by Amie Gibbons
Once magic was out in the open and accepted throughout the world, though?
Who knew what’d be possible?
“You heard from Carvi?” I asked, opening my eyes.
AB nodded. “We talked last week. He said to tell you hi if you asked about him, but not if you didn’t.”
I made a face.
Carvi had been keeping his distance, leaving me to learn my powers on my own, after he’d sworn he’d never leave me, cuz he’d found out that his higher plane bosses had had a hand in his brother’s death.
And since they wanted him to teach me, he wasn’t gonna.
Pain squeezed my heart and I shook my head, shoving it down.
He’d done the one thing I knew back then he never would.
He’d abandoned me.
No, not now.
This was my day.
My networking, my event, my fourteen-hour days for the past week, and who knew how much time before that.
I wasn’t gonna let heartbreak drag me down.
“Hello, Ryder.”
Speaking of.
I drew a deep breath and looked up, heartrate spiking and hands shaking on my mug.
“Hey, Grant,” I said, eyes meeting his.
My heart squeezed for an entirely different person, but for the same reason.
My old boss at the FBI stood at the kitchen door, just as big and imposing as I remembered him.
His brown hair was longer than usual, and he had bags under his eyes that could’ve held enough for a week’s vacation.
But his eyes still held that hard frosted green sheen that said he could take over a room with his will alone, no matter how tired he was. His lips were still thick and kissable, and his features were still clean shaven and strong.
My heart skipped and I took a sip of what was now my coffee, keeping my eyes on his.
“I would ask how you’ve been,” Grant said, voice even and quiet, “but I can see you’re doing well.”
I shrugged as I lowered the mug. “I’m dead tired from running my butt off, but this thing’s ready to go, and yeah, I’ve impressed myself.”
We stared at each other.
I kept my eyes soft.
But I wasn’t lookin’ away.
“Help you with something, Grant?” I asked.
My voice stayed even.
Good for me.
He stared at me and sighed. “I want to know how you are.”
“Why?”
He scowled and I felt the force of his personality as it seeped out of him.
Grant’s power showing through.
“You haven’t cared for over a year,” I said, not able to hold back the smirk. “Except that’s not actually true. You’ve kept tabs on me. You’ve told the other teams to hire me. But you weren’t there when I showed up, or at least, not for long.”
Grant’s eyes flicked to the side and AB cleared her throat.
“I’m going to give you two a minute,” she said.
“No need,” I said, putting my mug to my lips as my old boss’s eyes returned to mine.
“Leave,” Grant said.
“No, stay,” I said, lowering the cup. “She’s been helping me set up.”
“I want to talk to you.”
I shook my head. “Why? We haven’t been… us for over a year now, Grant. I’ve barely seen you in passing on cases, and then if we spoke, it was shallow small talk. Why do you want to talk now?”
“Ariana, I…”
“I know,” I said, holding up a hand. “I get it, Grant. You didn’t want to lead me on, because you’re a good guy who doesn’t do that to girls, so you cut me off. But here’s the thing about cutting someone off.
“They’re gone.
“I get it. I do. But it doesn’t change anything. You cared, you were attracted to me, but you chose someone else. And you got mean. You did it to try to make me let you go, because you didn’t want to hurt me more.
“I get all this, Grant. I do. I can’t even say you did the wrong thing. But it doesn’t change anything. You’re with someone else, and right now, seeing you like this, with you saying you want to talk, I’m in pain.
“It wasn’t just a crush, Grant. It wasn’t hero worship or transference. It was real for me. We both know it. You didn’t feel the way I did. That’s it. And there’s nothing either one of us can do about that.”
We stared at each other.
Nobody saying anything.
“You’ve grown up,” Grant finally said.
I nodded. “Yeah. I have. But you didn’t wait for me to. You’ve been with Heather for a year. And you two seem happy. I’m so glad you’re here and doing one of the panels. It’s great for my conference.
“But I can’t do this.
“I can’t talk to you about anything besides what cases you should go over during your talk. So please, go back out there, mingle, grab some food, and find a table. Because I have to go up there and present in a few minutes, and I can not switch out of the professional mindset right now.”
Grant nodded, rapping his knuckles against the doorjamb. “What you put together here is impressive. I’m proud of you, Ariana.”
He turned and walked away.
I sagged against the counter, slamming my mug down so hard coffee sloshed out and burned my hand.
I yelped and jerked it away, shaking the already cooling liquid off it.
“You okay?” AB hopped to, grabbing a paper towel and handing it to me.
“Yeah.” I wiped the rest of the coffee off me, checking my dress for spots.
I didn’t see any.
“It’s already stopped hurting,” I said, voice soft, eyes down.
Liar.
“Remember last November?” AB asked after a moment. “You said Thomas was trying. At least he cared enough to call and be an asshole when he was fighting with me, because that showed he cared.”
I nodded.
“Grant cares. It’s been from afar, but you said he’s been getting cases to you, keeping an eye on you, worrying about you.”
I sniffed. “Yeah. Normal brokenhearted girls got nothin’ on me. I can do more than just Facebook stalk the ex.”
Except Grant had never been my anything.
And I’d only dropped in on him once or twice mentally to see how he was.
How he felt about me.
That’s how I knew he’d been so cold and cut me off last year because he was trying to do his best by not leading me on.
It’s how I knew he’d been attracted to me, and if he wasn’t such a good guy who wouldn’t sleep with someone he didn’t see a future with, he would’ve had no problem hopping into bed with me.
It only made me love him more.
It only made me miss him more.
And seeing him hurt way more than I could deal with today.
“I feel so stupid,” I whispered.
“You want to feel better from me telling you something stupider?” AB asked.
“Always,” I said, sniffing and straightening my dress before looking up.
“I wish Thomas was here.”
I snorted.
“Yeah,” she said. “Told you it was stupid.”
“Didn’t you guys try talkin’ around December? You were doing some kind of counseling with a friend playing mediator?” I asked, handing her back the coffee. “Then he bailed without telling you? Told y’all’s friend you’d figure it out when you didn’t hear from him?” I asked.
She nodded. “That’s why it’s stupid. Then a few weeks after that, we ran into each other at the Christmas party. I went straight for the wine and ignored him, and at the end he hovered until I acknowledged him, and he asked how I was and… and he acted like nothing was wrong, like he hadn’t blown me off. It was short and awkward, and then he moved.
“And now I wish he hadn’t moved away. I wish I could still see him here and there, even though I panicked every time I did. I wish he was here, coming into this room, saying he wants to talk to me, even th
ough the last time I heard from him, I ignored it, and my therapist said that’s exactly what I should’ve done.”
“Wait,” I said, “when was this?”
She coughed, looking down.
“Annabeth?” I drew out.
“My birthday,” she said.
I did a doubletake. I’d been at that party. If she’d gotten a text from him, she would’ve been projecting emotions all over the place.
“I hadn’t heard from him, or anything about him really, since he moved, and he sent me a text last week on my birthday. He actually called first, but I didn’t hear it, then he sent a text instead of leaving a voicemail. I didn’t see it till after the party. It was short, just saying happy thirtieth, some joke about how I’m a real adult now, and how was I doing.”
“I thought you deleted his number?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
“I did,” she said, shrugging. “I knew it well enough to recognize it.”
“Well, butter my biscuit, he’s got a pair on him, popping up outta the blue and wishing you a happy birthday like nothin’ happened.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I stared at it for like an hour. I mean, turning thirty was hard enough, and then there he was, and I was so happy to hear from him. Makes me think my therapist needs to start focusing on the fixation. I mean, I think we’ve done a lot of work to get the trauma dealt with, and now I need to get to where I don’t give a shit about him, because…”
She shook her head.
“You want to know the worst part of him going back and forth like this?” she asked. “He's done it soooooo many times before, so I should have seen it coming. He is sweet and all in, and there, and...”
“Invested?” I offered.
“Exactly!” She nodded. “Then he’d just disappear. And then he’d be back, and then disappear. Now all these years later, he’s done the same damn thing.
“It’s like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football. He is right there, saying let’s fix this, and dedicated, and even asked if I believed him when he said he wanted to fix this and wanted to help me with my issues. He was saying he was a helper, that’s who he is, he wants to make this thing between us okay.
“I believed him. I was going to do my damnedest to fix things, even after what he said in November. And then he was poof, gone.”
“I’ve found if people have to state they’re a certain way, like a helper, a good Christian, a giving person, whatever, that they’re usually the exact opposite,” I said.
“How can someone be so invested, practically begging to help, then disappear? I don't get it.”
“He’s a guy? That’s what they do? I got nothing.” I shrugged.
“I believed him.” She sounded so defeated. “I believed him, then he yanked the football away. He popped up again, and I was wrecked. Ariana, I want to kick the football.”
“But you know you can’t,” I said. “Not with that text, or even if he pops up again.”
“Yeah,” she said, staring off into the distance before shaking her head, “but we can’t focus on that right now. Sorry I went down the rabbit hole. We are two young, busy women, and we have a conference to kick off.”
“Yep,” I said. “Took the words right outta my mouth. We have a few minutes to check everything, make sure people are finding seats, and for me to find Gavin, because I have no clue what the programming looks like right now.”
AB put down her mug and punched a fist in the air. “Charge!”
###
We walked into the conference room with about a minute to go. There’d been more than a few people to say hi to in the lobby, and it’d taken longer than I’d planned.
The tables were long, thin rectangles so everybody could face the stage, set up with eight chairs each. We’d decided not to assign seats, so people could mingle and sit with whoever they wanted, especially those who came by themselves and not as part of an organization.
A bunch of my old coworkers were sitting at the table on the far right in the first row, giving them good access to the stage.
Grant nodded as AB and I walked by, and Heather waved with her free hand.
The other gripped Grant’s tight.
I nodded and waved back.
Too numb to feel anything.
But I knew that image would pop up later.
Kat jumped up and gave me a quick hug. She’d done a lot to help me set this up too, so it seemed wrong that she wasn’t at my table.
But she was with the FBI.
So she sat with them.
Jet, Dan, Mender, and Crowley were on the other side of the table, bending over the laptop, so I just waved at them, and Jet gave me a huge grin and thumbs up.
We inched by the tables.
Mental note, make sure the tables are further from the stage by another foot in the future, just to make sure people can get through.
But other than that, the place looked pretty good.
The tables had simple off-white tablecloths with gold and red ribbons woven through them, and alternating gold and red centerpieces. The little appetizer plates were simple white china with gold and red around the rims.
August was a little early for the autumn colors, but they were the colors of my business, and as Mama always says, branding is everything.
This conference was being thrown by Psychic Supernatural Division Frontiers (Psychic SDF), my company, which was basically me, and everyone needed to know that.
I based my name off of the FBI’s Special Division Force.
I’d wanted to keep something of my old life.
A therapist would probably have something to say about that.
Speaking of, I was about to start this thing, and I still didn’t know who Gavin had gotten to replace Dr. Patel, and if the person was prepared, or even qualified.
“Hi!”
I jerked, looking up at the tall man who’d just popped outta the seat in front of us, basically front and center.
He was lanky, with a suit hanging off him, a little too big for his slim frame, with short brown hair, cartoon big brown eyes, and trim facial hair.
And he was practically vibrating with energy, begging to be noticed.
AB gasped and quick stepped so she was behind me.
I had maybe an inch on her, something I couldn’t say often at a whopping five-two, so she was able to sort of hide behind me.
“Hi!” Thomas said again, grinning wide like I always did when I was nervous. “There’s seats here. You can sit here. How are you!”
I stared at him, but focused mentally on AB.
She wasn’t as panicked as she used to feel whenever Thomas came up, but it was still there.
And she was frozen.
Waiting for the big bad predator to leave before she moved.
Something flashed behind Thomas’s eyes before he set his jaw and smirked. “Or you can just keep hiding,” he said, snark making his German accent sharper.
“We have a table,” I said, jerking my head toward the left-most mini table meant for four, where me and my minions would be sitting.
AB scrambled out from behind me and hurried past the tables that were pushed too close to the stage and sitting unevenly, small body making short work of the near obstacle course.
She sat down next to Gavin and my heart twinged as I looked at the empty seat.
It had been for Quil.
He’d done so much to help me set this thing up.
But the king of Nashville, Quil’s new boss, had sent him out of town this week to help the king of Manhattan investigate a murder in the nest.
The jerk flexing his muscles and ordering Quil around just to prove he could after he took over Queen Jade’s old seat.
The seat that should’ve been Quil’s.
At least according to me.
I crossed my arms, staring up at Thomas.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi,” he said, smiling bigger.
It didn’t reach his eyes.
“Now what’re
you doin’ here?” I asked. “I thought you moved?”
His smiled dropped. “I was just a visiting professor down at Emory. I’m back at Vanderbilt. They offered me an adjunct position. I… I thought you knew, since I’m speaking today.”
I did a double take. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Your assistant… he, ugh.” Thomas looked down, clearing his throat.
“Ohhhhh,” I said, putting palm to forehead. “You’re Dr. Patel’s replacement on the PTSD lecture.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“That’s ironic.” I dropped my hand.
“Why?”
I focused on him, drawing my power up the tiniest bit to drag a thread outta him.
Nope. He wasn’t faking.
He was genuinely confused.
“Considering you gave AB PTSD,” I said, keeping my voice light and casual. “And now you’re doing a talk on it. That’s ironic. Anyway, I have to get up there and start this thing, so I hope you’ve got your speech ready.”
I turned and walked up the stairs just to the left of his table.
Leaving him with his mouth working.
“Hi, y’all,” I said from the stage as I grabbed the microphone. “Welcome to the first annual Paranormal Professionals Conference.”
###
After I made my opening statements, I introduced AB.
AB did her spiel on magical research, and the resources out there if you knew where to look. She stumbled through parts and talked way too fast in others. It didn’t take a psychic or a therapist to tell she was nervous and not a master at public speaking.
But she powered through. And nobody who didn’t know her would know she was in the middle of a freak out.
She came down on the edge of the stage next to our little table instead of going down the front past Thomas, and she went right on by along the side of the room.
I got up and back on stage to introduce my old colleagues from the SDF, who were doing a talk on the paranormal cases through the years and the different things out there from ghosts to demons.
Gavin jumped up when I nodded at him, rushed on stage and to the back of it to get the slides up and running.
We’d had everyone email him their presentations so we’d have everything ready to go, instead of getting them that day from the presenters, since that could lead to issues if there were technical problems, or if a presenter forgot the flash drive with their presentation on it.