He meant to keep the tone light and funny. But something in his voice changed, and she picked up on it instantly—because that lovely little smile drifted away from her expression.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said roughly.
“Walk down this alley, you mean?” He tried to bring the mood back around. “I think you’re better suited to the job than I am—”
“No.” She motioned between them. “This.”
Instantly, Boone got serious. “So you feel it, too.”
Her eyes went to the open end of the alley, where the traffic was stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper. There must have been a basketball game that had just gotten out, he thought. Or a concert. A show.
Maybe this had been a mistake to drag her into the human world.
“I don’t want to misrepresent myself.” She shook her head. “Isobel would do something like this. Not me—”
“You’re the one I want to share a meal with. Not anyone else.”
“I just don’t want you to have high expectations. A lot of the time—even before I lost Isobel—I didn’t feel right with other people. It’s like a gear that can’t quite engage. It’s always been that way and I don’t want you to think it’s you. I’m a little off—”
Boone reached out and took her hand. The instant the contact was made, Helania fell silent.
“I’m not expecting anything more than dinner,” he said. “On my honor.”
There was a pause. Then that smile came back even wider, and what do you know—it brought a friend. A dimple popped up, sweet as could be, on one of her cheeks.
Crocking his elbow, he grinned. “May I have your arm?”
Ducking her head, she put her hand through the space he made for her, and then they were walking down the alley together once again.
“You tripped on a pillow?” she murmured.
“At least it was after I’d gotten dressed or God only knows what else I could have hurt on that bedside table.”
Her laugh made him feel taller and stronger, even as his physical dimensions did not change.
And what do you know, Helania was still smiling as they got out onto Main Street proper and entered the Remington’s famous courtyard. Courtesy of the hotel’s two wings, there was a vast open mall created by the embrace of its stone extensions, the main entrance a majestic anchor with its hanging flags and Art Deco details. Illuminated by old-fashioned gas lanterns and marked by rows of trees wound with thousands upon thousands of Christmas lights, it was a fairy tale in the heart of downtown’s steel-and-asphalt anonymity.
“This is so beautiful,” she said as she looked around.
“Yes,” he murmured as he focused on her face. “You are.”
She was so taken by the spectacle that it appeared she didn’t hear him. Probably just as well. Right under his surface was an intensity that he didn’t want to reveal to her. Yet.
“It’s magical.” She reached out a hand and stopped just short of touching one of the lit-up branches. “Something out of a book.”
“The hotel’s famous for this courtyard.”
“I’ve only seen pictures of it before.” She paused and then turned in a slow circle. “The glow reminds me of sunlight back before my transition.”
She was right, he thought as he followed her lead and glanced around. All the little bulbs threw off a mellow, banked illumination similar to a summer sunset’s.
“Did you sneak out of your parents’ house to look at the sun, too?” he asked.
“Isobel told me I had to do it.” Helania smiled. “She said I absolutely had to see the sun before my change. As the older of the pair of us, she’d been through the change already. She showed me where to go through the basement of our family’s house, how to follow the crawl space and get out through an old storm door.”
“I always thought that humans smoking cigarettes behind their parents’ backs was like us with sneaking out to see the sun.”
“Exactly.” Helania shook her head. “I didn’t stay long. It was July when I did it and . . . yes, that’s what the color of this light reminds me of. It was right at sunset when I went out. My parents were making First Meal, and Isobel distracted them in the kitchen. I’ll never forget the feel of the warmth on my face.”
Boone thought back to when he and his cousins would duck out and watch the sun set and rise. They had done it so many times. Right up