A nightmare.
The mostly full bottle of wine knocked against the counter as I set it down.
Dom’s eyes scanned the small space while I was preoccupied. Since he had last been here, I’d moved some furniture around and switched out a few tapestries for art so it looked less stuffy. Otherwise, everything was nearly the same. If I closed my eyes and opened them back up, I could believe for a split second that we were back to last summer.
But that wasn’t the case. We could never be back to last summer—when the days were hot and I hadn’t minded the warmth that came inside, even when Dom wrapped his body around mine, as if he couldn’t bear to be apart, laughing at my muttered murmurs as I went about my day.
Pulling out the hot bag of popcorn from the microwave, my hands shook. The bag exploded as I tried to open it. Half the popcorn flew everywhere all around me and on the floor.
I stared down at the mess. “Well, shit.”
“Lot of bad luck recently, huh?” Dom raised his eyebrows expectantly, blinking down at the popcorn as I scooped it up and into the trash.
I snorted. “You could say that.”
“I would,” he said, oddly calm. “I did.”
I huffed, dumping the popcorn in the bowl so I still didn’t have to look at him. “Why are you here, Dom?”
“If you really don’t want to have any sort of pleasantries, I guess I shouldn’t expect them. So, fine.”
“Fine.”
“That’s why I came here.”
My heart raced as I chewed on my bottom lip.
“I came here because I kept thinking back,” said Dom.
“Awe, you’re still so in love with me you couldn’t get me out of your mind?” I muttered.
Dom flinched at my sarcasm, but didn’t stop his train of thought. “I thought of the last time I had any sort of good day because, as of late, they’ve been few and far between. They’ve been nonexistent, honestly, the past two or three months. The holidays seemed fine enough, but the last time I figured that I even had a decent day or did something that didn’t make me look like the biggest screwup in the universe was, well …”
My stomach sank.
“Yeah,” he agreed, as if I had said the words aloud myself. “Last summer. Here. In Barnett.”
With you.
I said nothing. That must’ve been a coincidence.
Yet I heard my goddess’s voice in my head again. Clear and pure.We don’t believe in coincidences.
“Can’t say I’ve been having the same problem,” I said, my voice quiet.
“I sort of figured as much, though this little issue makes me wonder some more.” He gestured above to the kernels still left on the floor.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck.Somehow, hearing him continue this strange train of thought blew all the air out of my lungs.
Dominic Rovnik, after all, wasn’t someone who believed in magic. Not really. He just didn’t. He thought it was a gimmick, much like the religions he had grown up with as a child, I remembered him saying. And yet here he was, in my apartment. He looked at me with more than just an accusation on his face.
And … why shouldn’t he?
I had done this. Hadn’t I? I couldn’t have though … but here was the proof, standing right in front of me.
I had actually cursed someone.
Pressing my lips together, I forced myself not to burst out in pure shock and sudden belief.Goddess, I was a good witch.
