I shake my head.
“Caleb,” Gunner says, his tone chiding, “you’re smarter than that. Ivy tells you she’s a witch. She tells me to speak to you, and I speak to you. I tell you I’m her familiar. Familiars are like magical batteries for witches. We help them. I’ve been in her life as soon as she came of age.”
“But I’ve never heard you talk,” Caleb says.
“Well, yeah,” Gunner says, giving him that poochy smile where his tongue rolls out. “I couldn’t exactly speak to you if you didn’t know that Ivy was magical.”
“Okay. Okay.” Caleb nods his head. “I…” He pauses. “This is a lot to process. But mostly I can’t believe that you kept this a secret from me for so long.”
Out of all the things Caleb could have said, that’s probably the last thing I expected.
I burst into tears.
Thirteen
“Hey, hey,” he says. “Don’t cry, don’t cry. Ivy, why are you upset? I’m not upset. Surprised, yeah. Impressed, very much so. Slightly shocked to find out magic is real, sure, but I’m not upset. There’s no reason to cry.”
For some reason that just makes me cry harder because he’s being exactly the person that he’s always been. Kind, accepting, calm, generous. And I kept a secret from him because I was so afraid that he would never look at me the same, or that he would think I was crazy.
But here he is, kneeling next to me, putting his arms around my body and letting me cry into the soft space between his neck and shoulder.
It’s not even a pretty cry. “I’m sorry,” I choke out the words. Pretty sure there’s snot bubbling out of my nose, which is slightly mortifying, but it’s not like Caleb hasn’t seen me sick before. I’m pretty sure he held my hair back the first time I got drunk.
That was a long time ago.
And yet here he is, taking care of me again when I’m falling apart. Somehow it feels like I’m being put back together. Finally.
I sit back a little, sniffling, wiping my nose. I’m staring at Caleb through watery eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I don’t know why I started crying.”
He rubs my shoulders, looking up at me earnestly. The same Caleb he’s always been.
“A witch, huh?” he asks, then looks at Gunner, who nods in confirmation. “It’s pretty damn cool. So what does that mean? Is there like unicorns, dragons and shit?”
I laugh and it comes out just as soggy as the crying I’ve been doing.
“I have never seen a unicorn and I’ve never seen a dragon, and there’s really not much to it. There’s a few of us scattered around. My friend in Texas is one. She found another witch down there too. But we don’t have, you know, a government or anything. It’s kind of lonely.”
“Ivy,” Caleb says, holding my hand gently. His calluses on his palms and fingers rub against the soft skin of my hand.
I sniffle again, taking a shaky breath.
“You’re not alone. You have me. You have three sisters. You have the entire town of Silverlight Shore that loves you.”
He takes a deep breath, blinking, the long dark eyelashes I’ve always been jealous of fluttering slightly as he smiles at me.
“Everybody loves you. How could we not?”
I’m lowering my mouth to his before I can think better of it. It feels so right.
The way his hand moves up my body, cradling the back of my head as our lips meet. It tastes like rain. The salt water of my tears.
But most importantly, he feels like home.
Caleb’s always been my perfect fit. And as the kiss deepens, his hands pulling me closer, mine fisting the back of his damp shirt, I realize that he still is my perfect fit. Or maybe with a little work, he could be.
The thought scares me a little bit. Enough that I hesitate and pull back.
