Page 8 of Exes, Hexes, and Strategy
Melanie Harper. Nina’s roommate and practically life-long best friend crossed her arms over her ample bosom and tapped her foot, a mutinous look on her face. “Are we going to have trouble here?”
His brow shot up at the audacity of the question, but Mel wasn’t done. Jabbing a finger toward him, the blonde witch pointedly informed him, “Your father doesn’t scare me.”
With that rather unexpected and slightly confusing statement, Mel flipped her hair over her shoulder and flounced off while Rafe watched her with narrowed eyes.
“She’s something else,” Logan uttered, joining Rafe to watch Mel’s departure.
“That she is.”
“The other woman is the one you spoke of?”
Rafe couldn’t hold back the wistfulness in his tone as he nodded. “My Nina.”
Chapter Five
Showered, Nina decided to grab a quick lunch before her next class. Unfortunately, Rafe and the big guy that Mel had accosted earlier, had also had the same idea. Keeping well out of their line of sight, she tucked herself into a corner and quietly observed them and their differing mannerisms. While Rafe sat up straight, a napkin placed over his lap as he precisely cut and ate his food with the appropriate utensils, the big guy was hunched over his tray, elbows braced on the table as he hoovered up massive bites of a burger like someone might snatch it away at any moment.
The big guy spoke around a mouthful of that burger just then, and whatever he’d said, had a smile breaking out on Rafe’s face and Nina felt a tiny kernel of jealousy unfurl in her chest. Those smiles had once been so rare, so precious, and only for her.
“You should smile more,” she said, her fingers lifting to touch the corner of his mouth.
Rafe nuzzled into her palm and kissed the sensitive skin of her wrist. “You’re the only thing in my life worth smiling for.”
And she’d left him without a word. Nina’s stomach churned.He’d sent so many texts and messages those first few weeks. Words of love, of missing her, they had hurt her heart so badly it had felt like the organ was being ripped from her chest. Her first, even her second inclination had been to reply, to explain, but then she'd recalled the reason why she had let him go. Those cold eyes, the cruel slant of that mouth…
It had killed something inside of her, but she'd blocked him on social media and changed her number. Out of sight, however, and despite her best efforts, had never been out of mind. He had burrowed too deeply into her heart to ever remove him completely.There’d been no way around it, too much had been at stake, but her heart still bled for what she had to do. For what she’d have to continue to do.
Prolonging her torture, she kept watching. Rafe said something and, whatever it was, had the big man throwing back his head with a great, belly laugh. Rafe looked pleased with the response and that tiny kernel of jealousy flared once more.
She knew it was wrong, knew she had no right to begrudge him what looked like a budding friendship – something of which Rafe had been bereft of when they'd first met – but she couldn't seem to help it. His smiles were hers, a gift, and one she had missed terribly.
“You know,” Mel drawled, her sudden appearance startling Nina. “Even if we don’t go the hex route – which I still think we should at least consider – his father's not here to see you with him, and technically, he’s under Kane Fletcher’s rule while he’s here.”
“What are you suggesting?” Nina asked with surprise.
Mel shrugged, her eyes on Rafe and his eating companion rather than on Nina. “I mean, you couldn't have anything permanent, especially since your end goal in all of this is to be a Hunter, and I highly doubt the two of you will be on the same team, but as far as I can tell, nothing is stoppingyou two from having some fun and scratching that itch while you're here.”
Turning her head to finally look at Nina, Mel pointed out, “As long as Vincent DeMarco doesn't find out, no harm done. Right?”
Nina felt a bloom of hope blossom in her heart for a split second before it withered. She shook her head. “I can’t trust that he’s not being watched. That someone wouldn’t see us together and report back.”
“Then we need to be sneaky about it,” Mel suggested slyly.
Turning her gaze to Rafe once more, Nina uttered morosely, “He might be over me.”
Mel let out a loud, scoffing snort. “Oh, please. The way the two of you were looking at each other earlier? Honey, there was so much heat I thought you guys were going to singe my hair.”
Looping her arm through Nina’s, Mel tugged her into the line of people grabbing lunch. “I already did some sleuthing,” her friend said, picking up a tray. “Granted, it was for me more than for you because that big double scoop of sweetness sitting with your man is F-I-N-E fine, but it turns out the two of them are roomies.”
“So?”
“Soooo,” Mel replied, drawing out the word. “It won’t seem at all strange if, while I’m in pursuit of Mr. Yummy Pants, you spend time with his roommate. You know, as my wing woman.”
Making her selection and setting it on her tray, Nina nodded thoughtfully. Perhaps she was just desperately grasping at any idea that put her in Rafe’s proximity, but that idea could work.
“And there’s no time like the present,” Mel added, quickly looping her free arm once more through Nina’s and tugging her along.
Nina almost dropped her tray, the action was so unexpected, and it took her a moment to right the lunch items on it as she stumbled along behind her persistent friend. When Mel’s words – and the meaning behind them – finally clicked, it was too late to do anything about it. Mel had led them to Rafe’s table and purred to the big guy, “Mind if we join you?”
