Part 17
“You think I’m brave?”
It caught Angel off guard, not the question but the shock in Cordelia’s eyes. Also the way her face softened and lost the façade she presented to the world at all times. In one instant Cordelia went from being a girl he knew from Sunnydale and became a woman stunned by his words.
He swallowed and realized his grip on her arm was bruising and loosened his hold and found that he was nodding. “Of course,” he said in answer. Wasn’t it obvious she was brave? He rolled the thought around in his mind and the fact came back to him forcefully. Yes. Cordelia Chase is brave. He was certain.
Her face lost its softness at his words but her eyes remained confused and her head began to shake, joined by a slight sway of her body. No. No she was telling him, she wasn’t brave and he realized she didn’t believe him.
“You are,” he stated and his free hand reached out and grabbed her chin. “You are.”
She looked away, the abrupt move of her head causing his hand to slip off her face and she bit her lip. “Look, you don’t need to flatter me to make the fact you are trying to get rid of me be less of a blow.”
Now Angel was as confused as she looked. “What?”
“Then what the hell is your thing!”
Who was this woman? “My thing?”
“Your thing, Angel. The thing. The thing that has you suddenly treating me like a damsel in distress. You have to stop these demons, you need someone to get you in and get you information. You were already desperate, or you never would have called me in the first place – which maybe you are regretting, but I’ve been in a few hellish situations in my time and once you are desperate, you are desperate, so why are you trying to take me back out of the loop?”
How did she breathe? Humans did still need to breathe didn’t they, he listened carefully and heard her exhaling and inhaling oxygen into her lungs without any conscience thought, and realized that her blood pressure than higher than average. “Why are you mad?”
“Mad? Who said I was mad?”
Angel shrugged and ran his free hand over his face, and then looked at his hand still holding onto her arm. Cordelia suddenly gave an aggravated puff of air and hit his other arm, hard.
“Will you quit with the guilt over the scratch. And oh, by the way, I’m still bait.”
“No,” he said thinking that his prior decision to keep this confounded woman out of trouble was definitely the right decision. “I don’t want you in danger.”
“Why not?”
Angel stared at her, thinking that was the stupidest question he’d been asked in a long time but when his mouth opened he realized he didn’t have an answer. “Because…you shouldn’t be danger.”
“Oh please.”
“That’s you disagreeing, right?” Angel asked.
“Duh. I grew up in danger. So, give me a break on the danger thing. How much worse is this danger than me, say, oh walking from the parking lot to the Bronze back in Sunnydale?”
“It’s higher, Cordelia,” Angel said rolling his eyes.
“Whatever. You asked me to do this, why?”
“Because, I need someone to go inside and Wes and Gunn aren’t female.”
“Right. And here I am. In Los Angeles, with knowledge of otherworldly beings. So, really I’m your Obi Wan.”
“Huh?”
“Your Obi Wan Kenobi. You know, your only hope. You’re Princess Leia and I’m Obi Wan…never mind I dated Xander and it detrimental to my brain cells — obviously. Fact is Angel you need me.”
“I…” Angel stared at her and started to shake his head. “I…” he let go of her arm and brushed past her walking back into her living room. “I decide who helps me and I’ve decided you aren’t.”
“Then who is going to do it? Going to put Wesley in drag? He’s got a certain Pierce Bronson look about him but it won’t translate into young, female or scream ‘feed me to demon’.”
Angel swiftly pushed away the visual of Wesley in drag out of his mind and turned to look at Cordelia. “Like I was saying before, Cordelia. I admire your bravery but I’m not…”
“Stop that,” she snapped, her mask dropping again for a minute but then falling away.
“What?”
“Calling me brave. Or whatever it is you mean. Look I can do this for you, for those five young girls and how many more, you will end up saving. I don’t…” she trailed off and bit her lip.
It took a moment, but Angel watched fascinated as her body language shifted from unsure and vulnerable into the confident stance that in his mind he’d always associated with Cordelia Chase. Only it was lie, maybe not a total lie, but it was part of the package she presented to the world and what he’d caught of glimpse of in her kitchen and few seconds ago was new.
“Fine. I get it. I guess Wesley is showing up with a blanket to get you, soon, right?”
“What? Wesley isn’t picking me up?”
“Well then call him. Since you don’t want me around, or need my help. I certainly have no intention of letting you hang out here all day.”
“What?”
“Is that all you can say? You don’t want me around, so leave my apartment.”
“I don’t want you around?”
“You don’t have to rub it in, geesh. Not that it’s any skin off my nose,” Cordelia turned away from him and opened her refrigerator. Angel watched her and realized she was hiding behind the door, he could hear her breathing and she was controlling it, forcing it into a pattern and he realized it was to retain her outward package of confident and blasé.
He took a breath himself, ran his hands over his face and started to rub his bottom lip with his fingers. What was it he was missing he? When had he lost complete control of this situation and had he ever had any control of the situation? Did he even know what the situation was?
No. Angel decided the answer to all the questions were either no, or that he had no clue. No clue whatsoever. He looked around the apartment, seeing for the first time how small it was and that it wasn’t at all how he’d picture Cordelia living. If he’d ever given it any thought, and he glanced at her again, saw the rigid way she was holding her back as she poured herself a drink and closed his eyes.
“Cordelia, I never said I didn’t want you around.”
“You just –“
“Let me finish. I repeated what you said because I want it to sink in. Because it’s wrong. I just don’t want you to bait.”
“Right. Because we are so close.”
“Cordelia,” Angel snapped realizing that woman was more aggravating than a few hundred years in hell. “I care about your safety.”
Cordelia breathed out through her nose and nodded. “What heroes do.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“Oh please. Like I didn’t just see you rescue a girl.”
“You helped.”
“I was just there.”
“What exactly am I doing wrong here, Cordelia?”
Cordelia suddenly spun around and looked at him confused. “What?”
Angel held back a triumphant smirk. Yes, he’d gotten her confused again; finally things were back on his side. Now he just had to keep them there. “I mean, where did I go wrong, because I feel like we’re having two very different conversations.”
“You’re nicely trying to tell me to get lost. And I’m finally taking the hint.”
“What?” Damn it, he was back at ‘whatting’ in two seconds flat but he could straighten this out. “I am not trying to tell you to get lost.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Then what else is all that flattery about?”
“Flattery?”
“’Cordelia, you are brave.’ Please,” she said complete with a lower voice to mimic him.
“You are.”
“Based on what? My spatula wielding?”
“Your what?” Angel shook his head and held up his hand. “You are brave because of everything you did last night. Not mention I saw you stake a few vampires back in Sunnydale, and you were always helping out. Even after your break up with Xander.”
“So, I helped out Buffy. Big deal. So did a lot of people. Braver people than me. When you almost sucked the world in hell I ran like a little girl.”
“Good thing too, Dru probably would’ve killed you after killing Kendra.” Angel made his way back to the kitchen. “I meant that, Cordelia.”
“Then why won’t you let me do this?” She asked, looking at him again with the same expression she’d worn when he’d shocked her with the compliment she was refusing to take.
He swallowed and studied her carefully; he wanted to remember the way her face looked without her usual confident mask protecting it. It made her look younger; it made her look her age. He reached out and pushed an few errant strands of her hair off one of her cheeks, she breathed in sharply but didn’t back away and didn’t snap her mask back into place. Good, Angel thought, and he leaned closer to her and prayed she got his point finally.
“I don’t want you hurt,” he eyes fell to her arm and he let his hand fall onto it, touching the scratches with his fingertips. “Understand?”
“No,” Cordelia whispered.
Angel sighed. “What’s so hard to understand?”
“Because five other women are in danger. And more after them from what you told me. So, I don’t understand what’s so damn important about me.”
“Your…” Angel faltered as he met her eyes, eyes that weren’t hiding a mixture of hurt, confusion and emotions he couldn’t begin to decipher. Eyes of someone he didn’t know at all and yet he’d been about to say he was her friend. But it was a lie and he had a feeling if he said it Cordelia would call him on the fact that they were nothing but two people from the same town who had an acquaintance.
She stood waiting her mask slowly starting to form as the seconds ticked by and Angel felt a loss at not being able to see more deeply into her. And he opened his mouth to try to say something but she suddenly jerked away from him, her arms crossing around her chest, her posture that of someone lost and frightened.
And he flashed back to Sunnydale, to her in his bedroom at the mansion having a panic attack and unable to work the curtains. He’d opened them for her, watched her press her head against the cool glass to cool rising temperature. He’d forgotten the moment, until now, because her blood was rushing again and her everything from her stance to the way her head was tilted cried out that she was feeling desperate.
“Cordelia?”
“I think I’m going crazy sometimes, Angel. Willow called and told me Buffy was dead and I couldn’t get her out of my head. I couldn’t get Sunnydale out of my mind and I thought it was nuts, I thought I didn’t want to go – until I got there. And even then I tried to tell myself I didn’t want to be there… but I had to do it. And when you called. The same drive and crazy thoughts made me go meet you at your hotel. To say yes – and I have to do it Angel,” she turned around and looked him in the eye, her hazel eyes darker than usual with determination. “I have to do it.”
He nodded. And before he knew it Cordelia was smiling at him, this wide brilliant smile that nearly knocked him on his butt. Then she was chattering away about if he needed any more blood, if he wanted her to run out and get him the paper or anything.
Then it hit him. He’d agreed to let her be bait, agreed to let this woman he barely knew but wanted to know better walk right into the clutches of demons that would take one look at her and want to sacrifice her to their demon god. And his only thought for the next few hours was ‘fuck’.
Part 18
“As you two can see it’s all quite simple,” Wesley said as he picked up, the now cold, cup of tea on his desk.
“We wire her up, send her in, she gets an address and a time – we wire her up again and she goes to be sacrificed. Yep. It’s easy and don’t take an hour to explain, and hopefully they’ll want to kill her,” Gunn said.
“I’m sure they will,” Wesley said as he sipped his tea.
Angel sat in his chair, his legs on the edge of the desk and stared at them. It wasn’t what they were saying, he understood what they were saying – no one was wishing Cordelia dead, their entire plan did however hinge on the Ycuchbn wanting to kill her. It was an honest to goodness hope, and Wesley’s confidence that Cordelia would make good demon bait was not unfounded, he’d seen her attract them for Buffy more than once during his tenure in Sunnydale.
What bothered Angel was that they were putting Cordelia into this situation and Wesley – who had once been interested in her as a woman – was now gleefully sipping his tea, feeling positive that demons would want to kill her. Didn’t Wesley have any doubts because he was worried for her safety? Angel was sure his memories of him drooling over Cordelia were correct.
He gripped the book in his hands tighter and raised his eyes to meet Wesley’s and wondered if he silent question was about to be answered. Instead he peered into expectant eyes and realized Wesley just wanted Angel to voice his response to the plan. Wesley just wanted his approval. “It sounds…” Angel trailed off fighting the urge to voice his worry, “plan’s good, Wes.”
“If there is a problem?”
“There is no problem, not really…I just don’t want Cordelia hurt.”
“Or the four other young ladies those Ycuchbn plan to sacrifice,” Gunn added.
Angel winced; of course he didn’t want any innocent lives lost, but he didn’t want to get know four strangers. He wanted to get to know Cordelia. And if she was nearly killed, again, after being in his sphere only twice he figured that wasn’t a wish that was likely to come true. And what exactly did he think was going to happen?
He and Cordelia would go out for coffee? He didn’t go out for coffee; well he tried once with Buffy, but had actually ended up drinking cappuccino with Cordelia. He chuckled a bit remembering that he’d actually had a pretty good time. Maybe they could go out for coffee?
“Angel?” Gunn and Wesley said in unison, obviously trying to get his attention. He looked up to see them looking at him like he’d sprouted four heads.
“What?”
“You were looking unsure about the plan and then you started to laugh man – you going psycho on us again? You’ve been sleeping right? No more supposed-to-be dead vampire ex-girlfriends sneaking into your bed at night?” Gunn started to step out of the office, his eyes going right toward his hub-cab axe by the stairs to the garden entrance.
“No. No. I was just remembering this time…” he trailed off, he wasn’t going to share his memory of cappuccino with Cordelia with anyone. Ever. “It wasn’t about Darla or any other vampires for that matter,” he stammered, hoping to assure them.
“If something is bothering you, it would be best to share it with us, Angel,” Wesley asked his expression drawn with concern and gravity.
Angel sighed. Both Wesley and Gunn’s heart rates had gotten higher in less than a minute. Because things were still tense between the three of them after Darla, all it had taken was him to laugh at an old memory to put them on edge. Guilt squeezed a bit harder around his chest, punishing him for forgetting to feel it fully for a moment and he knew he had to try to fix it. But how? On a whim he decided to go with the truth because it was easier than a lie. Removing his legs from the desk, he sat up in the chair and leaned forward. “I just…It’s Cordelia.”
“Cordelia?” Wesley asked.
Wesley and Gunn exchanged a look and then looked back at Angel.
“What about her?”
Angel shrugged and then stood up, his inability to express what he was feeling making him restless. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Don’t know what?”
“Anything about her.”
Wesley frowned and Gunn sat down throwing up his hands and said, “Looks as if I should be getting comfortable.”
“What do you mean?” Wesley asked. “We know Cordelia.”
“Do we?” Angel asked Wesley, catching his eyes and trying to read into them. Wesley met the hard gaze with aplomb, but eventually cleared his throat and looked away from Angel.
“Well, I knew her, back in Sunnydale. I of course was, well, I hadn’t really found myself yet. She was quite an interesting young woman though, beautiful, so different than your usual young women of present. I found it odd she was around the library so often, and quite flattering she was interested in me.”
“Whoa? Whoa?” Gunn sat up. “That looker had a thing for you?”
Wesley stood up straighter. “Well, yes, she did. But I mean, I did nothing to encourage her…”
“You were with her at the prom,” Angel said.
“Saw me did you, between staring at Buffy and your shoes?”
Angel shot Wesley a hard glare for the sarcastic remark.
“You went to Buffy’s Prom?”
“She really wanted me to go with her,” Angel ran his hand over his face and glanced at Wesley. “And yes, I saw you dancing with Cordelia. I was amazed she’d come alone to be honest. Seemed odd considering who she was.”
Wesley nodded. “Well, yes, that was quite odd. I never did find out why, we never really talked again after we… well, our chemistry wasn’t quite what we thought it be.”
Angel noted Wesley’s temperature rose and his cheeks flush, and decided he didn’t want to know.
“You were at a High School Prom? Angel? At a prom? And Cordelia Chase, that drop dead, though skinny, brunette had a crush on you?” Gunn echoed, his eyes darting back and forth between Angel and Wesley. “Damn! You two need to talk about Sunnydale way more often, man,” he said, grinning at Wesley.
“I don’t think so,” Wesley argued.
Angel started to pace in front of his desk, knowing that Wesley was going to pull the conversation back on any moment. If just to shut Gunn up.
“I guess besides our flirtation and a few odds and ends, I don’t know Cordelia all that well…but I’m confused. What is it that worries you about her, again?”
Angel inwardly groaned, he’d been right and he turned mid-stride and stared at Wesley.
“Oooh, he’s looking at you like you are being stupid, English.”
“I see that, Charles. Angel?”
“Maybe the fact we are asking her to put her life on the line. Literally.”
“Well, we know she’s quite adept at handling and bouncing back from life and death situations, Angel.”
“Lucky. She’s just lucky, Wesley. All of you were lucky, considering you lived on a Hellmouth. And she’s already gotten hurt.”
“Oh. I see. You just feel guilty.” Wesley sat down, the tension in his shoulders relaxing.
Angel crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not just that.”
“Of course it is. But, she’s agreed to help, and she’s not mad about the other night with that demon warrior from Wolfram & Hart. Just relax. We will have our eyes on her and she’ll be safe.”
Angel frowned.
Gunn stood up. “I’m going to go check out the old hood. I’ll be back around the time; the beauty from Sunnydale is showing up. And English, I’m so asking her about the chemistry you two shared and if he really was The Slayer’s prom date.”
“Gunn!” Wesley shouted but the man left the room and Angel just rolled his eyes.
Wesley let his head fall on the desk. “She’ll tell him. One thing I remember about her. Blunt honesty, no tact, no softening the edges,” Wesley moaned.
Angel smirked at Wesley’s embarrassment; despite hoping he didn’t hear the answer to Gunn’s questions. “I always liked that about her,” he said, then he cleared his throat to bring Wesley back to his concern.
“I want her back watched constantly, Wesley. And tonight, we prep her until her eyes shut. I want her knowing everything she needs to know, and then some more.”
Wesley nodded his understanding as he stood up, but before he left the office he turned back and looked at Angel. “This is more than just guilt isn’t it?”
“I want her alive.”
“As do I. But… what is really behind this?”
Angel sighed and sat back down at his desk. He felt defeated suddenly, he wasn’t sure if he could say it out loud but it was Wesley asking. Wesley, who was still on edge about his behavior possibly turning too dark again. Angel would never forgive himself but here was Wesley – every day forgiving him. Angel had no illusions that Gunn was only around more for Wesley than Angel. If he could confide things in anyone couldn’t it be this man, didn’t he at least owe this man to try? He cleared his throat, taking in an unneeded breath for courage.
“It’s that, the other night with Cordelia – I realized some things, and one of them is that I don’t know her, and…”
“You’d like to change that?” Wesley asked, his eyes widening in surprise at the thought, and Angel’s confirmation of it.
Angel swallowed, Wesley’s shock told him what he already knew. His reaction to Cordelia Chase was out of the norm and probably wrong – on more than one level. But what they were he didn’t know. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
“I dare say,” Wesley whispered, his blue eyes darting minutely back and forth, revealing to Angel that he was thinking deeply about the matter that’d just been revealed to him.
It made Angel frown, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know where Wesley’s intellect was taking him. “I’m going to read, you can go.”
“Oh. Very well.” Wesley stepped out into the lobby obediently but after a few steps turned back. He stayed out of the office but spoke with force to Angel. “When you say you want to change that…you do mean in the platonic sens–”
“Of course,” Angel interrupted.
Wesley gave a wry smile and walked away.
Angel furrowed brow and silently repeated to himself that his interest in getting to know Cordelia was strictly non-sexual. Why would it be? Because she is a sensual, and beautiful woman, A voice whispered in his head.
***
Cordelia chewed on her lower lip, worrying it with the blunt edges of her teeth due to anxiety, as she waited for her boss to get off the phone. Bonnie Whitney, was a workaholic woman in her late thirties who blamed everyone else for her lack of a husband except herself.
She also had no talent and relied on the talent of her partner, Darlena Roberts and her secretary, Cordelia to help keep the Interior Design business afloat. Cordelia wondered daily why it was Darlena had gone into business with this woman and had concluded it was because Bonnie came from money. It was either that, or there was some kind of Black Arts involved and Cordelia tried to keep her mind away from things that went under the category of supernatural. Or at least she had, lately it was all she was thinking about it seemed, and here she was in her bosses office, banking on the fact – yet again that Bonnie would be lost with her eye for color and design – to get permission any day off she wanted to run off to an audition in the coming week or so.
She figured it was the best way to cover her bets at her real job, while doing the Bait job for Angel. She’d done it before when she wasn’t sure about when a call back would be, or come in, and usually she got her way. However, lately, Bonnie had become even bitterer than usual and was being a bit stricter on Cordelia’s hours and when she took off for auditions. Cordelia said a little prayer to God that Bonnie would see that she had to keep Cordelia happy, if she wanted to keep her clients, and let her have her way. She also pushed away the slight nagging guilt at using her power of the woman to her advantage; it really wasn’t that often – was it?
Bonnie hung up the phone with a loud clack of plastic against plastic. “That bitch,” she swore under her breath.
Cordelia felt her heart lodge in her throat. This was not going to be easy, she studied Bonnie’s face, then looked at the papers on the desk, hoping she could guess which client, what the problem was and come up with a quick solution. There were sketches of a bathroom on the top of the papers, maybe it was Mrs. Baker, she was actually a bitch.
“Mrs. Baker didn’t like the tiles I sent over?” Cordelia asked.
“Oh, no on the contrary. She loved them. The designs anyway, but she hated the colors. I tried to explain that of course they don’t come in any other…”
Cordelia’s mind whirled, who made the tiles she sent over to Mrs. Baker’s home? It was a small upstart company she’d found while searching for fresh styles. Maybe if she promised more business she could talk them into shelling out the dough to make the tiles in colors that would suit Mrs. Baker. “Oh, well Lydia from Ginger Snaps is really nice and she could use more business. Maybe if we offer to show their stuff to more clients they will work with us to find Mrs. Baker a pleasing color?” Cordelia punctuated the sentence with her megawatt smile.
Twenty minutes later she had permission to take off when need be, as long as Lisa didn’t mind covering and she made sure to call in, or tell her or Darlena before leaving. Cordelia slid into her desk chair, grinning madly and winked at Lisa since she was so happy it’d gone so well.
“What’s the audition for?” Lisa asked, laughing at Cordelia’s wink and swiveling her chair towards Cordelia’s desk, so they could really talk.
“Huh?” Cordelia asked, already distracted as she looked up Ginger Snaps main office number in the computer address book.
“What’s the audition you just got permission to bail and load more work on me for?”
“Oh!” Cordelia looked down and felt so bad. “Lisa, I’m so sorry, I didn’t thank you for agreeing did I? Thank you. I’ll buy you lunch for a week.”
“I’ll take the free lunch, but I don’t mind. I can’t wait to say, ‘I know Cordelia Chase when she was just a lowly secretary like me’.”
Cordelia laughed. “You will still know me.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Please, like you will remember us little people. Now what’s the audition?”
Cordelia frowned suddenly and realized that she had no clue what to say. What should she say? What was a good lie? God, she hated lying to people she lied. Her boss was one thing, sheep-like people like most of the actors she knew was fine too. But Lisa was so nice and she made most of her working hours actually enjoyable. “It’s kind of a modeling thing,” she said.
“A modeling thing?” Lisa echoed.
“Well it’s… damn it. It’s not an audition. Though if I get one in the next week, I’ll so use the ready made permission trust me. I’m doing a favor for a friend.”
“And it has something to do with modeling?”
“Angel’s kind of like a detective you see and he needs someone to help go undercover. He has no women working for him and apparently the only one he knew willing to do things wasn’t ‘right’ for this modeling agency.”
Lisa’s eyes widened. “Oh. I see. This place is like a front for X-rated movies isn’t it? They take advantage of young girls and a parent hired your friend?”
Cordelia raised an eyebrow, she’d forgotten how easy it was for folks with no clue to come up with equally horrid reasons that had nothing to do with the supernatural, and usually scared Cordelia more. “Yep. So, I’m helping out Angel.”
“I don’t remember you mentioning him before?”
“Haven’t. Haven’t seen him in years. He, uh, dated that girl who died.”
“Oh,” Lisa frowned. “How is he handling her death?”
Cordelia shrugged. “Privately. I really don’t know. It’s complicated. He just remembered I said I lived in Los Angeles, too and was an actress.”
“Oh. He remembered you,” Lisa raised her eyebrows. “He good-looking?”
Cordelia stared at Lisa but then she smiled. Talking to her about the hotness that was Angel was a much safer topic than Buffy, or anything she would be doing to help Angel out. “I’ll put it to you this way. First time I ever saw him back in school my first thought was: Hello, Salty Goodness.”
***
The conversation about Angel’s sexiness, while she had thought was a good idea, turned out to be a bad one. Cordelia had ended up sharing one to many of her old high school fantasies about Angel, her and things of an intimate sexual nature that she was finding it very hard to push them back away. Where they belonged, buried deep in the back of her mind. She had thought after meeting Angelus and learning about the curse she had purged herself of her attraction to Angel. That by not thinking about her old fantasies, she would have forgotten all the details that her imagination and youth had dreamt up.
Apparently though she hadn’t, because she’d remembered them all, especially the ones too racy to share in an office setting, and she’d remembered them in vivid detail. And now that she’d actually had experience, her mind had instantly reshaped the fantasies with a more realistic bent and it had just made them all the hotter.
Which left her feeling stupid and a bit turned on outside of Angel’s hotel, once again reminding herself of what happened when Angel got happy. He couldn’t have sex, and as a result because she was nothing if a not a woman who liked her neck on her shoulders and her heart beating – she would never ever think of him as, salty goodness again.
Taking a deep breath, Cordelia breathed in and out, thinking with each exhale and inhale: Angel and sex equals torture and death. She also started to list all the things about Angel, that after her initial lustful impression had faded had annoyed her. He wore way too much black, he was broody, he only had eyes for Buffy Summers. He acted like a dog on a leash around Buffy, never really standing up for himself or thinking for himself. It had really gotten on her nerves, why didn’t he ever say anything that was a thought of his own? It was always agreeing with Buffy, or Buffy asked me, or Buffy said.
Cordelia smiled. Irritation and her motto in place, she once again had succeeded in making all her sexual thoughts and fantasies fade. Plus they’d been the fantasies of a high school girl, they had nothing to do with the here and now. And the here and now, was her helping a vampire cursed with a soul, who basically lived his life like he was a eunuch. A ha! She smirked, Angel is a eunuch. She burned the thought into her mind and got out of her car.
It was time to get bored to death and learn a bunch of stuff about the demons she was going bait. She walked through the back garden of the Hyperion, noticing it had the same flowers as his mansion growing on the fence and up the outer walls. Wonder what it was Angel liked about it? Or was it his evil half that liked it, he had taken over that mansion while evil, she reminded herself? She’d have to ask him.
“Angel?” she called out walking into the building and she smiled when he stepped out of his office. He gave her what she guessed was a smile, maybe a half-smile in return, then he looked around the lobby and seemed to sniff the air.
“Hey. Wesley must have stepped out…” he frowned, glanced around as he waved her over to him.
Cordelia crossed the lobby, dropped her purse on the counter and smiled at him. “So, just us for now?”
Angel nodded. “I could, uh, make you some coffee?”