“Don’t be a bitch,” Chase says with a pleasant smile. “You don’t want to cross me.”
That dark thing I’ve learned to tame as I’ve matured rises and rears inside me. I once asked MiMi if voodoo was bad, if we were bad. She said we weren’t bad. We’re just.
“You don’t even understand the power you’ve been given,” she’d say. “Don’t abuse it in anger. Gentleness is power under control.”
“No, Chase,” I answer after a beat to compose myself, to check my lowest impulses. “I’m the one you don’t want to cross.”
“You gonna put a hex on me, Lo?” he asks snidely.
Once at my apartment, Chase stumbled upon some of the herbs and potions MiMi sent with me when I left for college. I don’t practice voodoo like MiMi did. She devoted her life to the people who needed her help. No, I don’t practice, but I’ve never forgotten the things MiMi taught me about magic, about life. That may not be my path, but I descend from a long line of women who walked that path well. I know my own strength. My own power, and it takes all my restraint not to unleash it on Chase when he’s being a jackass.
“You’d do well not to joke about things you don’t understand, Chase,” I reply, a warning, quiet but clear, in my voice.
Fear crosses Chase’s handsome face.
Good.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing with a deep swallow. “You weren’t just an easy fuck to me.”
“Whatever we were,” I say, gentling my tone a little, hoping to get us back on even ground, “we’re just friends now.”
He tightens his man bun, his usual cocky grin a little shaky, but still there. “You must admit, the sex was incredible.”
He’s feeling himself a little too much because I’ve had better, but things have been tense enough between us.
“It was good,” I concede with an easy smile. “But our friendship is even better, so let’s stay friends.”
“If you change your mind . . .” He cups my face and traces my cheek with his thumb.
“I won’t.” I step away from his touch. “Let’s go make sure JP doesn’t ruin your shoot.”
Chase watches me for a few extra seconds before yielding a fond smile, the smile of the laid-back boy I met when I first started at JPL, before sex made things complicated. He comes from wealth, from a family who indulged his every whim. That he actually applied himself long enough to become an excellent photographer is a miracle in itself. He’s not a bad guy. Just spoiled. And entitled.
And getting on my last damn nerve.
“You’ve got a point,” he finally says. “Letting JP loose on a shoot can be dangerous.”
JP’s on the phone, yelling and gesticulating, his thickly accented English booming through the industrial space with its rafters, floor-to-ceiling windows, and polished concrete floors.