Page 65 of You'll Be the Death of Me

“You are giving that guy too much credit, but we should probablygo.” She recorked the wine and set it on the shelf by her plate. When she turned for the door and gripped the handle, it didn’t yield. “Oh,” she said, feeling a swell of panic rise up inside her. “Oh no.”

“What’s wrong?” Cole asked.

Dell yanked on the door again, but the slab of steel didn’t budge. “The door sticks sometimes.”

“What?” Cole asked in alarm.

She kept tugging on the handle, noting the woman definitely kept up with arm day at the gym. Even still, she couldn’t get the door to open.

“You mean we’re stuck in here?” Cole said like the walls were closing in.

“Calm down,” Dell said, still yanking. “You’re a ghost; you can pass through the wall.I’mthe one stuck in here.Ugh.Stupid door.” The damn thing wouldn’t give.

“Well, give her her body back, and let’s go!” Cole urged.

“And leave her in here alone and confused to fend off frostbite?” Dell snapped.

“Right. Good point,” Cole said. “Well, what are we going to do?”

Dell stopped yanking, knowing the only solution was opening it from the outside. But they couldn’t very well wait around for someone else to come in; her poor host was starting to go numb. And she didn’t think whatever ghostly power she possessed for moving objects stood a chance against the industrial-strength door. “Well, you said you wanted close proximity and conversation on a date, so what’s better than being stuck in a freezer together?” she said flatly.

Cole looked at her with a twist of his mouth.

Right then, the woman’s phone pinged from her purse. Dellwas wearing the small crossbody bag under her chef’s coat. “Oh!” she said, reaching for it and getting an idea. The ping was a text from someone named Kendra, and Dell remembered this was the person who’d set her host up on this date. “I can call for help from her phone,” she told Cole. She swiped the screen and used her face to unlock it.

“Great, but call who?”

Dell was already dialing. “Who do you think?” She pressed the phone to her ear and listened to it ring. She chewed her lip while she waited.

“Pergo restaurant, how can I help you?” a familiar voice answered.

“Jason!” Dell all but shouted. “We are locked in the freezer and need you to come let us out.”

A heavy paused filled the line.

“I’m sorry?” Jason eventually said. “Can you repeat that?”

Of course she called her best friend. Not only was he the only one who’d believe her, but he also happened to be about fifty feet away, at the host’s desk.

“It’s me, Dell. I borrowed a body and snuck into the kitchen to eat something. Now Cole and I are stuck in the freezer, and I am in said body. I’m calling you from her phone. The door is stuck. Can you please come let us out?”

She could sense his brain sorting through her jumble of words even from a distance, and silently thanked him for not making a scene in the middle of the restaurant.

“Of course. I will be right there to assist you,” he said in the polite, professional tone he used at work.

“Thank you.” She ended the call and proudly smiled at Cole. “Help is on the way.”

He smiled back at her. “Getting things done even locked inside a freezer.”

Her smile faltered when her teeth started to chatter. “Okay, it’s really freaking cold in here. I never stay in here this long.” She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed up and down.

Without hesitating, Cole stepped toward her and folded her into his arms.

“Oh!” she said in surprise at first, but then softened into him, not really caring if it was impossible for him to actually warm her, being dead and all. “Thank you.”

“Mm-hmm,” he hummed. “I don’t know if this will accomplish much, but we can at least pretend until Jason gets here.”

“No, it’s definitely helping,” Dell said, being honest. Her skin might have been icy, but his touch was warming her from the inside. She tilted her head up to meet his gaze and found him staring down at her. Thanks to the woman’s heels, her face was a lot closer to his than normal—and she was right: Shecouldwear four-inch heels next to him and still feel dainty. His lips parted, and Dell got another vision of him outside in the snow. His mouth was so close to hers—in the vision and real life—that she might have kissed him if she hadn’t been borrowing someone else’s body.