Bibbi looked like she could barely suppress her words. Her lips were pressed together so tight that I would’ve needed a pry bar to get her to speak.
I shook my head and stood. We might have our problems, but someone had to check on Gillian.
“You’re not the one who should go,” Bertha said, reaching out to me like she’d tackle me if I tried.
Zab shook his head.
Bibbi, lips still pressed together, had owl eyes as she slowly shook her head, warning me off.
“I have to handle this.” Hawk got up and walked out of the room.
I hadn’t wanted to go after Gillian, but that didn’t stop the burning in my chest as I watched Hawk go instead. It was ridiculous, really. Hadn’t I suggested he sit beside her?
Maybe the problem was that when she was upset, he felt the need to go to her. When I got attacked, battered and bruised, the only need he felt was to tell me how I’d failed. Who wouldn’t want to hit him over the head?
The only upside was that I could eat in peace, because this dinner was the best I’d had in a month. I added another serving to my plate.
“What’s going on with them? They having a lover’s spat or something?” I grabbed another roll to sop up the gravy.
No one said anything as they all looked at each other.
“If this is a secret, it’s not a good one, since everybody appears to know but me.” I took a huge bite, not really caring if they took half the night to come out with it, since I might be eating for that long. This meal was that good.
Bibbi looked at everyone else, waiting to see who would break first. It was clear she couldn’t hold out much longer. I could see a little gap forming between her lips.
“What is it?” I asked.
That was all she needed, one last prod. Her lips burst open like she’d been holding back the entire Hoover Dam. “Hawk declared for you.” Her eyes lit up as she bounced in her seat.
Oscar seemed quite pleased as well, in a more resigned fashion.
“What the hell are you talking about? Declared what?” Had Hawk gone back on his word to me and was going to try to kick me out of Xest again?
Bibbi flattened both palms on the table and said, “He declared his intentions.” She watched me, waiting for a reaction.
“What intentions?” That son of a bitch. He had. He was going back on his words and intended to get rid of me.
“His interest. That he wants to be with you.” Bibbi’s voice rose.
I dropped my fork and leaned back, squinting in her direction.
She rolled her head. “You know, that you’re the one? How many more ways can I say it?”
She watched and waited, staring at me as if a light bulb would turn on.
Bibbi had been waiting for this so long that she was losing her mind. “Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?” I said. “I think you might’ve misconstrued something. Hawk and I aren’t… It’s not… Let’s just keep it simple and say there’s no way you’ve got that right.” I went back to eating now that I didn’t have to worry about packing my bags and finding a new place to live.
“Tippi, I know what I saw.”
Bertha turned to Bibbi. “Maybe I should take a crack at this?”
Bibbi shrugged, relenting to Bertha, who would surely make more sense. Bibbi was so set on the way she wanted things to be that she was getting a little crazier than normal.
Bertha smiled at me and then said, “When Hawk shared his wine with you, it wasn’t typical. He had you drink from his glass. That means he’s declaring for you, and it’s very significant. Like Bibbi said, it means he’s interested and is declaring that interest. If someone else was interested, they’d have to say something to him, perhaps fight him. He’s pretty much called dibs on you.”
Bibbi was giving me the now do you believe me? look.
Zab occasionally glanced up and shared a look with Musso before the two of them went back to eating.
Oscar laughed softly to himself, nodding in Bibbi’s direction as if they’d won a hard battle together.
“How can he declare for me if he’s dating Gillian?” I dropped my fork and looked around the table.
“Oh, he’s not dating her,” Bertha said, shaking her head. “She wants him to, but he’s not interested. We all know it. Musso tried to tell her that no good will come from it, but she wouldn’t listen. Didn’t want to hear the truth.”
Musso shrugged as he continued to eat. That was as much involvement as he seemed willing to give.
I’d finally lost my appetite. “Don’t I have a say in this? Shouldn’t he have to get my permission to declare?”
“Why? It’s not a contract with you,” Oscar said.
“But you said someone would have to go to him if they were interested in me,” I said to Oscar, daring him to deny what Bertha had said.
“Well, that’s true.” Oscar nodded.
“Nobody is going to fight him.” I was the one raising my voice now.
There were nods around the table.
“Only people who don’t want to challenge him,” Bertha said, not seeming upset at all.
“Which is everyone.”
“Well, yes, that’s true,” Bertha said.
Was she not understanding the situation? This was barbaric. Did none of them see this? As I again took the temperature of the people at the table, it didn’t seem as if they did.
I got up and made the third grand exit of the night.
I paced in front of the door to the upstairs like I was driven by a steam engine with an inexhaustible heap of coal. Hawk was still upstairs. Everyone else had gone to sleep a long time ago, and he still hadn’t come down. I would’ve stormed up there and barged in if I didn’t want to be as far away from his conversation with Gillian as possible. Even being in the building didn’t seem like a great idea, but there was a conversation that needed to be had tonight.
What was taking so long? Was he apologizing? Sorry you were into me? Sorry I flirted with you in front of Tippi? Sorry I was nice to you? Was that a thing you should say to someone?
I took another lap around the office before I made my way to the back room.
That was when the stairs creaked. I shot back into the office as Hawk walked in. He had barely got a second before I launched into the question that had been burning inside me for hours.
“What was that stunt you pulled at dinner?” I stood in front of him, arms crossed. He wouldn’t be leaving here without answering.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You’ll have to expand on what you mean.” He walked past me into the back room.
I almost tripped on his heels. “You know what you did. What game are you playing now? You agree to stop pushing me out and now you figure you’ll make it miserable for me to stay?”
“I’m not sure I understand how I’m making you miserable this time.” He settled onto the couch, resting his arm on the back. He was looking at me as if he were completely in the dark.
“You know what you did, you know, with the wine and the declaration.”
“You mean sharing my drink with you when you didn’t have one?” He raised a brow, as if I were crazy.
Was I? It hadn’t been my idea. Bibbi told… Okay, Bibbi could be a little crazy, but Bertha wasn’t. And Gillian hadn’t run out of the room crying for nothing.
“If that was nothing, then how come everyone else in the room saw it as something?”
“Because they like to believe in old wives’ tales and weird rituals that are beyond antiquated. Think about this for a minute: I shared a drink with you. How many drinks have been shared in Xest? Does it make sense that would make it a declaration? What about Oscar sharing his food? Did he also declare?”
He had a point. Oscar had given me a bite of food. “What about how you moved chairs?”
Even as I pursued this line of questioning, I could feel the heat blooming in my cheeks. Was I really going to argue with him about how he’d declared for me when he was sa
ying he hadn’t? Next I’d be trying to bully him into confessing his love for me.
“Oscar’s been playing his games for weeks, trying to instigate. I put an end to it in the easiest way possible.”
I felt a frisson of anger.
It meant nothing. The fuel I’d been running on all night sputtered out. I took a few steps back, making my way over to the safer area by the tea kettle as Hawk watched. So he hadn’t declared anything? I sank down onto a chair, the energy gone.
“Everything okay?” Hawk asked, his voice softer than usual, as he continued to watch me.
“Of course. I’m glad we got that cleared up is all.” Yep, things were back to normal, just the way they should be.
“Glad I could help,” he said, getting up.
I didn’t watch him as he made his way out, even as he paused by the door for a few moments. Once he finally left, I waited another twenty minutes, long enough for Hawk to be long gone, before I grabbed my jacket and headed out the back door.
I’d walked from one end of Xest to the other, searching for grouslies, when a lone man happened upon me. His anger roiled off him in waves.
I turned, staring at him. The last fight I’d had, my odds had been much worse and my mood had started off much better.
“I wouldn’t do what you’re thinking, not tonight. It won’t end well for you.” The pent-up confusion and rage of my current situation must have seeped out into my voice, because he only paused a second before walking away.
I hadn’t recognized him from the many faces of the last attack.
Actually, I hadn’t seen any of the people who’d attacked me. Not a one. Not at the factory, and not in the streets. Hawk’s words came back to me: “I don’t feel like killing more people, and I’m sure they don’t feel like getting killed.”
31
“Now what happened? Why are you refusing to look at him? He declared for you. Doesn’t that hit you anywhere warm and tingly inside? You can tell everyone else you’re not into him, but I’m not buying it. I know. I can see it.”
The second I walked into the back room for a cup of tea, Bibbi followed me, and it was clear what was coming.
“I’m not looking at him because I’m embarrassed. I accused him of declaring for me when he didn’t.” I’d barely looked up from my desk all day. I’d actually had to remind myself to look up occasionally so that I wouldn’t seem odd.
“That doesn’t make sense. What happened?” She glanced at the door to make sure we were still alone.
I took a sip of my tea, trying to find strength to rehash this. “I accused him of declaring for me and basically overstepping, and he said he did nothing of the sort.”
My cheeks warmed just from uttering the words.
Bibbi’s mouth dropped open. “He did too. I saw it.”
“You saw an antiquated ritual.”
“Antiquated. Ritual? That’s what he said? I know what I know.” She took a step toward the door, shaking her head.
I grabbed her arm, swinging her back to me. Bibbi had one purpose burning in her eyes, and she was not making this a debacle in front of everyone. As it was, I already couldn’t look at Hawk. It was going to take days to undo the damage from last night.
“You are not saying anything. Promise me.” I hardened my tone, letting her know just how serious I was. It was still iffy whether it would work. Bibbi didn’t back down easy.
She looked at the door, as if it was taking every ounce of her control not to go walk in the office and lay all the dirty details out on the table.
“Bibbi?”
She clenched her fists. “Fine. I won’t. But for the record, I don’t care what he says. I know what he did. If he’s telling you it wasn’t a declaration, it’s probably because you look ready to run at the first sign he’s really into you.”
“He didn’t declare for me. Believe me, he’s never made any declarations of any type of wanting anything but a couple of quick grabs.” I tried to not sound disappointed or bitter. I wasn’t sure I succeeded with either.
“That is so not true.” Bibbi made it sound like she was defending Hawk’s honor. “I’m not buying it. Look at it from my perspective. I nearly begged you to tell Gillian you and Hawk had something, but you wouldn’t say a word. Just let her set herself up for a disaster.” Bibbi crossed her arms.
“What disaster? I don’t know what went down between them last night, but he was probably up there apologizing half the night.” She was starting to light the fires to my anger.
“That’s why she wasn’t at breakfast?” Her incredulous disbelief was hard to ignore.
“She said she had an early order.” Bibbi did have a point, but it was more likely they were still fighting. Gillian was the type to drag something out.
“You are so smart in some ways and so stupid in others that it nearly kills me sometimes.” Bibbi threw up her hands, shaking her fist.
Gillian, the woman of the hour, walked in. We both fell silent. I scrambled to fill the dead air so we didn’t look as guilty as we were.
“I really don’t think we’re getting a storm.” I should’ve come up with a more believable topic, because I was the last person in Xest who could predict weather, and everyone knew it.
My efforts didn’t have the effect I’d hoped for. Gillian walked over and took her cocoa off the counter. She smiled at Bibbi but barely tilted her head in my direction before heading back out of the room.
“Is she mad at me?” I kept staring at the door, wondering how I’d ended up on her bad side. “I think she is.”
“Because I’m right and Hawk did declare for you. You weren’t straight with her, and she figured it out last night.” Bibbi hopped up on to the table and grabbed one of Bertha’s pastries off the plate next to her.
Zab walked in, slumping into a chair. “Gillian is on the warpath. I had to get out of there quickly. You should’ve told her something was going on with you and Hawk.”
“Nothing is going on with us, so there was nothing to tell.” I was getting tired of no one believing me.
Zab huffed out a half laugh and shook his head.
“What’s she doing?” I took a peek toward the door but wasn’t close enough to see anything. From the glare I’d gotten a minute ago, I’d rather wait it out in the back room.
Zab sighed really loud. “You don’t know the attitude she’s dishing out. She walked in the office and started saying how she was leaving as soon as she got her things, that she’d been thinking about it all morning and we didn’t deserve her, the whole time glaring at Hawk. And you know what’s coming next, don’t you?” He stared at the two of us.
I had a hunch, but I wasn’t going to be the messenger. I’d quit the bad news delivery team. Bibbi seemed to have resigned as well.
“I’m going to get stuck walking her back to her place while she’s in the middle of a fit.”
Yep, that was what I figured. I sipped my tea, grateful it wasn’t going to be me. I spared a look at Bibbi, who was trying not to grin.
“Zab,” Hawk called from the other room.
Zab stood, cursing and kicking at the air before he walked out.
Hawk walked in a few moments later and made himself a tea. “Gillian moved out and there won’t be cocoa for a while. She doesn’t want any of us in the Sweet Shop.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“Because on her way out the door, she said, ‘Keep all your assholes out of my store.’” He raised an eyebrow at us.
Hawk shrugged and walked back out to the main room.
A few minutes later, Zab strolled into the back room again, shaking his head and looking even worse than he had before he left.
“That bad?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“Worse. We got halfway there, and I was so close to being rid of her when she decided she wasn’t leaving after all. She’s back.” Zab groaned as if in real pain.
“She’s back?” Bibbi said.
“Yes. Says her life is too valu
able to be left unattended.” He leaned forward, running a hand through his hair.
“So close,” Bibbi said, and then groaned. I joined her.
“So very close,” Zab agreed.
Gillian had gone back to her shop, so I was down to having to ignore two people. I still couldn’t look Hawk in the eye, and Bibbi had been added to the list. Her you’re being so stupid looks were a bit much.
At least I had an appointment this afternoon to take my mind off other things. That was a busy day, the way things were going.
When the door opened, I expected it to be Cassie, a low-level Middling and a fairly well-rounded witch who would still report for work. It was Mertie. Her coming here without a summons was strange enough. Her walking in with a bag thrown over her shoulder was the kind of thing that stole the air from your lungs. Or my lungs, anyway, because I was the only one who understood what was happening.
I hated knowing something was going to come back and bite you in the ass and yet there was no way to avoid it. All you could do was wait for the eventual problem, and then grin and bear it.
She scanned the office until she located me. The only reason I was still sitting was because running out of the room would’ve been too obvious.
She walked over and dropped her bag on my desk. “I’m calling in my favor. Where’s my room?”
With that sentence alone, all eyes swiveled from her to me.
Bibbi’s jaw was hanging down. She’d had no problem believing Hawk declared for me, but this? This was clearly too much for her.
Musso groaned, which turned into a throat clearing. Zab shook his head behind her back.
I was afraid to look at Hawk.
“We had a deal,” she said, getting impatient.
“And I’m going to honor it. I’m just surprised, is all. I didn’t expect you yet.” Or ever, at least when we’d first struck the deal.
“Yeah, well, that place was getting a little too weird for me.” She took a cigarette out and lit it with her finger.
Bibbi stood. “You can’t do—”
Zab pulled her back down to her seat and shook his head.
“Tippi, we need to speak,” Hawk said.
The Most Wanted Witch: Tales of Xest Page 19
