Page 69 of Magic for Nothing

When we broke apart, his cheeks were flushed, and I was sure mine were even brighter. I could feel the burn prickling in my skin, different from the fire that sometimes flashed through my fingertips. Sam’s hands were pressed against the small of my back, holding me up in a different way, keeping me stable and locked in place.

“Um,” I said. “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Sam. He looked as dazed as I felt, like he’d played out this moment in his head, but had never taken it any further: this was as far as he knew the story. “That was nice.”

“Only nice?” I shook my head. “Nice isn’t good enough. We should try again.”

“Good point,” he said, and leaned down, and kissed me harder.

This time, I wasn’t so swept up in “I am kissing this person for the first time” that I couldn’t pay attention to the details, like the way his hands tightened against my back, or the fact that his skin smelled like chalk dust and, distantly, clean, sun-warmed fur, like he was always carrying the memory of his alternate form with him. He was kissing me human, and I wasn’t sure whether that was because he was tense about the idea of kissing me at all or because he wasn’t sure I’d want to kiss him fūri, and in the moment, I didn’t care. He was kissing me. That was all that mattered.

Again, we pulled apart. Again, his cheeks were bright, and mine were burning, and while we still seemed to be alone, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched from every possible direction.

“Okay,” I said. “Who told you they’d seen me going into the Tunnel of Love?”

“Babs,” he said. “She was the ride jock on duty. She wanted me to know that you were going to break my heart.”

She would have had plenty of time to run and tell him while Margaret and I were floating through the dark, and to be honest, it was almost a relief to hear that she’d left the ride unattended. Eavesdropping on someone inside the Tunnel wasn’t easy, but that didn’t make it impossible—not by any stretch of the imagination. The things Margaret and I had discussed had been vague enough to be unclear. They could still have gotten me in a lot of trouble.

“I might still break your heart,” I said. “You never know.”

“Yeah, but there’s a big difference between ‘I had a crush and she turned out to be into townie girls’ and ‘I got to spend time with a great girl and then we broke up,’” he said, before blanching. “Uh, not that I’m saying we’re a couple just because you kissed me, like, I get that it doesn’t work that way, but if you wanted to like, go on a date or something, I would be cool with that. Really cool with that, even.”

“Where could we go?” I asked. “We’re in the middle of Minnesota.”

“Well, I don’t know if you were aware, but . . .” Sam leaned conspiratorially close, and whispered, “There’s a carnival in town.”

I blinked. And then I grinned.

“Just let me get changed.”

Okay, so yeah, maybe it was irresponsible for me to decide to go on a date when the Covenant of St. George was breathing down my neck, waiting for me to provide them with evidence that they were allowed to kill everything in sight. But the key word there was “waiting.” The Covenant was waiting for me to find them something they could use to justify what they already knew they wanted to do. They might get tired of waiting and move eventually. They weren’t going to move today. And oh, God, I needed a break.

I also needed a shower. I’d gone straight from the trapeze to meeting with Margaret, and while it was possible to have fun hanging out and stinking of sweat, it usually required the other people to be sweaty, too. By the end of the average roller derby match, the entire team stank like road kill, and we were fine with that, because it was everyone. Sam, on the other hand, had clearly showered before coming to ask for smooches, and I was not going to meet him for our first date smelling like something had died.

My tiny slice of RV did not include a shower. I stripped and grabbed the bucket with my soap, shampoo, and loofah before pulling on a bathrobe and stepping into a pair of flip-flops. There were camp showers set up in secluded areas all around the bone yard, with changing tents right outside. It wasn’t the same as a real shower—oh, I missed real showers—but it would get me clean, and the nearest one wasn’t very far away.

The bone yard was still relatively empty when I stepped out of my RV and made a beeline for the shower. I could get in, scrub myself down, and then—

Emery was sitting outside the changing tent, smoking a clove cigarette, utterly relaxed. She looked like she’d been there for a while. I stopped. She lowered her cigarette and smiled, the slow, deadly smile of a viper that’s spotted its prey.

“Ah, Miss Brown,” she said. “I was hoping you’d stop by.”

Meaning someone had told her about me kissing Sam, and she’d known that if it was going to go any further, I’d be coming for a shower. Yippee. I love people who think like horror movie monsters when approaching social interactions. Oh, no, wait. That other thing. I hate people who treat social interactions as an opportunity to scare the crap out of some innocent young ingénue, namely, me.

“Well, this is where the shower is, so I guess it was sort of inevitable,” I said, trying not to sound querulous, and failing utterly. “Is the hot water broken?”

“No, the shower is fine. It’s even unoccupied. What are your intentions toward my grandson?”

Sweet and to the point. “Right now, to meet him for some carnival rides while not smelling like I just came off the flying trapeze. I’m pretty sure my pits could kill flies at twenty paces.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” She leaned forward. “Sam is a special boy. He deserves better than someone who’s going to flirt and then run off on him.”

“I’m going to do my best not to hear that as you ordering me to put out for your grandson, but if you ever decide to have this conversation again, maybe you should watch your wording,” I said, tone going chilly. “Right now, my intentions are exactly what I just said. He asked if he could kiss me. I said yes. I enjoyed kissing him, so when he suggested a date, I said yes to that, too. He’s smart and funny and good looking, and yeah, I’d like to get to know him a little better, but I’m not planning to marry him, and I’m not planning to break his heart for fun. Anything between those extremes is not actually your business, ma’am. We’re both adults.”

“He’s only twenty-three.”

“And I’m only twenty-two. If we break each other’s hearts, it’s a learning experience. At least we’re doing it in an age-appropriate manner.” I wanted to cross my arms and glare. My basket of bathing supplies made that impossible, even as my bathrobe was robbing me of the gravitas I desired. “I get that you want to protect him. He’s your family. Family matters more than anything in the world. I even get that you’re probably pretty wary of me. I’m the new girl, I’m the one who killed Umeko, I’m an unknown quantity. But, ma’am, he’s the one who kissed me. He’s the one who decided I was a risk worth taking. You should respect that.”