“Yes, exactly. Hey, listen…” His voice drifted away as he watched the brush glide through my hair.
“What?”
His eyes fluttered. “What?”
I stopped brushing for a moment, leaning toward the phone. “What’s with you this morning? Has the idea of buying a winery gotten you all squirrelly or something?”
His smile faltered and an uncomfortable expression crossed his face. Apparently not.
“I was just wondering…” He scratched his temple before moving through his room, the camera showing the light brown stubble on his chin. The image bounced as he set down the phone, and when it settled, I found myself staring at his chest. The urge to take a screenshot was strong. “Edgar is working on translating a part of the book that should allow you to set magical snares.” To everyone’s surprise, Edgar had been chosen to translate a book that acted as instruction for my magic. He had to but (laboriously) read a passage and the knowledge for that spell blossomed in me as though I’d known it all along. “He’s not exactly sure what those snares might do when triggered—blow someone up, rip off a leg, sound an alarm, discreetly let you know someone has tracked through them… Can you squeeze some training in to go over it? By the way, what’s the status with his flowers? I forgot to ask when I spoke to him earlier.”
I stopped working the brush through my hair for a moment. His muscles lengthened and contracted as he pulled a beige shirt down over his abs.
“I can get a training in, yeah, but are you serious?” I finally asked. “You suddenly have an interest in Edgar’s flowers?”
He bent until his face took up my view once again, his smile infectious. “Think I’ve gone native?”
“I don’t think I’d be able to handle it if you turned as weird as that vampire.”
He laughed. “I want to know if he’s found out what’s eating them. I haven’t smelled anything suspicious around the property, but I want to make sure the flower prowler poses no threat.” He bent until I saw the top of his head.
“You put your shirt on before your pants?” I asked, unable to help it. Watching his morning routine fascinated me.
“Yeah, don’t you?”
“No, pants before shirt. Though I usually start with panties, then a bra, then pants. Since you don’t have a bra, I suppose it makes sense to go from underwear to a shirt, then on to pants… I can see that. If you put your underwear on before the shirt, that is.”
His eyes found mine from beneath thick black lashes. He didn’t speak for a moment, but then he straightened up, his shirt bunching as he brought his hands up to secure his pants. “I’ll be shifting today, probably a few times. I’m free-balling it. One less thing to keep track of.”
My face heated and I looked away, back to brushing my hair. “No purple sweats?”
“No. In case you change.”
“Why should that determine your choice of pants?”
“I’m tired of the purple sweats making it seem like I’ve looked when I haven’t.”
My face flamed a little hotter. Every time I stripped before shifting, he turned completely around so he couldn’t accidentally look, a courtesy I never afforded him. Even still, his sweats were always tented by the time he turned back. If Niamh was there, she’d inevitably accuse him of using a mirror to look over his shoulder. She liked to make an awkward situation worse. It was part of her charm.
“How are jeans going to help with that? I assume you’re wearing jeans?”
“Jeans are uncomfortable as hell when you have a hard-on and no briefs.”
“Ah. So that’s the real reason you’re free-balling it—trying to force self-control.”
His lopsided smile was adorable. “That purple sucks, anyway. It in no way matches your other form. It’s much too drab.”
I laughed and stood with the phone, dropping the towel into the laundry. It would be interesting to see who came in to grab it—Mr. Tom, as usual, or my mother, whom I’d banned from doing my laundry in my teens because she shrank everything but wouldn’t give me money to buy more. The ban hadn’t worked. She hated seeing clothes in the laundry basket. The woman was a machine.
“When did you want to train?” I asked, flicking on the light in my spacious closet and propping up the phone on my dresser, against my jewelry box.
Austin was on the move again, walking through his house, a place I’d never been. I had only been to his cabin on the lake, a place he usually didn’t tell people about.
“I have to hit the bar and put in a couple orders,” he said, “but I can run and do that now. Early afternoon? Lunchtime?”
When I was sure only my face showed in the picture, my robe hit the floor and I pulled out some knickers. “Yeah, whenever. I’ll probably need a break from the parents by then.”
“Great. I’ll just swing… What are you doing?” His tone had changed, almost aggressive.
Panties on, I paused with bra in hand. “Changing, why? You did it.”
The movement behind him stopped, and a pained expression took over his face. He swore, looking to the side. “Wish you would’ve waited on that.”
I couldn’t help a smile even as heat unfurled within me. A wave of shivers coated my body from the contrasting chilled air kissing my skin. I did my best to ignore the sensation, putting on my bra. “You need to get laid, son. This is becoming a problem.”
He shook his head and breathed out through his mouth. “You’re a pretty lady. Can’t be helped. Talk to you later. Wear a muumuu.”
I laughed as the call ended, the screen going black before morphing back into his contact image. For a moment I just let myself be still, owning the confusing emotions and feelings rolling through me: heat from our exchange, pleasurable aching down low, the strange contentment of having shared our morning routines, the comfort and joy of our deepening intimacy as friends, and the worry regarding the budding longing I felt to be near him. To call him again and keep talking. To speed up time so he could get here a little faster.
“Keep it steady, Jacinta,” I murmured to myself, pulling on a pair of pants and a shirt, smiling a little as I noted the order. “He’s the only normal man in your life. You’re clearly reacting to that as much as him as a person.”
The bedroom door opened for me as I reached it.
“Thank you.” I stepped through it.
“What?” Ulric walked toward me in the hall. “Me?” He grinned.
“No, sorry. The house. She hears.” I made a circle in the air with my finger.
A pained expression crossed his face. “Don’t tell me those things. This house is a lot to get used to. Not to shift the topic or anything, but can I come out now? It smells like bacon. Or can I at least fly out the window and hit a diner in town? If I smell bacon, I need to eat bacon. I don’t think I’m alone in that.”
“Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll go try to explain you all to my parents first. Then yes, I’m sure there is bacon, though we’ll have to make more, since my mom didn’t know to cook for the house.”
“It’s not Mr. Tom? Damn. I was hoping he’d come around on his stance regarding bacon. Did he make a special allowance because of your parents?”
For some reason no one could understand, Mr. Tom would not allow bacon in the house. He claimed it was bad for us, which wasn’t untrue, but then why were chocolate and cookies allowed? We’d all just kind of gotten over it, because we didn’t want to make it ourselves.
“He conveniently forgot about it at the store, but my mom brought some in her cooler.”
Ulric blinked a few times as we stopped at the top of the stairs before drawing out his words. “She…brought some…in her…cooler?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I’ll explain later.”
The blaring TV assaulted my eardrums before I even hit the ground floor. I made my way to the makeshift lounge and found my dad in his designated chair, his arm on the armrest, the remote in his hand. The man on the screen was casting a fishing lure into a calm lake while expounding on the best lures for big-mouth bass.
“Hey, Dad, everything good?” I asked.
“Heh?” He turned in his chair to look over his shoulder, and then turned down the TV. “Oh. Hi. Late one last night, huh?”
I moved so it was a little easier for him to see me. “Yeah, kinda. You good?”
He grunted and turned back to the TV. “Quite a setup you’ve got here. Lots of sitting rooms. How many sitting rooms does one house need? Although, if the house is this big, what else are you going to put in it, I suppose. There was an orange rug in my room. Did you decorate this place?”
“No. It came furnished. Mostly.”
He grunted again. “Well, I don’t know about the orange. That was a big thing in the seventies, that rusted orange color.”
“Yeah. You guys should’ve brought the color palette from your house. I could’ve closed my eyes and picked at random. What do you bet I’d land on brown?”
He scratched his stomach. “Nice, big house, though. Lots of room. I had to turn the TV up so I could hear it, it’s so far away. Least I can see it. I should get a new TV. What’s this picture? A bunch of pixels, right?”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Yes. Lots of pixels, you’ve got it.”
“Yeah. We still got that old one you gave us. It’s not as clear as this one.”
“Put it on your Christmas list. Do you need anything in here? We’ve got a big garden if you want to check that out. There’s even a hedge maze.”
“A what?” He muted the TV. “A hedge maze? What is that?”
“A big maze made out of…hedges. They’re like thick bushes but really tall, and they’re used to form the walls of a maze.” His blank stare said he still wasn’t getting it. “A corn maze, like in pumpkin patches, but made out of bushes and in my backyard.”