I tilted my head as she took a sip of her drink and took another bite of her pizza, like it was just another thing about her that was normal.
“What does that mean?” I prodded because now I wanted to know everything.
“I practice witchcraft. I mainly work in the kitchen and do spell work; it depends on the time of year or what I need in my life.”
She looked over at me, smiling as she said it.
“So, like what you put into your game?”
“A lot of that comes from how I work within my practice, but I also pull from the fantasy, especially since in the game I can have Abigail have an amazing herb garden where in real life, I kill anything that’s green.”
She let out a laugh as she leaned back in her chair.
I took a bite of pizza, trying to process what she was telling me.
“I don’t normally tell many new people about what I do, but,” she put her slice of pizza down and placed a hand on my thigh. “for some reason, I trust you and don’t feel like you’ll judge me.”
Fuck.
“That’s a lot of trust,” I smile at her, but I feel it slipping. This woman was giving me something special, and the sinking feeling that I was keeping so much from her crept in. I watched as her smile faltered in front of me.
I grabbed her hand and brought it to my mouth, planting a kiss.
“What about you?” She moved closer to me. “What else can you tell me about yourself?”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“What about what you do for a living?” Odette was eager as she asked her question. She was on the edge of her seat.
“I work with Beckett.”Not a lie.
“Doing what exactly? I know you said Beckett games, but what do you do?”
Shit.
“I game too, kind of, but mostly help Beckett.” I grabbed the back of my neck, rubbing it. “I mostly work from home.”
“Okay.” Odette pulled her hand and sat up in the chair, moving slightly away from me. These fucking lies were going to be the death of me. I could give her something, though. Something that I could be vague enough about. “I’m from Nashville, just like Beckett. My parents run a local café there.”
“Oh,” Odette perked up at the admission. “That’s so cool.”
“It was when I was younger,” I laughed and took a few bites of pizza before continuing. Talking about my parents’ café was always hard since I grew up there, spent any time I wasn’t at home or school in booths, meeting tons of people, but as I grew up, I became the person everyone wanted to be friends with to get an in. Beckett had become my best friend in high school, and while his parents were in the industry, he wasn’t like everyone else. He always wanted to get as far away from the city whenever we hung out. It was refreshing and what I needed. “I was quick to outgrow the novelty of it all. It became more of a job than somewhere fun to be.”
“Is that how you ended up here?”
Odette was sitting closer now, her hand back on my leg, and I felt at ease now that I’d avoided her questions about gaming and what I did for work.
“It is.” I placed my hand over hers, squeezing lightly.
“That’s kind of how I ended up here, too.”
“Oh,” I leaned forward. “Really?”
I knew a lot when it came to Odette, but learning new things about her was an addiction.
“I grew up in New York City with my parents, but after I graduated high school and went to college, I found that the life I was raised in wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to go into business or marketing like them. I wanted to be creative.” She took in a deep breath. “They hated the idea of it, but supported me getting a creative writing degree.”
“That’s great.”
