Wow, she was good. “I can’t argue with you there.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Like him. He’s made of fire. A black fire that’s so dark, so intense, instead of giving off light, he absorbs it. Bends it to his will.” She gave me her full attention then. “This is your Reyes,” she said, matter-of-fact.

“This is my Reyes.”

She cleared her throat, swallowed hard, and adjusted her collar. “I can see the appeal.”

“You seemed scared, Pari.”

She nodded. “Oh, I was. I am. Don’t get me wrong, but holy shit, there’s nothing sexier than something that beautiful, that enigmatic, and that deadly all rolled into one. Well,” she added, “as long as he’s not trying to kill me.”

I chuckled. “Can I give you a proper introduction?”

“No!” She started gathering her things again. “I mean, no, thank you. He’s just so— He’s too— I’m just not sure—”

“Gotcha,” I said in understanding, but burning with curiosity on the inside. I wanted to see exactly what she saw.

I looked over my shoulder toward him. He was leaning against his own doorway, and Garrett was leaning against mine. It was a standoff as old as time, when cavemen would challenge each other to a fight to the death with clubs. One of them had to be the alpha, and neither was willing to accede to the other. I squinted at Reyes, concentrated, gave it my all. Nope. He was just the hot guy next door. No starless nights or black fire.

“Oh, your phone is probably most definitely being tapped. Stop by and I’ll give you a clean one. You can use it for anything you don’t want them to hear, but just remember, they can hear you even when you’re not on your phone. Phones are the fastest and cheapest form of surveillance out there. If you need to have a conversation that you don’t want them to hear, you must take the battery out of yours. Don’t just turn it off.

“Call me later,” Pari said to me before tossing a wave to Garrett and hurrying out of my apartment.

“Okay. Don’t be a stranger.”

I realized Reyes was watching me when I stood to show Pari out, but the girl was fast, so I turned my attention back to the problem at hand. The wall thing. Seriously, who did crap like that?

Pinching Garrett’s ribs as I passed, I walked up to Reyes and stood with my arms crossed.

“Yes?” he asked playfully.

“This wall thing is not over.”

He hooked a finger in the top of my jeans and pulled. “We have a wall thing?”

My hands instinctively rose to his chest, the hard expanse smooth under my fingers. “We have a wall thing.”

“Charley!” Cookie called out.

“In here,” I called back, mesmerized by the dimples at either side of Reyes’s mouth.

She rushed in, winded with flushed cheeks. “What do you think of this outfit?” she asked, spinning in a circle until she noticed Garrett. Whom she’d just charged past. “Oh, hi, Garrett.”

“Cookie,” he said with a nod.

She’d been getting ready for the third and final date in Operation Punk Ubie. If this didn’t work tonight, she might have to do something drastic, like—gasp!—ask the man out herself. But she was a knockout. If this didn’t work, he was an idiot who didn’t deserve her.

“I was just getting ready for a date. Thing. Not really a date, but—” She frowned. “Where’s your wall?”

I jammed my fists onto my h*ps and glared at her. “That’s what I’d like to know, missy. Speaking of which,” I said, turning back to the wall thief, “why on earth would you tear down my wall?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “You live next door.”

“Yes,” I said, acknowledging that tidbit of info, “but why did you tear down my wall?”

He grew serious, studying me from beneath hooded lids. “You live next door.”

“Oh.” His meaning sank in at last.

Cookie sighed. “That’s what I want, damn it.” She pointed to us and questioned Garrett. “Is that asking too much?”

Garrett looked horrified by the thought.

“Okay,” I said, walking to her and straightening her scarf, “I found this guy in an ad in the back of the Weekly Alibi.”

“Wait, you don’t know him?” she asked, appalled.

“No, but he’s an actor. We need an actor for this one. Someone who can, you know, act.”

She groaned. “This could backfire in so many ways,” she said, and she was right, naturally, but I had to see the coffee cup half full. We were doing this for a reason. It would work. And unicorns sparkle in moonlight.

18

Remember, it’s all fun and games

until somebody loses an eyeball,

and then it’s, “Hey! free eyeball!”

—T-SHIRT

As I busied myself putting all my numbers in the phone Pari had loaned me, Cookie’s date showed up. Right on time. We ran through the script and told him that the whole thing was being taped for a new hidden-camera show that could be picked up by HBO. “If you want it to air,” we told him, “you really have to sell it.”

He was tall and well built if a bit too young and too clean-cut for what we were asking of him, but he’d agreed to our little skit and to the fact that we were more or less punking the man we were setting up.

“I wish you were going to be there,” Cookie said to me.