Page 15 of Amethyst Flame
“Shit, Mo,” Jacob hissed. “Don’t pull a switchnow. The boyfriend thing will give us an excuse to be alone together.”
But see, I didn’t want a “boyfriend thing.” I wanted a boyfriend.
“Nope. The plan has changed. And no swearing,” I said as I strode up the driveway. “Hi, Mom!” I greeted her with my brightest voice.
She answered with her suspicious one. “Who’s that with you?”
“This…is my desperate friend, Jacob.” Still true. “He has a job interview here in the valley, and he asked if he could crash on our sofa.”
“He was with you in Vegas?”
I tossed a truth salad as I walked toward her. “Kinda… He was interviewing for a job there, too. Some friend of his from back when they both went to MIT started a company, but when they were catching up, an old argument surfaced, and now that’s not going to work out.” Jacob had hefted our bags and was on a sheepish approach up the walkway. “But we did meet for dinner, and we got to talking about the job market in Phoenix. He did some searching, and now here he is.”
Jacob stopped next to me. “I hope this is okay. I told Mo that I didn’t want to be any trouble.”
“It’sfine,” I said, as if for the millionth time. Then I looked to my mom. “It’s only for a few days. Get the boy a job.”
“Well…” The glint in my mom’s eyes told me that she wanted to say no, but I had put her on the spot and she was fundamentally aniceperson (as opposed to me). “For just a few days then.”
Once inside, my mom left Jacob bewildered in the front room to drag me into my room for a private word. “Please tell me you used protection.”
I cocked my head. “As I did not do the no-pants dance with that vitamin D-starved nerdman out there, contraception was not necessary. He’sa friend.” Sob.
Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Well, what if he finds out about your…you know?”
My moths. My powers. My sublime witchiness. “I think I can control myself while he’s here.”
It was late enough that we could all claim exhaustion and go to bed. I pointed him to the bathroom and the kitchen and got him a pillow, clean sheets, and a light blanket he wouldn’t need (because Arizona).
And I hit the sack. Hard. I still wasn’t caught up energy-wise from the EDM concert.
The next morning was a confusion of politeness, awkward thank-yous, and you-go-firsts (he was sharing my bathroom), but we managed to get out the door and to the Freeze where he met Dane, and they both drove off in the Kidnapper to play secret agent some more.
Luckily, I had a couple of teenagers upon whom I could vent my frustrations. I discovered that absolute power could absolutely corrupt me. I wasn’t ashamed of this fact, either. The morning rush had me hating the rest of humanity and contemplating whether or not I was a good EldWitch or an evil EldWitch. For example, why hadn’t I resorted to a life of crime yet? All my financial problems could be solved without being covered in banana mush and pomegranate blort.
There was a Bank of Arizona ATM in the strip mall behind the Freeze. How hard would it be to make a withdrawal? Just twenty bucks. For starters. As an experiment.
My conscience chose that moment to ping me.You back yet?
I’m back.I hit send.
Well? *big eyes emoji*
Swann would want all the sexy details, but I didn’t trust my phone not to be loaded with spyware after being in Dane’s company.
I settled for,Nothing happened
Understatement of the year, but it was the answer to the question she was really asking.To cover the awful feeling that I was lying to her, I added,It’s complicated
I stared at the screen for a moment. I had to give her a hint of what was going on with me. Something real.I’m having an existential crisis
I was trapped. I had all this power at my fingertips, literally, and it didn’t amount to shit. Having power was worthless without choices. And my life had me wedged into smoothie hell while Jacob got to go off and do cool stuff all day. If he came back with secret agent sunglasses, I was going to kill him. And Dane. And take their sunglasses.
And rob that ATM.
Okay, maybe my problem was a fundamental lack of imagination where my powers were concerned. I needed to do some brainstorming about my possibilities.
Funny,she texted,I’m having a bit of an existential crisis myself
