Chapter 17

I should have known better than to get involved with Sylvana. The woman was duplicitous, and even if she was telling the truth, it always held a fraction of a lie. Not for the first time, the feeling that maybe I’d been better off not having been raised by her crossed my mind. It always made me a bit sad to think of my own mother like that, but I hadn’t been the one to set the status quo, and it wasn’t up to me to repair the relationship.

Combined with the fact that we hadn’t found what we were looking for, I felt the overwhelming urge to blow off some steam. And for me, that meant doing a little after-hours fate weaving. The air had turned from chilly to downright frigid, though, and the normally busy streets were eerily silent, with not a single shimmering heart symbol in sight.

Without a target, I let the anger and confusion over Sylvana deflate like a balloon and instead turned my thoughts to Kin and the dates I’d arranged for him after our last disastrous meeting. He had sent several text messages over the course of the week, each one more bemused than the last. I reread them for about the hundredth time.

Blind date #1 didn’t show. Or, she came into the restaurant, saw me, and left. My ego has been damaged, and I may never recover.

Most women seemed to swoon over Kin, so I highly doubted he’d been stood up for any other reason than some kind of personal emergency. I had replied with a time and place for his next setup and left it at that.

Blind date #2 had an allergic reaction to my cologne, couldn’t breathe, and had to be rushed to the hospital via ambulance. I’m 0-for-2 and feeling even more like a pariah.

The image had brought a wry smile to my face, but it came with a burst of frustration. Getting Kin matched would close the book on that chapter of Lexi’s life, and maybe then we could both find some peace. I hoped the woman slated for tonight’s meeting would work out better than the first two, and decided that if I couldn’t find anyone else to help, I could at least check on Kin’s progress with my own two eyes.

Setting him up without benefit of the bow or my LPS hadn’t been easy, and meant I’d had to resort to some kindergarten-level matchmaking. I’m ashamed to say I redirected a few leftovers from bow-made matches. You know, the woman left behind when a symbol-carrier met his match. I was not proud of the method, but it was all I had to offer.

I knew he’d chosen The Coffer as a meeting place, and since I wasn’t far from there anyway, I looped around Tidewater Park and headed for the historic district. An old bank, The Coffer used to be one of mine and Kin’s favorite hangouts, and it stung a little to know he might be having a good time there with someone else. Why I had come to care about that, I couldn’t say. I’d been perfectly content to leave Kin to his own devices, but it felt like Lexi’s feelings were leaking out of the box she’d stashed them in, and now I couldn’t seem to get the man off my mind.

When I was only a few blocks away, another message dinged into my inbox.

Okay, I’m starting to doubt your skills, Ms. Balefire. Date #3 thought I reminded her too much of her brother, mumbled something about being sick, and never came back from the restroom. If you’re not busy right now, want to come help me drown my sorrows at The Coffer? You can’t miss me. I’m the one crying into my bourbon and coke.

I let Kin down quickly, Sorry, I’m in the middle of something. Maybe some other time.

Please. His simple reply tugged at my resolve.

I felt my heart flutter, watched my fingers type back a simple OK, and cursed Lexi for her rubbery spine. He’s not yours anymore, and all you’re going to do is get yourself hurt.

That was all you, sweetheart. She echoed back. And now you can deal with it. The connection between us slammed shut so hard it made my eyelids flutter, and then she was gone.

 

 

“It doesn’t look like you’re drowning in your sorrows to me.” The words came out sounding like an accusation, but Kin just tossed me one of his knee-buckling grins and threw his third dart without bothering to watch its progress. When it pinged into the bullseye and the electronic display jingled like a slot machine, he glanced back in surprise and did a little victory dance that brought an involuntary grin to my face.

Kin merely smiled like he was a cat who’d just finished a delectable serving of canary. “It’s karaoke night, and I can’t handle all the bad singing by myself.”

“Flimsy excuse.”

He shrugged and led me to a waist-high table in the corner, waving the waitress over on our way, “One bourbon and coke, one vodka cranberry, and you can put it on that guy’s tab,” Kin pointed toward the dart game loser, who gave the thumbs up along with a slight grimace. “That’s what you wanted, right?” He asked after the girl had returned to the bar. “I don’t know why I just assumed.”

“Vodka cranberry works just fine.” I replied lightly. “I’m easy.” I felt a blush creeping up to my cheeks because that had come out entirely wrong, but Kin didn’t seem to notice. “So, what am I doing here if not comforting you?”

It was Kin’s turn to turn a little pink. “I wanted to see you. Is that so terrible?”

I wanted to reply in the affirmative, but felt myself being pulled in by his husky voice and the glint in his eye that I suddenly remembered with alarming clarity. Without Lexi’s constant presence in the back of my mind, I couldn’t brush those memories off as remnants of her infatuation.

“No, of course not.” I heard the murmured words come out of my mouth and wondered if I had gone temporarily insane. And then it hit me; he’d ordered my drink of choice without needing to ask what I wanted.

“Okay, so dance with me.” He said when one of the other patrons began to sing a halfway decent version of Make You Feel My Love. Kin’s eyes searched my face, and when the waitress dropped our drinks off at the table and gave me a moment of reprieve, I was grateful.

I tossed back the contents of the glass, and stood to place my hand in Kin’s outstretched one. “All right.”

He led me to the dance floor and wrapped his arms around me to pull me close. The scent of him went straight to my head and I felt myself sighing into a comfortable position. Memories dredged from the past and pulled me into a little montage where I, and not Lexi, took center stage. Kin had loved all the parts of me, even the ones that scared him, and I couldn’t keep pretending that wasn’t true.

When I had been frightened, he’d held me. When I felt fractured, he’d helped make me feel whole. There had been moments where he’d been afraid for me, and he’d been strong enough to stand up, even to the goddess part of me, and insist that I should be more careful. Had I underestimated his ability to deal with all that my being a Fate Weaver entailed? Had I been worried about his safety, or had I been worried about the state of my own heart if something bad happened to him?

All the thoughts crowding my brain really belonged to the Lexi half of me, and I tried to shove them off, but the heat of Kin’s skin on mine made it difficult to do anything besides revel in the way it felt to be held close after months of pushing everyone away.

The song ended, and the spell was broken, though I still faltered getting back to the table, my legs like jelly. I wished I could blame it on the alcohol, but that had nothing to do with it.

“Want to play a game?” Kin asked on the way across the floor.

“I’m not good at darts.” Actually, that wasn’t true at all. I had impeccable aim, after all, but I knew from experience that playing with him would turn into foreplay, and I couldn’t go any further down that road. He’d watch me walk back and forth to retrieve my darts, I’d put a little sashay in my step, and when I beat him handily, he’d tell me it was sexy as hell to get shown up by a woman.

Kin sized me up and raised an eyebrow, “I highly doubt that, but I was thinking more along the lines of some people-watching fun. See that couple over there? He’s clearly done something to tick her off—look at the way she’s got her body turned away from his, and of course there’s the face she’s making. What do you think their story is?”

“This one’s a piece of cake,” I breathed a sigh of relief; keen observation was part of my job, and getting into the zone kept the more confusing aspects of the evening at bay. “She’s upset because the blond at the bar won’t keep her eyes to herself. Duh.”

“Okay, I admit, I saw that a mile away, too.”

We’d never played this game before, and I’d had no idea Kin was so astute at reading people. “Corner table, looks like a double date of some kind. What’s your take?”

He took his time, appraised the situation. I liked that about him. It showed an analytical mind under the charisma and charm. “Whoa. Not going to end well. Dude on the right has eyes for his buddy’s girl and she’s giving it right back. I feel bad for their dates.”

While Kin watched the group, I watched him. Not just because he was easy on the eyes, though that was part of it, but I wanted to see his reactions. This whole situation felt like cheating. Not the kind of cheating that might happen between the couple at the far table. But because I already knew Kin’s soul, his goodness, and decency, I had an unfair advantage. And though I’d tried not to use it, maybe I had, without knowing, used that advantage to get him to start falling for me. Love at first sight. Sigh.

“What about this one?” Kin pointed in the opposite direction.

I burst out laughing when I spun around to where a woman in her late 30s, clearly plastered, danced on stage while belting out an off-pitch rendition of “Walking on Sunshine”.

“Recent divorcee. No question.” I fired back.

With every verse, the poor drunk woman danced closer and closer to the back end of the platform, and it appeared she had no clue there was a gap between the edge of the stage and the wall behind it. The scene from “It’s A Wonderful Life” where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are dancing on top of the pool, oblivious to the fact that the cover is opening up right behind them, flashed through my mind.

Kin’s eyes widened as he watched, but there was no way either of us would have made it across the room in time to warn her, even if we could have stopped giggling long enough to try. When she toppled off toward the floor, I sent a burst of magic to lessen her impact on the ground, which made me feel a little better about having laughed myself silly at her expense. She still went down in a heap, and the look on her face when she popped back up was priceless. To her credit, she finished the song, albeit a little less exuberantly.

“You’ve got to admire that kind of grit and determination.”

“Tell me something, Lexi Balefire, do you believe in love at first sight?” Kin asked, out of the blue during the lull between songs. His eyes smoldered into mine, and I was caught completely off-guard. Not a usual occurrence for me, but the idea that I should be concerned about that quieted to a whisper in the deafening roar of Kin’s question and its implications.

“I wouldn’t be a very good matchmaker if I didn’t, now would I?” I tried to keep my tone light. “But I’ve also seen a fair amount of infatuation at first sight, and they look pretty similar.”

“Is that what this is, then? Did you put some kind of spell on me? Because I can’t get you out of my head.”

It felt like I’d been dipped in ice water and then tossed in a scalding shower, the way my body went from hot to cold.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but you’ll have to try. My life is complicated and I’m not in the market for a relationship. You know how it is, always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” Totally the wrong analogy, but it was the only one that came to mind.

But I might as well have spewed gibberish for all he listened.

By the time he was walking me to my front door, I’d given in to the inevitable. There was heat between us, but there was more.

No, I know what you’re doing, and you can’t. You’re supposed to be the strong one. Where’s that iron will? What if we end up together again and something else happens?

I ignored Lexi, and the fact that we’d changed roles somewhere along the way. Kin’s hand in mine felt all kinds of right. Didn’t we deserve a chance to see if it could all work out?