by Kallie Khan
“Hey!”
She laughed in her maniacal way, half-terrifying and wholly endearing. He laughed with her.
But the thought of his father’s birthday turned like an inexorable wheel at the back of his brain.
Chapter 9
TOBIE
Tobie, in typical fashion, got to Pat’s way earlier than she needed to. She’d already downed one coffee and was on her second, and worried that all that caffeinated, diuretic goodness was going to cause her to need to pee as soon as Kaiden arrived. Hi, yes, let’s start this date in just a moment, but let me pee first. Fantastic.
He arrived right at five. She waved at him.
“I was supposed to buy that,” he said, pointing.
“Just like you were supposed to pick me up,” she said, nodding.
“Oh, I see. Too proud to let me buy you a coffee? What’s wrong with my money?”
She laughed. “Not too proud,” she said, a playful guilt spreading across her face. “Just too uncaffeinated to wait any longer.”
He looked down at his watch. “I’m not late, am I?”
“I was early.”
“You totally could’ve given me a call. I would’ve swung by earlier.”
“Let’s get you a coffee,” she said, cutting across him in what she hoped was a friendly, confident way.
Mystia had given her a pep talk before she left so she wouldn’t be nervous. There’d been a surprising amount of yelling and grunting and jumping jacks in this pep talk (“Don’t question my methods, soldier!” Mystia had shouted), but she’d left the house invigorated, if a little confused.
They settled in with their coffees once Kaiden got his from the counter.
And then Tobie realized she had no idea what to say.
What did one say on a date? Was this a date?
She wondered if he’d leave if she stood up and did some jumping jacks for courage.
But he took a swig of his coffee, gave her a marshmallow-and-chocolate smile, and said, “So how was your thing?”
“My thing?”
“Last night. You were busy. I figured you had a thing. Or something more sophisticated than a ‘thing,’ but I don’t know what it was so I’m calling it a thing.”
“Oh, that thing.” She laughed. Then she squeaked as her throat closed around the laugh.
Yes, Tobie. Just tell him all about your weird family dates while you’re on a date (but okay, is this really a date?) and weird him out even further.
She tried to clear the squeakiness out of her voice. “Erm, yeah, it was just a family thing. Nothing special.”
He cocked an eyebrow, as though he didn’t quite believe her.
“I mean, if you ask my mom, it’s a very special occasion. But it’s just a bunch of old witch—uh, people. I mean, not old-old. I like old people. Just old like I’ve known them forever. Because family.”
She wanted to sink into the floor, but he took her rambling in fine stride.
“Family gatherings are...interesting,” he said, nodding, with an edge to his voice that hinted he was also not overly fond of them. Then he tipped the sugar shaker over his cup.
“Wow. That is a lot of sugar,” she said.
He looked up at her, still pouring. “What, this? Nah.” He winked.
She giggled. “Seriously. Can you even drink that now?”
“Hey!” he said, laughing. “I have low blood sugar. It’s a condition, you know.” He replaced the sugar shaker, stirred his drink (Tobie could hear the grainy rasp of the sugar granules inside), and took a swig. He smacked his lips. “Delectable.”
She shook her head. “I guess that’s how you’re so happy all the time.”
“Oh, that? No, that’s just stupidity.”
She grinned at the self-deprecating smile he gave her.
He looked back down at his coffee and swished it around a bit. “Speaking of stupidity,” he began, “this is a stupid thing for me to ask, but—well. Let me phrase it a different way. I’ve got this family member—let’s call him ‘Dad’—and he has a birthday coming up. I don’t really want to go, but my sister really, really wants me to go.”
She arched an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound stupid.”
“That’s not the stupid part. I’m the stupid part. But don’t worry—I’ll get there. So anyway,” he continued, “this party. It’s got Dad and my stepmom and my sister, and I see my sister every chance I get, and contrary to all those awful fairy tales, my stepmom is also pretty awesome. But Dad…” He trailed off and looked back down at his cup.
She waited, not sure if this date was going the way it should. She wished Mystia were here, pretending to be a fly on the wall (or transmuted into a fly so she could be on the wall in actuality—but flies were notoriously brainless and there was a high chance she might be squashed by someone, so that was out of the question).
“I still don’t see how this is stupid…”
“The stupid part is that I’m too afraid to go by myself.” He looked up at her, eyes wide and dark, with an open vulnerability that touched her far more than she anticipated. “And I know it’s crazy, but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go with me.”
He didn’t wince, but he looked like if she were to raise her hand in any sort of capacity, he’d flinch away as though she were going to hit him.
“As friends,” he added quickly into the silence. “As professional friends. They’re redoing their lawn and I thought, well, I’m a landscaper and you’re a plant expert. Maybe we could give them a few pointers.”
“Oh...sure.”
Professional friends? She didn’t really want to be introduced as a date or a girlfriend to his dad, but the way he threw the word “friends” at her was like having a blanket tossed over her head in the middle of a conversation. She didn’t quite know how to react, and it bothered her.
“It’ll be fun,” he said, giving her a small, encouraging grin.
“Will it?” she said, arching an eyebrow.
He gave a short chuckle. “It might actually be awful. But you’d be doing me a massive favor.”
“A massive favor, huh? Well. If we’re ‘professional friends,’ I don’t see what the problem is.”
He gave another soft chuckle, and shook his head with a touch of embarrassment. “I probably shouldn’t have asked—”
“Hey,” she said, setting her hands on the table and leaning forward, “it’s totally cool. We’ll go, do our professional friend thing, and you get to see your sister and cool stepmom. Yeah?”
His smile brightened. “Really?”
“Really. I’ll get my Professional Friend business card ready and everything.”
“I feel like I made a mistake with that phrase.”
“Can’t take it back now, friend.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh yes, friend.” She grinned like a wolf, showing all her teeth.
“I like you a lot, Tobie,” he said suddenly grinning back at her.
Her heart did a funny little turn, but she ignored it. “I like you a lot too, Kaiden. My very best professional friend.”
“I have created a monster.”
“Professional friend” turned into the most wonderful opportunity from then on to make merciless fun of Kaiden. She felt a little bad, but not enough to quit. When they ran out of coffee, they went up to the front together, but she cut across him swiftly to say, “Hi there, yes. My professional friend and I would like two hot flat whites.”
“Names?”
“Professional and Friend. You can just put ‘PF’ on both.”
“I hate you,” said Kaiden under his breath.
The barista gave them a funny look, but took her money and dispensed her change. “Okay, PF, your drinks should be out in just a bit. By the way, I love your hair,” she said, pointing to the green streak.
“Thanks,” said Tobie.
“Why do you insist on tormenting me?”
“Because it brings me joy,” she said, grinning. “Hey, did I tell
you my sister also loves the fairy lights? I wanted to put them out in the garden, but she convinced me to put them with my indoor plants, in the center, kind of like the fairies are peeking out from between the leaves. It’s actually perfect.”
“Really? You like them?”
“Love them. Great little centerpiece.”
A barista placed an order on the counter. “I’ve got two flat whites for Pee-Eff!”
They looked at each other for a moment. Then Kaiden cracked and started to snicker. Tobie followed suit. Before they knew it, they were both laughing hysterically, Tobie sluicing a torrent of sugar into Kaiden’s cup.
She saw Kaiden the very next day. His flower order was ready, and he came in with a smile and a wave.
“Oh hello there, my extremely professional friend,” she said jovially.
“I say, it’s good of you to be here, my likewise professional friend.”
“Hey,” she said under her breath, pretending to break character, “what exactly is our profession?”
He looked around, as though the thought had just occurred to him and someone might be listening. “That is an incredibly good question. I think it’s plants.”
She laughed. “Plants? Just plants.”
He gave a short, affirmative nod. “Just plants.”
“Not phytology, or virology with a focus on plants, or botany, or horticulture—”
He was waving her away and trying not to laugh. “Semantics,” he said, a chuckle breaking through.
“Here for your flowers?”
“Yep.”
“That’s an incredible order. Great arrangement.”
He admired the floral spray as she brought them over. “It’s not much. I like to think I have an eye for arrangements, but one, I’m not that great, and two, you have no idea the amount of fear instilled in me whenever someone discovered I liked flowers as a teenager, so I didn’t practice as much as I should have.”
She clicked her tongue. “Sounds to me like someone’s just fishing for compliments, because this is gorgeous.”
“Well, it helps when you also have someone who knows how to assemble them.” He inclined his head toward her.
“Like a professional plant friend, you mean?” she said.
He shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Never going to live that down.”
“Nope,” she said happily.
He rolled his eyes, but he was grinning. He spun the arrangement carefully around, inspecting it from each angle. “I think Flora’s going to really like these.”
Tobie liked to think she had a good head on her shoulders. That she had all her mother’s (admittedly unnerving) stoicism, and none of her fear-inducing bite.
But when Kaiden casually mentioned some other girl’s name, the little part of her that hoped maybe they’d be more than professional friends fell quietly to pieces.
The smile stuck on her face; her eyes were too wide. “I hope Flora likes them too.” She tried to sound upbeat, but her voice came out a desperate sort of pleasant—which was to say, it didn’t sound pleasant at all.
“I think she will. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”
“M-meet her?”
“Yeah. At my dad’s birthday.”
So he was bringing an actual girlfriend?
So she really was just his professional plant friend. Nerdy weird girl with niche knowledge he just so happened to need. That was just great.
To her horror, her eyes stung. She blinked and turned to the register, ignoring the way Kaiden watched her.
“Flora’s my sister, by the way,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think I mentioned her name.”
Tobie was both mortified and relieved. She gave him a weak smile. “Oh. I’m sorry—I was confused for a second.”
And angry, and hurt, and—oh, witches. The human body, magical or mundane, should not be able to swing that wildly through such keen, prickly emotions.
“Actually, I can’t believe I hadn’t told you her name earlier. Flora’s kind of a flower freak, her name being Flora and all. And you love plants. So that’s also why the flowers,” he said, gesturing at the arrangement.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m taking her out to celebrate her all-region placement. Best freshman clarinetist in Dowercaster,” he said proudly. “We’re going to Bartholomew’s Fried Country House. Because they’re the only place that serves fried chicken gizzards in a hundred-mile radius, and the kid is a freak about chicken gizzards.” He twisted his expression and stuck out his tongue in a gesture of distaste. “But she likes them, so what are you gonna do?”
Tobie laughed in minor disbelief. “Flowers and chicken gizzards, huh? Sounds like an interesting sister you’ve got there.”
“She’s something,” he said, and shook his head. “I hope you don’t mind,” Kaiden added, voice a touch bashful, “but I told Flora about you.”
“Told her what, exactly?” she said, her earlier mortification returning to color her cheeks.
“Told her I managed to ruin your day. Twice.” He grinned. “Told her how much I like you.”
Her blush deepened. Her brain whirred frantically, trying to find the right words with which to respond. Her instinct was to go for a playful barb, but none came.
“How much do you like me?” she asked instead, inwardly wincing at the earnestness in her voice.
He chuckled and looked down at his toes before glancing back up at her. His cheeks were flushed under his tan. “Well, I guess you can ask Flora the Saturday after this,” he said, and picked the flowers up. “Catch you soon?” he said as he pressed the door open with his hip.
“Soon is good,” she said.
“Soon is good,” he repeated. He was halfway out the door when he stopped, drew a quick breath, and said, “Um, hey, actually...what do you think about lunch?”
“I like lunch, as a general rule.”
He snickered and shook his head. “Excellent. What do you think about having lunch with me? Sometime soon?”
The pen she was twirling in her fingers clattered to the counter. She pretended she meant to drop it and stuck her palm under her chin, resting her elbow on the counter below. “I think as long as we steer clear of chicken gizzards, I’d be amenable.”
His face broke out into a wide grin.
“Excellent. So soon is good, and lunch sometime soon is even better. I’ll call you?”
“Or I’ll call you,” she returned.
When the door snicked shut behind him, she shivered, half out of nerves, and half to dispel the tickle of pleasure that ran like little bolts of lightning across her skin.
“Gotta release those emotions somehow.”
Tobie jumped and almost screamed. “Hettie! How long have you been down there?”
Hettie was knee-deep in potting soil, palming handfuls into pots.
“Oh, long enough to know that boy is so sweet on you I bet he tastes like sugar.”
“Hettie!”
“Be a dear and pass me the trowel.”
Hettie grinned at Tobie the rest of her shift, and was not dissuaded at all when Tobie said, “He doesn’t even like me that way, really,” she said, but hoped she was wrong.
“Okay, dear. Whatever you say.”
Chapter 10
KAIDEN
Kaiden couldn’t believe his nerve—or his luck. He was halfway lost in thought about Tobie all the way home (but also had a hand out to protect the flowers, because he was doing well for himself, but not that well—eighty-odd dollars’ worth of perennials dashed all over the floor of his truck would be a sad day indeed), thought about her green-streaked hair, her dark eyes, her laugh.
Her wicked sense of humor.
And it frightened him a little. He’d known her all of a few days, yet here he was, inviting her to his father’s birthday (and mucking it up, as usual, by calling her a professional friend) and combing over their conversations in his brain, looking for clues as to whether or not she liked him just as
much.
I think I like you. She’d said that at the bazaar. And then, I like you. She’d said that at the bazaar too.
He hadn’t felt this much distress (yes, distress) since he fell for a girl his freshman year of college.
But she’d been disappointing. Pretty, but vapid. He realized once he got to know her that she could’ve been quite smart, but years of having things handed to her (perhaps because she was pretty, or perhaps because she was from a conspicuously wealthy family, or perhaps a healthy helping of both) had stunted her in a way that Kaiden had come to pity.
When he broke up with her, she was stunned, and had yelled at him that no one had ever broken up with her before, that she’d been the one doing the breaking up, thank you very much, and who did he even think he was, and to never show his face in public again. Then she’d cried.
It was a hard thing for him to do, but it was freeing to walk away.
But with Tobie, things were different. She was smart and coy, witty one moment and quiet—almost sullen, even—the next.
She was someone he wanted to impress. Badly.
“Professional friends,” he said aloud. “Really impressive.”
And inviting her to his dad’s birthday party? Even more impressive. There’s nothing a woman loves more than being invited to her some dude’s estranged father’s birthday party.
He made a note to himself to look in the mirror when he got home and give himself a good talking to about the proper way to impress a lady.
Which, really, when you got right down to it, was kind of a mystery to Kaiden.
Chapter 11
TOBIE
“His dad’s birthday party?” Mystia exclaimed, scoff light and airy and weirdly similar to their mother’s.
“I know,” agreed Tobie, choosing not to point out he similarity.
“Well, I guess it’s inventive.”
“Should I cancel?”
“No!” Mystia gave one vehement shake of her head. “No way. I’m far too invested now.”
