The first time I saw the dead girl, she was clinging like a monkey to an old friend, calling him by a name I didn’t recognize. I was talking to Justin in the bar when the blonde let out a horrifying squeal and launched herself at him.
“Pablo, you made it! I didn’t think you were going to come!”
Pablo? I mouthed to him and he shook his head at me. We were standing at one of the tall tables in the bar and she couldn’t have come up to his shoulder. Her toes left the ground when she threw her arms around his neck.
“I told you I might surprise you this weekend,” he said, peeling her arms from around his neck.
“I thought you meant you’d stop by my room and,” she stopped, flushing when she saw me watching them with bemused interest. Dressed in the traditional wizards robes from a popular series of children’s books, she was obviously part of the Wizard’s School that was running as a seperate part of the convention.
He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “Well, I might do that, too. How about I take you to dinner between classes first.”
“Okay, I’ll text you the schedule. What’s the number?”
“Picked one up when I registered, sweetheart. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
I could see the frown creasing her forehead and the forced smile. “Alright, I have to get up for sorting. Where should I meet you?”
Another kiss on the forehead and a pat to the rear pushed her toward the door. “I’ll pick you up when you’re done. Now go on, I know you don’t want to miss your favorite house.”
She glanced at him then grabbed the hem of her black robes and started running towards the elevators.
“School girls, Pablo?” I asked, taking a sip of my coffee.
“College,” he grinned. “Just barely but still legal.”
“My disgust for you knows no bounds.”
“All you have to do is say the word and you know I will know no other woman save your glorious self.”
“The word is, was, and always will be ‘no’, lover boy…”