“Apparently the storm isn’t enough to keepeveryoneaway today.” When she looks at me again, she’s smiling like a master conspirator. “You’ve got company.”
Six
STEVIE
The man’s steps are confident and quick as he plows through the deluge, a paperback tucked protectively inside his T-shirt.
Now my heart’s pounding for an entirely different reason.
His hair falls in dark, wet waves in front of his glasses, but it doesn’t matter. I know the intricate beauty of his eyes by heart. Pale green surrounded by a burst of pure gold, like the sun setting behind the saguaros.
Kirin Weber isn’t from around here, but he’s been patronizing Kettle Black for months, camping out for a couple of hours every day, losing himself in a sci-fi novel or the latest biography from Red Rocks Recycled Reads, the used bookshop around the corner. The book changes daily, but his order is always the same: Two mini cinnamon buns and a small pot of tea, leaving the blend up to me.
“Mr. Cinnamon Buns,” Jessa sing-songs, our magickal troubles fading in the wake of his complete hotness. “Braving the storm to get to his woman. Looks like true love to me.”
“Youreallyneed to stop saying that.”
“The buns part, or the love part? Anyway, men like that shouldn’t be allowed to exist,” she says dreamily, just as he reaches the door. “It makes the rest of us feel wholly inadequate.”
A sigh escapes my lips. No, Kirin shouldn’t exist. But like my magick owl and singing sand dunes and the fairy lights in the night sky over the Santa Clarita’s Canyon of Ghosts, somehow, he does.
Plastering on my biggest customer-service grin, I head over to greet him, hoping he doesn’t notice my lackluster hair and the slight whiff ofeau de hot messclinging to my skin.
I wonder if I look as nervous as I feel.
“Hey Kirin!” I blurt out. “Hi! Good afternoon! How are you? Crazy weather out there, right?”
Oh my Goddess, Stevie. Stop talking. Just stop.
Kirin pushes the wet hair from his forehead and raises a curious eyebrow, his fogged-up glasses sliding down his nose. Rain darkens the fabric stretched across his broad, take-no-prisoners shoulders, and he smells like storms in the summer, clean and electric.
The glint in his eyes makes me ache for something I’ve got no business eventhinkingabout.
“I see you’re dabbling in the highly-caffeinated blends today,” he says in that deep, sultry voice of his, and I swear his eyes brighten when I laugh. The tingly touch of his magick whispers across my skin.
Okay,fine. I’m totally crushing on him. But that’s irrelevant, especially after what happened this morning. Me and mages? That can’t happen. Ever.
Jessa might think I need to find my true calling or whatever, and I won’t lie—the idea of learning my magick sends a forbidden spark of desire straight to my heart. But my parents made it clear that the Academy was off limits—the worst place imaginable. An institution that wrings every last drop of magick from your bones, then tosses you to the wolves as if you never belonged in their world at all.
No, getting involved with a mage isn’t exactly the same thing as enrolling in the traitorous Academy, but itisone step closer to magick. One step farther from normal. And one step over a line I vowed not to cross the moment my parents died.
“Sooo,” Kirin drawls.
“Sooo,” I echo. His smile is mesmerizing. I’m already starting to forget my own name.
He rocks back on his heels, the smile never faltering.
I’m bouncing on my toes like an idiot.
“Hey, Stevie?” He leans in close, his sultry whisper sending a cascade of shivers down my spine. “Do you, ah, mind if I take a seat?”
“What? Oh.Oh! Sorry.” I step aside, hoping to Goddess he isn’t gifted with mind-reading.
Tamping down the awkward, I follow him to his favorite two-seater by the window.
He arranges himself in the chair, the soaked T-shirt clinging to every ripple in his muscled torso as he removes his book and tries not to drip all over the table. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.”Seeing you wet is the highlight of my decade.“So, what are we drinking today?”
