Page 16 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

I stared at Sam. He stared back.

“Um,” he said finally. “Am I being weird and creepy and so totally a dude if I say I really, really want to go upstairs to our bedroom with the door that shuts and locks and walls that don’t connect to any place where someone else is trying to sleep?”

“No, because I was about to say the same thing.”

The look of relief on his face was profound enough that it was almost comical. “Race ya,” he said, and took off like a shot.

There is no planet where I can keep up with Sam, and so I didn’t even try. I was tormenting myself as much as I was tormenting him, and still I took the stairs with the decorous grace of a Jane Austen heroine, one hand on the railing, one foot in front of the other, stretching out the journey until every nerve I had was screaming. There might not be fire in my fingers anymore, but there was still fire in my blood, and it wanted to burn—oh, God—it wanted so badly to burn.

The bedroom door was closed when I got there. I opened it, stepped inside, and was treated to the sight of a perfectly made bed, the covers turned down in obvious invitation, the pillows—which must have come from a hidden linen closet—plumped and ready. All that was missing was my boyfriend.

So I did what people don’t do. I looked up.

Sam, holding himself perfectly still in the corner by bracing his hands and feet against opposite walls, grinned at me. His lips were drawn tight across his teeth, as always, keeping the expression from turning into a threat display.

“Found me,” he said.

“I wasn’t aware we were playing hide and go seek.” I closed the door, clicking the lock into place as a precaution before bending to unlace my shoes. I tried to look unconcerned, like I didn’t care how long he hung out on the ceiling rather than getting his ass to floor level and ravishing me.

“And I wasn’t aware that we were playing keep away.” There was a soft thump.

I continued untying my shoes. “Haven’t you ever heard of delayed gratification?”

“Oh, let’s see.” The springs on the bed creaked. “First, I had to wait for you to tell me you weren’t just some weirdo who happened to come with a pair of talking mice. Then, I had to wait until I got up the courage to ask you out. Then, just when I’m thinking hey, maybe I’ll actually get to touch a girl, I find out you’ve been lying to me since the minute we met.”

I glanced up sharply, suddenly tense. Sam was sitting on the edge of the mattress. He offered me a small, almost twisted smile before pulling his shirt off over his head. That helped with some of the tension, even as it made other elements of it worse. Say what you like about the risks of the flying trapeze, but you won’t find a better workout this side of the circus.

“That’s over, that’s settled and done,” he said, tossing his shirt to the foot of the bed. “I lied to you, you lied to me, we canceled each other out. Still put a crimp in our sex life.”

“Theoretical sex life, at that point.” I stepped out of my shoes and unbuttoned my jeans. “We weren’t sleeping together at that point.”

“We were in my dreams,” he said wistfully and paused to watch as I gracelessly rolled my jeans down my hips and kicked them off. “The reality is better. But, you know. Stuff kept getting in the way. Like the asshole assassins, and you burning down the carnival and running away, leaving me behind.”

“It was for your own good.”

“Uh-huh. Try pulling that trick again and see how far that excuse gets you. Small hint: not far.” Sam folded his arms. “Then I had to find you, and then I had to deal with wacko assholes who wanted to suck the luck out of the world like little kids with an orange, and then we were on a road trip for weeks with people I didn’t really know, and anyway, I think my gratification is plenty delayed at this point. My gratification is going to summer school and watching all the other gratifications running around playing baseball.”

I paused in the act of unfastening my bra. “You were homeschooled at the carnival. Do you even know what summer school is?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying, that metaphor sort of got away from you somewhere.”

“And I’m just saying, shut up.” Then he was kissing me, and one hand was busy finishing what I’d started with the bra, and conversation was no longer a necessary part of our evening.

Prior to Sam, I would have said my interest in dating—limited as it was—was doomed to stay pretty much hypothetical. I hadn’t been a virgin, thanks to a few beer parties in high school combined with a burning desire not to wind up tied to the altar of the next cult that needed a specific kind of sacrifice, but that had been more about practicality and physicality than actually making a connection with anyone. Sex had been something that could happen, that wasn’t so frightening it needed to be avoided, but that I didn’t think about on a regular basis.

Turns out having a significant other who likes sex and likes me and really likes combining the two changes my priorities a bit. The extra hands don’t hurt, either.

When we were finished, exhausted and sweaty and content with one another, we brushed our teeth, cleaned up as much of our strewn clothing as felt reasonable, and fell back into bed, this time for less aerobic activities. I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I woke some unknown length of time later, spine rigid, hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I held myself perfectly still, reviewing things that might have woken me. My dreams had been pleasantly abstract and were already fading, leaving none of the thin veil of unease that came with nightmares. Sam was sleeping solidly beside me, his breath a steady constant too soft to be the reason I was awake. His tail was wrapped loosely around my left wrist. I tugged. He let go, making a small sound of discontent, and didn’t open his eyes.

Whatever the cause of my unwanted wakefulness was, it wasn’t in this room. It was—

There. A sound, faint but distinct, from outside the bedroom. Not outside the window, where it could have been any number of woodland creatures, from bunny to bear: inside. Someone was moving around nearby. Someone who sounded too large to be Cylia. I’d already eliminated Fern. If she needed to be on this floor for some reason, she would have dropped her density until her steps were the next best thing to inaudible. No one robs a house like a sylph.

Moving as quietly as I could, I slid out of the bed and retrieved my jeans. It only took a few seconds after that to find my bra and tank top. It felt a little silly to be putting my tits away to go and investigate a creepy noise in my house, but that’s one of the things the women in horror movies always get wrong. If there’s something that might slow you down in a fight—like, say, leaving your boobs to flop around free-range and cumbersome—you deal with it before the fight gets started.