Page 75 of Deja New
THIRTY-FIVE
They made it to ICC by four o’clock. Barely.
“I can’t believe we both fell asleep,” she muttered as they hurried through the parking lot and into the building.
“I can. We were tired, we had a good meal—”
“A delicious egg-laden meal.”
“It was a beautiful day.” He showed the guard his badge, she showed her ID; they were allowed to go back. “It would have been odder if we hadn’t dozed off.”
She laughed. “Only you can makenotfalling asleep in a cemetery seem weird. And I’ve got to get a haircut.” She was trying to scrape her bangs out of her eyes (fashionably long and too long were not the same thing) and repeatedly failing.
“Your hair is lovely.”
“Drake genes—we’re all shaggy. Like bison!” Stubborn, willful, argumentative, meat-eating bison.
Archer and Leah were waiting for them. They must have justgotten there, as they were still holding the forms ICC needed to authorize their visit.Whew!
“Mr. Drake. Ms. Nazir.”
“Hello again,” Leah replied. “I almost didn’t recognize you in jeans.”
Archer was staring at Angela.Don’t squirm. Don’t fidget. Don’t look away. Drakes can smell fear, and also eggs.
“Sorry to keep you guys waiting.”
“We only just got here,” Leah assured her, but Archer was having none of it.
He took a step closer. “You look great. You’re glowing.”
“That’s a disgusting lie and you know it.”
His nose was five inches from her own. “You’reglowing.”
“You’re wrong. That’s not my glow. It’s Leah’s! Because, y’know, the pregnancy. Right?”Not my best off-the-cuff defense.
“What, because one of you is glowing that means nobody else in the vicinity can? And then there’s this clump of”—he reached out and brushed his fingers over the top of her head—“bark?”
“So?”
“In your hair.”
“So?”
“And you seem so... Hmm, the word’s on the tip of my tongue.” He rubbed his forehead and gave the impression of someone thinking hard, which was annoying. “What’s the opposite of grimly driven and obsessed?”
“Happily comatose?”
“Happy!” He snapped his fingers. “That’s what it is. You’re glowy and smiley and happy.”
“So?”
“You’re never happy here. None of us have ever been hap—Oh. My. God.” Archer seized her elbow and hauled her a few feet away from Leah and Jason.
She shook free of his grip. “You know they’re only five feet away, right? If your goal is not to be overheard? Because they can hear us.”
“You got laid!” he hiss-screamed.
