Laughing again, Drew said, “Maybe. If you ask nicely.” Then he leaned over and kissed Zach on the cheek. “We’ll need to stop by the shops on the way home and grab a few things.”
“Uh, why?” Zach asked, suddenly wary.
“So I can cook dinner, of course. Duh!”
“Oh, Lord help us, this isnotgoing to end well,” Zach muttered.
But it did.
Epilogue
“Stop fidgeting,” Drew chastised, putting his hand on Zach’s knee in an effort to get it to stop bouncing.
They were on the bus heading to Victoria and were currently winding their way over the Malahat. Zach had been antsy the entire way and it was starting to drive Drew crazy.
“Sorry,” Zach muttered and stilled his knee.
Drew started to count but he didn’t even get to eighteen before the squirming began once more. “Honestly, what’s got into you?” he asked. He couldn’t fathom what would make someone as powerful as Zach so nervous.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” Zach asked, chewing on his bottom lip.
Trying to be reassuring, Drew said, “Shealreadylikes you. You’ve spoken on the phone heaps of times. I think Harriett likes you better than she does me at this point.”
“Only because she’s not met me in person yet,” Zach disagreed.
It was true they’d not had a chance to go and visit his aunt in the two months since the fight against Oberon. Between her shifts and Zach’sassignments, their schedules hadn’t aligned until now. Drew had told her about Zach, of course, and she’d demanded to speak to him on the phone. The one time they’d tried to have a FaceTime call, there had been “technical difficulties.” Drew was well aware that Zach had used his magic to sabotage the call, but he’d not been able to wrangle an explanation from him as yet.
No time like the present.
“I thought you couldn’t wait to meet Harriett? What’s happened to make you so skittish?”
“I am notskittish!”Zach protested, giving Drew a petulant glare.
Drew just looked at him steadily—he’d been practising trying to raise just one eyebrow but the muscles in his face refused to cooperate and he just looked like he was having a stroke.
Even without the sophisticated eyebrow acrobatics, the look must have done something, because the fight went out of Zach in a rush and he sank down into his seat. “Urgh,fine.I might be a tad . . . nervous.”
Drew frowned. “But why? She honestly thinks you’re great.”
Although they had plans to explain to Harriett about their family heritage and the magical world, they’d held off, as that was a conversation best had in person. Instead, they’d told her the story they’d originally given to Dom and Gwen—that they’d met when Zach moved into the apartment next door and Drew had helped him move some furniture.
“She made a comment,” Zach said with a wince.
“What comment? About us?” No matter how hard he tried, Drew honestly couldn’t see his aunt doing such a thing. She was very upfront, and if she had a problem with Zach, she would have told Drew outright.
“No, it wasn’t about us, but it wasabout us,”Zach said.
Huffing, Drew crossed his arms over his chest. “Gee, thanks. That’sreallycleared things up for me. I feel so informed right now.”
Zach rolled his eyes. “No need to get snippy, sweetness.”
“No need to be so fuckingvague,”Drew countered. “Just spit it out.What did Aunt Harriett say?”
“We’d been chatting about something . . . I honestly can’t even remember what. Anyway, I made that stupid joke. You know the one—still a better love story than Twilight—and she started on this rant about what a terrible romance story that book was and how it was impossible to believe a man who was over a hundred years old could have anything in common with a teenager.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. She made it very clear she thought Edward Cullen was a creepy old man who was taking advantage of a gormless teen girl simply because he stopped physically ageing at seventeen.” Zach rolled his head over the headrest of the seat so he could look at Drew properly. “So yes, I’m nervous. Even before we tell her the truth about me, she’ll probably already have an issue with me as I look like I’m twenty years older than you. When she finds out I’m actually closer totwo thousandyears older than you, I honestly think she’ll kick me out on my ass.”
