by Lori Drake
“What are you doing?” Joey asked, watching her.
“We’re going to light a candle for Cheryl. Come on.” She motioned for Joey to join her at the window and set the candle and lighter on the windowsill, then drew back the curtains, tying them off tightly as a precaution.
Joey rose reluctantly, but walked over to join her at the window. Once the curtains were situated and the blinds pulled up, Sara handed Joey the lighter.
“We light this candle for Cheryl… what’s Cheryl’s last name?” Sara asked.
“Summers,” Joey said, coaxing a flame from the lighter and holding it to the wick. The wick caught quickly, and soon the candle was burning brightly, its light giving its reflection in the window a halo effect.
“We light this candle for Cheryl Summers,” Sara said again. The words had a formal ring to them. “May it be as a torch, lighting the way for her spirit to find eternal rest.”
Tears pricked unexpectedly in Joey’s eyes. She snaked an arm around Sara’s waist and leaned against her. Sara wrapped an arm around her in return, and for a while they stood there together in silent communion, watching the candle burn.
Joey crawled into bed soon after Sara left, but sleep didn’t come easily. Every time she closed her eyes, she was trapped in the back seat of the wrecked BMW again. She managed to drift off eventually, but woke in the middle of the night from a nightmare of being trapped in a glass box filling with water while her mother looked on, clearly disappointed in her.
The candle still burned in the window; its light cast flickering shadows around the room. Shivering, Joey squeezed her eyes shut and rolled away, curling up on her side with her back to the light. In that moment, she longed to feel Chris's arms around her. They were warm and strong, and she’d always felt safe in them, whether that was after a nightmare or performing a dangerous lift on the dance floor.
Dean’s arms were nice too. She could go looking for him, but he’d probably take it the wrong way. Or the right one. Her thoughts drifted to their moonlit walk on the beach, and she bit her lip as she thought about the kiss they’d shared. So passionate, so electrifying. Just thinking about it made her tingle in all the right ways. And yet, he’d been distant afterward. Still interested, clearly, but more tentative about it than she’d expected from a man who’d kissed her like that. As if he were a completely different person under the Mexican moon.
From both of us.
Your brother’s an asshole.
If I lose more than 30 seconds…
Joey groaned and sat bolt upright. “Fuuuuck.”
26
Despite a troubled night’s sleep, Joey rose early the next morning and donned her running attire. There was, however, one important thing she needed before her run: coffee. Ponytail swaying, she jogged downstairs and headed for the kitchen. Stepping inside, she was immediately grateful she’d had the presence of forethought to throw a tank top on over her sports bra. Dean was there, fiddling with the levers and knobs on the barista station with mug in hand. There wasn’t a trace left of yesterday’s wound on her stomach, and she certainly didn’t want to advertise that to him.
“Didn’t expect to see anyone else up at this hour,” she said, leaning against the door frame.
She must have startled him, because he jumped and sprayed his hand with a blast of hot air from the steamer. The mug fell to the floor with a noisy crash, shattering into fragments large and small. Fortunately, it was empty.
“Fuck,” he exclaimed, shaking his hand vigorously. “Do you always sneak up on people like that? Or just first thing in the morning?”
Joey winced in sympathy. “Sorry. You should run that under some cold water. I’ll clean up.”
While Dean headed for the sink, Joey stepped carefully across the debris field to crouch and pick up the larger pieces by hand. Truth be told, she was grateful for the distraction. In the wake of a fitful night’s sleep and her late night revelation, she wasn’t quite prepared to face Dean before her first cup of coffee.
“You’re moving pretty well, how’s your stomach?” Dean said, over the running water.
“I’ve had worse. Mind over matter, right?” There was no immediate response, so she changed the subject. “How’d the game go?”
“Alright. Ended the night down a bit, but I made them work for it.”
Joey smirked and dumped the chunks of broken porcelain in the trash bin. “Well, that’s something. The last time I brought a guy home, they cleaned him out in an hour. I mean, not to say that I ‘brought you home’ in that way.” She cleared her throat and turned to fetch the broom and dustpan. “You know what I mean.”
Dean chuckled. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He patted his hand dry, retrieved a couple more mugs and approached the complicated machine again. “You know how to work this thing, right?”
“Nope. Ben and Sara do. Everyone else waits on Rosita. She gets in at seven-thirty.”
Dean groaned like a man who didn’t want to wait that long for a cup of coffee. Joey could identify with that.
“Buuuut,” she said, sweeping up the smaller remnants of the broken mug. “I could be persuaded to let you in on the Grant family secret to early morning coffee.”
“Please tell me it’s not instant.”
Joey wrinkled her nose. “Uh, no. Gross. Third cupboard from the left.” She pointed for good measure.
Dean approached the indicated door. “This one?” He opened it. Inside, right in front, was a good old-fashioned drip coffee maker. “Ah ha!” he crowed, hauling it out.
Joey finished the cleanup and retrieved the coffee and filters from the pantry. The aroma of freshly ground coffee soon filled the air. Between the two of them, they got the pot loaded and activated, then hovered in front of it like the junkies they were, waiting while the magic happened.
Silence settled between them, broken only by the growl of the coffee maker until Dean spoke again.
“This doesn’t count, by the way.”
“Count? For what?”
“Our coffee date. I mean, I was thinking of treating you to some sort of fancy cafe. There could be pastries involved, even.”
Joey chuckled and shook her head. “I usually avoid pastries. Have to maintain this figure somehow.” At least she knew Chris wasn’t inside of Dean at that moment. He never would have suggested pastries, but knowing Dean was truly himself gave her an idea. She turned toward him.
“Usually. So not always?” He turned to face her, leaning against the island counter, one dark brow lifted.
Joey flashed him a coy smile, looking up at him through her lashes. “No, not always. What’s life without a little sugar now and then?”
The corners of Dean’s mouth twitched upward, a small grin appearing. “Sugar and spice make everything nice?”
Trilling a quiet laugh, Joey lay a hand on his arm. “Well, I’ve got some sugar and spice right here…”
She was laying it on a little thick, but he took the bait. “Oh?” he said, leaning closer.
Joey bit her lip, nodding as she walked her fingers up his arm. He leaned down, and she rose up on her tiptoes to meet him, pressing her lips to his.
Her heart fluttered in her chest at that first brush of lips, and when he lifted his head after barely a few seconds of chaste lip contact she curled her fingers behind his head and drew him back down. Encouraged, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, his mouth moving more confidently against hers. She ran her tongue along his lips and pressed herself against him, drawing a groan from him and a tightening of his hands at her back.
Joey waited for it to catch fire. She wanted it to, wanted to feel that passion, that hunger that he’d roused in her on the beach. Instead, all it roused in her was anger because the longer it went on, the surer she was that it hadn’t been Dean she’d kissed that night. Dean’s body, yes, but not his essence.
Dean jerked back abruptly when she bit his lip. “Ow! What the hell?”
Joey pushed him away, fixing him with a fi
erce glare. “So, when were you going to tell me that you were loaning your body to Chris so he could play Casanova?” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
“What the… no! It wasn’t like that.” He backed away a step, eyes wide.
Joey eyed him, frowning. “You have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn’t throw you out of this house.”
“I—I…”
“Tick tock.”
Scrubbing his fingers through his hair, Dean made a frustrated noise. “I didn’t know he was doing it! When he takes over, I just—I dunno—fall asleep, I guess. I’m not aware of anything until he leaves. The first time, I lost like five hours. That was the day you two had that big fight and I walked out.”
Joey folded her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know what happened, not really. I thought I had a fucking brain tumor or something. It was scary as hell. I didn’t know for sure it was Chris until it happened again.”
“On the beach,” Joey surmised, still frowning.
“Yeah. Harper figured out what was going on and expelled him for me. I told Chris to stop doing it. I didn’t know what he’d done, that he—we—had kissed you until he confessed it later.”
“And yet you still didn’t tell me.” Joey tapped her fingers against her arms, not any less upset with him for his explanations.
“I’d like to say I didn’t have much of a chance and forgot, what with the busy day of nearly dying and all, but the truth is I probably never would’ve told you as long as he’d done as he promised and stopped using me without my permission.” Sighing, Dean stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I like you, Joey. You’re a little intense, a little crazy but it’s my kind of crazy. I wanted to see if we had a shot, and telling you that our first kiss was a fraud didn’t seem like it would help. Plus, you were going through so much shit, I didn’t want to add to the pile.”
Joey worried the inside of her lip between her teeth, fighting the urge to growl. He was making sense, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“I deserved to know,” she said, keeping her eyes on him. He nodded. She went on. “I’m not saying that I forgive you, but if you want to even begin making it up to me…”
“Just tell me, please. If it’s in my power, I’ll do it.”
“Let Chris take over again.”
Dean flinched. “Anything but that.”
“I need to talk to him, and I don’t want it to be a relay call. Just let me talk to him, once he gets home. Ten minutes. That’s all I ask.”
Frowning, Dean looked away, then back again. “Ten minutes, and we keep our coffee date,” he counter-offered.
Joey narrowed her eyes. “Ten minutes, and you don’t leave here with a broken nose,” she counter-counter-offered.
Dean grimaced, but nodded however reluctantly. “Ten minutes.”
“Bail is set at twenty-five thousand dollars,” the judge said, banging her gavel. “My condolences for your loss, Ms. Nichols. Go bury your wife.”
Chris swayed with relief. Jon reached for his arm to steady him. The arraignment had been surprisingly quick. He hadn’t been required to answer many questions, which he was grateful for. He’d gotten Emma in enough trouble already. Despite that, Jon had performed brilliantly, playing on the judge’s sympathies for a grieving widow who presented no danger to the public.
As for Chris, he could barely remain upright. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since Emma slept, but he knew she hadn’t gotten any the previous night. Though his consciousness was perfectly alert—he didn’t need sleep—Emma’s body was bone weary, sluggish and aching from her injuries. For some reason, she felt more sore today than she did yesterday; he didn’t understand why but worried she was more injured than the paramedics had thought.
An hour and a half later, freshly bailed out of jail, he sank into the passenger seat of Jon’s Jaguar with a quiet groan. The leather seat was unimaginably soft after the jailhouse furniture he’d been subjected to overnight and that morning. Without hesitation, he tore into the envelope of Emma’s personal effects and spilled them across his lap in his haste to get to her amulet. While Jon pulled away from the curb, Chris fastened the necklace around his neck and lay his head back with a sigh of relief.
“One witch, hidden from magical tracking. Check. Make sure we’re not followed,” he told Jon. Just because they were shielded from magic didn’t mean they couldn’t be tailed the old fashioned way.
Closing his eyes, Chris did what he could to let Emma rest on the ride home. Jon asked him a few questions along the way, mostly about the astral plane and what it was like. Otherwise, the trip was light on conversation.
He didn’t open his eyes again until Jon parked the car. When he did, the sight of the big house through the window brought a mist of tears to his eyes as an overwhelming sense of homecoming swept over him. He almost needed help getting out of the car, but his watery eyes weren’t the problem. The problem was that sitting in the car for nearly an hour had made Emma’s battered body rather stiff.
Inside, all was quiet.
“Where is everyone?” he asked Jon, frowning. It wasn’t like he’d expected there to be a big “welcome home” banner and cake waiting for him, but the empty foyer was a bit of a let-down.
“Dunno. I did call ahead, for what it’s worth,” Jon said, shrugging. “I guess we can settle Emma in your room, if you think you can make it up the stairs.”
Chris eyed the staircase dubiously, but before his host body’s remaining stamina could be truly tested, Dean stepped out of the east hall. He still had a bandage on his forehead, but he’d traded Chris's clothes for… more of Chris's clothes.
“Hey,” Dean said, lifting his chin in an understated greeting. “Joey sent me to, uh…”
“Fetch?” Jon replied, with a wolfish smile.
Chris aimed an elbow at his brother’s midsection. Jon caught it deftly and steered him toward Dean, still smiling.
“I’m gonna get changed,” Jon said. “Whenever she’s ready to talk about her legal situation, you know how to find me.”
“Okay, thanks again, Jon. For everything,” Chris said, losing his balance when Jon released his elbow. He caught himself on the wall, then pushed off to propel himself after Dean, who was halfway down the hall already.
Dean stopped outside an open door and waited for Chris to catch up, then stepped closer and leaned down.
“She knows,” Dean said, on the down-low. “About everything. Just so you know.”
Chris winced, but nodded. “Thanks,” he murmured and glanced toward the open door. “You can wait out here if you want, this could get ugly.”
Dean snorted softly and nodded, but shadowed Chris anyway as he stepped through the open door with all the joyful anticipation of a prisoner facing execution. He’d reconciled himself to Joey finding out about what he’d done for Emma, perhaps even that he’d done it to Dean first. But part of him had hoped that Dean would keep his moment of weakness on the beach to himself. Bro code, and all. It was a lot to hope for. More than he deserved, for what he’d done.
Joey hovered by the bed, leaning over to smooth a wrinkle from the turned-down sheet. His breath caught in his throat as he beheld her once more in full vivid color. The sunlight angling through the window lit the crimson fall of her hair up like a silky, fiery waterfall.
He cleared his throat, both to announce his arrival and collect himself.
“Don’t have to fuss on my account,” he said, though he suspected it was more her fastidious nature demanding perfection than anything more personal.
Joey snorted, straightened and turned toward him. Her eyes were stormy, but her expression took a sympathetic turn when she got a good look at Emma. “Shit, you look like hell.”
Chris shuffled toward the bed. “I feel like hell. Or, at least Em does. I think we may need a doctor to look her over. Everything hurts.” He moved right past Joey and face-planted on the bed, burying his face in a feather down pillow with a
blissful groan.
“Don’t—” Joey began, but didn’t get a chance to finish before Chris collapsed. Sighing, she walked to the foot of the bed to untie and tug off Emma’s shoes. “You’re gonna get dirt all over the coverlet,” she groused quietly.
“I’ll buy you another one,” Chris mumbled into the pillow. He realized how absurd the statement was after it had left his mouth, but it was his standard response when she was nettling him about ruining something or other with his careless man ways.
“How are you going to do that? Zip down to Walmart and possess the first shopper you see?”
Oh yeah, she’s pissed.
Chris sighed and turned his head so he wasn’t speaking into the pillow anymore. “If that’s what it takes. Joey, I—”
“Don’t start,” Joey said, walking around the bed and into his line of sight once more. Even her crisp, minced steps conveyed irritation. “We are going to talk, but not now.”
Chris rolled onto his back and stretched, wincing as Emma’s sore muscles protested mightily. “Remember, she’s going to be disoriented as hell but the amulet should keep her from lashing out with magic.”
Joey nodded and settled on the edge of the bed. He reached for her hand, but she moved hers away. The simple act showed just how broken they really were. The fist squeezing his heart tightened its grip, but she was right. They had to take care of Emma first.
He took one last lingering look at Joey, drinking in the sight of her in full color, then closed his eyes and willed himself to float upward, leaving Emma’s body. The moment he did, he was treated to the phantom sensation of tiny hooks latching onto him, tugging at his spectral skin. Burning. Pulling. It was a sensation he knew all too well.
It was Tasha.
Her summoning assaulted him with a vengeance, sudden and nigh irresistible. Normally, he could ignore her for a little while at least but this, this was so strong it was as if he’d already been resisting her for a time and she was so over his disobedience.