“Freaking you out? Scaring you? Making you consider a mental institution?” I repeat his own words.
“Frustrating as hell,” he says with a short laugh. “And all of those other things. Hopefully, Elias will have answers.”
“Elias?” There’s one Elias in town that I know of. Elias Jamison, the owner of Havenwood Falls Ski-Ventures. Besides transporting thrill seekers up the mountains on ski runs, he does life-flights for the clinic. Mom has spoken of him a few times, but I rarely see him around town. He’s an angel?
“I can tell by your face you’re making the connection, and I’m sure you have questions, but I have a favor to ask.” Questions? Only about a million of them. Elias Jamison is an angel. I’ve never felt anything strange around him. I’ve never . . . unless my memories have been wiped before.
“Vivie.” Breckin’s finger tilts my chin. “You’re thinking way too hard.”
Counting to three, I inhale and release a deep breath. Breckin grins.
“Can we just chill for a bit? Have a snack and talk until he gets here? About normal things?” Breckin asks, with hope in his voice.
“About normal things?”
“Yeah. Like your favorite food, movies, and music. You know, the stuff people learn when they’re falling in love with each other.”
I stretch up on my toes. “I think I heard that somewhere before.”
Even at my tallest, my lips are nowhere near his. He presses a kiss to my forehead, understanding my hint. Well, somewhat understanding, since I wanted his lips on mine. Mildly placated, I drop to the flats of my feet. I must frown, because Breckin chuckles and hauls me into his body, his arms solid against my back as he lowers his head.
“I know your soul. I want to know the rest of you, Vivie. I want to know everything.”
The anticipation sends giddy sparks through my body. “Everything? That might take a while.”
Two inches from my lips, he pauses. “Then let’s start with the important things.”
I wet my lips. My body is a firecracker waiting for the fuse to reach the explosives. Everything tenses as a smile forms. “Easy. I’m wildly attracted, and attached, to an angel.”
A deep growl fills his chest, rumbling through his entire body as his eyes darken and arms tighten.
“Would you kiss me already?” I half ask, half order.
The explosives ignite.
We’ve moved to the basement, Breckin preferring the safety of being underground to the open windows of the main floor, when Elias arrives.
“He brought pizza.” Breckin smiles, giving my leg a tender squeeze before leaving me on the couch and moving to the kitchen. I rest my arms on the back of the couch, my gaze following him. “Enhanced smell,” he says at my dubious stare.
Enhanced smell, senses, vision, and hearing. He’s my own superhero. I track the noises above. It’s obvious from the way Elias parked in the garage and entered the house on his own that he is considered family. When his heavy steps hit the wood of the staircase, I stand and straighten my hair and sweater.
Breckin sends me a wink, I take a breath, the stairs creak, and then Elias appears.
Elias Jamison is what most would picture when thinking about a Colorado mountain man. He’s stout and burly. Half a foot shorter than Breckin’s six-two, he’s got the shape of a bodybuilder and the dark, wiry beard of an outdoorsman. He plops the boxes in his hand onto the counter and turns my way.
“Vivienne,” he says, with the type of gravelly voice rock stars envy. His bright blue eyes look me up and down.
I open my mouth, but did words come out? I try again. “I don’t remember you from Saturday. You were here, right? You erased my memory.” It’s not hello, but the questions have built up.
His full mouth cracks a smile. “Breckin told me you were a curious one.”
My gaze shifts to Breckin, who lifts his brows as if daring me to deny it.
“Well, you know. It’s not every day a girl comes under attack from reapers and falls for an angel.” I attempt a nonchalant shrug, but Elias’s black look freezes the humor on my lips.
“Falls for?” He glares at Breckin.
Oh. Oh, crap. I should have kept that to myself. It popped out, my lovesick heart and soul not seeing anything wrong with how I feel. Sebastian’s warning hits me. A son of angels in love with a human? They will kill you once they find out.
“It’s not his fault.” I hurry to the end of the counter, putting myself between them. “We’re not in love or anything. He’s—”
“Viv.” Breckin grabs my shoulder and pulls me into his side. “It’s fine. He wouldn’t hurt me. Or you.”
Elias’s gaze volleys between us, his face thoughtful. After a moment of tense silence, he wipes a hand across his face and through his hair, lifting his baseball cap, then replacing it before he finally releases a long exhale.
“Soul mates.”
Hearing the word from Elias’s mouth is confirmation. Breckin squeezes my shoulder.
“How do you know?” I ask, when neither of them speak.
“His pull toward you Friday night. The fact that neither of us could erase him from your memories. The look in his face. And yours.” Elias huffs a light laugh. “I’ve seen many teenage girls wear the same head-over-heels-in-love look, Vivienne. I’ve never seen it on Breckin.”
I have a head-over-heels-in-love look on my face? My cheeks warm. He does? I can’t help but glance up at Breckin.
“You’re right,” Breckin says, smiling down at me. “She’s totally falling head over heels in love with me.”
I punch him.
Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Breckin
We sit around the fire, our pizza—from Napoli’s, Viv’s favorite—on the coffee table before us, and take turns filling Elias in on every detail of the past seventy-two hours. Vivienne describes her feelings in such detail, I find myself taking her hand in mine on more than one occasion. The fear she felt when she woke Friday night after I left her. The not knowing what happened but feeling so off.
“It made me feel sick, Elias. Whatever it is you did when you wiped my mind. Don’t do it again,” Vivienne says, chiding him like a parent.
“That would be the soul mate connection.” Vivienne’s brow lifts, and Elias clarifies. “It is extremely powerful. Most consider it a gift given by the maker to fulfill the order of things.”
Vivienne’s eyes grow as they flit between us, her mouth gaping.
“In human terms, it means we were matched to fulfill our destiny,” I provide helpfully.
Or not so helpfully, judging by the way her stunned face swings my way.
“Destiny?”
“C’mon, Viv. Don’t tell me you don’t believe in destiny? That people are put in places to make things happen, or sometimes bad things happen to good people because they need to learn a lesson that will bring them to something better?”
“I think you’ve been scrolling the internet for motivational memes,” Vivienne says. Elias clears his throat, cutting off a low chuckle. She shrugs at him before returning her attention to me. “I don’t know what I believe in. Maybe things happen for a reason. Maybe it’s coincidence.”