Dhameer
He watched from overhead, hovering as he often did. He wasn’t completely transparent, but humans didn’t notice much of anything not dangled directly in front of them, so he was safe. He wasn’t sure why he was so invested in this particular set of humans. They were no better nor worse than any others he’d granted wishes to. Well, perhaps slightly better. He smiled to himself.
He liked Tibby. She was spirited, and she had a sense of responsibility. It had taken her a while to find it, but she had it. He wanted her to find some manner of happiness. It’s why he granted the additional wishes. He hoped it wouldn’t turn out poorly.
Sometimes they did.
He didn’t want to deal with the fallout, even though he had nothing to do with outcomes. He merely put the characters into play. Not that people who felt disappointed, or worse, cheated, let rational thought be their guide.
Tibby was different. She’d yelled at him, and he could understand that. But she’d composed herself quickly and just asked him to leave her be.
Every time he thought she’d do one thing, she did something unexpected.
He looked into her past. Ahhh. That was why. Her parents had been rather…unreliable. That would make a child more independent from an early age.
He checked in with the man, Rick, again. He was all right. Slightly bemused and lost in memory, but all right. That was good. He’d be able to tell Tibby, if she asked, that he’d seen the man, and he was fine.
He wasn’t sure if that would help or hurt.
Tibby
That night, I cried myself to sleep. I slept like the dead and felt like the dead when I woke up again. I had taken my day to cry over Rick. It hurt like hell. While I wasn’t feeling as raw, it was still red and painful, and it sucked. I hated that I was back here and not with him.
The practical side of me looked at it as needing to put the last year of my life in a box and set it to the side. I needed to get through the next steps. Knowing now that I would be yanked from wherever I was when a crossroad was reached made me really afraid to take any steps that would lead me to a crossroad. But to hell with this. I’d let fear rule my life for so long. I could see that, with my older eyes looking over the past year of my life.
My parents weren’t the demons I thought. Not that they were great parents. Not at all. They hovered around okay on a good day. But to have let them decide my fate because of the fear they instilled in me—pissed me off. At them. At me. I wasn’t sure how you were supposed to get over being raised in an alcoholic family. You didn’t know any better. I wasn’t sure I knew better now, but I had at least been through the shit that not facing it brought on. I hadn’t expected to see something different from my memories growing up when I did this. All my life, I’d been aware of being the kid of drunks—and the youngest to boot. It was a shitty place to be. It’s why Xavier and I were such good friends. He had a boozy mom with a steady stream of boyfriends. He hated calling anyone uncle.
God, I wanted to tell him about this. About my realizations about my parents, although I didn’t know how to tell him without feeling disloyal. I didn’t think looking back at his mom would show her in a softer light like it had my parents. But then, I could be wrong. Shit, how would I tell him about any of this?
One thing I had liked—he and I were still friends in my first wish. He actually liked Rick. Like my dad, X hadn’t liked Dave either. I think that was when we were toying with the idea of dating, so there might have been more than just friendly concern in that dislike. But I had X still, which made me feel a little better. I hoped that would remain the case in the next two wishes.
I thought about this second wish. I didn’t want it, if I was being honest. I wanted to go back to Rick, to marry him, and live that life. Dhameer had been clear. I had to go through with all three. I didn’t think he’d just let me go back to the moment Rick had proposed. Why? Why couldn’t I just stop now? This was a good place for me, and I’d be in a good place. A safe place. I could almost hear myself whining about how unfair it all was.
At the same time, I would never know where I was truly meant to be if I didn’t give the second and third wishes my whole effort. So today, my think-it-over day, I mulled over where I would want to go, what I wanted to try to change next. After what I had just gone through, I hesitated to pick something that could be really great. I had to give myself a number of mental shakes to get me to focus and be fair to what or whoever was coming next. Even more importantly, I needed to be fair to me. How often did people get a chance to change their lives? This was a gift, and I needed to remember that. No matter how ungrateful I felt at the moment.
A thought hit me like lightening. How much of life had I missed by being afraid to face it? Holy shit. The thought was so big I had to practically shove it into a closet in my brain. But it made sense. Look at how afraid I was of potentially dealing with hurt again. I pictured myself shutting a closet door, leaving the lightning strike revelation and all that had been the past year on the other side.
It wasn’t easy. Every time I thought about Rick, holding the ring box in his hand with everything he hoped for in his eyes, I burst into tears.
By the time I went to bed on that second night, I felt pretty sure I knew where I wanted to go next. I decided to sleep on it and see if it still felt right in the morning. When morning came, I awoke suddenly; completely awake. I thought about my second wish.
Yep. This was it. I took a deep breath. I was going to give this my all and tamp down any hurt that was still lingering. I hoped. As if on cue, Dhameer was on the edge of my bed again.
“Don’t you worry about falling off?” I asked.
“Djinn do not fall.” He looked at me with his slightly offended look. I was good at getting that out of him. I’m sure that garnered me lots of points.
“What have you decided?”
“Is this like before? I just think about it, and when it gets really detailed, I’ll wake up in it?”
“Yes. I’ll let you know when it’s time to open your eyes as I did before. Are you ready?”
“I am. Give me sec.” I breathed in deeply and exhaled. I did that a couple of more times. “Hey! I wanted to ask you something. Can I have Xavier in all three of my wishes?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to lose my oldest friend. I love him. If he can’t be in my wishes, I don’t want them.”
Dhameer looked at me so intently I wanted to squirm like a guilty kid caught stealing. What the hell was that about? It was an honest question.
“Were you friends with him at the time you wish to go to now?”
I nodded.
“Then you will still be friends. The only thing that initially changes is you take the choice you didn’t before.”
“Okay. Good. I can’t lose him.” I took some more deep breaths, then I looked at Dhameer, who was waiting calmly, and said, “Okay. Let’s do this.”
“Close your eyes and see where you are.”
chapter eleven
I closed my eyes, and I was back in that tacky pizza parlor. I was visiting my girlfriend on a weekend from college, and Danni lived in Annapolis. I didn’t often get weekends off. I had a scholarship for school, but I had to work to have money to live. My parents sent me money occasionally, but it was sporadic. They were proud and mad that I’d gone so far away. I’d saved for the outfit I was wearing that night. I’d taken forever with my hair.
“Open wide, Tootsie Pop,” I heard the whisper in my head.
I opened my eyes, and I sat with Danni at the pizza joint. She loved this place, although I wasn’t sure why. Tacky was kind way to describe it. We sat in a raised booth. I think the place had been something else in another life, and the current owners turned everything they could into space for tables, so we sat up on a stage.
A few tables away, a group of young men in white sat laughing and talking. Danni had told me about them before. They went to the Naval Academy. She loved mids. Her last two boyfriend
s had been mids. When she first called them that, I said, “Mids? What in the hell is that?”
“It’s short for midshipmen.”
“Ah. I’d look for a short nickname, too.”
“Stop. They’re really nice.”
“And you’re really a groupie. Only there’s no good music.”
I focused on where I was now, versus our past conversations. Danni, love her though I do, was tossing her hair and making goat eyes at the table of mids. I sighed. I had given up a weekend off with my boyfriend, Tim, to spend the weekend with Danni, and right out of the gate, she was on the hunt. So much for girl time. Although I had to be fair—now I’m glad she’d dragged me out. There’d be no second wish if she hadn’t.
I’d been grumpy that night, though. I remember thinking that, but in reality, how much better was it that I was with Danni? She wasn’t involved in screwing me over, as Tim was, probably right this minute. Danni was a really good friend (again, unlike Tim). She just hated being alone. I couldn’t cast a ton of stones, because I had gone through my own stage of frantic coupling just to avoid being alone. It was a shit place to be. Danni was younger than I had been when I went down the path to stupid. It was hard enough as a sort-of-adult. At twenty, this was horrible. So I kept my sighs to myself and tried to be supportive without being mean.
The two other girls with us were her friends who had come with her for the weekend also. They were nice enough, but the whole lot of them were hair flippers. The mids were neither stupid nor slow. After a few more lingering glances and several hair flips, one approached our table.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Will. Would you mind if we joined you?”
“Not at all!” Chirped Danni. I think she might have batted her lashes at him. Good grief. I made a note not to bat mine. Admittedly, hers were a lot cuter than mine.
“Great,” said Will. “I’ll be right back.” He hustled back to his table, and with amazing speed, he and his four friends were at our table, bringing over their pizza and drinks, and sitting down with a lot of chatter. Will and three of the guys sat down. His fourth friend looked around at the table, which was in a large half-moon booth, and walked away.
He returned carrying a chair from another table, and set it down at the outside of the table. He sat it rather close to me, as I was sitting on the outside edge of the booth.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Tibby.”
He held out a hand, and I shook it. “Seth McKay,” he said. “Thanks for letting us join you.”
“We’re practically the only people in here. No sense in sitting so far apart when it’s much more cheerful to be with a big group.” Hell. I did not sound twenty. I sounded grumptastic forty. Shake it off, Tib! I told myself.
He laughed. “Hey, don’t go overboard with the enthusiasm. It could go to my head.”
In spite of myself, I laughed. “Sorry. I sounded like an old lady. It wasn’t meant that way.”
“No worries,” said Seth. “So are you from around here?”
“No. I go to school in Virginia. I’m just visiting Danni for the weekend. She’s at school with me. This is where she’s from, and her parents asked all of us to come down.”
“Ah. A tourist. Good. I can practice my table crashing wiles on you and not have to worry about seeing you again.”
I laughed again. He was pretty funny. I like it when people can make fun of themselves. It shows confidence. Seth had an easygoing manner, but he wasn’t slow. I could tell he was capable and confident, but that he didn’t feel he had anything to prove to anyone. I liked that. In spite of my sadness over losing Rick, I felt the thrill of attraction. He was handsome, and he wasn’t shy about showing his interest. No games. He also had a very nice body. I needed to keep my thoughts above the waistline.
“Well, you’re doing okay so far. I haven’t run screaming.”
“Not yet, fair maiden. Give me time,” he said, arching a brow at me.
I laughed out loud. Everyone else at the table stopped talking to look at me.
Seth said, “It’s me. She’s captivated.” His friends laughed and went back to talking with Danni and the other two girls.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s you. Entirely.”
“It seems like there should be an ‘Oh Seth!’ or a ‘You manly man!’ in there, but I don’t hear it.” He gave me a frown.
“Are you always like this?” I asked. I remembered him as really funny, but now, I saw him for the gem he was. He was way ahead of his peers.
“Yes. If I wasn’t, the pressure and my roommates,” he nodded at the other guys, “would finish me off. It’s only my sharp wit and wry sense of humor combined with my ability to insert sarcasm into everything that has stopped me from becoming homicidal.”
“Well, I can see that you are barely containing the suffering. It’s about to boil over, were it not for your heroic efforts.”
“Indeed. It’s good to see that you are getting a better picture of me. I was beginning to think you were lacking in the proper levels of appreciation.”
“How could you think such a thing?” I held my hand to my heart, and looked wounded. “You came over to be merry and brought food and drink. Such assets are to be prized.”
He looked at me for a minute and then burst out laughing. This time, when everyone else looked over conversation didn’t stop like it had before. I caught a glimpse of Will’s face. He thought Seth was weird, and apparently I was too. That made me like Seth even more.
“Where have you been all my life?” He asked, leaning onto the table and putting his chin in his hand. “Do tell. I’m mightily intrigued.” I could feel the energy from him as he came closer to me. It radiated off him, like warmth. He was hot. Once again, why had I not taken the chance here? Oh, that’s right. Tim. Tim the jerk. I stifled a sigh. Look at the amazing chances I kept missing for some guy who hadn’t been worth it. I needed to focus.
“You’re doing Shakespeare in Lit, aren’t you?” I asked, flicking my glance from his. His was too intense for me with all the thoughts running around in my brain.
“No. I am naturally this worldly and well spoken.”
I didn’t answer, just rolled my eyes.
“I cannot show it here, for fear of being unmanly, but you have just sent a dagger through my heart.”
“Oh, stop. I assure you, you’ll live.”
“I’m not so sure. Even now, I feel my life’s blood fading from me.”
I looked at him. “Does this work for you often?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I have to think about how many ladies have had the pleasure.” He leaned forward onto his hand, pretending to think. “I would estimate the figure of potential victims at…one. So if you would be so kind, you’ll let me know how it goes at the end of the evening.”
I took a moment to study him. He was goofy in a way you would expect a goofy looking guy to behave. But Seth was not goofy looking. He was classically handsome. Straight nose. High cheekbones. Light green eyes. What looked like golden hair. I couldn’t tell, because it was cut very short. It looked some shade of blonde. Not like Rick. Seth was only about nine or ten inches taller than I. Rick had been well over a foot taller. Rick was a mixture of black and white and American Indian. I could remember him telling me he was like a mixed batch cookie, sweet no matter where you bit. The thought made me flush, thinking of him in that manner.
I stopped my internal dialogue. This would lead nowhere but straight to hell. I had to close the door on Rick, on the last year of my life. I’m sorry, I said to his shade. I focused on Seth.
“I’ll be sure to do so. I would hate for you to flog this as a good idea and strike out all over the place.”
“Excellent. I welcome it. Would you care for a beer?” He reached for the pitcher he and his friends had brought over.
“No thanks. I’m not legal, and you don’t get to tout your wares to the drunk girl.”
He laughed. He had a really nice laugh. “So how old is not legal? Are you sixteen? Am
I about to be arrested?”
“My not legal is twenty, so I think you’re safe from the law. But you have more obstacles than that.”
“Really? I love a good challenge.” He flexed his fingers. “What am I facing?”
“A boyfriend.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Always, always, the boyfriend pops up. Is he real, or is he a fictitious tool to send me packing? No, wait, don’t answer that!” He held up his hand, and I shut up to see what would happen next. Even though I knew, I was enjoying this more than the first time around.
“Danni?” He asked. She stopped her conversation with Will, and turned to Seth.
“What?”
“Your friend Tibby, here. Is she single?”
“No, she has a boyfriend. His name is Tim.”
“So he exists?”
“Well, yes. I thought I just said that?” She asked with a frown.
“Thank you. Carry on,” he said to Will.
“I wasn’t lying.” I had to say it.
“Don’t speak!” He held up a hand, covering his eyes with the other in mock dismay. “I am trying to retrieve all the pieces of my battered and broken heart. A curse on Tim. On all Tims!”
“Really, Seth. The school play must be right around the corner too. You’re good.”
He looked over at me. “I’m not entirely kidding, Tibby.”
“How can you say that? We just met,” I said. Oh, Tib, you big fat liar. You felt it right away, not just the first time, but this time. That whole instant connection thing, the love at first sight—this made you a believer all those years ago. I could feel my face flame again at my traitorous thoughts. I felt as though I should feel bad about where I was two days ago, but what I felt was the pull of my attraction to Seth. Not just a physical pull. There had been something more. There still was.
Three Wishes: Time Traveler Romance (Heart Of The Djinn Book 1) Page 6
