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“Nah. I don’t go blasting it out. If someone asks me what I do for a living, I tell them I design greeting cards.”
One corner of Nolan’s mouth quirked higher. “How many dates before you tell a guy?”
Sky groaned and covered his face with both hands. “Lots. Tons. Sometimes never.” He immediately lowered his hands and stared up at Nolan. “Not like I’d never tell him, but more like we’d never get to the point where I felt comfortable telling him. Everything falls apart prior to that stage.”
“Dating sucks,” Nolan huffed.
“Tell me about it.” Sky stretched out his legs, tucking his toes under the throw pillow stuffed in the corner. “It’s hard enough to find a person who’s attractive, funny, compassionate, smart, patient, and interesting. But when I get to where I think it’s someone I want to be with for a long time, I have to drop this weird and heavy bomb on them. Not only can I do magic, but all that creepy shit they think isn’t real, actually is.”
Nolan’s fingers drifted across his forehead in a tender caress. “I’m guessing you’ve had a few of those conversations that didn’t go well.”
“Not as many as you might think. I’ve ended some very brief relationships because I could feel in my gut that they weren’t going to take the news well, and I didn’t want to go through that. Grammy gave me shit, saying I was chickening out rather than giving the other person a chance. But I didn’t want to go through the old routine of disbelief, then horror, then either disgust or worse…looking at me like I’m some kind of sideshow freak there to do magic tricks for them.”
“Fuck them,” Nolan snarled. “You’re no freak.”
Sky smiled at Nolan. The man was too sweet. He’d lucked out with their introduction. Nolan had dealt with the news that vampires were real. It was a small jump over to accepting the existence of witches. It also didn’t hurt that the witch in his lap had already saved his ass.
“Thank you, but my shitty luck with dating can’t all be blamed on being a necromancer. I try, though. Sometimes, dating is hard.”
Nolan grunted. “True. I wish I could blame my crappy dating past on something other than being a grumpy asshole.” He wrinkled his nose at Sky and tilted his head to the side as he stared at the witch in his lap. “Dating a writer isn’t for the faint of heart. We don’t bathe often enough. We forget things like the passage of time and necessary events, such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Most of us need a babysitter. Or two. And we’re worse when we’re running behind on a book and a deadline is looming.”
Sky sat up and turned so that he was facing Nolan. He wrapped his arms around Nolan’s neck and pressed a light kiss to the edge of Nolan’s hard jaw. “So, you need someone who is patient. Someone who enjoys caring for others, but also knows when to call you out on your nonsense.”
“Maybe.” Nolan chuckled. “It sounds like you could use someone who doesn’t mind being taken care of and isn’t scared off by the strange things in your life but respects your unique abilities without taking advantage of them.”
Swoon.
Every word out of this man’s mouth was pure swoon.
“It would be okay if he was a little scared at first. Even I get scared. He would just need to understand that I’d be right by his side the entire time and would let nothing hurt him.”
Nolan leaned down and captured his lips in a sweet kiss that had Sky melting into him. He was in so much trouble with Nolan. Everything inside of him screamed to grab this man and hold on for dear life. Nolan was special. And not in the magical, immortal, shapeshifting ways that seemed to populate every corner of his existence.
This man was special because, despite his grumpy and occasionally crusty exterior, he was tender and so very caring on the inside. There were too few of these people in the world. Nolan was a motherfucking unicorn, and Sky was keeping him.
The first step was freeing him from one very annoying vampire.
Chapter7
Nolan Banks
“Iknow my sister is full of shit. There’s no way our mom left her skank ass the good silver. That was our great-great-grandmother’s silver, and Lisa knows our grandmother thought she was a tramp. She would roll over in her grave if our mother left the silver to her. If you can just get our mother up so we can talk to her one last time, I know she could clarify who should get the silver.”
Those words stopped Nolan cold at the bottom of the stairs. Sky had warned him that a new client would be popping by for a consultation. This was not exactly what he’d expected to hear, but Sky had mentioned that a fair amount of the work he did was related to inheritances after the passing of a parent.
Nolan wrinkled his nose while his heart offered a pang of sympathy for Sky. He didn’t know how the witch managed it. Consoling grieving family members left behind could give a person a sense of purpose and accomplishment, but siblings fighting over things?
He shook his head, chastising himself. What right did he have to judge? He didn’t know if there was possible sentimental value to the silver she claimed.
It was a shame that Sky had to wade into the middle of private family matters like that.
“Understood,” Sky replied in a firm but sweet voice. “I want to make it clear that I can’t promise that she can be called back, but I am happy to make up to three attempts. After three, the chance of reaching her is pretty much nonexistent. She has fully moved on. In addition, I cannot guarantee that she’ll be able or willing to talk about ownership of the silver. The window of conversation is often short and if the deceased want to talk about something else, they frequently cannot be deterred.”
Propping his shoulder on the wall, he closed his eyes and soaked in Sky’s voice. He balanced compassionate and no-nonsense so perfectly.That was his magic.
Nolan’s eyes popped open, and he barely stifled a groan at his own thoughts.
What was this?
