“Unless,” she began, then sighed. “Unless I read this all wrong. I did, didn’t I?”
Wren froze. She could tell her yes and let Abby believe she’d misread the situation—andWren’s attraction. She could do that right now and end this.
But she didn’t.
“No,” she said instead. “No, you didn’t read it wrong. But isn’t it a little late for coffee?”
“So, we’ll get tea.” Abby beamed. “There’s a great spot not far from here. Walk or drive?”
Wren had to laugh in disbelief when Abby approached the table the two of them had chosen holding two board game boxes.
“Okay, so there’s Scrabble—a classic, always fun,” she said as she lifted the first box. “Or Settlers of Cattan, which will certainly test our patience, but might be a good time.”
“I’ve never even heard of Settlers of...whatever, so I’ll have to go with Scrabble,” Wren replied.
“Nice choice.” Abby slid the box on the table. “Set up while I put Settlers away?”
“Sure.” Wren opened the box while she watched Abby weave her way through the coffee shop/bar/game store toward a wall of shelves full of board game boxes with a sign-out kiosk in front of it. The hem of her flannel shirt was longer than the ripped hem of her denim shorts, so if you didn’t know any better, you’d think she was wearing black, fishnet patterned tights without the denim topper—yet, somehow, she pulled it off. She’d swooped her red-tipped hair into a messy knot on the back of her head, revealing a buzzed inverted V undercut up the nape of her neck and tattooed runes behind both of her ears—the same runes that graced Wren’s wrists.
It made Wren think of things like the way her tattoos would line up with Abby’s if she threaded her fingers through the other woman’s hair—while they kissed the hell out of one another. Obviously.
Not for the first time since seeing Abby tonight, Wren wondered how it was she’d found her RV. She probably should have asked her that before agreeing to this outing with her, but hindsight being what it was, she had to trust that her instincts to say yes to Abby tonight were sound.
Abby was coming back to the table when Wren snapped out of her own head, and she rushed make sure it was clear she hadn’t been staring. Which was a complete lie, but whatever. She pulled two trays and the game board from the box just as Abby joined her, rubbing her hands together as she slid in across from Wren.
“Board games and brews,” Wren read on the wall over Abby’s head. She couldn’t help but chuckle. “What is this place?”
“It’s Games and Grog.” Abby shrugged like that was obvious. “The name sort of says it all.”
It did indeed. There were certainly games, and while Wren was drinking tea, there were plenty of others at the tables nearby drinking from huge steins. The place was decorated like a modern take on a medieval castle. Huge, solid tables, chairs and booths with high backs, and a wood slat ceiling complete with exposed beams brought the theme home, but the modern finishes and generally sleek lines made it feel relevant and ironic-hip instead of purely catering to the Ren Faire crowd. Plus the energy in this place was really great—positive, warm, and comfortable.
“Alright. Let’s Scrabble this!” Abby beamed as she began drawing tiles from the drawstring bag she sat between them.
Wren didn’t even try to hide her snicker. “You’ve clearly played this more recently than I have,” like, more recently than 15 years ago, “so you might need to remind me of the rules.”
“Don’t worry. I gotchu.”
Ten minutes later, Abby had explained the rules of Scrabble and taken her first turn as a sort of example. Now Wren was staring at her tiles.
SOLUTVE
The problem was all she kept seeing were the words LUST and LOVE—neither of which she was about to play because—duh. Desperate much? Ugh, but what other words could she make with this nonsensical mash of letters?
STONE? She could intersect her S,T,O, and E, with the N Abby had played in the word NEVER and make that happen. Okay, yeah.
She played the tiles with a sign of relief, then drew four new letters to replace the ones she’d just spent.
“Nice one,” Abby approved before looking back at her own tiles.
“Thanks.” Wren watched her study the letters in front of her for a moment, then decided she might as well come straight at the question rolling around on her tongue. “So... how’d you find my RV?”
She wasn’t sure what she was hoping Abby would say. Maybe she’d asked Scott, who asked Zander? They’d talked briefly about it when she met Zander and Callum for drinks last night. But what was the likelihood of that?
“I used a locator spell.” She didn’t look up from her tiles.
Wren sat for a second, frozen. “You locator spelled me?”
“Yeah. You’re saying that like it’s weird.” Abby’s brows were furrowed in question when she looked up.
“Because it’s sort of weird,” Wren replied. Not that she was actually mad about it—in fact, she was sort of thrilled—it was just intense to know Abby had used a relatively powerful spell to find her. Locator spells weren’t highest tier magic or anything, but they weren’t kid stuff either. Wren hadn’t ever done one—mostly because she’d never needed to—but she knew the basic mechanics.
“It is not weird,” Abby countered. “I do it all the time.”
“You use a spell to find people all the time?” She ignored the tiny pang of sadness that hit knowing Abby hadn’t done anything above-and-beyond her normal to find her. It was a silly reaction.
Abby shrugged and went back to her tiles. “Okay, maybe not all the time. But a bit.” When her eyes lifted again, there was real concern in them. She leaned forward. “Are you actually pissed? If so, I’ll never do it again.”
Wren sighed. “No, I’m not pissed. I just—” What was she? Surprised? Curious? She shrugged. “Nobody’s ever wanted to find me that much, I guess.” Nervous—that’s what she was.
The woman—the witch—sitting across the table from her was gorgeous. It had been a long time since Wren had felt that rush of infatuation. If she’d given it any thought before, she honestly would have assumed she probably would never feel it again. After the last year and a half of heartache, Wren hadn’t known she still had the wiring to feel like this—happy-nervous, turned-on from just looking at somebody.
It was great to know she could still feel this way. And scary to feel it.
Abby’s smile was small and soft. “I don’t know if I believe that.”
Now the back of Wren’s neck was warm. She needed to keep talking or she’d start thinking too much. “What’d you use to do the spell?” Abby would have needed something that belonged to Wren. Had she left something at the shop yesterday?
Abby brought her tea to her lips—and answered into her mug, the words unintelligible from across the table in the bustling space.
Wren sighed and couldn’t help but smirk. “I heard that not at all.”
Abby sat her mug down. “I used your blood. From the rag I wiped your tattoos with.”
Wren felt her eyes go wide and her lips fall open.
“You’re pissed.”
“I’m not!” Wren replied quickly. “I’m just—here.” She took her phone from her bag and unlocked the screen. “Tell me your number, and I’ll text you mine. Next time, you can call me. No magic required.”
Abby’s smile stretched as she plucked her own phone from where it was lying on the table.
“I really am sorry if I overstepped,” Abby said a minute later, after numbers were exchanged and saved. “My cousins and I do it all the time. It didn’t occur to me that it’s sort of invasive. Which, now that I say that out loud, was definitely shortsighted on my part.”
Her cousins. That tripped Wren’s attention, and she remembered what Beth had said, about needing an entire coven to move the magic storm. She leaned forward so she could lower her voice a shade. “Are there other witches in your family?”
Abb
y’s smile was part delight and part no-duh. “Every woman in my family is a witch. Like, our whole family tree.” She looked around the medieval modern space. “Case in point, my second cousin owns this place. If you look closely, there are runes painted everywhere.”
Wren looked around and, sure enough, now that she was looking for them, there were runes all over the place. They weren’t even hiding, but instead were part of the decor. Runes for protection, for peace, for happiness. Intelligence, temperance. The good energy Wren had noticed before wasn’t simply the result of her attraction to Abby, but from the magic conjured by the sigils all around them.
Wren’s heart ached with jealousy she wasn’t proud of. Abby came from a whole family of witches. Meanwhile, Wren’s family hadn’t even known she was one.
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
Abby watched Wren closely. As sure as if she’d turned off her open sign, Wren’s emotions and energy locked down tight—or tried to, at least. She left a window open, like she didn’t want to close herself off but was struggling not to.
But why? Abby racked her brain. They’d been talking about magic—family. Abby’s family tree—
Of course.
Abby leaned across the table. “Does your family not have magic?” It was completely normal for magic to skip generations. It was also not something that was often recorded throughout history, so there were plenty of witches and warlocks who had no idea if their genealogy held other magical ancestors.
Wren swallowed and when her eyes met Abby’s, they were bleak—but no longer closed off. “My mom did. She died when I was eleven. I didn’t learn anything about magic until I was in college.”
Abby felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. Her mother had died? “When you were eleven?” Abby wasn’t sure she’d have survived the grief at eleven years old if her mom had died. The years from ten to twenty were the years she’d leaned on her mom the most.
Wren nodded. “I lived with my grandmother after that.”
“Who didn’t have magic,” Abby surmised. She wanted to break down crying. Wait, no, she didn’t want to cry, she wanted to take Wren into her arms, and never let her go. She wanted to go back in time and protect Wren from everything.
Wren’s laugh was dark with sarcasm. “My grandmother is a devout, pray-the-gay-away Christian. There’s a lot about me she doesn’t know.”
Abby just stared at Wren for a breath. Then another.
When she’d felt the pull to find Wren tonight, she’d trusted the instinct because, well, that’s what she always did. She hadn’t stopped to think about why. She hadn’t considered that maybe Wren was as much in need of Abby as Abby was in need of Wren. Because she did need her. She didn’t know how, or for what purpose, but it was clear to her that Wren was someone she needed by her side, in her life. However she could get her, she’d take.
She reached across the table and laid her hand gently on Wren’s wrist. “Do you have a community in the magical world?”
Wren was staring at the place where Abby’s fingers were resting against her skin. “I have a couple of friends in other parts of the country I talk to sometimes. That’s all.”
When Wren’s eyes met hers, Abby didn’t look away—she dove in, squeezing Wren’s wrist and sending every ounce of love and care, and intention into her words. “Well, now you have me.”
Wren just stared at her, her expression unreadable, and Abby stared right back. Once, Wren’s eyes slipped to Abby’s lips, and twice, Abby found herself glancing to Wren’s mouth, but she pulled her gaze back to Wren’s brown eyes.
They were still staring at one another when Abby registered a presence step up to their table.
“You wanna cool it before you scare the normies?”
That pulled Abby’s eyes away from Wren’s. She turned to see her cousin, Veronica, standing at the end of their table, her hands on her ample hips like she was trying to block their way out—or everybody else’s view in. “Oh, hey. Veronica, this is Wren.” She flicked a look at Wren who was looking ten kinds of anxious. “Veronica’s the cousin I mentioned who owns this place.”
Veronica smiled at Wren. “Hey, nice to meet you.” Then turned to Abby. “Seriously, though. You’re freaking people out.”
“She wasn’t even holding my hand,” Wren cut in, voice low, and Abby suddenly saw what Wren was thinking. But before she could smooth the incorrect, albeit reasonable, assumption, Veronica’s eyes went wide.
“Oh shit, not that,” she said in a rush. “If somebody’s delicate sensibilities are offended by PDA they can go fuck themselves.” She lowered her voice and pinned Abby with her blue-green eyes. “I’m talking ix-nay on the agic-may.”
Nix on the magic? What?
She looked to Wren, then followed her gaze down to the table—where the Scrabble board was full of words.
Connection intersected complement, which intersected magic, which connected to community, then nature, and veil, love, linger, the words all running a theme—all having arranged themselves while Wren and Abby spoke. Or maybe only after they touched.
Wren’s wrist slipped out from under Abby’s as she began scooting out of the booth, purse in hand. “I, uh. I gotta go.” She looked to Veronica. “Sorry about that. It was... nice to meet you.” Then she was booking it for the door.
“Put it on my tab, yeah?” Abby said to Veronica as she scooted out of her bench and went after Wren. She was already out the door by the time Abby caught up to her. “Wren, wait!”
She didn’t stop walking. “I just—I gotta get back.”
Abby jogged after her. “Don’t leave. Please.” Was it the Scrabble tiles that spooked her? Or meeting Veronica that had done it? Maybe the whole conversation leading up to that had been too much. “I’m not good at this,” she admitted. “At talking, and not saying stupid shit. So if I messed this up, just—”
“What?” Wren stopped and turned back. “You didn’t say anything wrong.”
“Then what is it?” Abby caught up to her, slowing as she drew near. Nearer still. In the dim lights that shown from the front of the building, Wren looked like a model from an album cover, curls wild, eyes wide. She was so beautiful. Abby didn’t want to let her go. Not now—maybe not ever.
“You said right things,” Wren said, voice low, while she shook her head and took one stilted step back. Then two steps forward, with her eyes on Abby’s mouth. “They were right things.”
Abby took the final step that brought her lips to Wren’s—and holy Mother Earth—it was like kissing a magical live wire. The magic in Abby’s veins swelled and a hard inhale pressed her breasts against Wren’s, who’s fingers wrapped firm around the sides of Abby’s neck.
Taken over, Abby pressed forward, and Wren gave so they stumbled back as Abby wrapped one arm around Wren’s narrow waist and caught them both against the wall of the building with her other. Wren’s tongue slipped across her lower lip and Abby whimpered, opening and welcoming the intrusion, stroking Wren’s tongue with her own. She had to touch her—to feel her flesh under her fingers. But when her fingers found the hem of Wren’s tee, Wren stiffened and pulled back.
“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” When she stepped to the side, away, Abby let her. “You’re perfect—” Wren breathed. “I just—I haven’t—”
Pieces clicked into place. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do anything.” Maybe Wren has never been with a woman before, Abby realized. Maybe this was new to her.
This shit could be a mind trip, even when you knew what you wanted. Abby had grown up in a family that embraced all forms of love and figuring out her sexuality had still been a trial of self-discovery. Wren had grown up in a queer kid’s hell. “We can keep talking. Just let me walk you home.”
But Wren was already shaking her head and backing away. “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine. Really. I’ll see you around, okay?”
Then she turned and walked away, the darkness swallowing her within ten steps. Abby didn’t know whether to cry or kick so
mething.
CHAPTER NINE
Zander knocked on Cecily and Scott’s bedroom door with one hand while she weighed her phone in the other. It was ten in the morning and she hadn’t seen either of them yet, but now footfalls could be heard and the sound of a flushing toilet from within their room.
The door cracked open and Scott was on the other side of it, eyes bright and brows high. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Is Cecily up yet?” Zander asked. She wasn’t trying to be obnoxious, but she needed to see if Cecily had also received the random text from their mom, asking her to come to the apartment for a chat.
“Uh, yeah. She’s up.” Scott seemed uncomfortable as he glanced over his shoulder into their room. “Just a sec.”
The door closed and Zander thought to knock again and just ask Scott to send Cecily downstairs when she was decent, but before she could do it, the bedroom door opened and Cecily, hair a mess and eyes exhausted, was on the other side of.
“Hey.” Her voice was horse and she stopped to clear it. “What’s up?”
Something was off, but Zander dismissed it in favor of the issue at hand. “Did you get a weirdtext from mom?”
Cecily’s brows furrowed in question. She left the door to her room open, revealing a tangled mess of a bed in the middle of an otherwise tidy room when she went to the bedside table and plucked her phone from the charger. “I do have a text from her.” Then, a moment later, “Um. Is this weird?”
Okay, so it wasn’t the weirdest text Zander had ever received, but it was oddly cryptic coming from Mom. “She didn’t even tell us what she wants to talk to us about. Could this not be a phone call?”
It wasn’t that Zander didn’t want to go see her mom, she just hated surprises and showing up somewhere when she didn’t know what to expect.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Cecily said with a smile that looked even more nervous than Zander felt.
“If it’s nothing, why are you sweating?”
“Oh.” Cecily wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “I was...working out.”
Zander felt her face go ten kinds of what-the-hell. “You don’t work out.”
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