Page 9 of Practically Witches

A burst of heat shoots to my belly, and I smile. “Oh.” All that heat makes me eloquent.

“I wanted to see you.” It’s the gaze. I can’t break it. “You left in a big hurry last night.”

Well, it was bound to come up. “Yeah. Well, I was finished with my coffee.”

He laughs like I’m doing standup. He cocks an eyebrow, and I was wrong about the head shake being the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Very. Very. wrong. “I was finished with my shirt, too.”

“Good thing.” I can laugh about it now. Kind of. It’s more of a chuckle. And it hurts my belly, but it’s more for show.

“Right?” He grins as I shut my locker. “Come on. I’ll walk with you to your next class.”

“Okay.” I should probably pinch myself to make sure this is really happening and isn’t a part of some crazydream I’m having, but I don’t because if it is indeed some sort of dream I don’t want it to end.

We walk the hall and people get out of the way. It’s like he’s school royalty or something. They certainly don’t part like the Red Sea when I walk down the hall. I get jostled and bumped all the time. Such things apparently don’t happen to Zane.

“Have you ever been in here?” He points to the Great Hall of Practitioners. It’s not really a great hall. It’s more like a large classroom, but it’s been emptied except for the statues that are lit from the floor and the portraits of the professors and standout witches from the Institute before us.

“I want my picture hanging on that wall someday.” And even if I didn’t mean to say it aloud, to be one of the great ones is one of my goals, as farfetched and unlikely as it is at this point. But the truth is, I don’t want money or power. I want to cast a spell and have it do exactly what I intend. And a Saturday night date with Zane so I get the full Zane Bradbury experience.

For either of those things to happen, I need to get to class, buckle down, do the work, and figure out why my magic is so faulty. But I still don’t want this minute to end. I’m alone with him. With Zane Bradbury.

Before I can finish the thought, I see my mother’s official Institute photo. Holy shit. It’s sobering to see her this way, as more than my mother, as a woman with her own story and her own past in the school where she’s sent us.

Not only was she a standout student, she spent years as a professor here, imparting her wisdom. She looks so elegant in her long black robes, holding her official Institute folio with her hair streaming out from beneath her professor’s cap.

I wonder why she gave it up, why she is happy doing whatever it is she does these days. I know she’s told me before, but I can’t ever remember where she goes every morning or what she does that keeps her out most days until after we’re home from school.

I stare at the photo for a few more seconds until Zane touches my back, letting his hand rest just above where the hem of my shirt meets the waistband of my jeans. The touch is electric and sensual at the same time. I could melt.

“Hey, you.”

I turn to look at him and it’s the smile that gets me. Again.

“Sorry. I was just…” I point to the picture of my mom like I don’t know how to say she’s my mom. Her name’s under the picture, engraved on a gold plate that is attached to the wall. Not that he needs me to say her name. Not that it’s what he’s paying attention to.

“And I was just saying you owe me a shirt.”

“I do?” But then the fog over my brain clears and the mortification that I thought this was something more than him calling me on having ruined his clothing last night sets in. “Right, I do.” I shake my head. “I could Venmo you.”

“Or…” He grins and moves to stand in front of me and tilts my chin up again. “You could get that I’m teasing and we could go for coffee instead. My treat.”

“You want to risk another shirt on coffee and a klutz?” He can either laugh at me or with me, and I don’t really care which one. I really like the sound either way.

He grins. “So our date has a theme. I like it.”

“Date?” My pulse is running its version of the Kentucky Derby in my ears because Zane Bradbury has just asked me on a date.

I’ve been on dates before. I’m nineteen, not ten. I’vegone out. Done…things. But not with anyone who made my heart behave with such abandon.

The bell rings and now we’re both going to be late. “Think about it, okay? I’ll find you after class. I have to get to Advanced Spellcasting.” In the movies, this is the place where an upbeat tune would play and the girl would clutch her books to her chest as she spun around the room dancing with the statues.

I think I just had the best dream in the history of dreamers, and I’m halfway through a waltz with the statue of Wallace Whitmore, a wizard from the 1920s, when Aimee comes jogging into the room. “Oh my God. Were you just talking to Zane Bradbury? I saw him come out of here.”

I nod. I’m wearing khaki overalls and a button down with my blazer so I look like a weird cross between preppy Bob the Builder and that chick fromClueless, and I was talking to Zane Bradbury. “Come on. We have to get to herbology.”

We do. And I know it. What I don’t know is how I’m ever going to wipe this smile off my face.

Chapter

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