Greg, Feeling  ̶u̶n̶Lucky

"You're late."

"Fashionably," said Isla, out of breath, strolling into the office like she owned the fanging place at half passed six. Arms laden with bags, she addressed the empty sofa with a little wave. "Evening, Pheebs."

Cheeks flushed. Pulse raced. My own fading, borrowed pulse jumped in to match her pace; I shuddered from it. Still getting used to that. Even after weeks of abstaining from her veins. Her very presence engulfed the office in the scent of sweet earth and mulled wine and fresh cigarettes. She changed up her shampoo recently, too. No longer mint and oranges. Now it was something more floral. Sweeter.

It was all very annoying.

Isla dropped her shopping bags onto the sofa— sweet hell, why so many bags?—leaving a gap where I presumed my ghostly secretary was perched and spun to greet me. The red smirk fell from her lips.

"I know, I know, shift starts at six sharp, Isla," she huffed, mocking my voice. Poorly, I might add. "Golly gee, boss, I am sorry. You must be up to your frigid butthole in waiting clients," she hovered a hand against her brow and squinted at the door, "ah, yep, I can see the line forming down the block. You're busier than Isgro's Pastries on Christmas Eve."

Covered my mouth to hide the silly grin the dame already pulled from me, against my own will, just like that. See how easy it was for her to get one over on me? You see?

"Oh, glitter tits, speaking of," she continued, rapid fire and completely ignoring my brooding. "You would not believe the day I've had! Busiest of the year!"

Isla shrugged out of her coat.

"We have a rack, you know," My chair creaked as I kicked my feet off the desk. "Fanging hell, woman, you ever get cold?"

She tossed the leopard fur garment atop her pile of bags. I bit my lip to keep for whistling. Dame was going to be the second death of me. Especially if she kept showing up to work in a doozy of a dress like that. The hot pink number tightly hugged her curves down to her knees, but looked thin, and low cut. A pinch of midriff was exposed, just under the flimsy knot securing the material over her breasts. When she shrugged, the tiny cap sleeves slid delicately off her inked shoulders.

"Funny you should ask, Greggy, because—" she reached into one of those bags.

"Hang on. Is that the dress from—"

"Yes."

"Niagara?"

"Yes," Isla beamed. She withdrew her empty hand from the shopping bag and ran it along her backside—fangs, I had to look away. "Course you're a Marilyn fanboy."

I tongued my growing fangs. "How'd you get replica of that?"

"I made it, silly boy," she turned sharply to her right (as I ignored the tingling sensation crawling up my veins), "thank you, Phoebe. Oh, Pheebs, you're going to love this. I had to clam-jam my last client today. She was getting down and dirty in hubby's ectoplasm right on my—Ah, let me make coffee, and I'll tell you all about it," Isla covered the yawn sprawling out from her mouth, "both of you. It's a riot."

"No professionalism when it comes to client confidentiality?"

She snorted, spinning and sashaying to the back of the office, where the coffee pot was nestled between bookshelves and filing cabinets. Her little pink number caressed her hips, hitching up slightly as she walked away, shivering just a tad, like a chill washed over her. Goosebumps erupted on her exposed calves.

Balled my hands into fists till my knuckles cracked twice before finally dashing to the sofa and picking up her coat. Casually discarded (she treat all the things she adored that way?). A gentleman would've offered her help with that. This mope was too spooked to run the risk of inhaling a needy whiff of her platinum bob (and the root touch up she kept insisting she needed).

"So this client, old woman, widow, the uszh, right? Her husband kicked it a few years back—oh no, totally natural causes. Yeah. Heart disease or some jawn. I know, it is sad, but—"

"What do you mean you made it?"

I hung her coat on the rack. What you doing, old boy? Now your hands'll smell like her perfume all night. That sure ain't swell for your concentration.

Dumping the used grinds from last night into the trash, Isla replied: "I mean I took some needle and thread and fabric and made a dress. I know, it's very homestead of me, but what's a girl to do when her taste is perfect and her budget's less than?" She replaced the filter basket without rinsing it first and then suddenly, unceremoniously, she cupped her chest. "Top didn't come out exactly as I envisioned. The dang sleeves will not stay put, but screw it, I still look fab, if I do say so myself. Thank you, Phoebe, I am a dish!"

"You sew?"

She peeled a new filter from the pack and nodded.

"When did you have the time?"

She took the empty pot—a pinch of grinds and brown burns smattering the bottom of the glass—and popped it under the spout of the water cooler. With her free hand, Isla pointed behind me, to the makeshift workstation she'd set up on my coffee table. Atop a book on Pennsylvania Law and blank licensing paperwork she was meant to have filled out weeks ago, was a well stuck pin cushion.

The hell? How'd I not notice that before?

"Here?"

Before she could spill the water into the reservoir, I caught the coffee pitcher. We stilled in unison. My eyes fell on her clavicle and the dancing carnation petals on her shoulders, and Isla shivered again. Funny. Don't even remember moving, and dang it, there I was, standing dumb and close enough to reach out and give that knot on her dress just the smallest tug.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Gently, I pulled the pitcher from her trembling hand, avoiding her dark, heavy gaze.

"I'm not paying you to play dress up," I said.

I stalked into the half bath at the far end of the office. Kept dish soap in there. And a sponge. Turning on the faucet did nothing to drown out the sound of Isla releasing that breath she'd been holding.

"Chillax, Sam Spade," she said. Sounded like she started fishing around for the bag of fresh grounds in the cabinet next. "Did most of the work at home. Thought a smarty pants like you would have noticed the sewing machine looming in my studio last time you—uh," she cleared her throat, pointedly not mentioning that the last time I was in her apartment I'd just bailed her out of jail. Or all the sleep she lost under me that night. (My ears burned at the thought). "I just did some touch ups here. And the buttons."

I scrubbed hard at the brown crust gunked up on the bottom of my coffee pot. Had she ever cleaned this? Flecks of blackened, burned coffee stained the glass permanently opaque in places, forever leaving her mark. "Isla."

She swung into the threshold of the bathroom like Gene Kelly on a lamppost, making me splash water all over my good shirt.

Isla pouted.

"But Greggy. It's. So. Boring," She glanced over her shoulder, "no, Phoebe, of course you're not boring."

"I leave you work."

"It doesn't take me six hours to organize three files."

Broad didn't do any organizing at all. Worse than Phoebe, she was at organizing.

"You could actually study the books I left for you."

"More of a hands-on learner."

Isla grabbed a paper towel and dabbed a bubble of soap off my tie. I froze, deer in headlights, careful not to move or blink or even breathe as she leaned in close. So close. So, so, very close and warm and smelling so dang sweet. Close enough to feel the breeze of her fluttering lashes. To see the mix of smudged mascara and purple bags forever ringing those dark eyes. She fondled my blue tie softly, reverently, red lips pursed into a plush kiss. Her pulse quickened slightly.

"You don't normally wear a tie," she whispered. "Seeing somebody special tonight?"

The dry, ragged itch of thirst clawed at the back of my throat so fast I choked.

Lucky penny. Lucky penny. Lucky penny.

I almost gasped our safe word for too much necromancy (or was it intimacy?) into the inch between my lips and her brow. But somehow, instead, I managed to reclaim the fabric without audibly groaning at the loss of her heat seeping through it. Cleared my throat. Went back to rinsing the last of the dirty water out the pot as Isla took a hesitant step back.

"You could tidy up," I croaked.

Yeah, alright, call me a coward. Sure. But I was taking one hell of risk hiring her at all. Letting her just be here. Five nights a week. Smothering my office in her presence for hours on end. Flaunting temptation at me with every beat of her—ah, enough of that old boy.

Isla was a knockout, sure. And smart. Funny. Perverted. Sweet, when she wanted to be. Reckless. A liar. And too damn powerful so long as I still carried traces of her blood in my veins. And neither of us had so much as a whiff of a clue as to how much of her was still lingering inside me. Some, at least. Or else I wouldn't have this faint pulse, or feel it shift so acutely whenever she entered the room. Woman could make me lick her feet and claim to not even know she was doing it till my tongue was between her toes.

Short of it was I couldn't trust her.

"Ew, Greg, I'm not your maid," she scrunched her nose. "You're already a neat freak anyway, don't get a maid, it be a waste."

I said nothing as I offered her back the now clean and crustless coffee pot. She smiled. "Oh. So, it was the maid who sent the blackmail pregnancy test to Mrs. Mc-what's-her-face!"

"Mrs. McGillivray and yes—"

She snatched the pot from hand and whispered in her low, husky voice. "Knew it."

Lucky fanging penny.

Isla went back to refilling the coffee pot from the watercooler. She giggled, randomly, at something I couldn't hear. Presumably some remark from Phoebe about my jeans or the size of my hands or whatever those two gossiped about when I was out on a job.

Oh fangs. Work.

"Righto, so, obviously, we've got to go out on that bathtub love potions case. And—"

Isla's shoulder tensed right as she finally got the pot gurgling. "We've been working that for weeks. What's the rush?"

"It's Valentine's Day."

"Yeah, and next month the witch'll push luck potions for St. Paddy's."

"And we have a new client appointment."

I brought out two mugs that had been on the drying rack in the bathroom. Handed her one with Netherworld's Okayest Sister painted on the side. Tried to imagine that Isla was still wearing her snarky little smirk, and not the twisting grimace she was poorly trying to hide.

"Oh, well, if we must go out and, say, I don't know, pose as a couple in the market to buy knockoff love spells, I brought boots," she said, pointing to her shopping bags. "And, uh, sneakers. Along with these," Isla kicked up her strappy black heels. "Not exactly sure what counted as proper footwear—"

"Isla, I left you a briefing about this appointment last night. Did you even read it?"

"So I brought every type! Can never be too prepared, I guess," face darkening, she shot a dirty glance at the sofa. "Am not."

Pinched my nose. "You're not coming out tonight."

"I'm sorry for being late."

"It's not about—you're not ready."

"Hands-on learner, Greggy," Isla's lip quivered. One her tells. "Thought maybe you could actually teach me something."

"No, I," I ground my teeth. All night. Out on the town. Together. Posing as a couple. Her warm softness pressed against my cold edges. Seeping in. Her scent, soaking my skin. Her pulse thumping in her chest and my ears and her lips and my veins and her throat and my now aching teeth. Together. "I need you here."

"Well, I need some experience handling your—"

"Excuse me?" a woman's voice called from the threshold. Oh thank sweet hell Isla didn't get to finish that sentence. "This is Greg Vasilescu's office, right?"

Isla, having a better view of that 7:00pm appointment I'd been meaning to tell her about over my shoulder than I did, plastered on a painfully forced smile. "Welcome. Bienvenido. What can a our behind what veils can the private eye glimpse for you tonight?"

Yeeesh.

We should really workshop that opener. 

Speak Philadelphian: Isgro's Pastries – Most often simply referred to as Isgro's, this bakery and pastry shop has been an Italian Market landmark since 1904. The go-to joint for cannoli, biscotti, rum cake, and of course the Philly favorite ricotta cookies. Lines wrap around the block for these famed desserts at Christmastime. There's nothing spooky or sinister about this place, except that the pastries are to die for.