I was pacing by the door when Ava pulled up in front of the house. I forced myself to wait until she knocked before I opened the door and pulled her inside.
“Whoa, calm down,” she said, juggling two bottles of wine and a plastic bag full of food.
“Calm down? You make some cryptic statement that implies I may not be safe, hang up on me, and then have the nerve to tell me to calm down? Are you crazy?” My voice rose as I spoke until I was nearly yelling.
“Yes, calm down,” Ava repeated. “I don’t think he’s going to come over here and murder us with an axe.”
“What a relief,” I shot back, throwing my hands up in the air. “Do you think he’ll use his bare hands?”
Ava shook her head. “Stop being a drama queen and help me carry this stuff into the kitchen.”
I took the bottles of wine she held out to me and followed her to the rear of the house where the kitchen was located. I put one of the bottles in my fridge and set about opening the other as Ava unpacked the food.
“I’m sorry if I freaked you out,” she apologized. “I don’t think Rhys truly means anyone harm. I was just surprised that you didn’t feel any emotion from him. You’re one of the strongest empaths I’ve ever met so I didn’t expect you to tell me that he was blank to you.” She took a plate from the cabinet, opened a wheel of Brie, and began peeling the wrapper off the cheese. “Now that I’ve taken the time to think about it, it makes sense. Like I said, I got the impression his life hasn’t been easy. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s been hellish. A man like that will have stone walls for mental barriers. Or magical protection. He couldn’t risk having someone pluck the thoughts from his mind.”
I grabbed two wineglasses and poured us each a generous measure of chilled white wine. Her words made sense. Maybe Rhys used his power to protect his thoughts and feelings. “Okay, so you’re saying you overreacted?”
“Of course not,” she disagreed.
I finished pouring wine and stared at her.
“Maybe a little,” she admitted. “Still, I want you to tell me exactly what happened and then I’ll be certain if I overreacted or not.”
I handed her one of the wineglasses and snatched a cracker from the plate she was arranging.
“Hey, you’re messing up my pretty plate here.”
“It’s going to get really messed up in a minute when we sit down to eat it. What does it matter?”
She sighed and didn’t say anything else when I snagged a gherkin from the pile she’d just scooped onto the plate. I watched as she finished portioning out crackers, cheese, pickles, and pate. Now that I had food in front of me, I was ravenous.
“Let’s go into the living room and you can tell me everything.”
We settled on my sofa and I told her about how I babbled and how Rhys didn’t say a word the entire time I was there. I finished up with explaining how his eyes had been completely black and he was an emotional blank slate.
When I was done, I wasn’t sure which freaked me out more—the fact that I embarrassed myself in front of him or that he was an emotional null.
I drained my wineglass and waited. Oddly, Ava had nothing to say. I poured more wine and munched on crackers and cheese.
Finally I couldn’t take her silence any longer. “Well, what do you think?”
She stared at me, but her eyes were unfocused as though she was looking beyond me, and I could practically see the gears turning in her mind. “About what?”
“About Rhys!” I replied, my voice loud.
Ava blinked and suddenly seemed to return to the present. “I think that you have nothing to worry about,” she stated. “I also think that he’s as rusty around people as you are.”
That definitely didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t say anything else, mostly because I didn’t want to verbalize how much I was obsessing over my encounter with him. Instead, I went back to eating and drinking wine. Ava and I chatted about the coffee shop and the clients that came in for regular tarot readings, but let the subject of Rhys drop.
It wasn’t until I stood up to carry our empty plates into the kitchen that I realized I was more than a little tipsy from all the wine I’d drunk. As I rinsed the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher, Ava followed me into the kitchen and opened the second bottle of wine she brought.
We drifted back into the living room and resumed our positions on the couch. When I curled up against the cushions, Satchel appeared, hopped up into my lap, and settled down with a contented purr as I stroked her back.
Pleasant warmth suffused my body as the wine seeped into my bloodstream. My mind drifted back to what I’d been mulling over on my walk home and how her earlier description of Rhys and his isolation reminded me of myself. Without thinking, I asked Ava, “Do you ever get lonely?”
She blinked at me for a moment, her face expressionless. “Sometimes, I guess.”
I sighed, slumping down in the cushions a little more. “I do. I’m lonely all the time.”
