down version of the same speech at first. Then, the next thing I know, she changed the rules on me and tried to manipulate me into falling for her. How is a guy supposed to deal with that?”
“Let me see. . . .” The winikin paused, considering. “A beautiful, talented woman you’ve been panting after decides she wants to be more than bed partners. . . . How should you feel? I’m thinking flattered would be a good start. Maybe grateful. How about overjoyed?”
“She changed the rules.”
“She changed herself. And she did it because of how she feels about you.”
That brought Lucius’s head up. He turned to face the winikin more fully, but scowled. “Not until I got buff.” He didn’t know the resentment was there until he’d said it aloud.
“Reality check. You don’t get to talk down about the old you and then get pissed when you think she likes the new-and-improved version better. And besides, I wasn’t talking about the past few weeks, or even the past few months. Think about it. When did she start standing up to Shandi and the others?”
“While I was gone.”
“It was because you were gone, dipshit. Anna had more or less checked out, and everyone else was concentrating on their own problems. Jade was the one who kept your name out there. Why do you think Michael put his own life on the line to get you out of the in-between?”
“Because it distracted the boluntiku and bought him enough time to cast the spell he needed to free himself of the Mictlan’s magic.”
“Screw that. He did it because he knew Jade wanted you back, and he owed her one. He did it for her. Because he knew how much she cared about you, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it at the time.”
A dull rushing noise built in the back of Lucius’s head, and a heavy weight settled on his chest. “I thought about her all the time. It was the only thing that kept me going.”
“So why are you pissed at her now?”
Lucius looked up at her, catching her eye. She glanced away, her chin high and her features tight.
“I’m not. I’m . . . Shit, I don’t know. I think it was easy for us to care for each other when we were apart; we could remember the good stuff and forget the rest. How can I be sure we won’t go through the same pattern over and over? What if chemistry and friendship aren’t enough? She’s the one who says people don’t change, but I think they do. I mean, just look at her. She’s getting stronger every damn day, whether she realizes it or not. How do people make it work when they can’t control what they’re going to get from day to day?” He thought of his parents, locked in a thirty-year stalemate between football and Tupperware, thought of his brothers and their interchangeable, silent girlfriends, and his sisters and their husbands and lovers, who could have been swapped out for his brothers without anyone noticing or caring. Who the hell wanted to live like that?
“If two people truly want to stay together, then they grow in the same direction. Not accidentally, but because they work at it.” The winikin gestured at the picnic tables, where the mated pairs sat close together, sharing intimate looks and private smiles. “Doesn’t that look like people making it work?”
“Those are magi, not people. The gods care for humans, but they don’t give them destinies.”
Jox tapped Lucius’s wrist, right above the hellmark. “Don’t be so sure of that.” The winikin collected his plate and rose to his feet. “Break’s almost over, but like I said, go ahead and sit out the first shift if you want to.”
Lucius dumped his leftovers and headed toward the playing field, where the teams were assembling, the players looking steely eyed and rested, determined that one side or the other was going to get the upper hand. But when he reached the edge of the playing field, he paused and looked back to the tables, where Jade was helping Shandi clean up. As though she felt his eyes on her, Jade looked up, their gazes connecting.
He saw the hurt beneath the calm. More, he saw her determination, her refusal to give up on the people who needed her, even though she might have preferred to be somewhere else, doing something else. Duty, dignity, decorum; she’d said it was the harvester way, and she had all of those qualities.
But she was also brave and intelligent, quietly fierce and loyal. And none of those things, he realized, jibed with her being shallow or manipulative. She was a kind person, a healer, not of the body like Sasha, but of the mind and spirit. She hadn’t been trying to trap him into anything; she’d been trying to do what she thought was right, trying to let him find his own way rather than control him, because she knew he needed to not be boxed in.
Which left them . . . where? Hell, he didn’t know, but he suddenly knew one thing for certain: They weren’t over. Not by a long shot.
He tried to convey that in a look, but her face went blank and confused at first, and then gained an edge of anger beneath. That anger reminded him too strongly of his own, of the green flash and the echo of the makol ’s voice inside his skull. He couldn’t go to her, not yet. He needed to deal with the darkness inside him first . . . and pray to the gods it was possible to break free, finally, from his past mistakes.
Then Jox blew the conch shell and tossed the heavy rubber ball to Nate for the first serve, and Lucius told himself to get the hell on the field.
He crossed to the picnic table instead.
When he drew Jade aside, her eyes went stormy. “No,” she said firmly. “You don’t get to apologize.
You were right about some of it, and so was I, but what’s said is said; what’s done is done. I don’t—” Her voice broke; she looked away, visibly trying to hold it together. “I don’t like feeling this way. I want my peace and quiet back.”
“Too late.” Not sure what possessed him, he tugged the scarf from her hair. Looping it around his arm, he tied it above where the ballplayers’ asymmetrical armor attached. Leaning in, he dropped a quick, hard kiss on her lips. “We’ll talk later.”
He retreated before she could respond, before she could insist that no, damn it, they were going to talk now. He didn’t know what he wanted to say to her, didn’t know what he wanted from her, but he knew it wasn’t what they had right then, and it wasn’t for them to go back to where they’d been before. They needed to go forward.
Moving fast, impelled by a sudden, fierce sense of urgency, he raced onto the playing field. Now, as he spun and pivoted, throwing hips and elbows, feet and shoulders as the scrum boiled from one side of the narrow pavilion to the other, there was nothing rote or mechanical in his actions. He was entirely there, entirely in the moment and the game.
He instinctively knew when Jade climbed the stairs and joined the audience, knew when she saw him, locked her eyes on him and didn’t look away. He played for her, trying to make his case without the words he couldn’t find just then. A faint note hummed on the air, high and sweet. It sounded like it might have come from Jox’s referee’s pipe, but the winikin stood off to the side, arms folded.
“Nightkeepers onto the field! Everyone, now!” Strike bellowed suddenly, and Jade and the others raced to join the game. The pace shifted, grew frenzied as the high, sweet note intensified and the orange light coming from up above seemed, for a moment, to brighten and turn white and warm.
Lucius was barely aware of these peripherals, though; his whole focus was on the ball and the play.
Sven served to Nate, who returned to Alexis, who bumped back to Sven. Action and reaction, arc and flow. Over there, Lucius knew, and headed for a clear spot at the edge of the action. Seconds later, the ball flew straight toward him. So did Strike and Michael, their eyes locked on the arcing sphere.