Page 34 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

Jory remembered lying on her back in a field of grass while the wind whipped and made the clouds race across the sky overhead. Callum coming upon her, blocking out the sun with his body, before laying down beside her and gathering her in his arms, rolling her on top of him. Of falling asleep with the hot sun on her back and his warm, pounding chest beneath her.

It had been the little things she’d missed the most, in the middle of the night when sleep was elusive and her thoughts too fast to catch. Cooking dinner together. Mending nets side by side in the sunshine. Building their home together, taking care of it. Going to sleep in his arms at night and waking each morning when he pulled her close against his chest, the way he mumbled sleepy good morning greetings against her neck, in the wild thicket of her hair.

Esther handed her a tissue, which she gratefully took.

“I don’t know that my heart can take it, Magda,” she said, tears blurring her vision.

“Are you willing to risk it if you don’t? How else will you ever go home?”

Esther stared at Magda with a puzzled look on her face. “Home?” she asked.

“Home,” Magda repeated, her eyes locked on Jory’s.

“Home,” Jory answered. Shehadto go home. It was all she’d wanted, the only thing that had kept her going through the misery of centuries of struggle.

The store was quiet, the essential oil diffuser sounding far louder than usual in the stillness as the three women exchanged very different looks between them. Jory did not practice magic, but she’d witnessed enough of it. The moment felt like the charged suspension just before a spell was broken, when all of the energy and light and possibility hung in a fraught, delicate balance.

And like a catalyst breaks a spell, so, too, was the tension shattered as Walter emitted a comically loud burp.

Jory and Esther packed boxes, and Magda sat on a stool behind the counter, affixing shipping labels and checking off the list. They drank tea and coffee, ate donuts. Walter fell asleep in a basket of vintage silk scarves. Eventually Hank dropped by with a paper grocery bag of sandwiches he’d made, along with a zip-top bag of grapes and a tin of cookies leftover from the Yule bonfire the night before.

He offered to return later with snacks and more coffee, and when Jory protested, Esther insisted, saying that Jory could let her friends take care of her once in a while. She’d said it with such a pointed, obvious look on her face that Hank had glanced curiously between the two of them. Jory had no doubt that later that night, Hank would hear every single bit of their conversation recounted to him in minute detail with two dozen different sidebars. Esther rose on to her tiptoes and pulled him down for a kiss before shooing him out the door.

It was a pleasurable day, spent in the easy company of friends. But as the afternoon light dimmed and softened into the velvety purple of dusk, Jory felt her anxiety rise higher and higher. Just after sunset, Magda and Esther packed up the trash and coaxed Walter back into his little box.

“Call me if you need anything tonight, Jory,” Esther said. “Anything at all. No matter what time it is.”

Jory nodded, her smile tight and brittle. Esther was such a good friend. Sometimes it felt like too much, like more than she deserved.

Magda approached, her large purse strap cutting through the puffy down of her jacket and leaving a deep divot on her shoulder. “He’ll be up now. I wouldn’t wait too long.”

After they’d gone, Jory finished tidying the store so that it would be ready for business the next day. She went upstairs to her apartment and changed her clothes, swapping out her leggings and sweatshirt for a pair of worn, soft jeans and an oversized fisherman sweater. She laced her boots and threw on a coat before locking her door and going down to where her car was parked behind the building.

After a drive that felt like it took an eternity and mere moments at the same time, the little A-frame cabin appeared at the end of the drive, snug and welcoming, with the lights shining out the big windows. She didn’t see anyone moving around, but a black SUV was parked in front. She pulled in next to it and turned her car off, sitting in the warm silence for a few minutes, gathering herself.

She was going to knock on the door. He would invite her in. She would sit on one of the hard bar stools. He would offer her a drink. She would ask for a water. And then she would come out with it. She’d be blunt and to the point. She wouldn’t touch him. She wouldn’t even look at him more than was necessary. And she definitely wouldn’t let him come close enough to remind her of how it felt to kiss him.

She shook her head. No, she was definitely not going to think about that. A person needed sturdy knees and dry panties to have a conversation like the one she was about to have. She opened the car door and closed it behind her. She walked up the slick, wooden steps and crossed the deck. Her knock sounded loud in the quiet of the night around her. She heard it echo in the house on the other side. There was no answer. She knocked again harder and heard a banging and shuffling from within the cabin. The deadbolt turned. Then the knob.

Jory had been prepared to see Callum in a suit, as she’d seen him that first night in Hank’s kitchen. Or perhaps in an outfit like hers, warm and concealing. She had not, however, been prepared for him to answer the door shirtless in gray sweatpants, with water trailing down his torso in small streams, soaking the waistband a darker gray, drawing her eye down, to where certain places on the front of the sweatpants were also darker. Wetter.

“Fuck me,” she hissed before she could stop herself, slapping a hand over her mouth and snapping her gaze back up, where it belonged.

14

His gray eyes locked on hers, his blond hair wet and dripping onto his shoulders. He held a towel, which he’d been using to dry his hair when he answered the door but now hung limp and forgotten in his hand. So much for breezy, queenly composure. So much for having the upper hand. Apparently all it took to completely rattle her was a pair of suspiciously damp sweatpants and a wet, naked torso.

“Marjory,” Callum said, as if he couldn’t believe she was here. “I wasnae expecting you.”

“I can see that. Do you often answer the door like”—she gestured up and down his body but didn’t look—“this?”

“I didnae want to answer the door in only a towel.”

“And this is better?” Jory choked.

“Iamwearing pants. Far less chance of a wardrobe mishap in pants than a towel. Magda didnae buy towels with a man my size in mind.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Jory muttered under her breath.