Rachel smiled. “You’re Lorelei’s big damn hero. And mine. You might feel like a goon sometimes, but you’re not. Everybody has self-doubt. Everybody. But all that other stuff you said about being boring is just bullshit. Lorelei and I have both been around long enough to know what’s important to us and what isn’t. We-she loves you, Alex, for who you are. It’s not magic. It’s not the ritual. It’s real. And my feelings are just as real, too.”
Alex searched for words. “You’re both just…she’s overwhelming. I can’t believe I’m worth her attention. And I feel pretty much the same way about you.”
“That’s how love usually feels. Especially at first.” She grinned at him. “And I’ll grant that we’re both pretty fantastic.”
“We were talking about something else before, weren’t we?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “We were talking about dumbass Vincent and the dumbass chip on his dumbass shoulder.”
“Well, if you’re over him, what’s he got to do with anything?”
“He’s…ugh. There are angels that guard over people, but there are also angels that guard over places. Vincent’s more or less got guardianship over this city as a whole. It’s political and it’s not like he’s got as much authority as it might sound, but he gets heard. And Vincent is all bent out of shape over you because you’ve shown him up.”
“So, what, he’s gonna come kick my ass?” Alex frowned skeptically.
“No. He wouldn’t attack you or anything. He’s still an angel, after all. But he’s going to try to get you stripped of my guardianship. And he might push that through, too, ‘cause you’ve got Lorelei protecting you. When a mortal gains supernatural protection of one sort or another, the guardians basically drop him. Usually that’s because messing with the supernatural involves turning away from the divine, but even when it doesn’t…” she shrugged.
“Wow,” Alex breathed. “What does that mean for you and I?”
“It doesn’t mean you’ll lose me,” Rachel said quietly but firmly. She gave his hand another squeeze. “But I’ll have other responsibilities, and if they demote me from being a guardian angel, it’ll weaken me. You get…I’m not sure how close this is into forbidden knowledge territory, but an angel’s status and purpose has affects her capabilities. Mainly I just wouldn’t be as powerful.”
“You’d still be you?” Alex asked. She nodded. “And I’d still be able to see you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t care.”
“You’ve really got to go to your next class?”
“I’ve got a test on Wednesday. There’s supposed to be a review for it today.”
“Can I come with you?”
“We can try it. It’s a lecture hall, and people have dropped so there are seats now…but the teacher’s aides take attendance.”
Rachel shrugged. “I can make myself invisible to every mortal except you just like Lorelei can. Just sit where there’s an open seat next to you. What’s after that?”
“Uh. Photography.”
“Oh,” Rachel said with an eager grin. “Right. With Onyx. Do you want me to make myself scarce for that?”
“No,” Alex said. “Hell, no. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I’ve just gotta do this biology class, and then…I don’t know. I already knocked out the other heavy classes today. I could probably skip the rest. I’d just like to be with you.”
* * *
“You will need to be able to list the characteristics of life. We did that on the first day. Also from our first class, you’ll need to remember our discussion on evolution and natural selection, as well as the readings on Darwin.” The professor spoke with good cadence and inflection, just enough to keep from being monotone, but she wasn’t trying to entertain anyone. Most everyone in the auditorium-style lecture hall busily wrote down everything she said.
Sitting in the back of the hall, Alex heard Rachel sigh with annoyance. “Not big on Darwin?” he murmured.
She took the sort of deep breath that enforces good posture. “We are expressly forbidden from speaking to mortals on that specific subject,” she said.
“Hot button issue for you guys?”
“A bit.”
“I dunno. Just your reaction might tell me plenty about creationism.”
Rachel looked at him sideways. “The frustrating part is how unimportant it all is. It’s a stupid thing for mortals to bicker about.” Alex was back to looking at his professor. After a moment Rachel said, “Anyway, the Norse had it right.”
He blinked. “The Norse? What, you mean the Vikings?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I know that one. Doesn’t it start with a land of ice and a land of fire and a magic cow being melted out of the ice in between?” Rachel nodded solemnly. Alex looked back at the professor again, considering what she said. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to lie to me.”
“Ask yourself if lying is the same thing as sarcasm,” she smirked.
Alex chuckled as he looked back to the professor. She continued her outline of the upcoming exam. “You will need to know the parts of cells, both animal and plant. That means you’ll have to know the difference between a cell membrane and a cell wall. You’ll need to remember what a vacuole does. You need to know mitosis and meiosis and the phases of each.”
“You’re hardly taking any notes,” Rachel observed.
“A lot of this is stuff people should remember from high school. I had AP Bio in my junior year.” He noted Rachel’s quizzical look. “That’s, um…I should’ve gotten college credit for this class already. Could’ve, I mean, if I had taken the test.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Jason got chicken pox a week before the exam. His parents were in Israel. I brought him his homework and some comics and stuff. Kept him company. Mom worked late all that week, so I hadn’t even told her for the first two days, and then she was like, ‘You idiot, you’ve never had chicken pox, either,’ which I totally didn’t know, and so…um, yeah.”
Rachel’s adoring smile fell upon him once more. “That’s sweet.”
“It was dumb.”
“Aw, I’m sure he’d have done the same for you.”
“No, Jason’s way smarter than me. Jason would’ve asked his mom if he’d had chicken pox, and then when she said no, he’d have sent someone else.”
“How long have you been friends?”
“Gah. All our lives. All the same interests. Geeks tend to cling to their own.”
“So you don’t really need to stay here?”
“I might. She’s not done with the review yet. If this covers genetics, it’ll kick my ass…where are you going?” he asked as she rose.
Rachel pulled away his notebook and moved the little fold-out desktop in his seat back to the side. Then she sat down on his lap, straddling him. “Right here,” she smiled.
His eyes widened. She leaned back, stretching to draw his attention to her chest. Rachel’s white dress was just loose enough to allow her to do this without it hiking up much, but just the same Alex saw a lot of leg.
She shouldn’t have been able to do this given the lack of space, but her legs went right through the seats to either side of him as if they weren’t even there. Alex blinked in shock. She felt solid against him, but she could apparently move right through solid matter. “And now you know how I can follow you around everywhere you go,” the angel teased.
She popped open the top button of his black shirt. Rachel leaned in, kissing and nibbling her way up from his collarbone to the side of his face. To make matters worse for Alex, she ground against him in exactly the right way to drive him nuts.
Alex knew he couldn’t do anything to hold her without looking weird to everyone else. She felt so good that he almost didn’t care. As if mocking his scholarly commitment, Rachel kept her head low or to the side so that he could still see his professor. While the woman at the lectern spoke about cells, Rachel’s hands roamed along Alex’s sides.
He didn’t mean to do it, but he caught the eye of the teacher’s assistant, standing by the exit near the front row. She glanced up at Alex’s wide-eyed face and strange posture with something between amusement and surprise. She also crumpled up the post-it note bearing her phone number that she was about to give him. Alex looked away. Rachel took the turn of his head as an indication to give more attention to the other side of his neck.