Yeah, right, perv.
We dart through the air so fast my heart leaps into my throat. I cling to his neck and press against his chest—his surprisingly hard chest for a skinny guy—wind slapping my cheeks and raising goose bumps on my arms. Yep, I’m going to die, I decide. I’ve just gone and killed myself. But just as I wonder why my life isn’t flashing before my eyes, the wind stops and tendrils of hair that have pulled loose from my ponytail fall around my face.
“Open your eyes,” Bishop says, laughter in his voice. But I don’t. I can’t. “Am I going to have to peel you off me?” he asks.
Ugh.
I wrench one eye open. And great—there’s no chance of my heart going back where it’s supposed to be anytime soon.
I must have been dreaming to think Bishop would land on some safe, flat surface. When I look down, I find that he’s perching on the inches-wide metal scaffolding of the Hollywood sign’s letter W. Even in the pale light of the moon, I can see the jutting edges of the rocks some fifty feet below that await my fall.
“Relax.” Bishop gives me a little shake.
“No way, man.” I cling to him even tighter. “You’ll have to pry my cold, dead hands off you before I loosen my grip.”
He chuckles, and I really, really don’t like the way the sound bounces us around. I grip him around the neck so hard I wonder how he’s not losing consciousness.
“Look out there.” He nods to indicate the view, apparently not at all bothered by my choke hold.
I take a two-second break from considering how it will feel to land on the pointy rocks to look at the view. The city of Los Angeles spreads out before us, a landscape alive with trees and lakes and houses built on lush, rolling hilltops. Beyond that, skyscrapers reach into the black of night, winking light and illuminating everything in the horizon with a whitish haze.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think …” Well, that it’s beautiful. Also, that I don’t want to die. “I think you need to put me on solid ground before you’re dry-cleaning vomit off your leather jacket.”
Bishop’s face screws up. “You’re a classy lady … but your wish is my command.” He steps off the edge of the scaffolding. And suddenly we’re falling. My stomach drops into my shoes, wind burning my face like no chemical peel could.
Only at the last second, as we’re just feet from the ground, does Bishop engage whatever flying ability he has, and we float the rest of the way down. As soon as my feet hit soil, my legs buckle, and I stagger to my knees.
I swore after the second time I cried in front of Bishop in the less than twenty-four hours I’ve known him that it would be the last, but now hot tears well in my eyes.
“You …” I don’t hesitate before lunging at him. I catch him by surprise, and he topples backward with a thud. I deliver two-fisted punches to his chest. “Don’t. You. Ever. Do. That. Again.”
I don’t know what I thought would happen—maybe that he’d cry out in pain or just plain cry—but instead he gives me this infuriating smirk, as if a toddler were trying to beat him up and it’s too darn cute.
“Go on,” he says. “I like it rough.”
Double ugh! I’m suddenly acutely aware that I’m straddling him—wearing a micromini and heels, no less—and I can’t roll off him fast enough.
“You’re sick, you know.” I push my hair back from my face, panting for air.
He sits up and brushes gravel from his pants.
A breeze rattles the supports of the sign and ripples through the coastal sage scrub that dots the mountaintop. My ragged breathing is audible over it all.
“Sorry,” he says.
I turn my face away so I can discreetly wipe my cheeks.
“Aw, don’t be mad.” He pokes me in the shoulder.
I can’t say anything or I will break down. So instead I take big, deep breaths and wait until I get control of myself. Bishop, for once, doesn’t say anything annoying, just fiddles with the zipper on his jacket in some sort of quiet understanding.
“How do you do it?” I finally ask. “Fly?”
He shrugs—a whole-body gesture. “Magic.”
“Magic?” I repeat.
“What? You think there’s some more logical explanation I’m hiding from you? A rocket pack in my jeans or something?”
“Okay, so what are you, then? You know, since normal people can’t fly.”
“A warlock,” he says without missing a beat.
I search his face in the dark, but there’s no humor there.
“Okay. …” It’s a lame thing to say, but really, what should I say when someone tells me he’s a warlock? Twelve years in the public school system have left me unprepared for a situation like this.