Page 30 of Practically Witches

When we’re back in the Jeep again, he doesn’t start the car right away. He waits. Looks at me. “What do you think?”

I don’t know what any of it means. “I think we’re missing something.”

“Maybe we should write down what we know.” Aimee is big on lists and flash cards and even score cards. “It’ll be easy to keep track of.”

And this time, she’s right.

Chapter

Fourteen

Zane drops Dylan off, then brings us home—and we beat Mom by at least an hour. When Aimee walks inside, I linger with him in the Jeep.

“Thank you for driving today.” I would’ve done it since Aimee doesn’t like driving in the city, but this was definitely better.

He smiles and it’s probably the nicest part of my day. “No problem. I don’t mind.”

The silence stretches and I should probably get out of the car, but I don’t’ really want to. I want to drag this out for as long as I can. “Do you want to come in? Maybe you’ll see something we can’t.”

He reaches to brush the hair off my face and smiles. “I would love to, but…” And he pauses, which makes me think he wouldn’t really love to at all.

When he doesn’t finish, I shake my head, humiliated. I just wish he would send out signals that didn’t make me think he wants me one minute and then doesn’t the next. “It’s okay. Forget I asked.”

“Hey.” His voice is low, almost a whisper, but it’s potentas fuck, starts a small fire in my belly. I could fall into the soft expression, the hint of a smile on his face. “I don’t want to forget you asked, but I don’t want the first thing that your mom knows about me to be that I snuck into her house so I could be with you.”

“You wouldn’t be sneaking. You’re walking in and out the front door.” He’s dated a lot. Probably has lines for every occasion, but I don’t care. I like this one. And I don’t want him to go. “I didn’t say I was inviting you to my bedroom. Just a couple friends sitting at the kitchen table working on solving a mystery.”

“Well, when you say it like that…” His grin spreads across his face and he climbs out of the car. I’m already out when he walks around to my side. “I was coming to open your door.”

“Oh.” A warm flush goes through me and if I was one of those Dear Diary girls this would get its own page. “I got it.”

“I can see that.” The smile doesn’t waver, not mine or his as he clasps his hand around mine.

When we walk into the house, Aimee is already at the table with her list-making supplies—papers, multiple-colored pens, sticky notes for footnotes—and she looks up, then at our hands, then back to her paper. “Well, okay then.”

I don’t know what she means, or if I should care. If it’s important she’ll tell me later. Otherwise, it’s just Aimee being Aimee, noticing things, and reacting to it in her subdued, mostly easygoing kind of way.

“RJ, maybe you should get drinks. We might be at this for a while.” She nods to the kitchen like I don’t know where we keep the drinks in this family, but I offer Zane a chair and head to the fridge. We don’t generally keep sodain the house, so our choices are water, tea, or some sort of juice that tastes more like cough syrup than juice.

I don’t bother asking Aimee. She only drinks water. I pour myself tea and poke my head out of the kitchen into the dining room where she’s set up. “Zane, we only have water or tea.”

“Tea’s fine.”

I smile. It’s another thing we have in common.When I deliver the drinks, he smiles up at me, and it could be nothing, but it feels like something. “Thanks.”

I want to do nothing for the rest of the night but stare into his eyes, watch him, and daydream about him.

Aimee kicks me under the table and shoots me a frown. “Are you two ready?”

The moment has passed. I shrug. “Sure.”

She’s the list maker. I’m just watching and hopefully contributing something worthy so I don’t look stupid in front of Zane.

Aimee knows everything I know, but I have no idea how long until Mom comes home, so I’m not quite brave enough to ask Zane up to my room. Yet.

Instead, I watch Aimee. She starts with a column for each girl’s name—Ariya, Margery, Rowen, and Aimee. She’s added her own name, and I cock a brow. “I thought we decided you were an opportunity more than a target.”

“But what if I wasn’t? We don’t know that I was random, or that I don’t fit a certain profile. We also don’t know why she took my magic and not yours.” If I didn’t know her better, I would say she was bitter. But this is Aimee. Calm, peaceful Aimee. I would be bitter, but not her.

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