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I winced.
“I thought that might be the case.” Emmy waved for me to step inside. “What are your intentions with my friend?”
I wasn’t exactly prepared for the “intentions” conversation just yet, but I was weary enough from witnessing my brother’s brutal attack on an innocent woman that I didn’t have any fight left in me to argue.
“What do you mean, Emmy?” I asked on a sigh.
“My friend is fragile. Trixie is important to me, and frankly, I’m one of the only people she has in her life that she trusts.”
“What about her grandmother?”
“Grandma Betty is great,” Emmy said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “But the situation is complicated. Trixie didn’t even know she had a grandmother until she was eighteen.”
“Why is that?”
Emmy looked uneasy. “I don’t want to get into the details. Not my story to tell.”
“Why is she killing herself by repressing her magic?”
“She’s not—” Emmy stopped shortly, blinked at me. Her blink was magnified, making her look exceptionally goofy. “She’s not killing herself.”
My tone was dry. “I’m not exactly in the mood to beat around the bush after seeing a dead body in the alley.”
“A dead body? Alley?”
“The flashing lights?” I nodded my head to the window. Emmy seemed so wrapped up in whatever potion she was making that she’d already forgotten about the world outside of her makeshift laboratory. “Police. Dead Body. Making sense yet?”
“Oh, no.”
“It’s nothing to do with Trixie. It’s not her.”
“That’s why you’re here.” Emmy ogled me more closely. “You were checking on her safety.”
There was no question, so I just nodded.
“Do you love her?” Emmy finally removed her goggles, making her eyes appear normal sized.
“That would be impossible,” I said. “We’ve only known one another for such a short while.”
“But?”
I licked my lips, glanced around the apartment. There were plants everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling, propped on shelves, taking space on bookshelves. For some reason, I knew they were Trixie’s. I wasn’t sure how I knew; I could just tell.
It was like the bright green foliage was something she could care for that would never break her heart. It was clear that whoever was responsible for these plants had more than a halfhearted interest in them. There was love and care and attention that went into maintaining this many of them.
Which made sense. Trixie had a lot of love and affection to give, I could feel it. Yet she had no outlet to share it with anyone. Except her freaking plants.
I cursed under my breath, thinking that if I had a fully functioning heart, it might just be cracking right now. Breaking at the small life this beautiful, passionate woman was leading, so cooped up and tentative, when Trixie should be on a vibrant and wonderful path that made her truly happy.
“Trixie’s special,” I said hoarsely. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what it is about her, but it’s something bigger than me, bigger than her. I care for her.”
“Trixie doesn’t want much. She’s pretty simple. But people in her life have still managed to let her down on those simple wishes for a long, long time.”
“I won’t let her down.”
“You hexed her today, Dominic. Why are you messing with her?”
“Because men are stupid.”
