happy that he’d get a brain transplant. She never did, though, which just proves my theory about opposites happening. Maybe if I dreamed that she would stay away or had turned into a twenty-foot monster with razor blades for teeth, things might’ve worked out better.”
Emma ignored his weak smile. “Was it horrible that she never came back?”
“I guess. I mean it’s hard to say since I don’t have anything to compare it to.” Curtis started to draw invisible shapes on the tabletop with his finger. “To be honest, I’m not sure it would’ve really changed anything.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. You deserve better,” Emma said in a soft voice before the situation overcame her again. “But what if this isn’t okay? What if we can’t stop it?”
“We will,” he said in a firm voice.
“But how do you know?” she persisted.
“I know because you deserve better as well,” he said, his gaze unflinching. “You’re doing a good job, you know.”
She gave him a faint smile. “Really . . . because I sort of thought that doing a good job might feel a little better.” As she spoke she lowered her chin onto the table. The wood veneer felt cool against her skin as despair washed over her like an old friend. “All I feel is sore and confused and completely unable to figure out what to do next. And I really am sorry about throwing the Death Curse in your face. You didn’t deserve that.”
“You’re frustrated. And trust me, that’s something I get all too well. So anyway, you never told me what you found in your mom’s book.” Curtis leaned his own head down on the table so their noses were only inches away from each other. Somewhere under the table she felt his outstretched broken leg touch hers. For a moment, Emma just stared at him, then realized he was waiting for an answer.
“Nothing of use.” She sighed as she told him what her mom had written. “I mean, we know she managed to banish it, so why didn’t she tell us how?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head while his chin was still perched on the table, his dark eyes drilling into hers. “But we’ll figure it out. Think of how much more we found out yesterday compared to the day before.”
“Yes, and think of how much more we had our butts kicked yesterday than we did the day before,” Emma countered, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead he reached out and lifted her hand off the table, entwining his fingers in hers, his gaze never leaving her face. A flutter of emotions went racing through her as the two of them sat there, chin to chin, eye to eye, hand to hand. For a second she longed to bottle the moment as she took in every inch of his face. His dark eyes, his strong jaw and jutting cheekbones, but then a guilty expression once again morphed across his face, which Emma felt like a slap on the cheek.
“Curtis,” she forced herself to say. “What’s going on?”
“Well, there’s this giant fairy that only you can see,” he said as he tightened his grip on her hand. “And right now we’re trying to—”
“No.” Emma gave a faint shake of her head, never taking her eyes off him. “I mean about this. About us? You can’t be like this and then act like . . . well . . . like you did last night.”
For a moment Curtis shut his eyes but his fingers tightened possessively around hers. Finally, he opened his eyes, which were now full of sincerity. “I’m sorry. I was a jerk last night. I shouldn’t have kissed you, but trust me, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to.” His beautiful mouth twitched before he leaned farther across the table so that his nose was almost touching hers. He was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. “It’s just there’s something I really need to tell you. And the thing is that you’re probably not going to—”
“There you guys are.” Brenda Vance suddenly appeared at the door of the study room, and Emma felt Curtis’s hand quickly untangle from hers as he lifted his head from the table and the moment dissolved around them.
“Um, can we help you?” Emma blinked as she tried to readjust to the world outside the space between her and Curtis. But even when the normal world came into focus, it wasn’t one where Brenda belonged.
“You’d better be