Strike at Midnight(9)

“Joint effort,” she said, handing me a cup. She waited while I slowly shuffled up the bed so I could take it from her. Thank goodness it was coffee.

“Thanks,” I said, and I cringed at the thought of Marcel having seen my chemise underwear. I would never live that down. “Why are you up so early?”

Melody usually slept in during the day due to her singing at the inn, then she would take off to swim in the ocean most nights. The beach was at least a mile away, so she didn’t usually get in until the early hours of the morning. She was as bad as me at waking up first thing most of the time.

“I decided not to go for a swim to look after you. You looked like shit.”

“So I heard,” I said, and took a sip of my coffee. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh as she threw some clothes off a chair and sat down, “I did.”

She was wearing a light blue frilly nightgown that was similar to the pink one that they had stuck me into—only she made it look a lot more feminine.

“I don’t remember what happened last night. Did Marcel carry me up?”

“He did. After you slumped off the stool onto the floor, he figured it was time. He said a pair of legs sticking out from a pile of taffeta on the floor wasn’t good for business.”

She chuckled and I found solace in my coffee. From the looks of the loose strands of hair around my shoulders, my light pink tresses had returned during my sleep. It made me feel like me again. Or at least it would in a few coffees’ time.

“What happened last night?” Melody asked. She leaned over my dresser and picked up the only nail-color-changing potion that I owned. It was bright purple.

“Won’t that clash with your hair?” I asked, nodding towards her long and elegant wavy locks that were the color of crimson. It was probably Melody’s version of bed head.

“Nothing clashes on me, darling,” she said as she dipped her finger into the potion and tapped at her nails with care. “I’m a colorful soul.”

It wasn’t much of a wonder why she didn’t have many female friends. Aside from being too stunning for many women to be comfortable with, Melody was completely at ease in her own skin and a show-off to boot.

“Love yourself much,” I said, and she spared me a glance away from her nails.

“Avoid the subject much,” she replied, then she got back to her task.

The coffee tasted good as I downed the rest of it, and then I gave in. “Got the guy, lost the slipper, got the payday. Hopefully more business will come out of the meeting this afternoon.”

Melody stopped what she was doing and gave me a pitiful look. “What happened to the slipper?” she asked.

“Lost it during the chase. But I also learned that glass slippers make a nifty weapon.”

She walked over to me with potion in hand, and made me shuffle over so she could lie on the bed next to me. She continued to tap at her nails so they could turn the same bright purple as the bottle, but she wanted me to have the contact. She was very intuitive like that—even when I didn’t want her to be.

“We’ll get it back.”

“Yeah,” I said, leaning my head against the pillow. “Thanks, Mel.”

“What else happened?”

“A guy,” I heard myself say, and I instantly regretted it.

“Oh, now that’s more like it,” she said, nudging me. “Spill.”

“Watch you don’t spill,” I said, pointing at the potion bottle that was balancing precariously on my covers.

“Stop avoiding. Talk.”

“Fine,” I said, using my fingers to wipe away the remainder of last night’s fatigue from beneath my eyes. Another bath was in order. And soon. “This smiley, stupidly pathetic guy came up and asked me to dance. We danced for a bit, and then I realized that I wasn’t there to dance and stopped it. I couldn’t shake him after that, then he tried to rescue me when I attempted to take down my target. It’s because of him the dress is ruined and that I lost my slipper while trying to avoid him.”

Melody stopped what she was doing and gave me the look. “You like him,” she said with a big grin on her face.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Yes, I did. But I also heard what you didn’t say. You really like him.”

“Whatever,” I said, and I realized that she needed to get her head checked. I went to tell her as such when she started twittering on about me and this guy sitting in a tree.

“What was his name?” she asked after her song. She obviously needed to fill in the gaps.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t we have a discussion about etiquette before you went?”

“Yes. I just didn’t catch it because of an overzealous pair of asses on the dance floor.”

“So what did he look like?” she asked, going back to painting her nails.

“A man.”

“Funny. What did he look like?”

“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to acknowledge why the thought of him pushed my buttons. “Tall, light brown hair, big smile on his face, gray eyes. If you threw him a bone, he would probably run after and bring it back, wagging his tail.”