Page 28 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“Tomorrow then. Unless you have another date.”
“No, tomorrow’s perfect. It’s my day off.”
“Seven o’clock?” Christian felt the anticipation start to rise within him, dark and electric like the precursor of a storm.
“Seven o’clock,” Ember agreed softly. Before he could say another word, she disconnected the call.
Ember stood staring at the phone silently for several moments, her mind a tangle of unanswered questions, her body a riot of emotions. She raised her gaze to Asher in the living room. When he had realized who she was talking to, he’d sat up ramrod straight on the couch and listened breathlessly to every word she spoke.
“So?” His voice was hushed, his eyes, wide. The green mask had dried in irregular patches on his skin and was beginning to flake off around his nose.
“So…it appears you’re going to get to buy me that dress after all. My knight in shining denim is coming to pick me up tomorrow night at seven o’clock. For dinner.”
After a low, thrilled gasp, Asher whispered, “You have a date with him, Ember. A. Date. With. Him!” He emphasized each word, his hands clutching the edge of the sofa as if he was afraid he might fall off if he didn’t hang on.
It occurred to her that this might be the worst idea she’d had in a long time.
“Don’t freak out,” Asher warned, reading the look on her face that must have telegraphed the sheer terror by which she was suddenly frozen. “It’s just dinner, Ember. Even you can make it through one dinner.”
“It’s not the dinner I’m worried about, Ash. It’s…everything else.”
Asher stood, crossed to her in a billowing cloud of blue silk, took her shoulders in his hands, and gave her a hard little shake. “Repeat after me: one day at a time.”
“One day at a time. Right. And how exactly does the motto of Alcoholics Anonymous apply to this situation?”
“Oh my God, is that the motto of AA? How the hell would I know that? Do you think that’s a sign?” He looked nauseated for about half a second, then shrugged it off. Asher was very good at shrugging off inconvenient thoughts, a talent of which Ember, plagued by not only inconvenient but agonizing and often immobilizing thoughts, was insanely jealous. “Anyway, it’s universal, honey. Life happens one day at a time. We’re just going to apply that to your relationship with Christian.”
Her eyes bulged. “Relationship?”
Asher rolled his eyes at her horrified expression. “Okay. Friendship, acquaintance, business association, whatever. We’re just going to take it one day at a time, one dinner at a time. We’re not going to worry about the future, we’re just going to enjoy the ride. Even you can do that. Right?”
Ember blew out a breath. The not-worrying-about-the-future part she had down pat. It was the enjoying the ride part that was going to give her trouble.
But Asher was looking at her with such…hope. He really was the only one in the entire world who gave a damn about her. She could probably manage one dinner for his sake.
“I suppose,” she relented. Then when his raised brows and pursed lips indicated he wasn’t quite satisfied with this answer, she said, “Okay, fine! Yes! I can do that!”
He beamed, and a little shower of green flakes from his dried mask drifted down like snowfall from his crinkling cheeks. “Good. One dinner at a time, starting with tomorrow night. And then after you’ve had a few dinners and basked in all his Alpha male glory, you’re going to answer me one question.”
“Which is?”
Asher’s smile slowly faded. He studied her face, and even through the thick layer of crusted pore-reducing mask she saw how concerned he was about her. How much he worried.
“The question is this: how alive do you want to be?” His voice was soft and tender. “Because you, honey, are barely breathing.”
Barely breathing. That sounded just about right. To compensate for the sudden flood of emotion she felt, the rush of sorrow and weariness and longing that squeezed her heart, she said, “You’re a real pain in my ass, you know that?”
He leaned in and gave her a swift, hard hug. “And that’s exactly why you love me,” he whispered into her ear.
When h
e pulled away Tender Asher was gone and he was in full Bossy Asher mode, complete with lifted chin, arch demeanor and a dismissive hand wave that would have been at home on the Queen of England. “Food first, then we’re going to talk about where I’m taking you shopping tomorrow morning.”
“What about the movie?”
“Screw the movie, sister, we’ve got plans to make! My boy Quentin can wait.”
Ember spent her Sunday morning—and most of the afternoon—being dragged from fancy boutique to fancier boutique by an over-caffeinated, almost manic Asher, who insisted they had to find the exact perfect thing for this momentous occasion. Knowing she’d become a project, Ember allowed herself to be manhandled and clucked over by a host of vaguely disgruntled shopgirls who stared at her as if she were a lab animal on which vaginal deodorant sprays had been tested.
