Sorceress, Interrupted - By A. J. Menden Page 0,73
another bit of history came back to bite me in the ass. I went to see him. Maybe I was wanting a daddy, or maybe I just wanted to hurt him because he was off having another new and perfect life, like always. So I told him who I am . . . He got all upset and was wanting to make amends. I just bolted. I figured I’d hide until he died and forgot me again.”
“Jesus.” Cyrus shook his head.
“Unfortunately, that was around the time he got the bright idea to start writing things down so he wouldn’t forget them. That included me. So, there’s no escaping him and all the centuries of awkwardness between us. Not unless I come here.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“ ‘That sucks.’ That’s about all you can say.”
“That sucks,” he said seriously.
I laughed. “I’ve gotten used to it. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Cyrus shook his head again. “Why is it I don’t buy that?”
I took a look at him, glanced down at him lying naked and glorious in my bed and decided the time for chitchat was over. “You know what? I’m not talking about my depressing life anymore. In fact, I’m going for a nice distraction.”
“You’ll smear the paint!” he said as I kissed him, pulling him toward me.
“You can redo it,” I said against his mouth. “We still have plenty of time.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
About twenty-four hours later the walls of the bar shuddered, and with them the walls of this reality. It could only mean one thing.
I sat up in bed with a start. “The spell’s down. The tracing spell must have worn off.”
“Just ten more minutes,” Cyrus mumbled sleepily beside me. “Hit the snooze alarm.”
“There’s no snooze alarm on spells,” I snapped. Standing, I whispered some Italian to get myself dressed, producing clothes out of my transdimensional closet, in this case a pair of tight jeans hanging low enough to perfectly display the top of the new ward Cyrus had painted, and a tank top with a slightly Grecian look. And I wasn’t going anywhere without some killer stilettos.
I glanced down at the painted tattoo again. “So, are you going to tell me what this means now?”
He studied me. “Are you going to tell me what you said in Italian last night?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He shrugged. “Me neither. Not yet.”
We seemed to be at an impasse. I glared down at the tattoo again, absently running a finger over the tops of the numbers, and wondered why I had said what I had last night in the first place.
“We can get out of here now,” I announced, changing the subject. “Mindy’s got to be wondering what happened to us, since her transmitter probably stopped working the moment we came through to this reality.”
“Thank God for that.” Cyrus laughed. “Otherwise she’ll be scarred for life. Or getting ready to leak a sex tape onto the Internet.”
“The transmitter also blew up,” I said. “Right after I cast that spell to take us away.”
“Good to know.”
He got up and threw on his clothes. I watched. He liked to be self-deprecating about his appearance, but there was nothing wrong with the show. Not from my perspective. He was all man.
He noticed me watching. “What?”
“Nothing.”
He shook his head at my obvious interest. “You’re a strange sort of woman, Fantazia.”
“You should be glad of that,” I replied.
“Believe me, I am. So . . .”
“So,” I repeated warily.
There was tension in the air, something I’d known was going to happen eventually. Everything was different now between us, and there would be no going back to simple friendship, at least, not without wading through a bunch of awkwardness first. Now was going to come a feeling-it-out phase, where we both tried to discern what the other truly wanted. There would be hints dropped, veiled discussions and strange looks until one of us finally got up the courage to ask the questions neither of us wanted to face.
Cyrus eyed me directly, his blue eyes boring into mine. “So, when we get back to the Elite Hands of Justice headquarters, is this staying behind us and becoming The Incident of Which We Do Not Speak, or are we going to play it by ear and just see what happens?”
Leave it to him to just power through to the difficult stuff.
“What do you think?” I asked, throwing the ball back in his court.
“I think I don’t know what goes on in your mind, Fantazia,” he said, sliding a hand out around my waist