He couldn’t imagine George wasn’t slated for a Heavenly destination, but you never knew. He thought he knew everything there was to know about Georgina Denise Maverick after observing her for close to a year, but surprises still happened.
Titus stared at him with dull eyes. “You’ve watched her for a year, Dex. How could you think otherwise? This is Georgina Maverick we’re talking about, after all. Goofy AF, clumsy, puts her foot in her mouth sometimes, is way too nice, eaten up by guilt…but evil? Only if puppies and kittens are evil, my friend.”
Also true. If her fate tonight had been death, she definitely would have landed upstairs. Apparently, his paranoia was getting the better of him.
However…
Dex looked around at the empty street, watching a lone plastic bag drift along the sidewalk in the wind. “That still doesn’t explain how you’re going to slip her in without anyone knowing, Titus. Accounting is a brutal mistress. They know everything. They’ll know there’s one extra body roaming around that isn’t supposed to be there. And her wings? How can she earn her permanent wings without setting off alarms? Permanent wings are a big deal, T. A big damn deal. Getting them is like graduating from Harvard summa cum laude. There’s a ceremony and everything. She can’t get wings if she doesn’t exist, Titus,” Dex hissed.
“And neither can you. If they find out you saved her, no matter what her intended fate was, you’ll never get your perms, buddy. They’ll assign you something twice as hard. George is a walk in the park compared to, say, a career criminal or an addict. Do you want to start over again? Or do you wanna let me think?” he asked.
But Dex shook his head. “Look, I screwed up. It’s not fair she should miss the pomp and circumstance and the privileges that come with permanent wings because I kept her from her destiny. Especially if I interfered and saved her and she’s going to miss a shot at learning from an expert guardian. I’ll do the right thing and hand myself over to Frank. It’s the only way. I’ll just tell the truth. It’s what we do, Titus.”
And then he’d beg to be kept on his earthly duties with someone else.
Damn. He felt like a real heel right now. Not thinking things through was how he’d landed where he was right this second, but that he’d been so careless with someone he’d come to…
He felt like a dick.
Just then, Titus’s phone chirped his favorite song by Tavares, “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel.” With an agile arm and the strength of an ox, he repositioned George, flicked the butt of his cigarette, and dug his phone from the pocket of his robes to read the text.
“Okay, I’m gonna have to hit the pave,” he grated on a sigh, tucking the phone back in his robes. “I’ve got my own sitch, pal. You know that numbskull Gianni Giannelli?”
Dex nodded, his eyes still fixed on George’s face. “Yeah. The one who works in Outgoing with the greaser hair and thick Brooklyn accent?”
“That’s the one. I swear on a gilded harp, I can’t believe Frank hasn’t shipped that buffoon off to a job that doesn’t involve human beings.”
Dex winced. “What’d he do this time?”
“He delivered the wrong baby to the wrong couple. One Mickey O’Sullivan is gonna be very disturbed to find Hanson Wang’s baby pushing her way out of his wife’s—well, you know. I have to git and hit up that live birth before World War Three breaks out at Cedars Sinai. Both mothers-to-be are in labor right now.”
Putting a hand on his friend’s arm, worried he was putting too much on his shoulders, he said, “Listen, Titus. Let me fess up to Frank. You have enough on your plate.”
Titus repositioned George in his arms and grated a sigh, his chiseled face a mask of uncertainty. “Just wait, okay? Please. You’re a damn good guardian, Dex. Your heart and your intentions are in the right place. You have the potential to be an amazing guardian.”
He tried. He really did, but sometimes…sometimes he thought he knew better than the establishment, and it always got him into trouble.
Titus slapped him on the back. “Before you go sticking yourself with some job you hate for eternity, wait. Let me worry about this, all right? I’ll figure something out. We’ll worry about perm wings and all the perks when we have to. For now, I’ll figure out how to get her on the books while you teach her to be a props guardian. For the time being, that’s your focus, and you have your work cut out for you, buster, but don’t jump the gun. Not yet. I can’t afford to lose you. Please promise me you’ll wait to tell anyone until I can figure this out. Do it for me?”
Dex gave him a sheepish glance. “I’ll wait. I promise. And I owe you one, Titus. I owe you one big.”
Titus handed George to him and nodded dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. Forget that for now and let me go figure this out. I’ll be in touch.”
Titus glowed for a moment, his ethereal beauty almost too magnificent to bear, bathing them in warm light before he disappeared, off to right a possibly devastating wrong.
Dex gazed down at George in his arms and winced at her legs dangling in the cute dress she’d bought, hoping it would cheer her up after her breakup with douchecanoe Darren.
She’d only just tonight gushed over how pretty it was while he’d helped her set up the party for the seniors before she left to her own New Year’s Eve festivities.
His eyes roamed over her pretty face, her raspberry-colored lips, the dark fringe of lashes sweeping across her cheek…and Dex sighed.
How the hell was he going to teach this woman, this
