by E. M. Moore
Liam’s eyes widened. “O-okay.”
I turned my head to stifle a chuckle, then playfully punched him in the shoulder. “I wasn’t talking about that. Not that—”
“Guys, I’m going to be late for class,” Gabe called out.
Liam gave me a smile and then nudged me toward the door.
Once we were all in the car, Travis turned the radio on, and it was a silent trip from there on out. He dropped Liam and I off at the end of the shop’s street and called out that he’d see us later before pulling away again, taking Gabe with him.
“What’s gotten into him?” I asked, disbelief in my voice. He hadn’t ever said goodbye to me before. Not that he’d singled me out that time, but it had seemed like an inclusive goodbye meant for both of us.
“Turning over a new leaf? I bet it had something to do with you yelling at him yesterday. I’ve never seen anyone stand up to him like that. Except for Jennie.”
“It was quite the yell, wasn’t it?” I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”
He took my hand in his and entwined our fingers as we made our way up the small hill to the cobblestone street. “Mad at you? Why?”
“For going off on Travis.”
“Travis is a big boy. He can handle it.”
Sounded good to me.
We were just shy of the shop when I peered into Madam Serena’s windows. She busied herself around the cash register at the right side of her store, and then came forward, carrying her big sandwich board announcing her psychic readings. Since I saw her coming, I opened the door for her.
“Thank you,” she called out.
The sandwich board was only about a foot and a half shorter than she was. Liam took it from her and then set it up a few feet outside of her shop door where we’d always seen it.
“Good to see you again, Norah.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. I didn’t think I’d given her my name last time, but maybe I had. “You too, Madame Serena.”
“Lots of clients today?” Liam asked politely.
“Not as many as I’d like, but sometimes it’s not about that, is it? I helped the nicest gentleman from Virginia yesterday get in contact with his late wife. She died from a car accident.” She shook her head. “Tragic, tragic story. He was so pleased, and I couldn’t have been more humbled to help them make that connection.”
I glanced from her to Liam. He gave her a polite smile, one so sweet I couldn’t tell if he’d even been listening to what she said.
Granny used to do stuff like that, too. Not so much connect people with the dead, but connect people with the living. She had a knack for finding missing people. What Madame Serena had just said reminded me of things Granny used to say all the time, except with a Creole accent and more flare. The meaning behind their words were the same though. It wasn’t about the magic itself, it was about what we used it to do, and making people’s lives better was how magic thrived.
Liam gave her a quick wave and then stepped out of the way so I could open my own shop door. I put the key in the lock and twisted, opening the door for him and then letting him inside while I locked it behind us. “You guys did say she was crazy, right?” I asked, not positive anymore.
“Completely off her rocker,” Liam said.
“We’re sure about this?”
“One-hundred percent. We can give you the list of the legit witches and psychics in town if you want. Madame Serena isn’t on that list.”
I followed Liam to the back. “But she said her mother passed the gift down to her.”
Liam looked over his shoulder at me. “Her mother was another story. For lack of a better word, Serena’s a dud. She calls herself Madame Serena, Norah.” He gave me a look as if that should answer everything for me, and yeah, it probably should’ve. “So…,” he said, walking into the back. “Where do you need me? You point, I’ll do.”
Jesus. Where had this man been my whole life? I could think of several spots to point out on my own body, but that’s not what he’d meant. “We’re opening the deliveries and putting them on the storage shelves. If you can’t find something else similar already on a shelf, let me know and I’ll tell you where I want it.” I handed him a box cutter from the shelf and went to the desk to find my own. Soon, the sounds of torn cardboard and knickknacks shuffling across metal shelves filled the air.
Liam and I worked together in relative silence before my stomach grumbled an hour and a half later. He shook his head. “Shit. Gabe stole your banana, didn’t he? I meant to stop at the little coffee shop down the way before we got started but Serena interrupted me.” He stood and brushed his hands off. “I’ll go get us something to eat. Unless you want to stop too.”
I looked down at myself. I’d managed to get ink all over my hands that had rubbed off from one particularly dirty box and then smudged it all over my clothes. “Yeah, no. Do you mind?”
“Of course not.”
Liam gave me a quick kiss on the top of the head and then headed out into the main shop. I listened for the bell to go off when he left the place, but it didn’t. I’d forgotten Randy and I had discovered that yesterday. I was going to have to call the person who put it in. After telling myself to remember to do it, I stopped what I was doing and looked through the files stored in the desk for the number. If I didn’t do it right then, it wouldn’t get done.
I got off the phone with the lady at the front desk who would send someone out tomorrow morning to look at it when I heard footsteps out in the main area. My ears quirked up. It didn’t sound like Liam’s natural gait. It sounded heavier.
I peeked around the side of the door frame to find Randy coming up the aisle. Like the coward that I was, I retreated into the shadows. I was still hurt he’d pulled away from me yesterday, but at least he was here now.
He plowed right into the room, found me almost cowering in the center, and came straight for me. He wrapped his strong hands around my middle and picked me up to his chest, dropping kisses on my head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left like that. Liam said you were worried, and that you took it out on Travis.”
“I didn’t—”
He squeezed me tighter. “I wasn’t expecting that to happen. Especially, lately. Things have been going really good, and the card just set me off. I won’t do it— Well, I’ll try not to do it again.”
He set me back on my feet and stepped away. The look of pure worry on his face contrasted against his muscles and tattoos, making me want to throw my arms around him like he was a teddy bear. “You’re forgiven. But I also just want to say that I didn’t take what happened out on Travis. He deserved it.”
“Oh, totally. He’s a dick.”
I let out a surprised laugh, enjoying the way it warmed me. “Anything to take the blame off you, huh? Is that how you’re playing this?”
He winked. “See, you know me better than you think you do.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me close again. “You’ve managed to get yourself all dirty today. Hard work?”
“A little. Liam’s been helping me. He went to get something for us to eat.” I stepped away and stared up at him. “I do want to talk about what happened, though, Randy. I feel like I should’ve known a birthday card from your mom would’ve set you off. We’re pretty close, you know?” I said, gesturing between us. We’d shared some of the most intimate moments I’d ever had, and I hadn’t realized card stock would’ve done that to him. Something about that didn’t sit right with me.
“I know,” he said, his shoulders hunching a little forward. “I would’ve liked to explain it to you right there, but I just wasn’t in the right head space, you know?” He leaned back against the same desk he had me propped up on yesterday. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I want to tell you everything, Norah. Sometimes I forget that you weren’t here since the beginning. In a lot of ways, it seems like you were supposed to be here all along.”
Aww. That was sweet. I walked forward and leaned into him, p
ressing my lips to his, letting them linger there, but not for too long. Randy and I were bound to get distracted and not talk about what was truly important at the moment. I leaned just out of his reach after he tried deepening the kiss. “Your mom?”
His shoulders sagged, and he blew out a breath. “My mom’s not really the bad guy in all this. She’s obviously flighty, sending me a birthday card about a month too late, and she’ll never win any mother-of-the-year awards unless they’re for incompetence, but she wasn’t the true bad person in my life. She just didn’t do anything to stop it. My dad—” He cleared his throat after taking a short breath. He locked eyes with me. “My dad wasn’t a nice man, Norah. He wasn’t good to me or my mother, and my mother never had enough nerve to leave him.” He ran a hand over his shortly cropped hair. “Even witches can be bad people and they don’t even have to do evil magic to be. Sometimes they use their fists, or their feet, or anything else just lying around.”
My mouth dropped. “Your dad…he hit you?” Randy nodded slowly, and I drew back into his embrace. “I had no idea.”
“It’s not something you just talk about openly. The guys know because I’ve had to deal with my mom trying to reach out before. I thought after the last time we spoke, she wouldn’t try again, but apparently, I was wrong. At least it’s down to super late birthday cards instead of impromptu visits. Those were the worst.”
“But your dad? Where’s he now?”
His voice hardened. “I couldn't care less.”
“But he’s still around? He’s alive, I mean. Your mom and him, are they still married?”
“They’re divorced, finally. Too little too late in my opinion. She says she doesn’t know where he is either, but I’m not sure I believe her. I do believe that she doesn’t have any contact with him because even she’s not that stupid to subject herself to that again.”
“And he’s never tried to contact you?”
Randy shook his head, his face turning red, his chin dropping low and muscle ticking in his jaw. “No. And he won’t, either.”
Thank God for that. I hunkered down into his embrace again and kissed him on the corner of the lips. “At least your mom doesn’t know we’ve moved out of the apartment.”
He took my head in his hands and made me face him. “I hadn’t thought about that.” A smile chiseled a path across his hard features. “That does make me feel better.”
“I aim to please.”
His eyes blazed, and I realized too late I’d made another sexual innuendo. A soft knock came on the backroom door. I turned and Randy looked over my shoulder at Liam. He held a bag in one hand and a drink holder in the other. “Sorry, Randy. I didn’t realize you were going to be here.”
Randy took my hips and moved me around so I was facing Liam. He then put his arms around me and placed his head on my shoulder. “It’s okay. I already ate at the gym.”
“You should’ve heard Norah’s stomach growling.” When Randy made a confused look his way, he said, “Gabe stole her banana.”
“What a little prick.”
I laughed to myself before Randy squeezed me and kissed my neck. An involuntary shiver worked its way over my skin.
Liam looked back at us before setting the food down on the desk next to us. “You guys good?”
I nodded and Randy must’ve reacted the same. “Good. Did Norah reenact the Travis-Norah showdown of 2018? It was epic.”
I laughed silently to myself. Liam didn’t exactly look, or act, like the type of person who would use the term epic. He was so odd, it was great.
“I’m not doing that,” I told them, looking at them both square in the eyes. They weren’t going to talk me into it either.
Liam shrugged. “At least he was halfway decent to you this morning. I mean, he didn’t really talk to you directly or make that much eye contact, but he also didn’t make any snide comments either. I feel like that’s a plus.”
“What’s gotten into you guys? Both my best friend and my girl are looking on the bright side today.” Liam narrowed his eyes when Randy said ‘my girl’. “Sorry, bro. Our girl.”
He grinned, and we all laughed before I dove into whatever Liam brought us back from the shop.
Right before I took a huge bite, the now familiar tug started in my stomach. It pulled and pulled until my gut twisted and the pain started.
Not again.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
14
Within a few minutes, Liam had already gotten Gabe and Travis on the phone. Gabe was in the middle of a class, so Liam told him to stay behind, but Travis was on a break. He told us he’d pick us up with the big Jeep since the three of us couldn’t fit on the back of Randy’s bike together. Instead of any of us being left behind, we went to the end of the street and waited for Travis to show.
“You guys don’t feel anything?” I asked, once again shaking my head as Liam tried to hand me a homemade muffin that looked simply delicious and a thousand times more appetizing than the packaged crap we had at the house.
“I feel a little something,” Randy said, “But not anything that would’ve alerted me.”
“Same. Again,” Liam said, frowning down at the muffin.
A horn beeped across the street and we crossed, Randy holding out his hand to stop traffic as if he owned this town. It certainly seemed like he did. Who wouldn’t have stopped for a huge, tattooed, muscled guy? If I wouldn’t have known him, I would’ve thought he looked a bit dangerous.
He ushered us across the road and then hopped in the front seat while I got in the back with Liam. Travis turned around as I buckled myself in. “Take us away, GPS.”
He tried to smile, but it looked really awkward on his face. I glanced up at Liam, who shrugged, before I said, “Do a u-turn. It’s back where we were the other day, but like a few streets over. Maybe.” Something like that, anyway. I didn’t really want to admit to Travis I wasn’t quite sure. This whole pull thing was new to me. It would’ve been easier if one of them had retained their ability to find evil magic.
I hinged at the hip as another cramp took over. Damn, this was just awful, and again, I was super pissed it had to be a pain in the stomach that told us where to go. Why couldn’t it have been something much more enjoyable? Like, the smell of muffins. As soon as the pain subsided and Travis committed to a u-turn—a bunch of cars honking at us as we did so—I picked at a piece of the muffin Liam held in his hand.
He leaned over and kissed my temple, then whispered, “I know we’re doing something important right now, but I really wish you’d try to eat something. You haven’t eaten all day, and if this pull turns out to be something, we might be preoccupied for a while.”
I smiled to myself. It was just like Liam to be thinking about me when something else as important as getting the pull was going on. I put my finger on his chin and urged him closer before sealing my lips to his. I lingered there, drinking Liam in. His lips were so soft, so playful. They just kept pulling me further and further until I felt eyes on me. I settled back down in my seat, finally taking the muffin from a smiling Liam, and then stared straight ahead. Travis’s hunter green eyes were frozen on me.
Looking away, I shoved a piece of the muffin in my mouth as I tried to calm my insides. Just when I thought Travis was a lost cause, he looked at me like that. Like he wanted to be Liam in that moment. I couldn’t pin this guy down for the life of me.
We stopped at a stop sign and Travis cleared his throat. “Is it still straight?”
I looked inside myself again, getting in touch with the pull of my magic. “One more street up. Then take a left.”
He did as I said, his gaze lingering on me a little longer than usual in the rearview mirror. I tried not to notice. My number one priority was my muffin. I picked at it, peeled the wrapper off, looked at it some more until the tug started to get clearer. I perked up, and Travis slowed the Jeep. “Close?”
“Mmm,” I murmured in agreement as I stared at the houses down the street. It wa
s close. Finally, I spotted it. A New England style colonial, white siding with black shutters. “There,” I said, pointing at it through the front windshield.
Just as we were about to stop a few houses away, the wail of a siren pierced the surrounding air. Travis pulled right over as a cop car whizzed by. His brakes squealed as he came to a stop right in front of the place we were headed. As soon as he got out of the car, another cop came from the other end of the street, and they both rushed toward the front door.
Randy unbuckled his seatbelt. “Shit. Someone must’ve found the body before we did.”
“Maybe the bad guys are still there?” I offered, a little glimmer of hope that something could go our way. If the bad guys were still there, and the cops apprehended them, at least all this would be over. We could then just somehow sneak into the jail and pull out the bad magic of whoever was doing this.
Liam scooted in front of me so he could see through the break in the seats. “We can’t get a good angle here. We’re going to have to get out of the car. I’ll do the visibility spell, so we can get a look at what’s being done inside.”
All four of us scrambled out of the Jeep. Travis and I waited for Randy and Liam so we could cross the road. It was Randy who stepped up and grabbed my hand, interlocking us together as we crossed the road and waded through onlookers who’d clamored out of their houses to see what was going on. When we were directly opposite the house, we joined another couple who stared up at the white, three-story, picture perfect suburban home. Liam did the spell. Randy threw his arm around me as the air shimmered around us. The facade of the house fell away, revealing the two cops in an upstairs bedroom that faced the street. One of them was shaking his head while the other was talking into the radio hooked on his shoulder.
More sirens sounded. An ambulance and another police car turned the corner. I looked up to see one of the policemen move. I gasped. There was a young kid there. A teenager, white as a ghost, sitting in a chair in the same room, staring blankly ahead.
