afraid for Jamie getting his heart broken anymore, because she was as gone on him as he was on her. They felt good together, like there was a hum of energy between them that was better for both of them. I was relieved to feel it, because part of me had been afraid she was like some of the empathic healers I’d met lately that gave their energy away but didn’t seem to know how to keep energy for themselves. It meant that Emma was already better trained than a lot of the civilian energy workers I’d met.
“I ordered tea for all of us, I hope you don’t mind,” Emma said. She smiled, her large, gray eyes framed by the even larger dark frames of her glasses dominating her face the same way that Jamie’s brown dominated his; if they had children the babies would look like those big-eyed doll paintings, but cuter. I had to shake my head and rotate my neck to help clear the thought away, because it wasn’t all mine. One of them was projecting, and since Jamie had never been projective but just receptive psychically, it was probably Emma.
I answered her while I thought about that. “It depends on what you ordered.” But I ended with a smile to answer hers. It seemed to be her natural facial expression, like the opposite of resting bitch face—resting happy face, maybe?
“Earl Grey latte, extra sweet, it’s Levi’s favorite and he said you both like your tea the same.”
I kept myself from making a face at the idea of an Earl Grey latte, but I managed to ask, “Just tell me it’s not got coffee mixed in with it and we’re fine.”
“No coffee in it, I promise. That sounds awful.” She laughed, and it was almost a giggle, which usually wasn’t my favorite from a grown-up woman, but it worked for her somehow. It was like she couldn’t do anything that irritated me, which made me instantly suspicious. Was she using magic on me?
“My guides say to look with something besides your eyes, Zaniel,” Emma said, staring at me with those big gray eyes that were somewhere between the color of rain clouds and gray kitten fur. Everything about her was . . . cute, from the curly shoulder-length hair, the light sprinkling of freckles, the big glasses, the small, upturned nose, the oval face, the lips that gleamed with the barest touch of lip gloss. She screamed harmless to a point that made me want to doubt it.
But now she’d given me permission to use my own gifts on her, or at her. It was considered rude to peek at people with active power unless they hit your radar so hard you couldn’t not see them. I didn’t have to lower my psychic shields, I just needed to focus to try to see more than just the physical. She was surrounded by white light; angels fluttered around her like a white, glowing outline. Most people had one, two at most Guardian Angels that hovered near them, around them, but the sense of wings and light around Emma was like a flock, a sense of energy and light that I hadn’t seen around anyone since I left the College of Angels.
I tried to concentrate just on Emma, just on the human in front of me, but the white light spilled out so bright and full of the movement of angels that Jamie was lost in the shine of it, as if his light merged with hers. I tried not to see anyone else, but it was like the power once opened couldn’t stop with one; it showed me the white flares around the room of other angels, usually just one, but sometimes two, all around the rooms. There were a few people who didn’t glow with angelic possibilities, and I almost broadened my power to see why, or what else was near them spiritually, but I stopped myself in time. It wasn’t my job, and if they were gifted enough to sense me, they’d see it as an intrusion.