by Sariah Skye
"Well…" I hesitated. Just thinking about it sent my stomach into spasms.
"Do you find excuses to touch him? Are you smiling more than you usually do?" She grinned, giving me a nudge. "Yes, you do." She pointed at the nervous smile I was wearing on my face.
"I smile!" I insisted.
"Yes, you do. But not like that!"
"That?"
"Like it’s going to fall right off your face!" Madison said, with a laugh.
I rolled my eyes. "What’s your point?"
"That’s love, Leo!"
"Love?" Just saying it out loud made my voice squeak.
"Yes! I should know, I’ve been in love now about three times just this year. I can totally see the signs," she said, a hint of bragging in her tone.
I knitted my brow at her—surely, you can't be an expert of love if you are doing it all the time—more like, lust?
"But how can that be, I mean I’ve only known him a few days?" And in that few days he’s introduced me to magic, saved my life, cuddled with me in my bed, we’ve kissed twice and now we’re practically living together.
"Oh, Leo! It just happens, there’s no reason to it! It’s not like, practical or anything," she explained. "It’s sweet, like a fairy tale!"
I wrinkled my face, she was obsessed with that idea of fairy tales. I really didn't relate to young humans at all.
"The good thing is, I’m pretty sure he feels the same way," she said. "I’ve caught the way he looks at you."
"When? That short time you just saw him now?"
She shook her head. "No, silly, all the times at the shop. And then now."
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"I just can," she said, sounding confident. There was a chirp from her bag and she rummaged around in it for a moment and pulled out her phone. She rolled her eyes upon seeing the screen. "Emily. She wants Twizzlers."
I chuckled. "Having a party?"
"Sort of, these are for tomorrow, we’re going to get ready for the dance together!" she said, clapping her hands together giddily.
"Ah, sounds like fun!" I offered, but I really wouldn’t know.
"It should be, I’m excited! My dress is so awesome!" she began telling me all about her hot little coral-colored dress with the slits cut out on the sides and the rhinestones on the straps. Before she could continue describing the underwear she was planning to wear I cut her off.
"You hear from Kit?" I asked.
She gave me a strange look, like I just asked her if she had seen the unicorn down the aisle. "No, why would I?" It’s true, normally she wouldn’t. Madison just came in, worked her shift and was done. She was a good worker but a friend outside the shop, well, she was too young to really travel in the same social circles as us (which my circle consisted only of Kit, so…).
"Just wondering, because I asked you to look in on her because—"
She waved me off, "Oh yeah, I remember. No I haven’t. Any idea when the shop is opening again?"
"Not sure, really. It’ll be a few days before it gets cleaned up. It’s a mess right now," I explained.
She didn’t appear distressed at the news. "Just as well. We have a competition coming up soon anyways, I don’t need any more distractions. Well, I’ll see ya later…your man is coming back. I think I make him nervous," she said with a laugh, and she walked off.
"See ya," I called after her, as Gabriel joined up carrying an armful of man toiletries.
"What’s all that?" I asked, as he tossed it in the cart
"Um, a new razor, some shaving cream, deodorant and shampoo. I saw the stuff you have in your shower," he grimaced, and wrinkled his nose.
"What? You don’t like vanilla?" I pretended to be offended.
He snorted. "On you it’s fabulous. On me? Well, I get called Cupcake enough, I don’t want to smell like one."
I shook my head. "Right…"
"So, all this time, you still haven’t picked out a pizza?" he asked, nodding towards the nearly empty cart (besides the stuff he just put in it)
"Oh, Madison was just talking about her dress for the dance and whatever," I said. "I couldn’t really start diving into the coolers without looking rude."
"Just as well. That stuff is gross anyways compared to Daniel’s pizza," he insisted.
"So…" I said, "…grocery shopping and stuff. Together. That’s kind of weird, huh?
He shrugged. "I guess?" he retorted, sounding confused.
"You know, Maddie thought we were here like together together," I said, as we sauntered down the coffee aisle, not really looking at much of anything, although suddenly Gabriel was extremely interested in some green tea on the shelf.
"She did?" Gabriel asked, not looking up from the box.
I smirked, but he couldn’t see me. "Yeah, she thought that since we were here in the middle of the day that we must of…well…" I trailed off to allow his imagination to finish off.
"Well what? Oh. Oh!" He quickly set the box back on the shelf in the wrong spot and gave me an alarmed expression on his face. "She thought we…did…?"
"Yeah. I told her that was silly, we haven’t known each other that long," I said, with a chuckle.
"Silly, right," Gabriel said with an uneasy chuckle. He eyed the shelf, as if looking for something in particular. "Well I guess it is silly. I mean, living together after only a couple of days, and we haven’t even been out on a formal date yet. Kind of weird."
"Yeah…" I said, trailing off. I felt my stomach start somersaulting inside me again.
"Do dragons even date? How does that work, anyways?" Gabriel mused thoughtfully.
"Well sort of. We’re starting to, just look at my brother and Kiarra," I said, spitting her name out with venom.
"Well, so…you want to go out with me?" Gabriel said, trying to sound confident but sounding a little shaky.
I gave him an odd look. "Go out with you? I mean, we’re like, shopping together for food and you’re going to leave your shampoo in my shower." I was confused.
"No, like an actual date. Before I knew who you were, I wanted to ask you out anyways, then I found out who you were and I don’t know…I felt like maybe I couldn’t? I don’t know, it’s stupid. I mean, we’ve like kissed and stuff and—"
I cut him off. "Well, what did you have in mind?"
Gabriel beamed. "Really?"
I elbowed him jokingly. "Sure if you can come up with something to do around here," I said. "There’s not a whole lot."
"I can do that," Gabriel said, suddenly appearing thoughtful. "Seven o’clock tonight, your living room?"
I smiled. "I’ll be there."
Chapter 12
I tried to inquire more about this date but, he remained tight lipped. On the way back, we drove past the frontage road to Kit’s place and I insisted we stop by quick to check on her to make sure she was feeling better.
Kit’s small little cottage off a frontage road sat on about an acre of land at the end of a long, windy driveway. Trees of different kinds gathered on the landscape, haphazardly placed by Mother Nature years and years ago, and the little red house just sat in a convenient opening. Between the trees were carefully placed gardens and shrubberies, many of them she used in her Witchcraft. The path leading up to her house was lined with many fragrant herbs, with container gardens in her windows in boxes and up the small steps to her front door.
Kit, who had a handful of cats as well (and she insisted that against the damn stereotype that it wasn’t because she was single, she just liked cats and she would have had them even if she was married) and a couple of them were on the front stoop, sunning themselves in the late autumn sun. A gray striped tabby immediately yelped at our presence and darted off, but an orange longhair didn’t seem to mind us. He stretched his front paws and yawned, looking bored and rolled over on his back. He made no effort to greet us, yet his wiggly tail indicated he wouldn’t be objected to one of us petting him. Or her.
"Everything looks kind of...off," I said, observing her neg
lected front stoop. Besides the cats, there were a couple of empty cat food bowls she always kept full of food and water for her outdoor preferring cats and the occasional stray that dropped by. The potted herbs and plants that lined the stairs leading up to the door were wilted and yellowed and appeared that they hadn’t been watered in a few days, and there were a handful of newspapers in front of the door, untouched.
"Mrow?" A rather despondent sounding black cat said at my feet, bumping my ankles with her nose. I recognized her as one of the outdoor cats that didn’t really care for me (or anyone, really).
"Awwww, what’s up kitty?" I asked, leaning over to pat her head. She allowed one pat before bumping one of the food dishes with her head and sitting down in front of it, letting out a rather wistful meow.
I exchanged glances with Gabriel. "I don’t remember it looking this neglected the other day…" I mused. I didn’t wait for Gabriel to answer me, I opened up the black storm door to rap repeatedly on the main door. "Kit? Kit, it’s Leo! Are you here? Everything okay? Kit!?!"
There was no answer, so I tried the doorknob. It didn’t open.
"I can fix that," Gabriel said, nudging me aside. He placed his hands on either side of the doorknob and concentrated momentarily. I heard a click, click and he turned around and smiled triumphantly.
"How’d you do that?" I asked, in awe.
He shrugged, nonchalantly. "Well, what is metal but really fragments of earth, right?"
"Sweet…" I said, grasping the doorknob and twisting.
"You also didn’t leave the door unlocked the other day, I totally opened it," he said, mischievously.
"You did not!" I exclaimed, as he dodged a playful punch from me. He snickered, and followed me inside as I pushed the door open.
"Kit?" Her house was pretty much the same as the last I saw it. She was a fairly neat person, but there were used pots on the stove, plates and cups in the sink. I pointed to a pantry and instructed Gabriel to find the cat food and feed the cats while I investigated.
"Kit?" I called, wandering the halls of her little house, wandering past pictures, paintings of cats and shelves of unicorn knick-knacks and the occasional cat. Her bedroom was at the end of the house. I entered and switched the light on as I went in. Her bed was unmade, but empty. Her altar on the opposite wall looked untouched, I recognized some herbs and a candle she’d used a couple of days ago, she didn’t change them out yet.
"Huh…." I pulled my cell out and dialed her number. "Learn to Fly" by Foo Fighters started playing from her nightstand (an ironic choice of ringtone for me, of course...). "Great…wherever she is, she has no phone." I exhaled in frustration. Other than her not being there, and a few things out of place nothing really looked out of the ordinary. I mean, she’d been sick so it stood to reason a few things would get neglected.
I rejoined Gabriel in the kitchen. "She’s not here. And she doesn’t have her phone with her."
Gabriel wore a very subdued expression. "Something isn’t right, and I’m not just talking about the cats not being fed or some dry plants. It feels…wrong."
"Wrong?" I questioned.
"Like, empty. You know how I told you before there’s energy…everywhere," he explained. "Well like in your apartment I feel your energy. It’s in the objects you touch, your clothes…like an essence."
I nodded. "Okay?" I prompted.
"Here? I feel nothing. Nothing. And I’ve felt her energy before, at the shop. Many times. And even when I came to pick you up that one night after dropping her off. Even from outside, I could feel something. Faint, but it was there. There is nothing here!" Gabriel paced back and forth through the kitchen, pausing here or there with his eyes shut. "Nothing!"
"That’s…odd. What does that mean?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I’m not sure. I mean, at the shop I felt a dark presence. Evil. Your energy is…powerful but overall, pleasant. Without anything to sense I can’t tell…anything.
"It could be a block of some kind. Perhaps some warlock? Or perhaps she’s even more powerful than I thought, and she casted out all energy, somehow."
I gasped. "Kind of like that…. thing that was after me, huh?"
Gabriel paused reluctantly, not wanting to agree with me. "I am not going to say for sure, but…"
"Shit! Dammit I need to find her! How could this happen? Do you think it got her?" I pulled Gabriel out the door, slamming it behind me, startling one of the cats, and pushed him into the truck. "To the shop—that’s the only other place I can think of she’d be, besides the hospital." I swallowed nervously.
Gabriel didn’t argue, he just cranked up the engine and peeled down the driveway. On the way I began calling the nearby hospital. She wasn’t there and since all the hospitals in the region operated by the same provider, if she wasn’t coming up she wasn’t at any of them, yet, she wasn't there. They instructed me to try calling back in about an hour if I hadn’t found her, perhaps she just hadn’t been processed yet but doubtful.
We sped into the coffee shop and were met with an empty parking lot. Gabriel drove me right up to the front door so I could peer in. The lights were off, nothing appeared to have been moved at all, no one had clearly been there since we left the other day.
"Where is she, then? I can’t believe she forgot her phone…" I sighed, feeling troubled. "If that—that thing got to her…" I buried my face in my palms and groaned.
Gabriel, who was currently back on the road to my place, reached out his hand and rested it on my leg. "I’m sorry, Leo. I know you’re worried. I’m sure she’s fine, maybe a friend came and picked her up and took her out. If something bad had happened to her there would be some sign of it…a struggle, something left behind. But there’s just nothing there. Her car isn’t there either, perhaps she just left somewhere."
I considered this. "You’re right, but when you mentioned— "
"—I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry. I’m probably just exaggerating. Hell, she’s a witch, she probably just banished all the lingering energy in the house and it worked a little too well. She’ll be okay," Gabriel said, his thumb tracing circles on the top of my leg.
I nodded slowly. "Yeah, you’re right. She probably went out with her coven and did some magic thing and she just left her phone. It is strange that she forgot to feed the cats, though…"
"Or did they just eat it all?" Gabriel offered.
"Maybe," I said. "They seemed awfully insistent for cats that have just eaten." I snorted at the thought, "But some cats are just like that, anyway. Ugh, I hope she’s okay. I should have left a note."
"Do you want to go back?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No…no. We can just drop by tomorrow again. To check on her."
"Okay." He didn’t remove his hand but he continued to drive the rest of the way, in silence. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass and shut my eyes, feeling a wave of fatigue over me. I closed my eyes momentarily as the scenery spun by me, making me attempt to blink the dizziness away.
"Are you okay?" he asked with concern.
"Yeah…" I said. "Just a little tired again. A lot going on you know…"
"I know," he said. I didn’t look at him, but I could hear the smile in his tone. It wasn’t a long ride, but I felt myself nodding off, fatigue winning the battle. Finally, I just gave in. Gabriel inquired again if I was in fact, okay, but I didn’t answer. I just smiled, and without thinking about it grasped and squeezed his hand. He grinned at me, as I opted to lean on his shoulder to snooze and not against the cold, hard window. It was only a brief moment as I inhaled his now familiar scent and drifted off.
Upon arriving back at my place I was still feeling pretty groggy so I was instructed to go lie down. I was a bit afraid, because of that evil entity dream like thing that had haunted me in my sleep, but Gabriel surmised that since whatever it was disappeared after he flung the moonlight at it that the thing had an aversion to light. So, at least, there's that. I opened up my blinds wide to let the sunlight pour in an
d felt reasonably safe to nap. Gabriel said he’d be nearby (not like there was little choice, my apartment wasn’t that large) on his laptop doing some "work" as he was falling behind. I slept without incident, thankfully, although I did have a slightly strange dream. Gabriel and I were at the nearby lake, enjoying a picnic in the summertime when suddenly it was dark, and little black tendrils started growing out of the ground. I woke up then, and that was the end. I was pretty sure it was just my imagination messing with me, and there wasn’t anything going on since I woke up feeling fine and actually decently rested.
Until I realized that I was supposed to be going on an actual "date" in about two hours, and my brain went into panic mode. How the hell was I supposed get ready for a date!?! Especially when he was in the next room?
This required a nice, cold pop. I hesitated, before stepping out of my bedroom, looking down at my scrubby attire.
So far he has only seen me in crappy sweats and yoga pants and my dirty black jeans and casual shirts for work. I frowned. I didn’t think sweats were typically date attire, especially the gray sweatpants and charcoal "Hogwarts School" t-shirt.
I put a hand to my hair. Currently it was in a messy braid that hung to the side and down over my chest. I hadn’t a drop of makeup on, and I hoped I didn’t appear too bedraggled. But, at this point he’d seen worse. Considering we hadn’t been on an actual date yet, that was somewhat regrettable.
The thought brought me to some of the movies I’d seen, where couples become too comfortable with each other and they get bored and turned off when the other stops caring and just farts in front of the other, or doesn’t care to close the door to the bathroom when they go "do their business".
"Oh, crap," I muttered to myself under my breath, putting palm to face and making a groaning sound.
"What did you say?" Gabriel piped up, from the next room.
I yelped, quietly, didn’t think he could hear me. "Oh, nothing. Just uh…stubbed my toe."
"That sucks!" End of conversation, apparently. I could hear him clacking on his computer keyboard, and alternately typing on his phone.