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“Oh, fondue!” I looked back to Andre, who held my chair out for me as I took a seat. Then he seated himself and busily spread his napkin onto his lap.
He smiled, the corners of his eyes creasing. “I thought it would be something a little different.”
When Andre had picked me up, I’d almost tripped on my own doorstep. It wasn’t that Andre didn’t dress well normally—actually he could have been the poster child for ‘smart attire’, but I’d really only ever seen him in sweaters and slacks.
But he’d gone all out tonight, and showed up at my door in a black and fitted suit. A pewter gray tie laid against the snowy expanse of his shirt, and made his blue eyes look a shade lighter than I knew they were. The suit showed off the surprisingly broad line of his shoulders, tapering in at the waist nicely. There was something about the cut that struck me as different. It felt a bit old fashioned, not like the off the rack suits most people wore.
All the nerves that had been nagging me all day and had me feeling like a spring wound too tight, well, they all melted away as soon as I opened the door and took him in. None of the first date jitters cropped up, no strained silences as we both tried to think of something to say, no awkward glances or fighting to keep from fidgeting.
Like always, I was just comfortable in Andre’s presence. That feeling of familiarity, like I’d known him forever, it draped around us like soft cotton and had from the second he closed the car door for me. And once seated at the table, there was no trying to suss out what to order, or worrying about what I should or shouldn’t eat.
I told Andre to order for us and it seemed in no time, the servers brought out platters of delicious things to be dunked in the cheese. There were cubes of bread, fruit and thinly sliced vegetables, bits of meat, and shrimp. But I couldn’t say my mind was much on the food. Instead, I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from Andre’s eyes.
Ordinarily, I would have been nervous about dropping food on myself or talking with my mouth open or choking on my water. But I knew Andre wouldn’t care, he’d just laugh it off with me. I knew as much, like I knew my own name, but I couldn’t explain justhowI knew it.
Of course, I still had to be paranoid about dropping food on my dress, because Wanda would definitely hex me if I did.
At one point, the server came around to light the little candle on the table, and I had to force myself not to flinch back. The memory of my dream, that roar as the gout of flames surged up, devouring everything in its path, caused an icy wash of terror to flood my body just at the sight of a jumped-up tea light. It was ridiculous.
Andre noticed though, because, well, of course he did. He put his fork down so he could reach across the table to put his hand over mine.
“What’s wrong, Poppy?”
I shook my head and laughed, because it was so silly. I’d never had a dream, or a nightmare, that had affected me like that had. Days later, and I still couldn’t shake it. But I also didn’t want to focus on the silly thing, not here and not now. I wanted to look forward, and be hopeful and excited—I wanted to understand what this was or could be with Andre. I didn’t want to focus on the negative.
“It’s nothing.”
He didn’t look convinced, his brows pinching together with worry. I turned my hand over so that I could give his palm a squeeze.
“Really, it’s nothing. Just a bad dream I had.”
He smiled, but there was still a tightness to the skin around his eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t say dreams are nothing. At least, not in my experience.”
I’d forgotten that Andre was a Dream Walker. He’d told me about it—how he was able to wander about while he slept, and he’d been able to do so ever since he was a teenager. Finn had started doing the same thing himself a few months ago, and Andre had been impressed at how young Finn had mastered it.
I’d mostly been irritated that Finn was using this new ability to slip out in order to study more magic with Ouire. At least the sentient book had known not to give Finn tricks he wasn’t ready for.
Still, the idea of Andre being able to stroll through other people’s dreams, to visit them while they were sleeping and speak to them, it was fascinating. A memory bubbled up then, more emotion than words. Everything about it was foggy, other than that I was hurting, and scared, and there had been a voice urging me to hold on.
The server returned to fill our glasses, and the memory slipped away from me. Which was just as well, because I didn’t want to dwell on the past. Instead, I wanted to open myself up to the future and even though I was frightened, I wanted to open myself to the opportunity of romance—and, more specifically, with this incredible man. Yes, hurting Marty was still a concern, of course, but it was less a concern now that eight months had gone by and it appeared he might have been dating Lacey.
“Do you want to talk about this dream you had?” Andre asked.
I wondered, if I asked him to, if Andre would slip into my dreams and keep the nightmares at bay. Then I remembered some of the moreromanticdreams I’d been having for the past month or so, and hastily banished the thought as they’d all featured him. I’d have spontaneously combusted if Andre saw any of them, for sure. It was everything I could do in the moment not to flush all the way to my hairline just thinking about it.
I took a hasty sip of my water to distract myself, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of red. For just a split second, there was a red ribbon, faint as a ghost, wrapped around my and Andre’s joined hands. It was like a shimmer—just a spectral sighting that was gone as soon as it had come. But the really strange part was that I’d seen this red ribbon before. And each time I saw it—or the essence of it—I was with Andre. I’d just written it off as part of my magic being a little wonky after becoming part of the coven, but maybe that wasn’t it.
I glanced at Andre and found him staring at our hands with a look that somehow managed to be elated, hungry, and nervous at the same time.
“You saw it, too?” I’d leaned forward to whisper the question. Not because I was worried that someone might overhear, but because it felt like a very private subject. Like maybe it should be something just between the two of us.
Andre swallowed, his eyes jumping to my face. His lips twitched, but he was quiet as he nodded.
I lifted our hands up a few inches off the table, turning them gently to see if I could make that little red thread of magic come back into view, but it seemed to be playing shy all of a sudden.
“Do you know what it is? Or what it means?” I asked him, curious. My pulse sped up for some reason, blood all but leaping in my veins.
“Yes,” Andre said, his voice hoarse.
