Page 55 of The Royal Street Witch
“Bastian—”
“Let me finish, I have lots to say.” I lean back, crossing my legs, trying not to focus on how much I love when he’s wearing sunglasses and white T-shirts.
“You’re worried about Cassius, you think he hates you. Look, there is no one I know in this entire world that’s as loyal as Cassius. He has and will come for me any and every time I need him. We spent the entire night talking and he knows the risks that both of us took for this potion and because of that, he’s promised he won’t end his life. So, first I just want to say that even though it didn’t work the way we had intended, your potion worked. Cassius understands how much I love him, what he means to me and what I did to save him. He’s promised not to go anywhere or do anything that would break my heart.”
I nod slowly, digesting what’s he’s saying, hearing the excitement in his voice.
“So thank you, Aster. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for that.”
I open my mouth to speak, feeling a chip of that weight lifted, but he raises his hand and says, “I’m not done.”
I smile with my mouth closed, allowing him to finish speaking as his leg nervously shakes back and forth.
“The beach. It’s the only place in the world I want to go. Santa Cruz, California…with you. Come with me and then I will have done the three things I’ve wanted to do in the day light. I realize we could go anywhere in the world, but I want to go to the place I was with Luc last. Please, go with me.”
It’s my nature to protest, to say no, to say that I can’t. I want to say yes with everything inside me but it’s not so easy. “I have my shop.”
“You deserve a vacation. Excluding failed Disney trips, I’d say you’re long overdue.”
I tap my nail on my tooth, enamored that he listens to me, remembers my stories. California. No humidity, roller coasters on the beach, that sparkle in Bastian’s eye that only daylight ignites. And I suddenly want him to be pulling on my hair while he slips inside of me in a hotel room across the country, and I look down to my lap to keep the feelings at bay.
“What are you thinking?”
“About the shop,” I lie.
“You can afford to close it for a week or two.” He wiggles his eyebrows and forms a temple with his fingers.
“When?”
He licks his lips as if victorious. “I would need some time to arrange it, to make sure the bar will be okay. Amerie went to Japan, so they are short-staffed. I will talk to my mother, I just wanted to make sure you said yes first.”
“Well, I haven’t.” I squeeze a beignet between my fingers. With calculating eyes, he watches me bite into the fluffy pastry as white powdered sugar snows around me.
“But you want to?”
I chew my beignet, the sweetness hitting my tastebuds. I tilt my head and look to St. Louis Cathedral as if pondering deeply, and he sits forward, pressing his thumb along my lip, wiping the powdered sugar, then puts his thumb in his mouth. “Irresistible,” he mutters, and I swallow hard and try to remember what we were discussing.
“I’m concerned about the potion, about it harming you. About you becoming dependent—”
“You’ll keep me safe, and I told you—I overdid it. Lesson learned.”
“I was terrified…that I would lose you, lose whatever this is. I hate how that felt, the helplessness, the fear of the unknown.”
He grabs my hand with a swiftness only capable of the supernatural and I instinctually try to pull away, but it only causes him to tighten his grip. “Come away with me. Where we can be free to be us. No hiding. No cares. Just you and me and adventure. And then the potion gets retired, used only on the most special of occasions.”
I can only imagine the freedom of dining somewhere with Bastian day or night, free from fear of being caught, living life one day at a time with nothing more to do but enjoy myself. It sounds too perfect. And the fear of losing Bastian has only rooted my feet deeper into this affair, realizing what he’s become to me, how much I care about him. How I’m not ready to end this or lose him, not even close. And he’s willing to give the daylight up after this trip, and that’s better than what he said at my apartment about not wanting to stop.
“You figure out the details and let me know,” I say, and he lets go of my hand and makes a victorious fist that pounds the table. “But when we get back, the potion is retired now that we know it can be dangerous. We have to draw a clear line in the sand. And you are not to take the potion until we go.”
He nods profusely.
“There’s a lot I have to figure out. What I would tell my mother and Chantal for one. Who would take care of Mercury, if closing the shop is even a smart idea…”
“You figure those things out and I will arrange everything else. And when we get back, we’ll reassess.” His serious expression melts into an exuberant smile and I wish I could kiss him, but just sitting here with him in the sun is risky enough, since I didn’t perform a disguising spell.
“I wish it didn’t have to be like this, hiding everything from other people.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” I warn, knowing what’s possible for us, and being in the open isn’t possible. “I better get to work,” I say, and he brings his fingertips to his lips, places a slow kiss on them, then presses those fingers against my cheek.
