Any other time, I would relish that statement, coming from him.
It was just the curse, a move to reduce the curse, like we had been talking about, and yet it couldn’t have just been that? Could it?
Or maybe it was, and my stupid romantic mind was ramping back up again for disappointment. I couldn’t let this happen though, not again.
Not like this.
“I think it’s better if I stay on the couch tonight,” Dom murmured after another second. His voice caught as he turned around toward his section of the studio.
I nodded, letting us each get situated without another word. Slowly, I undressed, slipping off my jeans. A small piece of clay tumbled out from the crease in the pockets. I picked up the tiny, dried ball and set it on the nightstand while I pulled on my oversize T-shirt again. I really needed to wash and get better pajamas.
“Hey.”
I looked up to Dom. He settled on the couch as he arranged the throw blankets over his legs.
His bare chest expanded. He’d started not to wear a shirt to bed recently, and I tried not to notice. Tonight, it was harder when I saw the light scrape of where my nails had grazed.
“I appreciate it.”
“What?” I asked. Had I missed something?
“I know this isn’t how you expected things to turn out,” he said, as if that wasn’t a huge understatement.
But then again …
I climbed into bed, still sitting up so I could see him with the lamp on. “Who said I regret hexing you?”
There was a long moment of silence, followed by a string of low laughter. “You don’t?”
“Not until right about now, when I’m forced to have the person I thought I hated the most in the world sleep on my couch twenty-four/seven.”
His amusement trickled out as he looked at me, a sadness sweeping over his face. “Didn’t go to plan, huh?”
With him? Ever?
“Not in the slightest.”
“I … I need to get out of Barnett, Ana. I need to get back to where I’m supposed to be,” said Dom, for the first time keeping his voice neutral, no other emotion clouding his words.
“Good night, Dom.” I was going to figure this out for one reason or another.
“Night, Ana.”
The only light snuck in from the back door, covered with sheer curtains, as I lay in the dark. After a few minutes of staring up at the ceiling, I slipped out of bed. I made my way across the room under the guise of grabbing the left-behind water glass I had filled for myself when I got home, though Dom’s breathing stayed long and steady. Whether he was still awake or asleep, he didn’t say anything, and neither did I.
What was I doing? Like most times in life, I had no clue. Yet here I was, back at my tiny makeshift altar anyway for the first time ever since Dom had shown up at my door. Or maybe it was even longer. I hadn’t truly been practicing how I used to. I hadn’t attempted my own form of magic or made offerings of worship since that night three months ago.
I could still hear the glass bottle breaking that night on the edge of the river. The hex escaped as easily as the pain and that hatred I had for Dom, which, at the time, had felt so deep and powerful that it was hard to even imagine the repercussions such energy could have as it coursed out of me. Because it hadn’t just broken something.
It had shattered.
Taking a deep breath, I shut my eyes. The goddess wasn’t talking to me—all of the deities I ever devoted myself to no longer seemed to care about my small, petty problems—but I was willing to still talk to her. Hecate, the goddess of justice and magic.
We were both stubborn that way.
I put the tiny piece of leftover clay on the altar.
Dear goddess Hecate, I could really use some of your tenacity and advice right now.
