Between Heaven and Hell (PA #2)

Chapter Seventeen

I give him a smile of my own. "Earth science, very cool."

He smirks. "I'm fairly sure they call it chemistry."

"I'm absolutely sure they call it a dress code violation," Galileo butts in.

Someone needs to put a bell on this man.

My cheeks heat at the angel's proximity, and I take to staring at the grains of wood on my desk rather than meeting his eyes.

The desk acts as a barrier between the two men who seem to have decided that a game of monkey in the middle is a great use of their time, where I'm the primate in this scenario. Is this the part where I catch their balls?

"Couldn't find my uniform," Aristotle calmly explains.

"Uniform, singular? As in, you only have one uniform? The school issues ten new sets every semester, so what the Hell happened to the rest of them?"

I can practically feel Aristotle's shrug. "Lost 'em."

"You lost them? How?"

"If I knew that, they wouldn't be lost."

I fold my lips in to hide my grin.

Galileo somehow still sees it. "This is no laughing matter, human."

Someone took a knife to the corner of my desk. There are faint initials carved into the wood. L.T.G.

"Human, we've been over this. You pay attention when I talk to you."

Blowing out a breath, I force my gaze all the way up to his neck. Watching his Adam's apple move, I wonder if the Biblical figure appreciates being memorialized in such a way.

Satisfied now, Galileo goes back to his argument with Ari.

"You need to find a uniform. Go to the office if you must, but you can't stay in my classroom wearing your civilian clothes."

Are we in the military now? All soldiers in his made-up war? If he gets his way, I suppose there will be a very real war in the near future.

"Fine by me, professor," Aristotle acquiesces.

Tucking some of my hair behind my ear, Aristotle causes goosebumps to break out on the sensitive skin.

"See you soon, Trouble. Take notes for me, yeah?"

Meeting his green eyes, I jerk my chin at him. With a wink, he disappears.

"Trouble."

It's freaky to hear it from someone else's lips. So freaky, in fact, that I can't help scanning Galileo's face, cataloging the differences between him and Ari to assure myself that he's not my Sloth friend. 

The nose in front of me is less sharp. The jaw is more square, the eyebrows more pronounced. His eyes are a brown so golden the irises could have their own spot on the periodic table, and they take me in with intense scrutiny.

"It's an apt description," he continues.

Not trusting my mouth at the moment, I can only nod in response.

He tilts his head in a way that's familiar to me now. "Where were you last night, Willow?"

I stop breathing, my heartbeat hiccuping like it, too, is momentarily frozen in surprise. Surprise and a healthy dose of fear because why is he asking me this now? Why is he using my name without any derogatory additives? Does he know?

He can't know about me and Betty being one and the same, right? He's far too calm to be aware of that particular truth.

I deflect, raising the pitch of my voice so it sounds different from what he heard last night. If I was a little smarter, I would've altered my voice as Betty.