Page 124 of The Spider & the Storm

“You believe as much as you are a skeptic,” she concluded from my gaze. “But you already know. It's time to take a step forward now. The past is of no use to you, and it's all right to let go.”

A muscle in my jaw jumped as I ground my teeth together, fighting against the angry words I wanted to spit into her face. But when I collected myself enough to speak, all I asked was, “Who told you that?”

She took a deep breath and dropped her chin, returning to her busy work of arranging crystals on a wire display.

“You shouldn't keep her waiting, Charlie,” she said casually, palming a smoky quartz point and holding it up to the hazy light filling the shop. “You've both waited long enough.”

***

In a daze, shaken and disturbed, I pushed through the shop door. Blake was sitting on the bolstered leather couch in the waiting area, his ankle crossed over his knee. He looked up from his phone to acknowledge me with a lift of his chin.

“Hey, man. How's it going?”

I tried to push down the residual effects of the tarot reader's words and act normal as I stuffed my hands into my leather jacket, taking a step toward Blake.

“All right. How are you?”

“Good,” he replied, dropping the phone to the cushion beside his and standing to extend his hand by way of a friendly greeting. “Stormy said you were picking her up today.”

We shook as I nodded. “She in the back?”

He told me she was, and I was about to head that way when he stopped me.

“Hey, listen. I'm getting out of here in a few minutes to pick my wife up and go to dinner with Cee and her husband, Shane. You guys are welcome to join us.”

Stormy and I hadn't been on an actual date alone, never mind withtwoother couples, and instinct told me to decline the invitation without a second thought. But then Melanie came to mind, like a specter from the past passing through a vacant hallway. How she'd given herself up for my brother and hisdemons. How resentful she'd become and how, in the end, she'd been nothing but a shadow of what she used to be. I didn't want that to happen to Stormy, and if being together meant that sometimes, she'd want us to spend time with her found family, then I'd have to accept that for what it was and tough it out.

So, I forced my head to nod. “Sounds good. I'll run it by Stormy and see what she says.”

Blake seemed happy with that answer as his lips quirked into a friendly, approving smile. “Cool. Tell her to text me if you decide to come, and I'll add you guys to the reservation.”

With a smile and a, “Will do,” I turned to head through the velvet curtain and down the hall to where I heard music coming from Stormy's workstation in the shop. From spending so much time in her presence, I knew the singer was Hozier and that she was a big fan. I'd started to like his work myself, and as I stepped into the doorway to listen to her sing, I realized it was the first time I'd adopted a likeness for something from a person who wasn't Luke or my parents. She'd already begun to influence me in ways that no other woman ever had, and while I knew it wasn't a negative change, the knowledge still managed to tickle my nerves with alarm.

“It's time to take a step forward now.”

The tarot reader's old voice filled my head as I watched Stormy's fluffy black knot of hair bob around to the beat of the song. She knelt on the counter, one cabinet door open before her to reveal boxes of stainless steel needles and forceps. She unloaded the cardboard box beside her, stacking the equipment on the shelves as she sang along in a voice I'd found soothing in the past week. Husky, unique, and melodic.

She tried to juggle too many boxes in her hands, and one slipped from her grip. It fell to the floor with a clatter, and she cursed under her breath as she looked down beneath her perch on the counter, about to drop the others to retrieve the one from the floor.

“I got it,” I said, making my presence known and stepping into the room.

As I crouched and picked the box up, handing it to her waiting hand, she smirked. “How long were you standing there?”

I stood and took the rest of the boxes from her hands, stacking them with the others in the cabinet. “Just a minute or two.”

“Creep,” she teased, taking the last package of forceps from the box. “Finally. God, I feel like I've been doing this for hours.”

“Because you have,” I reminded her with a quirk of my mouth.

She responded with a sheepish smile as she gestured to the row of hanging cabinets. “These are all jam-packed now. I might've gone a little crazy when I ordered supplies.”

I shrugged and stuffed my hands back into my pockets as I turned to rest against the lip of the countertop. “Well, now, you don't have to worry about it for a while, right?”

Nodding, she hopped down from the counter. “Yeah. Like, the next five years.”

There was something in the way she moved around the space, carefree and casual, that made me smirk. To think that this woman, who I'd shared my bed with for the past week, made a living from poking fresh holes into flesh sent a rush of excitement through my veins, and if I hadn't been so hyper-aware of the need for cleanliness, I might've insisted on using the convertible chair used for clients for something other than piercing. Something like laying her back, spreading her legs, and burying my face …

“What's that look for?” Stormy asked as she caught my gaze.

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