I scrunched my nose and squinted my eyes, staring at the cards. While Desi had spent hours teaching me,and we’d gone through books on it, I still wasn’t as skilled as he was at finding the answers instantly.
“What did you draw?” he asked finally.
I rattled off the small list. I saw one side of his smile turn up. He recognized instantly that I had done the only spread I could remember.
“Queen of cups. Okay. So, let’s talk about it,” he started. “Was your question a negative or positive one?”
“You told me I didn’t have to tell you,”I responded quickly. Guilt swirled in my stomach,and Desi blinked as if he’d been slapped.
“Were any of your cards upside down?” he asked.
“The Moon.”
He didn’t say anything for a momentbut finally sighedand looked over at me. “I think this one’s on you. My advice can only take you so far. If you want to ask them a personal question,you have to read them and decide for yourself what they say.”
I stared at them as I felt like the shittiest person in the car. He was only trying to help,and I copped an attitude. Actually, we'd been going from one fight to another this entire car ride. What was going on? We never fought this much.
I stared back at the cards on my lap and tried to interpret them from memory.
The Queen of Cups was drawn in reference to my past, which wasn’t really all that great. I was fixated on my happiness, which was Desi.Is Desi. I glanced at him again, but he was hyper-focused on the road.
The presentcard wasthe Three of Pentacles. I knew that one! It’s the start of a journey. Which is my new life, curse-free.
The Moon reversedwas for myfuture. I took the card in my hands and examined it closer. Everything about this card screamed negative vibes to me. Cheating, lying, danger. How could that future lead to happiness?
“I don’t think I did it right,” I said flatly.
“No?” Desi cocked his head and reached for my hand, squeezing it gently. “It takes a while to figure it all out. Maybe when we get to the hotel,I can help you with a different spread. Or we can work on rewording questions to better help the cards respond.”
I nodded and put the cards back in their box. Desi’s cards were so old he lost their case ages ago. He kept them in his pocket,sometimes secured with a rubber band, sometimes loose. I wasn’t sure I’d ever have that strong connection with my own deck.
“We’re getting a hotel?” I asked, relaxing in my seat. I stretched my legs some and yawned again. I glanced at my phone. “We’re getting close.”
“Yep. Based on our arrival time,we won’t have long to get inside and socialize with Dante and Tully. I figured we would want to get a good day’s sleep and refresh before visiting. We’ll be staying with them the rest of the week.”
“Really?” I blinked in surprise. He smirked,but his eyes darkened. I watched as he turned off the highway when he saw a sign for a blood-friendly hotel. His lips curled up,and his fangs showed as he growled slightly at our plans for the upcoming week.
“They insisted.”
7
I sat brooding all fucking day. She wouldn’t tell me what she had wanted from her cards. Me. The one who taught her how to read them in the first place, and now I wasn’t asked for assistance in reading them even though I knew she still needed help.
And why? Because she was asking them about me.About us.Which only made the cards she pulled even fucking worse.
Queen of Cups, Three of Pentacles, The Moon- reversed.
If she did the past, present, and future spread, which I was almost sure she did, that meant that we basically looked past each other’s flaws just so we could fuck. Now she realizes this andsecond-guessing our relationship. Finally, to top it all fucking off, The Moon reversed is saying that one of us is going to cheat.
I never deep-dived why my cards always told the truth about everything, but I wondered how on-the-mark hers could be. Until tonight she never seemed to take much of an interest in their past politenesstowardme. Maybe you had to really believe in their power for them to guide you.
God,I hoped so.
I tossed and turned all day. It was bad enough that we were visiting my two least favorite Sins, but to top it all off, I had to worry about Scout’s cards predicting that she’d cheat on me with one of them.
However, those worries were relaxed as soon as I woke and called Tully to let him know we were in town.
“Toulouse, we made it.” I yawned into the phone. I sat up in bed and watched as Scout did the same, stretching and grinding sleep out of her eyes.God, even fresh out of slumber,she was gorgeous.
