Page 31 of Wicked Love
Two weeks later
In the two weeks that we’d been seeing each other, Jasper and I hadn’t managed to make it back to bed together. Not once. Not at all. Every time we came close, something happened.
That first night he came over, I could tell that he was upset.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I just came from my mentor,” he said.
“And?” I wasn’t connecting the dots.
He shook his head, sitting down next to me on the sofa. One thing led to another and just as he carried me into my room and put me on the bed, his phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” I begged.
“It’s my work ringtone,” he said.
Within five minutes, he was out the door. The effects of the curse was making its way around our coven, and his boss needed his help.
Every night since then, he’d come over. In that time, I caught dinner on fire. Twice. The water hose under my sink popped off, and we spent ten minutes splashing around in water.
Then his car broke down on the way to my house. He took it to his mechanic the next day, and there was nothing wrong.
Then he got a flat tire. Then I got a flat tire.
Then my car broke down. Although that was my heater hose popping off, so at least there was a reason.
We weren’t able to have sex, which was what we both wanted to do. We both laughed a lot, and talked, but there wasn’t a lot of involvement when we were both dealing with one crisis after another.
Still, I was enjoying myself. And the promise of wonderful for when we were able to get back to bed—oh, that thought had given me some very detailed dreams.
Finally, he called. “I can’t come by tonight.”
“Oh, no, what happened?” I asked.
“I have to work,” Jasper said.
There was something in his voice, something that… I couldn’t pinpoint it, but he wasn’t being completely straight with me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wanted to see you.”
“I don’t want your house to burn down if I show up,” he said.
“Well, there is that, but what else could happen?” I asked.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jasper said, and he ended the call.
“Not coming over?” Zelda asked.
“No, he has to work.”
“They always do,” she said. “No, no, don’t start. I’m glad he’s not coming over. I want to talk to you.”
“About?” I found that I was dispirited. Through the last two weeks and every fucking bad instance of Murphy’s Law, I thought it was just a thing. Something we could laugh over. But I’d heard something different in his voice tonight.
“I hate to admit that I am wrong, but a good leader does so, no matter how painful,” Zelda said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This is the curse, Mel,” she said. She’d started calling me Mel. And she’d told me not to worry about getting her back. She didn’t want to go back. I figured I had enough problems, although I knew that the fact the reliquary was missing was a big concern for the coven. Jasper had mentioned it.
