Page 89 of Novice Girlfriend

She chuckled. “Yes, well, to survive her family, she had to play everything close to her chest. That’s not a skill you ever let go.” She met my gaze. “Free advice since you have feelings for a Shaw no matter her last name now.”

“Thanks.” I stood and chugged the rest of my water. “Don’t wait, Leigh. At least get the truth about how bad it is so you can protect yourself better. The war is starting and you’re too vulnerable here. The top-tier families won’t care you’re in a condo surrounded by humans. Some were going to snatch Bevin right out of a coffee shop in front of them.”

She hadn’t known that or maybe had thought it was overblown because she went pale hearing that. I was glad I’d said it then. She needed to know the reality.

I thanked her and called my brother to come bring me back to his place so I could grab my gear so I could head to school. We talked for a bit and we left it good, so nothing surprised me more than finding him waiting for me with a visitor’s pass at lunch.

Something was off with him and I swallowed a sigh when he looked like he was treading lightly.

“Spill,” I finally just said as I waved for him to join me and swiped twice for him to eat too.

“I went to check on Bevin since you were worried,” he told me under his breath even with a barrier over us. “You said she wasn’t here yesterday and that worried you.” He waited until I nodded. “Wyatt slept over. I was in the kitchen when they both came downstairs.”

“And?” I hedged.

“And nothing,” he said firmly. “He even said it was about her magic and he was on the couch.” Kevin sighed when I gave him a look like why was he telling me then. “Kel, you’re struggling. I didn’t want you to hear something offhand that could upset you. I couldn’t handle a relationship like the one you’re thinking of, okay? I just didn’t—I’m not trying to start…”

“Thanks,” I whispered, knowing where his head was.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, really.” I moved my arm over his shoulders and gave him a half hug on the way to the trays.

He was worried about me and didn’t want me to hear something in passing and freak out that my place with Bevin was even further out of reach. I got it.

Now I just had to keep working on fixing things with the woman I wanted.

How?

No fucking clue.

21

Bevin

It was funny that getting back to school was actually going to be less work for me than my break.

Wild, right?

But I was CEO of a major company and that meant a lot of everything was done in my “off” time. The sessions had been canceled for the week and with what had happened at the factory, that meant getting back on track.

So while I had de-stressed a lot, that had meant handling piles of things… Which was a lot of fucking work.

And magic.

And mental load.

Now I was going back to being a normal college kid at least during most of my days.

Mrs. Reid, Wyatt, and Tracey had halted sessions for another week while they reorganized how it went going forward. They wanted a full audit and now it would be at the Olvierias. We were really and finally doing this.

Awesome.

So that time was going to be working with Clare to get toy stock back up if she could double what I produced. The new store launch was in a week and we needed more of everything.

I also didn’t have long until finals began, only two weeks. I honestly didn’t understand why we had midterms not in the middle of the term?

People looked at me funny when I had asked that and made cracks about me acting like Hermione from Harry Potter again, so I shut up. Either way, I had a lot going on. I hinted that maybe sessions should be held off until after finals.