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“I never said I was a fair man, did I?” he says, clearly enjoying this. “Not to worry, darling, it’s just for tonight. Tomorrow morning come meet me in the library. Nine am. It should be quiet then and there’s no rules about a teacher tutoring his student in public.”
“Will Brom be there too?”
“If he wants to be,” he says begrudgingly. Then he leans in, placing a fast kiss on my forehead. “I’ll see you then. In the meantime, try to make some friends.”
He turns and always off toward his door. “Oh, and,” he says over his shoulder, giving me cold smile, “stay away from Brom.”
Chapter 11
Crane
One year ago
“What are these?” comes Abe’s groggy voice.
I step out of the bathroom, completely naked, to see him standing by my desk, already dressed, and fingering the stack of tarot cards beside the glass of water I left out for him this morning while I was in the bath. I’d wondered when he’d notice since I made no attempt to hide them, but I guess we’ve been doing nothing but fucking for the last few days, ever since he came home with me from the opium joint.
“Tarot cards,” I tell him.
“That’s what I thought,” he says, about to pick one up and then thinking better of it.
“Does it bother you that I have them?” I ask carefully. I reach out and take the deck, shuffling it between my fingers as I do so.
He seems to puzzle over them before shooting me a furtive glance. “No. I knew someone who used to use these.”
“Another lover?” I ask. “Were they as handsome as me?”
He laughs. He so rarely laughs and I feel of surge of pride every time I make him do it. It’s a beautiful sound, deep and boisterous, the only time he doesn’t seem like he’s haunted.
“It was a woman. A neighbor,” Abe says, grinning at me and looking so damn gorgeous it takes my breath away with his straight white teeth, the way the tip of his nose dips down when he smiles, his dimples hidden by his beard, the deep lines that form at the corners of his eyes, making him look older than he is.
Oh, he is so damn pretty.
He nods at the stack in my hands. “Will you do a reading for me?”
He sounds both shy and hopeful and fuck it if that doesn’t make my cock immediately stiffen. He notices, his gaze going to my half-hard dick. He raises a brow. “Is this turning you on?”
“What doesn’t fucking turn me on,” I tell him gruffly. “Feels unfair that I’m naked and you’re already dressed. Hoping to go somewhere?”
The lightness in his expression fades. “No,” he says, a defensive edge to his voice, like I’d caught him out in something.
I’ve learned his moods are mercurial and it’s best to roll with them. “Good,” I tell him. “Sit down and I’ll tell you your fortune.”
He sits dutifully on the edge of my bed, staring up at me expectantly while I shuffle. Every now and then he’ll glance at my cock and swallow hard and I can read the hunger in his eyes. It will have to wait.
“What do you know about the arcana?” I ask him.
“Not much,” he admits.
“Alright,” I say. Abe doesn’t know of my magic and I intend to keep it that way. If I tell him too much, he may think of me differently and after what happened in San Francisco, I’m not willing to risk that. “Tell me then, what would you like me to focus on? Is there a specific question you want answered? What area of your life do you need the most insight?”
He worries a lip between his teeth as he thinks.
I keep shuffling, trying to wake up the cards to his plight. The more I shuffle, the more my energy influences the draw, the more I feel tapped in to the veil and the future beyond. It’s the same feeling the air gets right before a thunder storm, when everything is dark and alive and electric.
Finally he says, “I want to know where I should go.”
I freeze, about to repeat his question back to him. The cards seem to buzz at my fingertips, like a hummingbird caught in my hands, and I quickly start shuffling again.
Where should he go? Why does he have to go anywhere? Why can’t he stay here?
“Alright,” I say, clearing my throat. I close my eyes and ignore my own feelings on the matter and look in deep, past the dark spaces inside me and out the other side to the beyond, where things are darker still. “Where should Abe go?” I ask the ether.
I stop shuffling and wait. A constricting feeling wraps around my ribcage, something painful, like a snake is inside me, trying to put its fangs in my heart.
