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I hated the migraines, and I hated suffering from the energy reflux syndrome. It had totally shifted the way I had to approach my life, and I was still trying to learn how to accept the changes. I wondered if it would ever go away, although the doctor said probably not. It might go into remission, but it could also get worse, although if I followed the doctor’s orders, it would probably stay stable. I was grateful that Killian was adapting better than I was. The fact that he seemed to accept the disability as a part of me made me love him even more.
The waitress brought my mocha, along with a basket of bread and butter. She set a small plate in front of me, and disappeared again. I glanced at my phone. Daya should be here at any time, but knowing her it could be another half hour.
“Well, fancy seeing you here.”
I glanced up and forced back a grimace as I saw Asher Brant, the mayor of Moonshadow Bay. He leaned against the edge of my booth, his eyes fixated on my boobs. He had had a slimy fixation on me ever since we had first met when I returned to Moonshadow Bay, but I had no interest in him and had never once encouraged him. He was a creep and I was as unimpressed with his politics as I was with his demeanor.
“Hello, Asher. Nice to see you again.” I kept my voice level, not encouraging him to linger.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “Do you mind if I sit down and we catch up?”
“I’m waiting for someone, so I’m afraid this isn’t a good time. Have a nice afternoon,” I said, picking up my phone and beginning to scroll through to a book I was reading. Rude?Yes.Called for?Absolutely.
Asher cleared his throat and, scowling, walked away. I glanced up to follow his retreating figure, shaking my head. Some people never changed.
At that moment, Daya appeared, following the hostess to our booth. As she settled in, she asked for a hot toddy.
“Are you driving?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Yes, but I’m eating too. I can handle it.”
Right. She was barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, and my guess was that she didn’t handle her liquor well. I decided to keep an eye on her during lunch, and if I thought she was too wasted to drive, I’d take her keys and pour her into a cab. I had no tolerance or patience for impaired drivers, whether it be booze or pot or any other drug. That included physical impairments as well. Anything that could create a hazard on the road. My parents had died in a car crash, and I had strong opinions on the subject.
“Thank you for meeting me today. I realized that we haven’t really had a chance to get to know each other away from the coven. And I’ve been so busy with the wedding planning.” I hope I sounded convincing. I had never once gone out to dinner with her, and we had never spent an afternoon chatting other than when we were together in the coven meetings.
Daya wasn’t quite as clueless as I thought she was, though. She snorted. “Let me guess. Your grandmother asked you to talk to me and find out what’s going on?” She waited, assessing my expression. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
I shrugged. It wasn’t worth lying about, and I wasn’t that good of an actress to begin with. “Yeah, Rowan asked me to talk to you. She’s worried that you don’t seem interested in the coven anymore. You haven’t been at the last meeting or so.” The truth was that I hadn’t noticed that Daya had missed any of the necessary meetings, but Rowan worked with some of the other members on different projects, so it was probably one of those that Daya had spaced on.
“I know you love your grandmother, and she’s a wonderful woman in many ways,” Daya said. “But she really doesn’t have the right to poke her nose into my life like this. Yes, I’ve missed several meetings in our potions group, but it’s not required that I be there. I’m just auditing it, you might say.” She sounded both pissed off and exasperated.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I only agreed to talk to you because my grandmother seemed so worried. If there’s nothing wrong, I’ll tell her that you’re just busy.” I had no intention on getting myself stuck in the middle between them.
Daya stared at me for a moment, then picked up her menu. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Since we’re here, though, why don’t we eat? You are right in that we really haven’t had a chance to sit and talk, and there’s so much about you that I really don’t know.”
The about-face was so abrupt that I didn’t know what to think. The waitress showed up with her hot toddy, and we ordered. I ordered a steak sandwich, and Daya ordered a chef’s salad. We both decided on clam chowder to start.
While we waited for our food, Daya asked me why I had returned to Moonshadow Bay. I thought she knew my story, but it seemed I was wrong. I told her about Ellison, and then about my parents.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but that’s why I reacted so much to you ordering booze for lunch. The hot toddies here are strong, and the last thing I want to see is an accident on a day like today.”
“I’ll sip it slow, and I’ll have a cup of coffee afterward.”
I caught her rolling her eyes, but decided to keep quiet. If she got tipsy I could also talk to the hostess before leaving and they would call her a cab. In Washington state, we had what was called a dram shop rule, in which an establishment serving liquor could be held responsible if one of their patrons got intoxicated while there, and then got into an accident.
We chatted a bit, keeping it light, until our soup came. I kept trying to steer the conversation toward her own life, but she was deftly steering it back toward me.
“This is good chowder,” she said. “So, do you still have the mural in your secret room?”
The question seemed out of left field, but she had been there during the time I had found the secret room with the Covenant of Chaos’s mural.
“No, we painted over that and destroyed the energy field around it. Besides, I’m renting out my house. In fact, last night somehow a fire broke out in it. It’s lucky that I’m not living there any longer or I could have been hurt.”
At that, Daya lifted her head to stare at me. “You’re not living there?”
I shook my head, an odd feeling stealing over me. “No, I’m not. So, next week I’m getting married. I imagine everybody’s ready for me to shut up about it at this point.”
Daya laughed. “Oh, all brides are obsessed with their weddings. Are all the arrangements ready?”
