by C. C. Wood
That hadn’t been the case with him. As soon as he opened the door, all I saw was his broad shoulders, beautiful face, and dark blond hair. I’d barely registered that his eyes were odd at the time, completely black as though the pupil had swallowed the iris. Which was weird. I shook off the peculiar thought. It was likely his eyes were just a very dark brown. When he stepped out onto the porch, I’d caught a whiff of his cologne or soap or whatever he used and nearly dropped the flowers I’d been holding out to him.
My new neighbor was stupid hot. As in, so hot it made me stupid.
I’d been so busy babbling that he hadn’t had time to reply to anything I said. I hadn’t even given him a chance to tell me his name! Though I doubted I would be using it anytime soon. If ever. My stupid hot neighbor would probably avoid me as often as possible. It was clear that he was already a loner.
When I went back inside the house, I crept to the window and glanced outside, torturing myself a little because I hoped he might be lingering on his porch. I shrank back from the window when I saw that he was indeed still standing in the same spot where I left him, staring at my house and holding the flowers I’d given him as though he couldn’t decide whether to toss them in the yard or carry them inside.
I groaned and leaned my back against the wall next to the window, sliding down until my rear end hit the floor.
“Could I be any more awkward?” I asked my empty living room.
My cat, Satchel, meowed as she came around the corner and made a beeline for me. She butted her head against my hand and meowed again, demanding that I pet her. I sighed and ran my hand over her head gently, stroking her soft grey fur.
“Hey, Satchel,” I cooed.
The look she shot me clearly showed her disdain for her name. Then she plopped down on the floor and began to lick her paw. Somehow she managed to make the feline gesture look imperious. Her demeanor was more suited to a moniker like Anastasia or Elizabeth, but the night I’d found her in the street she’d been so bedraggled and scrawny that she fit perfectly in my small bag. Hence the name Satchel.
“Mommy made a fool of herself in front of her sexy new neighbor,” I told her.
I knew that cats couldn’t roll their eyes, but Satchel came close. She gave me a look of disgust and trotted off toward the back of the house. Obviously, she felt no sympathy for my plight.
With a sigh, I heaved myself to my feet, rubbing my butt with one hand as the numbness gave way to prickles of pins and needles. I needed to get some exercise if sitting on my floor was enough to put my rear end to sleep.
The headache that I’d successfully ignored all afternoon reared its ugly head once again. The dull ache sharpened into a hot, piercing pain just behind my left eye. I stumbled back to my bedroom, kicking off my shoes before I stretched out on the bed. The room was blessedly cool and dark, so I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.
Maybe after my nap I would feel better. Or maybe I would wake up and the entire humiliating experience with my neighbor would be a dream. I smiled a little. That would be nice. Maybe then I would have an opportunity to talk to him again without the babbling and awkwardness.
I settled deeper into the mattress and felt Satchel’s weight hit the bed a few seconds before she curled up into the small of my back. Despite her haughty attitude, she really was a sweet cat. She seemed to sense when I was having a rough day and would often offer me comfort.
With her warm, minute weight resting against me, I fell asleep.
The sound of the phone ringing woke me. Still half asleep, I fumbled for the receiver and lifted it to my ear.
“Lo?” I mumbled.
“Are you still sleeping?” Ava asked. “It’s nearly seven.”
I winced. I hadn’t meant to sleep so late, but I hadn’t set an alarm on my cell phone to wake me up. “Well, I’m up now.”
“So did you go see my new tenant today?”
I rolled over onto my back and rubbed my forehead. The headache behind my eyes had disappeared, but my embarrassment hadn’t. “Yeah,” I sighed.
“Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good,” she murmured. “What happened?”
“Well, for one thing, you didn’t warn me how hot he was,” I accused her. “I could have prepared myself. Or stayed home. Instead I sounded like a babbling idiot. Oh, and I nearly dropped a vase of flowers on his foot, which thankfully he caught. Unfortunately, in catching the vase, he was also splashed with water.”
Ava laughed and I made a face at the phone. “I’m sorry, Savannah. I’m not laughing at you.”
Rolling my eyes, I replied, “Yeah, I can tell you’re laughing with me.”
Still giggling, she continued, “I didn’t think he was that good looking.”
I wasn’t ready to let go of my humiliation. “Make an appointment with an eye doctor. I’m concerned that your vision is going.”
Ava laughed harder. “Okay, so he’s handsome. Did he render you speechless?”
“No, the exact opposite. I had verbal diarrhea. It was so embarrassing. I didn’t even stop talking long enough for him to tell me his name. I went over there to welcome him to the neighborhood and I still don’t know his name!” I exclaimed, covering my eyes with my free hand at the memory. “Who does that?”
“Apparently, you do,” Ava answered.
“Please stop trying to make me feel better. You suck at it.”
“Then maybe I need more practice,” she retorted.
I groaned.
“Savannah, I’m sure you’re overreacting to the situation. Think about it. Did you sense irritation or disgust from him when you were talking?”
I froze then as an epiphany hit me so hard that it nearly hurt. “No.”
“See? He wasn’t–”
“No, Ava. You don’t understand. I felt nothing from him. No emotion at all. He was completely blank.” My heart raced. I’d never experienced anything like that before. I hadn’t even sensed his mental barriers. Even when I couldn’t feel Ava’s emotions or those of the witches I met from time to time, I could sense their mental walls. I knew they were there, almost as if I could see them. With my new neighbor, there was nothing. Just silence and stillness.
She fell quiet for a long moment. “Really?”
“Yeah. It was like he didn’t have emotions at all. Or his mental shields are as solid as a concrete wall three feet thick and completely invisible to me.”
“That’s probably it,” she replied. “I don’t know a lot about him, but I can tell he’s had a long, difficult life.”
“And his eyes.” I trailed off then.
“What about them?”
“They were black.”
I could practically feel the change in Ava’s mood vibrate through the phone. “What? I never noticed that.”
“It was strange,” I mused. “I felt like he could see right through me.”
“Okay, that’s it. I’m coming over. You’re going to tell me exactly what happened and then I need to make a decision.”
“About what?” I asked in confusion.
“About whether Rhys stays or goes.”
“His name’s Rhys?”
“Yes, his name’s Rhys, but that’s not what’s important right now.”
She clearly knew something I didn’t. “What’s important, Ava?” I questioned, my eyes narrowing. “Why are you talking about making him leave?”
“Your safety.”
“Well, that’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?” His emotions were a blank slate to me, but he didn’t seem dangerous.
“We’ll see,” she replied mysteriously. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
She disconnected the call before I could respond.
I was pacing by the door when Ava pulled up in front of the house. I forced myself to wait until she knocked before I opened the door and pulled her inside.
“Whoa, calm down,” she said, juggling two bottles of wine and a plastic bag full of food.
“Calm down? You make some cryptic
statement that implies I may not be safe, hang up on me, and then have the nerve to tell me to calm down? Are you crazy?” My voice rose as I spoke until I was nearly yelling.
“Yes, calm down,” Ava repeated. “I don’t think he’s going to come over here and murder us with an axe.”
“What a relief,” I shot back, throwing my hands up in the air. “Do you think he’ll use his bare hands?”
Ava shook her head. “Stop being a drama queen and help me carry this stuff into the kitchen.”
I took the bottles of wine she held out to me and followed her to the rear of the house where the kitchen was located. I put one of the bottles in my fridge and set about opening the other as Ava unpacked the food.
“I’m sorry if I freaked you out,” she apologized. “I don’t think Rhys truly means anyone harm. I was just surprised that you didn’t feel any emotion from him. You’re one of the strongest empaths I’ve ever met so I didn’t expect you to tell me that he was blank to you.” She took a plate from the cabinet, opened a wheel of Brie, and began peeling the wrapper off the cheese. “Now that I’ve taken the time to think about it, it makes sense. Like I said, I got the impression his life hasn’t been easy. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s been hellish. A man like that will have stone walls for mental barriers. Or magical protection. He couldn’t risk having someone pluck the thoughts from his mind.”
I grabbed two wineglasses and poured us each a generous measure of chilled white wine. Her words made sense. Maybe Rhys used his power to protect his thoughts and feelings. “Okay, so you’re saying you overreacted?”
“Of course not,” she disagreed.
I finished pouring wine and stared at her.
“Maybe a little,” she admitted. “Still, I want you to tell me exactly what happened and then I’ll be certain if I overreacted or not.”
I handed her one of the wineglasses and snatched a cracker from the plate she was arranging.
“Hey, you’re messing up my pretty plate here.”
“It’s going to get really messed up in a minute when we sit down to eat it. What does it matter?”
She sighed and didn’t say anything else when I snagged a gherkin from the pile she’d just scooped onto the plate. I watched as she finished portioning out crackers, cheese, pickles, and pate. Now that I had food in front of me, I was ravenous.
“Let’s go into the living room and you can tell me everything.”
We settled on my sofa and I told her about how I babbled and how Rhys didn’t say a word the entire time I was there. I finished up with explaining how his eyes had been completely black and he was an emotional blank slate.
When I was done, I wasn’t sure which freaked me out more—the fact that I embarrassed myself in front of him or that he was an emotional null.
I drained my wineglass and waited. Oddly, Ava had nothing to say. I poured more wine and munched on crackers and cheese.
Finally I couldn’t take her silence any longer. “Well, what do you think?”
She stared at me, but her eyes were unfocused as though she was looking beyond me, and I could practically see the gears turning in her mind. “About what?”
“About Rhys!” I replied, my voice loud.
Ava blinked and suddenly seemed to return to the present. “I think that you have nothing to worry about,” she stated. “I also think that he’s as rusty around people as you are.”
That definitely didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t say anything else, mostly because I didn’t want to verbalize how much I was obsessing over my encounter with him. Instead, I went back to eating and drinking wine. Ava and I chatted about the coffee shop and the clients that came in for regular tarot readings, but let the subject of Rhys drop.
It wasn’t until I stood up to carry our empty plates into the kitchen that I realized I was more than a little tipsy from all the wine I’d drunk. As I rinsed the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher, Ava followed me into the kitchen and opened the second bottle of wine she brought.
We drifted back into the living room and resumed our positions on the couch. When I curled up against the cushions, Satchel appeared, hopped up into my lap, and settled down with a contented purr as I stroked her back.
Pleasant warmth suffused my body as the wine seeped into my bloodstream. My mind drifted back to what I’d been mulling over on my walk home and how her earlier description of Rhys and his isolation reminded me of myself. Without thinking, I asked Ava, “Do you ever get lonely?”
She blinked at me for a moment, her face expressionless. “Sometimes, I guess.”
I sighed, slumping down in the cushions a little more. “I do. I’m lonely all the time.”
“You have me,” she replied softly. “And other friends.”
Smiling at her, I touched her hand where it rested along the back of the couch. “I do. I’m so glad you’re my friend.” My eyes stung and I blinked rapidly, wondering why I suddenly felt like crying. “I guess I just mean I’m lonely for…male companionship.”
Ava chuckled. “You mean sex?” she asked before sipping her wine.
“That’s part of it, yes. But there’s more. I just want someone,” I paused. “A man, here. I want someone to share my life with. You are wonderful and I love you, but I want my other half. I need him.” I sighed again, sinking deeper into the maudlin mood that had come over me. “I know it’s not very modern or feminist of me, but I want someone to love and who loves me in return. I want weeknight dinners, bickering, and Sunday mornings in bed.”
“It sounds like you want an ordinary relationship, the kind that millions of people have,” Ava pointed out.
“Don’t you see?” I asked her. “With the right person, ordinary becomes extraordinary. Vital and necessary.”
Ava responded, but I could barely hear her. My head bobbed forward and I jerked it up. She laughed. “I think you’ve had a little too much wine,” she stated, reaching out to take my glass from me. “Let’s get you to bed.”
I let her help me to my feet and lead me back to my bedroom. “I want my extraordinary normal,” I murmured.
“I know, sweetie,” Ava whispered. “I want that for you too.”
Chapter Five
Rhys
As I walked to The Magic Bean, I told myself it was because I wanted a latte and pastries and not to assuage my curiosity about Savannah. It wasn’t until I turned the corner and stopped in front of the shop that I gave up the pretense.
Since she brought me flowers yesterday, I found that my mind wandered back to her again and again. I wanted to see her and actually talk to her instead of standing across from her and staring at her like a brainless oaf. While I was curious about her aura and the rainbow of colors she radiated, there was more to it than that. I was drawn to her, more than any other woman I’d ever met. Even after the short, one-sided conversation yesterday, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
When I opened the door to the shop, the scents of coffee and orange wafted out. My mouth watered. I stepped inside and immediately saw Ava behind the counter, smiling at a customer. When her eyes came to me, her smile widened.
“Rhys! It’s great to see you. Do you want something to drink?”
The customer moved on, carrying a steaming mug to a table. I nodded as I approached the counter. “I liked that latte you made me before.”
“Do you want something to eat?” she asked.
“Not right now, thanks.”
I glanced around the shop as she made my drink, surreptitiously looking for Savannah.
She set the cup in front of me and took my money, her purple eyes gleaming with mischief. I was beginning to think it was her default expression. “Are you looking for Savannah?” Her voice was low.
I wanted to deny it, but it was obvious that the witch could see right through me. “Is she here?”
Ava tilted her head toward the niche where she said they did tarot readings and I noticed that the curtains were closed. “She’s doing a reading, but she sho
uld be done in a few minutes. She’ll be free for a bit after that.” The witch studied me for a moment. “How do you like the house?”
“It’s comfortable,” I replied, taking a drink from the latte. Flavors burst into my mouth and I immediately took another.
The corner of her mouth hiked up. “Just comfortable?”
I shrugged. “I think that’s the most important aspect of any home, don’t you?”
Ava tilted her head, her eyes narrowing on me. “That’s a good point. Is the garage big enough for your car?”
“I don’t have a car,” I replied, draining the last of my cup.
“You don’t have a car?” Her voice rose as she spoke.
I shrugged. “I don’t really need one.”
“How do you get from one place to another? Or go to the grocery store?”
I looked around, but no one appeared to be paying attention to our conversation. Leaning forward, I answered, “I either walk or use magic.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You can trace?”
I nodded. The ability to utilize magic to teleport wasn’t common in the supernatural community, but I’d been able to do it since Gaius made me. I found that it came in handy when I needed to get from one place to another quickly. Or to escape my enemies.
“Interesting,” she murmured. “But don’t people notice that or think it’s strange that you don’t have a vehicle?”
I glanced at her. I’d never thought of that before. “I don’t know. I don’t spend much time around other people.”
Ava smiled slyly. “If you’re serious about fitting in with society, you should definitely consider getting one. If you know how to drive, that is.”
“I’ve never driven a vehicle before, but it doesn’t seem that difficult.”
Ava’s eyes widened. “It’s not really, but it is something that requires practice.”
I mulled over her words. I’d never considered purchasing a car before because my energy would have prevented it from running. Something about my power disrupted electrical currents. Until a few months ago. Kerry, the white witch I knew, had sent me an amulet. It contained powerful, old magic and made it possible for me to interact with the world. Now I could watch television, talk on the phone, and ride in a vehicle without causing them to smoke or catch fire. Maybe it was time for me to acquire a more traditional means of transportation.
