You Had Me at Halo by Amanda Ashby Page B

his head and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “No, we’ve just finished, but he wasn’t happy with your no-show.”
    “That I can believe, and trust me, I had every intention of being there, it’s just…well—”
    “What’s going on, anyway?” tall guy asked. “First you were weird at the funeral and then when we saw you before, you ran away from us.”
    “Ran away from you?” Vince blinked and Holly winced some more. Besides, how was she meant to know who Vince Murphy hung out with? Or that he even had any friends. Certainly when they were in school together, she didn’t remember him being Mr. Social.
    “That’s right, and why do you have a bride magazine in your hand?” the short guy said. Thankfully before Vince (who did seem a little speechless) could answer, the tall guy’s cell phone started to beep and after glancing at the screen he just shrugged his shoulders. “Look, we’ve got to go, but we’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “A bridal magazine?” Vince stared down at his hands after the two guys had disappeared down the street. “Let me guess—tomorrow we’ll be shopping for handbags and getting our nails done?”
    “Look, I’m sorry about the magazine, and about running away from your colleagues. I met a few of the ge...I mean computer guys at the funeral, but I didn’t recognize those two. Besides, in my own defense, I hadn’t expected for you to be here. It could’ve been worse.”
    Vince made a choking noise in the back of his throat and Holly closed her eyes for a minute to try and block everything out. Unfortunately thanks to the fact there was another person in the same body as her, she failed miserably.
    “Okay,” she admitted with a small gulp. “You’re right. This is about as ‘worse’ as things could possibly be.”
    “Thank you, and I know you wanted to see Tina, but I think it might be best if we go back to my apartment and get used to the idea. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a big day.”
    His place?
    Holly was just about to retort that if he thought she was staying the night with him, then he had another think coming, when she realized she had no choice in the matter. She groaned. For some stupid reason she had just assumed she would be going back to her own place to sleep tonight, which, just like everything else everything else she wished to do, would be impossible.
    She rubbed her chin, but the feeling of bristles under her fingertips only served as a reminder that she’d come back to earth in a guy’s body. A computer geek guy at that.
    She doubted Tina MacDonald would even open the door to Vince, let alone burst into tears and admit to spiking Holly’s coffee. (Okay, so perhaps that scenario was a bit far-fetched, but up until now the image had been keeping her relatively sane).
    “Fine.” She reluctantly nodded her head in agreement. It wasn’t ideal, but Holly was starting to discover that not a lot was these days.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    Thirty minutes later she let out a sigh of relief when Vince opened his front door to reveal a neat and unassuming apartment. It wasn’t anything like Todd’s cutting edge bachelor pad down by the river, but neither did it have anybody else in it trying to ask difficult questions, and for that she was truly thankful.
    A bit of peace and quite was what she needed to try and figure out a new plan on how to contact Tina MacDonald.
    It was only ten at night, but when Vince walked past the tidy living room and into the only bedroom, Holly was too tired to complain. She sat down on the bed and started to pull the horrible boots off.
    “What are you doing?”
    “These things weigh a ton. What’s in them? Cement?”
    “They’re steel-capped. As well as sitting down in our workshop doing geeky things, sometimes they actually let us out in public to install systems. They’re for protection.”
    “Oh.” Holly tried not to flush as she realized he must’ve heard her start to call him a geek