But on the 23rd of December, when Clara and I were closing up the shop, she turned to me, seriously, and said, “I don’t think you’re getting out of here tomorrow.”
Covered in a down jacket I’d had forever that didn’t have enough filling for the temperatures we were having, I shivered and raised my eyebrows at her. “You don’t think so?”
She shook her head at me as she turned the lock on the door; we’d already set the alarm right before heading out. “I saw the radar. It’s going to be a big storm. I bet they’ll cancel your flight.”
I shrugged but didn’t want to worry about it. It had been snowing a lot, and tourists were still coming into town. Plus, it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. My superpowers didn’t extend to controlling the weather.
Pulling down the security gate that went over the door Clara still wasn’t looking at me as she said in a funky voice, “I forgot to tell you… someone… some… charity, I think… paid off my dad’s medical bills for Christmas.” One dark brown eye caught mine before she focused back on the gate. “Isn’t that a miracle?” she asked, sounding just a little funny.
“Wow, that is a miracle, Clara,” I answered her, trying to keep my voice even and steady. Normal. Totally normal. Even my face was blank and innocent.
“I thought so too,” she said, peeking at me again. “I wish I could thank them.”
I settled for nodding. “But maybe they don’t need any gratitude, you know?”
“No,” she agreed. “Maybe not, but it still really means a lot to me. To us.”
I just nodded again, averting my eyes until she wrapped me in a hug and wished me a safe trip and a Merry Christmas. We’d exchanged presents yesterday. I had sent Mr. Nez and Jackie a gift too.
But that evening, after driving slowly home, I was upstairs in the studio apartment, folding some clothes so I wouldn’t leave the place a disaster zone that would give neat-monster Rhodes a migraine, when there was a knock downstairs, a creaky door being opened, and an “Angel?”
I smiled. “Hi, Rhodes.”
The sound of him on the stairs kept the smile on my face, but when he cleared the top and stopped right at the landing, it went a little bigger, about as big as I could muster.
The corner of Rhodes’s mouth twisted. He was in his uniform, but he must have gone inside his house first, because instead of his winter work jacket, he had on a dark blue parka with a fleece hood. It was pretty chilly outside. “Couldn’t fit your clothes into the suitcase balled up so you’re folding them?”
I gave him a flat look. “I used to wonder if Amos got his sarcasm from his mom, but now I get where it came from, and actually, I was folding them so you wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest if you came up here while I was gone so…”
He walked over and stopped beside the table, his cold bare hand settling on top of my head. He eyed my small stacks of clothes—underwear in one pile, bras in another, mismatched socks over there.
I tipped my chin up and earned myself a rare smile. I swore he was handing them out to me left and right lately, and not like the precious currency they’d once been.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re something else, Buddy,” he said.
I set the T-shirt I’d been in the middle of folding down and squinted. “Can I ask you something?”
“What do you think?”
I groaned. “Why do you call me ‘Buddy’？ I’ve never heard you call Am that, or anybody else.”
His eyebrows crept up his forehead at the same time as his mouth stretched into an even more rare, supermoon of a smile. “You don’t know?”
“Am I supposed to?”
“I thought you would,” he replied cryptically, still grinning.
I shook my head. “No idea. I used to think you called me ‘angel’ because you thought that was my name, but now I know you just… whatever.”
Rhodes chuckled, laying a hand on top of the table, the tips of his fingers millimeters from the lace trim of my green underwear. Those gray eyes were totally hung up on them for a moment before he glanced back at me, color rising along his throat as he said, “Because you are one.”
My mouth gaped, and I was pretty sure I was just staring up at him blankly.
One side of his mouth rose a little higher. “Why do you look surprised? You’ve got the sweetest, kindest heart, Buddy. It wouldn’t matter what you looked like, you’d still be my angel.”