She should check the batteries on her vibrator. Maybe it wasn’t delivering enough juice to really work her out on its last couple of runs.
Regardless, she needed to take it easy with Wren. She could do that. She was a professional tattoo artist. She’d tattooed plenty of beautiful women before. This was so not going to be a problem.
The second she placed her hand on top of Wren’s so she could begin the touch-up, however, she knew she was in too deep. The magic wound up her arm, turned at her shoulder and went sliding down her chest where it pooled between her legs and breathed low in her belly. She had to discharge it, or she was liable to spontaneously combust—or, worse, spontaneously send it all back to Wren in a very intense, very not-suitable-for-public kind of way. So she eeked the magic back into Wren’s skin while she lowered the needles and flipped on the machine. If she did this right, Wren wouldn’t feel an ounce of the needle’s sting.
Sure enough, from her peripheral vision, she saw Wren tense like she was waiting for the bite—then slowly relax as she realized the pain wasn’t coming. Abby didn’t dare look up while she worked for fear she’d lose herself in Wren’s brown eyes while they passed magic back and forth between them, and if that happened, not only would Abby’s I’m-not-a-witch cover be blown, her job would come to an end because she was liable to end up kissing her right then and there.
“Are you keeping my wrist from stinging?”
Abby pulled the needles back and looked up despite herself. Wren was staring at her, her expression unreadable, her eyes boring into Abby’s.
“I mean, I don’t mind if you are, I just—” Wren shrugged. “I don’t know how to do that.”
There was no way Wren was a negative force, no way she was the presence Abby had sensed last night. Her brown eyes were so clear and kind. And in her energy, only truth and realness rang, alongside a quiet harmony of sadness Abby wanted to learn about.
Abby wasn’t sure what to say and knew if she tried to say something witty it would come out all wrong, so she just tried for her best smirk, and went back to work.
Twenty minutes later, Wren was the proud owner of two touched-up tattoos on two wrapped-up wrists and Abby was the proud owner of the vaginal equivalent of blue balls as she made her way toward the reception desk.
“How much do I owe you?” Wren asked, raising her wrists.
“Nah, Scott said no charge,” Abby replied. “He owes me lunch, but that’s on him.” Then she took a chance because she couldn’t help herself. “He said you’re just visiting. How long are you in town?” Like, forever?
“Not sure yet,” Wren replied. “A couple weeks, maybe longer.”
Not sure yet? “Are you just couch surfing until you decide where you want to land, or...?”
Wren’s laugh was low—and sexy as hell. “No, I have an RV. I drive all over the place, working.”
Abby just stared at her for a second. Beautiful and an adventure loving badass? How was this woman real? “You’re, like, my hero.”
Wren seemed embarrassed, and Abby relished watching her lips scrunch into a begrudging smirk that spread into a smile.
She held her wrist up again. “Are you sure I don’t owe you? It doesn’t feel right to leave here without paying you for your time if nothing else.”
That was an opening Abby simply could not let pass. “How about you buy me a coffee?”
That appeared to bring Wren up short. “Coffee?”
Abby’s smile spread. “Yeah, like, let’s go get coffee. There’s a great little place down the street. Doesn’t have to be now. Just—whenever.”
Wren took one baby deer step backward like her legs had suddenly gone all wobbly, which was so cute Abby had to fight a smirk. “Uh. Yeah. I mean, maybe—” Then she stopped like she’d made some sort of decision. “Yes. Coffee sounds good. I’ll... see ya around.”
Abby let her leave even though they hadn’t exchanged any information because Wren was so cute and Abby was so certain she didn’t need Wren’s number to know how to contact her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zander slid herself into the narrow booth next to Callum. “So are you telling me they both called in sick and haven’t come out of their room?”
Callum gave a shrug, his shoulder so close she could feel him do it as much as see it. “I mean, I saw Scott around lunch time when he came down for some food. And I think I heard Cecily let Rhia out into the backyard at some point, but other than that, yeah. Total hermit mode.”
What the hell was that about? She’d heard them up this morning when she was getting ready for work. At least she thought she had. Jeez, she hoped they weren’t sick. She could not afford to get whatever they had and miss more work right now. Her boss was cool and everything, and if she really had to call out, she knew nothing bad would come of it, she just hated feeling behind. Plus there’d been some allusion to a possible promotion in the works—which felt nuts having worked there less than a year—and she didn’t want to hinder that if it was actually a possibility.
“Hey, how was the project meeting you were worried about?”
Zander scoffed because she was sort of embarrassed to tell Callum. Maybe embarrassed wasn’t the right word. She was stoked to tell him about it—just a little embarrassed by how much she’d been stressing over it, given the outcome. “It went incredibly well.”
“So, they liked your idea?”
She rolled her eyes to hide her smirk. “They loved it.”
Callum threw his head back and laughed. “I fucking told you they would.”
Yeah, yeah. He’d told her she didn’t need to stress about it—but did that stop her from losing sleep? Of course not. She knew her idea to leverage the six-month delay on the firm’s project in Salem, Oregon to move up the recently won project in Fairbanks, Alaska was solid—it was good for the firm, and better for the ecological footprint of the project if they could break ground sooner in Fairbanks. Plus, building a teen center had greater impact for the community than building a new strip mall had for the town of Salem, no matter how cool the architecture of the new strip mall was going to be. And if they could start-to-finish the major construction during the warm months up in Fairbanks, they could work on finishing during the freeze, and break ground in Oregon during the months Alaska’s construction industry all but died. So, yes, it all made perfect sense, and Zander felt very strongly that this was the right move for everybody—which meant she’d been incredibly nervous about how the idea would be received in the meeting this morning. She hadn’t slept all night, or the two nights before that, just thinking and re-thinking through the proposal.
Which, the entire conference room had loved. So, once again, Callum had been right that she was stressing herself into an ulcer. To celebrate the successful pitch, she was going to bed early tonight—after she and Callum met with Wren to catch-up and mine her witchy knowledge for anything that could shed light on why Miriam refused to show herself to Callum, of course.
No, not refused. Zander was positive Miriam was not staying away by choice. Callum, on the other hand, was not so certain.
A waiter arrived with the beers they’d ordered at the bar, and as soon as he stepped away, Callum lifted his glass and pinned Zander with those smoldering blue eyes that still made her skin go warm and soft.
“To being a smart, corporate badass who brings home the bacon.”
Zander couldn’t keep from laughing as she tapped her glass against Callum’s before leaning in to press her lips to his instead of to the rim of her glass. “You bring home a different kind of bacon,” she mumbled against him and was rewarded by a chuckle from deep in his chest, warm and quiet.
“Did I tell you how good you look in those black jeans?” he murmured as he began kissing up her jaw.
“Mm, you did,” she mused. “A couple of times.” Before he’d taken them off her this morning and showed her just how much he liked them—on the floor.
“I recall three,” he replied while his lips brushed the hollow u
nder her ear that made her squirm and his hand slid up her thigh. “Should I try for four?”
She grabbed his hand as it brushed between her legs. Their booth was tucked back—it wasn’t exactly private, however. “You know I’m all about the thrill of the semi-public—” she looked up, “but Wren is walking toward us.”
Callum groaned comically, his head falling back against the booth seat just as Wren reached their table.
“Do I want to know?” she asked, eyes narrowed, lips in a smirk.
Zander slid from her seat and embraced her in a hug. “Probably not.”
Wren hugged Callum next, then slid into the other side of the booth. “So what’s with the change the venue? I thought we’d meet at your place.”
“Scott and Cecily might be sick.” Callum ticked a nod at a server a couple of tables away.
“Yeah, we figured we’d save you the germs, just in case,” Zander added.
Wren gave a nod, eye-roll combination like she should have known. “Duh. I knew he called in sick to work today.”
“Oh yeah, he was going to touch up your wrists for you.” How could she have forgotten? “Did you reschedule?”
The way Wren immediately looked to the waiter as he arrived piqued Zander’s interest, but she decided not to push it as Wren ordered another of whatever Callum was drinking.
“Okay, so tell me everything you know so far about what’s going on with the static, and all that,” Wren said as soon as the waiter stepped away.
Callum, clearly unaware of Wren’s evasive subject-change, leaned his elbows on the table. “Honestly, I don’t think we need to do this. Let’s just get drunk and call it good.”
Um, no. Zander turned in the booth so she could pin him with her gaze. “First off, it’s Thursday night and some of us have to work tomorrow. Second, you promised me we would work together to figure this out and you’re not backing out on that promise.” If he thought she was going to let up on this, he wasn’t nearly as smart as she thought he was. Which she knew wasn’t the case. He was hurt, and exhausted—she got that. And if it wasn’t for his pain and exhaustion, she might have let off the gas a bit. He was feeling better than he had when they went to New Orleans, that much was clear and easy to see in the simple fact that when he smiled it no longer looked like he might break in two. But he wasn’t okay yet. Not that Zander expected him to feel good two weeks after his mom had died, but what he was doing now wasn’t mourning. It was wallowing—deserved, legitimate wallowing that she didn’t blame him for, but that didn’t make it productive, or necessary. One of the coolest parts about being a medium was that you never had to lose touch with your loved ones after they passed—Callum and Cecily both had said something to that effect at different times. And if Callum could just have a real conversation with his mother, she knew it would go a long way to healing years of scars left by their forced separation and Callum’s subsequent stint in the foster care system. They just had to figure out what was blocking Miriam from coming through to him so he could reap the benefits of all that healing.
Zander loved him however he was, and wherever he stood with all of this. She just wanted to help him, the same way he’d helped her so many times over the last year and a half.
She slipped her hand into Callum’s under the table and squeezed his fingers. “We can figure this out. Okay?”
His everything-is-fine facade slipped and the bleakness that had been hovering on the edge of his blue eyes took over for a breath. His smile when he squeezed her fingers back was warm and soft, like he appreciated the reminder he wasn’t alone in all of this.
She turned to Wren. “So let’s start at the top—”
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
“You nervous?”
Cecily looked to Scott, sitting beside her. Nervous was an understatement. She hadn’t expected her doctor to be able to see her so soon when she called yesterday morning. She thought she’d have more time to get used to the idea of this appointment—whatever that meant, exactly. “Incredibly. You?”
He nodded. She watched the muscles in his throat shift as he swallowed. “Definitely. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Uh...” Cecily racked her brain for something other than what they were about to do. “I got to make a twenty-ounce breve flat white today at work.”
Scott smirked. “Is that unusual?”
“Very. And sort of tricky. Making enough microfoam for a twenty ounce takes skill. The breve just adds to the excitement.”
Scott laughed under his breath. “I’ll have to take your word for it. Have you talked to Zander at all?”
Cecily watched over his shoulder as a woman pushing a stroller the size of a car came into the waiting room. “No, why?”
Scott shrugged. “No reason. I just wondered if she’d asked you anything about us holing up yesterday.”
“Oh. No, I left before she was up this morning.” Opening shift at the coffee shop where she worked part time these days had a four a.m. start time. She rarely saw anybody in the house that early, except Rhia who always kept her company while she got ready in the mornings, no matter the time. Was she going to be able to pull off the opening shift in a few months? The websites she’d been reading made it seem like fatigue was going to be a real issue as this pregnancy thing went along. And then they’d have a baby, and all the sleepless nights that went with that.
The woman with the giant stroller parked herself in a nearby chair after checking in and Cecily watched as she picked up the tiniest baby Cecily had ever seen in real life and held it to her chest. Was that a real human?
“You okay?”
A warm hand on her knee pulled Cecily’s attention back to Scott, sitting beside her. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry.”
He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “Are you getting talked at? Maybe we should have brought Rhia.”
“No, actually.” Cecily shook her head. “I’m probably too distracted for anybody to come through. Trey has even left us alone—”
Cecily felt her eyes go wide. She looked at Scott.
“You haven’t told Trevor,” he surmised.
“I totally haven’t,” she replied.
“Well, you haven’t told your sisters yet, either,” Scott said. “I think he’ll understand.”
“He’ll be fine,” Cecily agreed. “I just can’t believe I hadn’t even thought of it.” Like, telling him hadn’t even crossed her mind.
“Bigger fish to fry and all that, I guess.” Scott shrugged.
He was right, of course. There were many more pressing issues at the moment—still, Trevor ought to have a place high on the list of people to tell, right after her sisters and Callum. How in the hell was she going to broach that subject?
“Cecily. Cecily Greyson?”
Cecily’s heart stopped in her chest. She looked up to find a nurse standing some feet away, holding a green folder and scanning the room with her eyes.
This was it.
Cecily thought she might throw up.
On a strange kind of auto pilot, she stood and hitched her bag up onto her shoulder. Scott caught her hand before she could take a step, and immediately her stomach settled, the butterflies that had taken flight finding their homes once again.
She was so glad he was here. So glad not to be doing this alone.
His hand held tight in hers, they crossed the room to the nurse. “Hi, I’m Cecily.”
“Seems like congratulations are in order,” Cecily’s doctor, Dr. Avery, said as she came into the room.
Cecily had been seeing her for the last couple of years, to get her prescription for birth control and do her annual exams, and all that oh-so-fun girl-stuff. She’d liked her since she’d first met her—which she was even more grateful for now than she’d ever been in the past.
Cecily smiled, a little embarrassed. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Dr. Avery looked at Scott and smiled, reaching her hand for a handshake. “I’m Dr. Avery, Cecily’s O.B.”
Scott shook he
r hand with a nod. “Nice to meet you. I’m Scott.”
“Are you the other half of this equation?” Dr. Avery asked with a smile.
Scott gave a quiet laugh. “Yep, that’s me.”
“Wonderful! Glad to meet you.” She opened the folder onto her lap as she perched on a rolling stool just feet away from where Cecily and Scott were sitting in uncomfortable, matching side chairs. “So, on to the doctor questions, then we can get to the good stuff.”
Five minutes later, Cecily had answered so many questions, she felt certain the doctor knew her life story. Scott too—which had included a moment of awkwardness when the doctor asked about his family medical history. But Scott had taken it in stride.
“No idea,” he said. “I entered the foster care system at two, and again at six. My mother was a heroin addict. That’s all I know about her. I don’t know anything about my father.”
And to Dr. Avery’s credit, she didn’t even flinch, making notes in her charts with a nod. “Fair enough. Any substance issues yourself?”
That’s when Scott paused. “Uh. Yeah, I got into opiates for about six months when I was twenty. I’ve been clean almost ten years.”
“He doesn’t even drink caffeine now,” Cecily added, squeezing Scott’s hand.
At that, Dr. Avery looked at Scott and nodded. “Good for you.”
Cecily couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Scott beam a little under the doctor’s praise. In any case, his sigh was laced with relief. She wondered how uncomfortable it was for him to have to tell and retell that story to every time he visited a new doctor.
“Alright, well if you will hop up onto this table, I’m going to go grab the ultrasound machine, and we’ll see if we can’t get a look at this little bean sprout.”
Nearly an hour later, Cecily dabbed at her still-leaking eyes as the phone rang in her ear. Beside her, in the driver’s seat of their car, Scott was watching her and holding her hand.
One ring. Two rings.
In the middle of the third ring, “Hey, Cissy! What has you calling me this early?”
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