“I won’t. I promise.” And before this conversation gets any weirder, I announce, “I need another drink,” and speed away. I stand at the bar, waiting for the bartender to notice me, when a big, bulky body appears in my right periphery.
I turn and glance up. A man in a black suit and a ridiculous jawline stares straight ahead. He’s got close-cropped auburn hair and a slightly redder five o’clock shadow dusting that blade-sharp jaw.
“You’re Sky’s sister, right?” The guy asks the question without glancing my way.
Immediately, my hackles go up. Because if I thought barely anyone believing my past abuse was bad…well, Sky has itwayworse with what she went through last summer and the last eight years all put together. Though all of us have managed to scare off most of the weird people who think Sky’s an alien or ex–cult member or something, every now and then someone will try to weasel their way in, trying to find out “the truth.”
“Yeah, and what the fuck about it?” I respond.
Now he glances my way, revealing a lightly freckled face andrich blue eyes. “She’s been helping my grandfather. William Noemi.”
“Oh. You’reAdam.” Now the look I give him is appraising.
When Sky wasn’t-quite-dead, she wandered this world, the world of the living, as a ghost. Nadia says it was espanto. This translates to “terror.” In this case, Sky’s terror when she fell meant a piece of her soul was severed. When Sage and Nadia found her body, that soul went back, I guess, and things are hunky-dory now.
But while Sky was a ghost, she did a lot of snooping. And this snooping made her develop a crush on our neighbor Old Man Noemi’s grandson, Adam. Once in a while she’ll bring the old man homemade flan or cookies, hoping Adam is back visiting from New York City, I guess, so she can be the small-town lady in a Hallmark film who lures the big-city journalist back for good…except this small-town lady is also a witch who is greeted by wildcats and bears when she goes on walks in the woods.
“I’m Teal.”
He nods at the empty drink in my hand. “Want another?”
And just at this moment, another figure appears. Carter slides in between me and Adam. “Ready to go?” he grunts out. His tone is so pissed, if it were any louder, he’d be barking at me.
“Nice to meet you, Adam.” I say it while glaring at Carter.
Adam grunts something incomprehensible in response, and I hop off the chair, scrambling after Carter. I’m breathless by the time I catch up to him in the parking lot.
“What is wrong with you?” I hiss. “First you leave the reception, only to come back to be an asshole?”
“What about you?” he growls back. “Were you going to text me after you’d gone home with that guy, or just let me figure it out all on my own?”
“Are you seriously slut-shaming me right now?” I have totighten my hands into fists so I don’t jump over a car to strangle him. “Carter, you’ve slept with more people in the last six months than I have in my entire life. Calm down with the hypocrisy.” It’s probably mega-embarrassing to admit that I’ve been keeping tabs on Carter’s dating life that closely, but I’m too pissed off to care right now.
We both open our car doors and thrust ourselves in at the same time. I snap my seat belt on. “And besides. I was there withyou. I’d never leave with someone else.”
Carter snorts in response. I know he’s thinking about me rushing home with Nate two days after kissing him. But this isn’t the same thing at all.
He sighs and I think he’s going to apologize. Instead, he says, “I’ve only slept with three people in the last six months.”
Well, that sentence feels like a knife directly in my gut. “What do you want? For me to stand up and clap? Make an announcement?” I mime speaking into a megaphone. “Everyone, allow me to extend our congratulations to Carter Velasquez, who managed to get his dick wet not once, but three times since October.”
The smile he gives me is dry. “No, it’s…you made it seem like I…” He runs a hand over his beard. “I’m sorry, Teal. I was an ass.”
I fold my arms. “You were the ass of an ass.”
He furrows his brow. “You mean like a donkey?”
“No. If regular asses had asses, that’s how you were acting.”
He tilts his head as he tries to imagine what the hell I’m describing, and I can’t help it. I snort and then I burst into laughter. When I look at him again, he’s staring at me like I’ve presented him with a chest of jewels. I smack his arm.
He rubs his biceps like that actually hurt. “What was that for?”
“Being an ass of an ass.” I glance out the window as we settle into silence. “Speaking of sex.”
Carter clears his throat.
“How would—if we got married, I mean—”
