Page 61 of Sigils & Spells

“I’ll see you later.” This time, when I hung up the phone, I hadn’t wanted to. I wanted to stay on the line and listen to him talk about nothing and everything. I wanted to play that stupid game of ‘no, you hang up first,’ because I didn’t want to hang up at all.

CHAPTER7

Merle

I hadn’t been on a proper date since high school. And I don’t care to admit how long ago that had been.

My last relationship had been just that, a relationship. I hadn’t considered her to be a girlfriend, and she certainly never referred to me as a boy, friend or otherwise. At least not until she broke up with me and called me a little boy, and a child.

I had always liked to think of it as having a child like joie de vivre. I believe the exact word was juvenile. She was the one to convince me to meet her for a date, and the next thing I knew, she was moving in.

So even though there had been women, my dating skills were rusty at best.

Following proper dating etiquette, I took a shower and wore clean clothes. I stopped and bought flowers. There wasn’t a box of chocolates to be found that wasn’t in the shape of a heart. I chose not to go with the heart shape box because I didn’t want to jump the line and scare Pan off. Or look cheap, buying leftovers from Valentine’s Day.

Of course, I had been too lax before and almost lost her. That was on me. This was my chance to make it up to her, and I was revving with enthusiasm. Maybe a little too much. I was going to screw things up. I could feel it.

Standing on the walkway in front of her apartment building, I pulled out my phone and called Ramsey.

“Merle? Did you find something?”

“No, not yet. I wanted to check in before I go offline for a bit.”

“What do you mean offline?” Panic wound his voice tight.

“I’m not going to be available if something happens tonight. Do you have your amulet on you?”

“Yeah, that’s me, number one mom,” he sneered.

“You don’t have to be so snarky. I’ll take that to mean you’re not a danger to yourself or those around you for at least the next twelve hours.”

“If you would only follow through on your promises, Merle, then I wouldn’t be a danger, ever.”

I seriously doubted that.

“We’re closer than ever before. Look, just stay in and lie low for the night. I’ll check in with you in the morning.” I ended the call. I shouldn’t have called. I shouldn’t have let his problems become my problems. But that’s what happened. His curse was mine. But for tonight, I didn’t want to think about the damned thing. I wanted to focus all of my attention on Pandora.

Turning the ringer on my phone off, I tucked it away before striding up the walkway to knock on her door.

“Hi!”

Her bright smile, and bright pink hair caught my breath and got it twisted around in my lungs. I forgot how to speak.

“Are those for me?” she asked, reaching forward to the bouquet I shoved toward her.

“Come on in, I’ll get these in a vase, and then we can go. If that’s okay. It’s not like we have reservations, right?”

She turned and walked up the long hallway that separated her front door from the rest of her apartment.

I stood by the door and watched her walk away. Gods, her ass was fascinating the way it moved. Round and smooth and… She stopped and looked over her shoulder at me. It was the single most sexy come hither look I had ever experienced.

“You can come all the way in, you know.” Her laughter was the tinkle of the fairy court, and I was ready to make any bargain to be by her side.

Her kitchen was one of those small galley layouts, with a long counter dividing the cooking from the living room. She moved around, completely at ease in her own space, and I was pulled into her spell.

She smiled, and I tried to not look like the gob smacked fool that I was.

Once the flowers were in a vase, she lifted them to her face and sniffed. “They smell as good as they look.”

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