Page 82 of Seducing Jenny
I winced, unwilling to lie to him. “No. Good luck.”
He huffed loudly, and Rhonda hissed at me over his shoulder, before Longshot closed the door on his way out. I washed myself down in Surge’s sink, until there was no more mess on me, though I felt far from clean. No amount of water could rinse away what had happened in this lab.
Surge sighed. “One hell of a day.”
I laughed briefly. “Hell is the right word.” I plopped onto a stool next to him, and my whole body slumped. I was done pretending to be okay, done holding it together.
I took his hand in mine. “Surge, don’t you ever fucking do this to me again.”
He gave me a weak smile. “Believe me, I didn’t want to do it today.”
I gave him a direct look. “You knew something was wrong with Jenny before she attacked you, didn’t you?”
He paused, then said, “Yeah, I did.”
“Why didn’t you call us?”
“Ineverthought it would come to this,” he admitted. “But she was eating things she hates and talking about liking things she has never liked before. She started hitting on me…honestly, I thought she might have had a stroke, and I didn’t want to scare you until I knew for sure. But right when I started to realize she might be possessed, she attacked me.”
“Next time, do not spare my feelings,” I said pointedly. “Go ahead and scare me, okay?”
“You got it,” he promised.
I let the silence hang between us for a short moment before asking him, “Were you able to send your Illiapol winnings to your cousins?”
His face lit up. “Yeah. They bought Footwick Place and they’ve moved in.”
I raised a brow. “Why didn’t you want your ancestral home for yourself?”
“Footwick Place is enormous. I don’t need all that room.”
“Bullshit,” I said, suspecting that wasn’t all true. “Tell me the truth.”
“They have kids, Mal.” His voice softened. “I don’t even have a girlfriend. So, truly, I don’t need all that room. I never will.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He rolled his eyes. “You, Discord, hell, even Longshot, all of you have had your…dalliances. Have you ever seen me with anyone for longer than a night or two?”
I frowned, considering his question. “Well, I thought with your studies—”
“That magicians aren’t looking for love?”
“Now wait a minute.” I sat up straighter. “Of course I’ve seen you hook up with girls before. Why not any of them?”
“A hook-up is one thing. But to ask a girl to bring me home to meet her family…” He shook his head. “I can’t do that. None of them take me seriously, Mal. I’m a half-size. I’m a novelty for a night. Not the man of their dreams. I’m never going to find love.”
That realization made me ache for him. “Ilove you.”
“You know what I mean, smart ass.Romanticlove.”
“You will find it,” I assured him. “I know you will.”
“I appreciate the confidence, but speaking of love…you and Jenny and Tiger?” His brows arched upward in question.
I grinned at him. “I am irreversibly, wildly, impossibly in love with them.” Saying it out loud wasn’t as scary as I thought. I found it strangely comforting.
“And you’re not mad at Tiger for attacking you when he showed up at the lab earlier?”
