Love Potion (An Ariel Kimber Novel Book 2)

by Mary Martel

  Deleted Scene

  Mr. Cole’s office was a room I’d never been in until now. I didn’t know what it looked like before but I imagined it wasn’t the mess of boxes that it was now. Moving boxes were spread out across the floor. Some of them were taped closed shut and others were open and filled with things.

  The walls were painted the color of the sky on a rainy day. The carpet was thick and the color of pure, untouched snow. Black shelves ran along one wall from floor to ceiling. A massive, sleek black desk sat before a large picture window. There were no pictures on the walls and the shelves were lonely looking and empty.

  Mr. Cole wouldn’t be in this place for much longer and neither would I.

  I stopped short in the doorway, not expecting to see Quinton sitting in a chair directly in front of the desk. Mr. Cole seated in the chair behind the desk, I expected. Quinton, not so much.

  Ignoring Quinton, I looked at Mr. Cole expectantly and said, “You wanted to see me?”

  He smiled at me kindly as he gestured to the empty chair seated beside Quinton.

  I perched on the end of the chair and sat my hands in my lap. I twisted my fingers together nervously. I had no idea what this meeting was about. Mr. Cole had knocked on my door and asked me to meet him in his office so here I was. And I had no idea why. They had already agreed on where I’d live, now what?

  “What’s going on?” I rushed out before anyone could say anything.

  Quinton chuckled from his chair beside me. I shot him a dirty look before focusing back on Mr. Cole. Quinton laughed harder.

  “Alright, sweetheart,” Mr. Cole said quietly. “We need to talk about a few things before we make this official. First, I want you checking in once a week. Of course, you are always welcome to call me or text me or video chat with me at any time that you want to. But I want you checking in every week. Quinton promised me he’d remind you and make sure you don’t forget.”

  I looked at Quinton out of the corner of my eye and saw him smirking. I just bet he would do exactly what he promised Mr. Cole he would. I had watched him barge into the guys bedrooms and I watched him try to boss Tyson around like he was Ty’s real parent. He was so totally going to try to parent me and boss me around.

  “I can do that,” I promised Mr. Cole. “I’ll call at least once a week, but I’ll probably text you more.”

  He nodded. “Good. That’s settled. Now, you’ll keep the Rover because I bought it for you and I meant what I said. It’s yours, there were no strings attached. You’ll keep your bank card and I’ll be depositing an allowance at the beginning of each month for you. For whatever reason, if you run out of money or there’s an emergency, simply let me know and I’ll have more money put into your account. It will be more than enough to support yourself and I will continue this until your birthday where we will discuss what it is you’d like to do with your future. Now, this brings us to the next topic I wished to discuss with you.”

  He paused to give Quinton a look that I entirely missed due to the fact that my brain wasn’t functioning properly. He was allowing me to keep my car and wanted to give me an allowance. Even after he knew I wasn’t going with him, Mr. Cole still wanted to take care of me. I didn’t understand it because I’d never had someone to care before. And he wanted me to check in with him so he’d know what was going on in my life and that I was doing well. This was all so very kind, he was so very kind, but I could not and would not accept his money. It felt too much like a handout.

  “Marcus,” I said, and the shocked look on his face made me realize how stupid I’d been before to not call him by his first name. I took a deep breath, let that go, and continued, “I will accept the Rover because my Bug is long gone and you gave it to me and I love it. It’s also like my security blanket. As long as I have it I can go anywhere I need to, I don’t have to stay if I don’t want to because I will have a means to escape. I don’t know why, I just…” I closed my eyes and whispered, “I need that.”

  I swallowed down my emotions with a shaky breath. I hadn’t meant to get emotional and I hadn’t meant to give anything away to Mr. Cole. He was still in the dark when it came to most of my mother’s behavior towards me and I didn’t want him to know more than he already did.

  Shit.

  Think fast, Ariel Kimber.

  “About the money, though. I can’t accept-” I attempted to protest.

  “I don’t want you to feel beholden to the Alexander’s in any way. I also don’t want Quinton to entirely support you even though he has offered to do just that. This is the only way I’m comfortable with you staying with them. I know you can do whatever you want and you do not have to accept these things from me as I am neither your parent nor your guardian. But, since I consider you my family, and I hope you do the same with me, it’s important for me to take care of my family, which is why I’m moving. It means something to me to be able to be there for them right now when they need me. But I’m not going to be able to go if I don’t feel you’re going to be properly taken care of. So, do this old man a favor, sweetheart, and give this to me.”

  I wanted to argue with him and push the issue. I didn’t want to take his money, it would make me feel like a freeloader. And I certainly did not want to live off of Quinton.

  “I can get a job,” I assured them. A job doing what, I had no clue.

  “No.” They both said together.

  “Babe,” Quinton groaned. “If you get a job, the guys will kick my ass. The other coven’s find out you’re working a job and they’ll think we aren’t treating you right and that they’ve got a shot at stealing you away from us. If you don’t mind, I’d like to avoid that.”

  Mr. Cole picked up where Quinton left off. “I’d also rather you focus on school work instead of some job.”

  Oh boy.

  I didn’t think this was going to go over well for me. I licked my suddenly dry lips and clenched my hands together in my lap.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Quinton staring at my hands. His lips pursed and he frowned. I untangled my fingers and quickly shoved my hands under my thighs.

  “Ariel?” Quinton murmured. “Something wrong?”

  I hated it when people asked me that.

  What’s wrong?

  Well, gee, let me think about it for a second. The person sitting beside me accidently killed my mother after she beat me and tried to drown me in the bathtub. The man sitting in front of me had been my mother’s lover. He didn’t know she was dead and thought she’d bailed on the both of us. His brother died in a horrible car wreck and now he was moving out of state. I was moving next door to live with the neighbors who happened to be all boys and, oh yeah, they were witches. And we weren’t even going to get into the whole sharing thing yet. Yikes.

  Now, ask me again, what’s wrong?

  I stared down at my bare feet and wished I had worn socks. I didn’t like walking around barefoot unless I was in the privacy of my own bedroom, on a sandy beach, or standing on soft, green grass. I was weird that way.

  “Babe.”

  I sighed. There was no avoiding him.

  “I don’t want to go back,” I whispered.

  “Shit,” Quinton breathed out harshly as he sat back in his chair. “You’re gonna kill me if you drop out of school. If you don’t go, Ty and the twins won’t want to go either. They’ll give me so much shit. Ugh, Ariel, babe, this is no good for me.”

  This wasn’t about him. It was about me and I didn’t need him turning it around and making it about him.

  “Why don’t you want to go back to school?” Mr. Cole asked me calmly. Unlike Quinton, who hadn’t even bothered to ask me why I didn’t want to go back.

  I thought about how to answer Mr. Cole’s question honestly and finally went with, “The kids are mean. They said awful things to me because I was new and because of my mother. Now with her gone…” I trialed off and shrugged my shoulders. The words I’d left unspoken, spoke volumes.

  It would be worse for me at school
now. Much, much worse.

  Mr. Cole placed his elbows on the top of his desk and dropped his head into his hands.

  “Goddamn Vivian,” He mumbled. “Goddamn her straight to hell and back. Worst mother I ever met.”

  I looked to Quinton with wide eyes. Goddamn her to hell was right.

  Quinton bit his bottom lip and shook his head. I knew better than to say anything, he didn’t need to remind me.

  Secrets could be a dangerous thing when leaked to the wrong person. I didn’t think we’d have anything to fear from Mr. Cole but it wasn’t worth finding out if I was right or not.

  Quinton eyeballed me and I knew he wanted to know if I was okay. I desperately wanted to reach across the short distance between us and grab his hand. This man I barely knew yet was one of the strongest people I’d probably ever meet. He had a moral compass that frightened me and was often times a scary man. And I wanted to hold his hand. I knew if I reached across the short distance between us and grabbed ahold of his hand he wouldn’t hesitate to intertwine our fingers and he wouldn’t give a crap about what Mr. Cole thought about it.

  “There’s an alternative school,” Mr. Cole said, cutting into my thoughts.

  I did not like the way this conversation was going at all.

  Alternative school? I wasn’t certain sure, but I thought that was supposed to be for the troubled kids and teen moms. Did I belong at a place like that? I didn’t think I did. Admittedly, I was a troubled kid but I still didn’t think I belonged in a special school and, if I had to go to school at all I would not be going to school where Ty and my salt and pepper twins weren’t. We were supposed to stick together.

  “I don’t want her at the alternative school,” Quinton told Mr. Cole. “That’s a rough crowd and God only knows what kind of trouble she could get into there. It’s not safe for her.”

  “I can take classes online,” I said in a last-ditch effort to not be forced to go back to school. And there was no way in hell I’d be going to some alternative school. No, thank you.

  Quinton lifted his left leg and rested his ankle on his right knee. “That could actually work for me,” he told Mr. Cole.

  I sat back in my chair and rolled my eyes. Quinton was taking his role as guardian a little too far, if you asked me. Not that either of them seemed interested in my opinion.

  “She’d still be taking her classes just not in the actual school building and not around people who treat her poorly.”

  Alright, Quinton got points for that one.

  Mr. Cole sighed and sat back in his desk chair. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Quinton. Ha! So it wasn’t just me.

  “Is this really what you want, Ariel?” Mr. Cole asked me without taking his hostile eyes off of Quinton.

  Was this what I wanted?

  Well, to be honest, no it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to take the GED test and skip the rest. But, beggars couldn’t be choosers and at this point I’d take what I could get. And, hey, if I didn’t actually have to go to class it would still be a win for me.

  “Yeah,” I lied easily. “That’s what I want.” I scooted forward until I was sitting on the edge of my seat. I clasped my hands together and held them up to my chest. Time to go for broke. “It would really mean a lot to me if I could have your support on this, Marcus. I know you’ve already done so much for me, given me so much. I have no right to ask for your support in this and if you really think it would be best if I go back to school then that’s what I will do. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

  Mr. Cole waved his hand in the air, as if waving my words away.

  From beside me Quinton grunted. He knew exactly what I was doing with my hands clasped together and pleading eyes. I’d learned that Mr. Cole was a bit of a sucker when it came to me, something I loved about him. There was a lot to love.

  “You’re a good kid, sweetheart, if that’s what you want to do then I will support it.”

  I slumped back in my chair and let out a relieved sigh. I wanted to jump up and down and cheer. I didn’t have to go back to high school. That was easier than I thought it was going to be. I finally caught the break I’d been waiting for.

  As they talked about the necessary paperwork that would likely need to be filled out, I let my mind wander. There had been so many changes in my life recently that it made my head spin. This was the first time in a month where I felt like my feet were planted firmly on the ground and a hole wasn’t about to suddenly open up beneath me and I wasn’t going to be sucked into the dark abyss.

  Quinton and I both left Mr. Cole’s office at the same time. I thought I would walk him to the door and see him out but he had other plans. He took ahold of my hand and pulled me along behind him as he made his way up the stairs.

  “Quinton-”

  He squeezed my hand. “I want to see your bedroom.” He told me. “I know I’ve been in it before, but that doesn’t count because I wasn’t in the right state of mind to take in the view. And, I’m jealous because I know Ty’s spent time in there with you and both the twins and Julian have been in there. Hell, I know Ty’s even spent the night with you. I don’t have the patience to be last and I’m not nice enough to wait for you to invite me on your own.”

  I laughed softly as I followed him to my bedroom. He barged into my room, dragging me along behind him. He liked to barge into other people’s space uninvited.

  “You know,” I said quietly, “the only one I actually invited into my bedroom was Tyson. The twins and Julian weren’t invited and didn’t stay long.”

  Having him in my bedroom made me suddenly nervous. He talked about his jealousy and not wanting to come last like it was normal. He was far from normal, they all were, and the arrangement they wanted to have with me was anything but. I wasn’t sure if he even knew that I’d overheard him with some of the guys talking about me, or if he knew that the twins told me that they’d all want to have a relationship with me.

  Being a girl and having magic was a very rare occurrence these days. So much so, the girls with magic were treated like royalty, like a Princess. Or, so I had been told. Magic was a new development for me, something I never knew I had until recently.

  Before I’d moved in with Mr. Cole the guys had all had a dream about me. They knew I was coming and some of them thought I was meant for them.

  You see, the twins told me about the other female witches and their covens. Apparently, they ended up in a relationship with every member of their coven. They were treated special, precious and raised to think that kind of relationship was normal. The twins said that each coven dreamed of having their own female to share. My guys had almost had one but it didn’t work out because she was an evil bitch. Because of her, some of the guys weren’t open to trying out another girl. Well, that and one of them had a girlfriend and another claimed I was too young. They had no idea I’d overheard this last bit of information, but I had. It had slightly colored my view of them, and not in a good way.

  None of this I was okay with and I had been avoiding thinking about it as a whole. I had a feeling though that with me moving in with them I would be forced to actually think about the situation. And I wasn’t looking forward to it.