Craig sighed, clearly as exasperated with his friend as with me. “Dude. Car. Wheels. We’re almost there. Why do you keep trying to give city boy and his friends free labor?”
“Ghosts,” Theo whined. “They have access to the otherworldly. That’s so awesome.”
Sonny slammed four bags of his delicious goods on the counter, making me jump. “You filling these boys’ heads with nonsense?” he asked me sternly.
“What? No. I was just?—”
“Did you take a number?” he asked, cutting me off.
King held up his hand with one of the little number tickets pinched between his thumb and index finger. “I did.”
“Suck up,” I mumbled out of the corner of my mouth.
Craig shook his head. “City boy.”
Scared that Sonny would yell at me again, I stuck my tongue out at Craig’s back, making Theo snicker. They finished their transactions and headed for the door. King reached out and tapped Theo’s shoulder. “I’ll be out at the pond tomorrow evening fishing if you’d like to come.”
“Really? At Beckoning Pond?” The cute little redhead bounced on his toes.Ha. He had more freckles than me. Why were his so adorable and mine made me look…Oh. They made me look young, and Theo was young. I hoped he appreciated his.
King shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I’ll give you a tour of the house, too.”
At the door, Craig sing-songed, “Waste of time.”
Theo rolled his eyes and mouthed,I’ll be there, to King with hearts in his eyes.
“I think you have a new admirer,” I teased.
“The only one I need is you.” He leaned down and kissed me, leaving me with hearts in my eyes, too.
Sonny groaned. “What do you two want?”
“Aren’t you going to call our number?” I challenged.
He blinked.
King shook his head.
“What?”
Sonny looked down at his counter, then back up. “Number fifty-five,” he deadpanned.
“Why do I feel like I did something wrong?” I whispered to King, well aware that Sonny could hear me.
King patted my back, then took over dealing with Sonny, who I was starting to think didn’t like me. Or he liked teasing me. I couldn’t be sure. It had to be the latter, right? Why wouldn’t he enjoy my sunny disposition? Besides, I was a good customer. I didn’t come in daily, but damn close.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to find a message from Ego.
Ego:I suppose you’re busy.
Shit.We’d taken a break today and gone back to the manor for a longer-than-usual lunch, and he’d mentioned that he’d finished writing a song last night. Did that mean he was bored now? Another thing I was failing at, my relationship with my cousin.
King’s arm slipped around my waist as he leaned down to ask softly, “What’s wrong?”
I turned my phone toward him.
“Oh.” He pulled me tighter to him. “Why don’t you invite him to your house for dinner? I can go home and have dinner with Gran.”
I wanted to whine and stomp my foot. How had my life gotten so busy and complicated? And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to develop my magic abilities or help people in the Dream-veil or spend time with my cousin or my best friend, it was just that securing a permanent spot in King’s heart felt big…important.
