Page 15 of Our Radiant Embers

“You too.” To Gale’s credit, he didn’t sound sarcastic.

“See you tomorrow,” Adam said with all the enthusiasm of someone preparing for a colonoscopy. Right there with you, mate.

I stepped out into a crisp evening, gravel crunching under my shoes. Once the door fell shut behind me, I took a slow, deep breath. If this had been an indication of how the rest of this collaboration would go? God, it would be a painful, painful experience.

But if Adam mistook me for the type to give up? Well. He’d learn.

* * *

Oil, sawdust, metal, and spices. The familiar mix of scents hit me as soon as I got out of my car.

Which was also when I realised Adam would smell the same thing tomorrow. Jesus, what had I been thinking? Sure, it would put him on the back foot, but it also meant direct exposure to my family. That was…not good. Was, in fact, very bad. Because there were no secrets in my family, and so I’d mentioned my ill-advised hookup with Adam even if I’d kept the details to myself. They also knew that back in school, I’d nurtured just the tiniest crush on him.

It was par for the course, all right? Now, for the record, I’d never sunk so low as to join one of the secret message boards that existed for every young, hot, and presumably powerful son of a wealthy magical family. I wasn’t my sister Laurie, who’d flitted from drooling over some teen pop sensation to Cassandra Hartley’s youngest brother and back. But, yeah. There’d been a very brief, very contained five seconds of my life when I’d looked for Adam’s face in the school corridors. Then my father had begun to work for the Harringtons and my illusions had dissolved like a biscuit dipped into a cup of black coffee. Good riddance.

That didn’t make me immune to my family’s teasing, of course. It wasn’t an issue when it was the six of us, joking at the kitchen table—but it would be very much an issue if they didn’t keep their traps shut with Adam around.

Rules would need to be set.

I locked my car and entered the house through the attached workshop, where creative anarchy reigned supreme. Jack and Laurie were huddled over something I recognised as a blown-up component of our aquarium-sized waste recycler, tools strewn around them. They glanced up at my entrance.

“Hey!” Laurie sat back on her heels, a smudge of grease on her cheek, light brown hair up in a messy bun. “How was it?”

I blew a breath through my nose. “Like trying to explain Wi-Fi to Nan Jean.”

“That good, huh?” Jack asked.

“I’ll give you the director’s cut at dinner, but…” I shook my head. “We’ve got one week to come up with a joint proposal. Right now, I’m not sure we’ll get there.”

“Offer sexual favours,” Laurie suggested.

Jack snorted. “He’s been there, done that.”

“Maybe a refresher is in order,” she said.

“That,” Jack jumped in again, “would suggest it wasn’t all that memorable the first time around.”

“Are you charging admission for this double act?” I asked. Best if they got it out of the way now, though. It increased the chances that they’d behave tomorrow.

Oh, who was I kidding?

After trading a few more insults, I left them to their tools and moved on, the warmth of the main house welcoming me. A tumble of shoes cluttered the entryway, jackets draped over two coat racks, and the swirling pattern of the ceramic floor tiles added to the chaos. It wasn’t gleaming marble and opulent chandeliers, wasn’t a mansion in Hampstead Garden Suburb—just a cramped five-bedroom house from the seventies in East Finchley. But it was ours, and it was enough.

I wasn’t sure ‘enough’ even featured in the Harringtons’ vocabulary.

My parents were in the kitchen, dad chopping vegetables while mum cracked eggs into a bowl. They both turned at my entrance. Without a word, I crossed over to the liquor cabinet above our fridge, fished out a bottle of grappa, and went to pour myself a finger’s width. Each time I blinked, the memory of burning sand shimmered behind my lids.

“Does this call for an intervention?” Mum asked Dad.

“The Harringtons will do that to a person,” he said.

“It’s well past five o’clock,” I told them, “and I’ve earned this. We made a total of no progress today. It’s like he expects me to worship at his altar.”

“Well,” Dad said slowly, in the kind of voice that always marked his jokes. “To be fair, you have.”

“Okay, one?” I took a small sip that burned on the way down, then tossed my dad a lopsided smile. “His dick is not an altar. Two, I am so not having this conversation with you. And three, he’s coming over tomorrow afternoon, so you might want to make plans that take you elsewhere.”

Mum paused in washing her hands. “Adam Harrington is coming here?”

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