Devils & Thieves (Devils & Thieves #1)(17)

“You sound like Alex,” I said sleepily.

“Alex is a smart girl,” he replied, stroking my hair. “You going to introduce me?”

“Let’s take it slow, seeing as her brother blew up my mom’s plans for edible world peace or whatever she said.”

Darek snorted. “Fair enough. And Jemmie? Thank you.”

“For what?” I was drifting now, right on the cusp of deep slumber.

He tightened his arm around me, his fingers finding a bare sliver of flesh above my jeans; my stomach thrilled at the touch. If I couldn’t have my best friend right now, at least I could have my second-best friend, who was very hot, and very warm, beside me. “For being who you are.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed a smile into his shoulder. Maybe this could work. Maybe all of it would work. The Devils and the Deathstalkers would shake hands and become allies. I could love Darek. I could practice my magic. Alex and I would smooth things over, and we’d go right back to having fun. The next few days were full of promise and possibility.

Of course, this was how I’d felt last year, just before the festival, when my hope for a relationship with Crowe fell apart—and just before Crowe’s father crashed on that lonely road in rural Louisiana. But in Darek’s arms, sliding into a river of dreams, I couldn’t help but hope that Old Lady Jane’s dire predictions were dead wrong.





FIVE


I WOKE TO THE SOUND OF MY MOTHER CURSING AT THE coffee machine in the kitchen. I rolled over and found the other side of the bed empty. With bleary eyes, I checked my phone. One text from Darek and none from Alex.

Had to go join the guys for a breakfast gathering, his text said. I’ll catch up with you later.

At eight in the morning? I threw the blankets back, unreasonably sad and irritated that he’d disappeared without waking me. I hadn’t slept so well in weeks.

“What’s wrong?” I croaked when I shuffled into the kitchen.

Mom sighed. “I’m exhausted, and I can’t get this stupid coffee pot to work.” She stood there in a raggedy old band T-shirt and men’s boxer shorts, glaring at the coffee maker as if considering all the terrible things she wanted to do to it.

“Move,” I said, and she stepped aside, pulling herself up on the counter, well out of my way.

Our coffee maker was possibly older than I was and just as stubborn. There was a trick to getting it to work. I unplugged it, flipped the On/Off switch a few times, then plugged it back in. It gurgled to life and a huff of steam escaped the crooked reservoir lid as hot coffee finally dripped into the pot.

I grabbed us each a mug.

As I spooned sugar into the cups, Mom gestured at the scorch mark on the counter. “That has Crowe Medici written all over it. You introduce him to Darek?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

I avoided looking at the evidence of Crowe’s being here, the reality of it in stark daylight somehow more troubling than it had been in the semi-darkness of night. “Crowe gave me a ride home.”

“And he was so overcome with joy at seeing you home safely, he left a permanent scorch mark on my glorious counter?”

“It’s orange laminate, Mom.”

“You are avoiding the question.”

“That was a question?”

She frowned. The morning light filtering in through the window at her back rimmed her in a pearlescent haze. She’d scrubbed the makeup from her smooth, light brown skin and tied her ebony hair into a messy topknot. There were faint shadows beneath her brown eyes, but they only served to make her look delicate instead of haggard.

Sometimes it hit me out of the blue how gorgeous she was when she wasn’t trying to be.

Both of my parents were beautiful beyond reason, but the older my mother got, the more slowly she seemed to age. My mom might not have had a lot of her family’s Cabrera merata magic, which made the people who possessed it invincible, but she must have inherited a few scraps. She’d never been sick in my entire life, and she looked better at thirty-five than I usually did at eighteen.

“What’s going on with you two?” Mom asked, and it took me a second to realize we were still talking about Crowe.

“Nothing.”

Mom hopped off the counter and poured her coffee, stirring in a truckload of powdered creamer. “What’s Darek think about it?”

I side-eyed her. “Why?”

She shrugged innocently. “Just wondering. I mean, from the look of it, the two of you have a thing, and I have to wonder how he felt when Crowe drove you home and then things got heated enough to barbecue without a grill.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

I’d never told her what had happened between Crowe and me, that we’d kissed, that it’d seemed like there was more to our relationship, only to have him ignore me afterward and act like a total jerk at last year’s festival and ever since, but she could sense that something had gone wrong, and she had obviously taken my side.

She looked thoughtful as she sipped her coffee. “Well, Darek seems nice. And safe.” For a moment, she stared out the window, toward the shed where Dad used to work on his bike. “Not a bad thing, especially for you.”

I poured myself some coffee while my throat tightened. “You mean because I can’t cast. Because you think I can’t keep up with Crowe or anyone like him.”