But, again, a tingling like pins and needles trails across my shoulders.
I focus on the window, and though Goldie’s kind words make it feel like a betrayal, I let myself revisit the scene once more. The green plastic seats, the twisting metal chains, the pair of friends, best friends, entwined in a way that best friends usually aren’t.
Which is why I need to see him. Henry, my best friend, my human best friend, the only human to know I’m a Jinn.
I shut the window and close the blinds.
Enough.
I know every stroke of the painting I call Henry’s Kiss. A discussion with the artist is long overdue.
*
“Hey hey, where’s the fire?”
At the top of the stairs, Nate cups my shoulders and pries me off his chest. His chest that can’t be touched, seen, or thought about without the word “chiseled” coming along for the ride. All three of which I know from firsthand experience.
“Sorry,” I say, unusually quick to remove my fingertips from his biceps, getting harder by the day from his amped-up lacrosse training. If Megan went inward to cope, Nate went outward, mostly to the gym. “I wasn’t looking.”
“Well, that’s better than the alternative.” Nate extends his neck toward the stairs and breathes in deeply. “I was afraid you were running from an out-of-control kitchen fire.”
“Nope, perfectly contained in the oven.” I start to inch toward the bedrooms. We’ve been avoiding each other all day. At least I assume he’s been avoiding me, but since I’ve been avoiding him, I guess I can’t be sure.
“So,” he says, “no need to call the fire department, but I’m assuming this also means no cookies?”
Like me, Nate has a sweet tooth. All the Reeses do.
“Maybe I can pick some up on the way home,” I say. “I mean, back.” A mutual love of sugar is one of the many things making it easier and easier to think of this place as my home. “I’m taking Megan to Mrs. Pucher’s again.”
“Third day in a row? You’re … That’s really sweet, Azra. You’ve been so good to her. And to me.” His eyes find his feet, which are shuffling against the white carpet that blankets the second floor. “Which is exactly why I should … What I mean is, why I need to … About last night—”
“Don’t,” I say, pressing my hand against his forearm. In response to my touch, his eyes flicker to mine before lowering again, this time settling on my neck, on the A pendant I wear because I know how much he likes it.
Talking to my exposed collarbone, Nate says, “I’ve made things weird between us.”
Things are already weird between us for so many reasons: me being Jinn, my ability to read human minds including his, the wish I granted for him to be able to take care of Megan that leaves me connected to a piece of his soul—his soul. Oh, yeah, and let’s not forget my little lip-lock with Henry.
Fortunately, Nate doesn’t know any of this. Unfortunately, that does little to ease my guilt.
I stroke his cheek before lifting his chin, forcing his chocolate ganache eyes to meet my gold ones. We hold each other’s gaze, which, despite all that’s between us, including what happened last night, turns out not to be weird at all.
It was long after dark when a shaking woke me. I had expected it to be my roommate, Megan, who, since the night I arrived, has started each night in her own twin bed but finished it in mine. Goldie knows, and I think it’s this, even more than the spell my mother used, that ultimately convinced her to let me stay. But last night, for the first time, Megan was curled up in her own bed. I knew before I flipped onto my side that it was Nate.
Tears had finally broken through the brave front he’s been pushing himself to maintain. Words, even if I knew the right ones, didn’t seem necessary. I simply pulled his head to mine and we lay there, squished together side by side, until his tremors no longer rocked the bed.
When I woke up this morning, he was gone.
I took my cue from him, not tracking him down, worried that he might be embarrassed even though he shouldn’t be.
I slide my hand down his arm and lace my fingers between his.
If anything, I feel even closer to him. And as I can tell from reading his mind, he feels it too. Spending the night in the same bed will do that to you, which I should know since it’s happened before. Except it was me, upon having just discovered my Afrit heritage, in need of comfort, and Henry was the one giving it, not Nate.
And you’re surprised by the kiss?
I was … and I am. With two strides, Nate presses me into the wall, nearly knocking the wind out of me. He hears my gasp and pulls away, but I clutch his other hand and pull him right back. He starts at my necklace, at my collarbone, a whisper of a touch so light it could be a breeze. But when his lips travel the length of my neck and his teeth graze the tip of my earlobe, the only breeze this could be is a tornado.
It feels both right and wrong for this kiss to be every bit as intense as the one on the beach the night of our second date, the night his father was killed.
Lost in Nate, it’s only when my fingertips hit warm skin that I realize I inadvertently unbuttoned his shirt with my magic. I skim my hands up and down his torso, rumpling and twisting the fabric, to cover for what I’ve done. Not trusting myself or my powers, I playfully break away and roll down the wall into Megan’s seafoam-green bedroom, leaning with my hands behind me against the hand-painted emerald vine that winds its way across this side of the room.
Nate follows but hangs back, his fingers toying with one of the paper flowers attached to the vine that gives the whole mural a killer 3-D effect. Mrs. Reese was—is—Mrs. Reese is something of an artist.
“Was that not okay?” Nate asks, self-consciously raking his hand through his cropped black hair.
I allow myself a nod, but my breath is too short for verbal communication. And my mind is too jumbled, juxtaposing this kiss with that kiss, for me to trust what may spill from my lips anyway.
Then, for the third time this morning, a tingling floods me like head-to-toe pins and needles, but the only part of me that’s numb are my lips.
Nate’s an extraordinary kisser, but this is more like walking out into a nor’easter. No, that’s not quite right. It’s more like the sensation we Jinn get when another member of our species is about to apport in. But this doesn’t feel like any Jinn I know—not the five lifelong friends who make up my mother’s Zar sisterhood and not their sixteen-year-old daughters who now make up mine.
From the sting of a wasp (my Zar sister Yasmin) to a stereo vibration (my Zar sister Hana) to the tickle of a feather (my mother’s best friend and Zar sister Samara), apporting Jinn have their own signature. Funny, I’ve never asked anyone what mine is.
With my back to Nate, I toss sweaters for myself and Megan into a backpack and tap into my abundance of adrenaline to strengthen my magic. I don’t sense another Jinn in the house. As nonchalantly as I can, I move to the windows and survey the backyard.
When my mother stops by to check up on me, she comes by car. She knows better than to magically teleport herself here. Besides, if she did decide to apport, she’d be more careful than this. Apporting Jinn can detect the presence of humans, and my mother wouldn’t risk apping in with people this close. Neither would any of my Zar sisters, especially Laila, Samara’s daughter and my former best Jinn friend. Since she’s the only one whose apporting signature I have yet to feel, this could be hers. But I know it’s not. As much as I want to see her, she’s not ready to see me. I’m up to three texts a day and still not a peep from her. Not even an angry-faced emoticon. There’s no way she’d app here.
I turn around to find Nate buttoning his shirt. The sensation of my fingers on his abs lingers. I shake out my arms as I fling the backpack onto one shoulder. I’m being paranoid. There’s no reason for me to be tingling.
Nodding to my bag, Nate starts walking backward out of his sister’s bedroom. “Now you really are running from something too hot to handle.”
; He winks and there’s ample reason for me to be tingling.
About the Author
Lori Goldstein was born into an Italian-Irish family and raised in a small town on the New Jersey shore. A former journalist, she currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
The Genius of Jinn
Becoming Jinn excerpt
Circle of Jinn excerpt
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Lori Goldstein
A Feiwel and Friends Book
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eBook edition March 2016
eISBN 9781250110237
The Genius of Jinn Page 5