“Next time, perhaps schedule your romantic tryst elsewhere,” Luna purred. She began to rub against my leg, but I leapt out of reach. I was still not okay with the way she was treating me when it came to this accidental date—or to my love life at all.
“Not a romantic tryst. Not a romantic anything,” I corrected between clenched teeth. “Remember, he invited himself over.”
Merlin whispered something to Luna, just quietly enough that I couldn’t make out the words. When he finished, they both turned toward me and began laughing.
“Just go to Nocturna already,” I seethed, kicking another patch of mis-mown grass. “Stay there forever for all I care.”
The cats continued to titter as they hopped into the birdbath, splashed around, and then disappeared in a glowing swirl of green. I doubted I’d ever get used to Merlin’s strange modes of travel, either by turning his cauldron disguised as a bird bath into a portal or by blinking twice to magically teleport.
Every time my new life as a familiar began to make even a little bit of sense, something so bonkers came along I didn’t think I’d ever be able to reconcile it with my previous understanding of the world.
I guess that was true of most things these days. Everything teetered somewhere between boring and safe or fascinating but stressful. I could pretty much guarantee that my life with Merlin would always fall into the latter category.
Now that he and Luna were gone, I had a little while to play with my makeup, provided Drake arrived exactly on time or even a little bit late. Given his work history, I was banking on him being late, which meant I had some time to work on my look.
I hadn’t dared lift a cosmetic brush or poof to my face while the cats were here teasing me. Still, whether or not I had asked for this date, I wanted to look nice. And I’d take any excuse to trot out one of my bolder makeup looks, really.
I didn’t have any real dates happening in the near future, so I might as well use this fake date to try out the mermaid eyeshadow palate I’d purchased from a popular online boutique.
I worked fast to apply the array of bright colors, but not fast enough apparently, because the doorbell rang about halfway through my application.
“Coming,” I called, turning my head slightly from side to side. If only I had another five minutes.Grrr.
Exactly on time, I noted with a quick glance at the microwave clock as I passed through the kitchen. Definitely not what I’d expected from Drake.
I found him waiting patiently on my doorstep, wearing a black dress shirt, tie, and suit jacket with jeans and a pair of ordinary, scuffed-up sneakers.
“Hi, Drake,” I said, my eyes landing on the single flower he held clutched within his hand. The bloom was a deep blood red with spiky looking petals, definitely not something I recognized.
“For you,” he said with a small smile that I found almost charming.
“Thank you,” I said, accepting the gift. “It’s really pretty.”
“That’s a black narcissus, a cactus Dahlia,” he explained in that smug way of his.
“I don’t know much about flowers,” I admitted with a slight frown. “Cactuses don’t need water, right?”
“Cacti is the plural of cactus,” he corrected with a chuckle, shoving both hands into his pockets now. “And the flower has already been cut. It will die, no matter what you do with it now. So go nuts.”
“Oh,” I said for lack of a better response to his unsettling instructions. “Well, thanks again. I guess you should come on in.”
I hurried to the kitchen to find something to put my flower in. Surely, Grandma Grace had left a vase or two somewhere in here. In the end, I gave up searching and simply placed it in an empty pitcher that I’d used once or twice to make lemonade.
Drake definitely got points for bringing me a flower, I’d give him that. But since this wasn’t an actual date, the points didn’t matter a lick.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t gone on a date since relocating to Elderberry Heights, nor had I wanted to go on one. At first, I’d been too busy settling into my new house and job while still pretending to make forward progress on my thesis. And now I was too busy solving murders, fighting mad mages, and corralling talking cats. At this rate, I’d be lucky to ever go on a real date again.
But Drake didn’t need to know any of that.
I had one mission here and one mission alone—find out what he knew about ghosts and see if it could help with my little situation.
7
“So is this a Netflix and chill situation, or…?” Drake raised an eyebrow and smiled at me suggestively.
I couldn’t suppress the shudder that wracked through me at that thought. “Eww, no. Just give me five minutes and then I’ll be ready to go out.”
“Go where?” he asked, following me toward the hall.
“I don’t know. Wherever you want,” I called over my shoulder before stepping inside the bathroom and closing the door.
“You’re the one who asked me out,” he shouted from the other side. “I assumed you had a plan.”
I bit my lip to keep myself from giving it to him straight. If I ranted about how I’d never meant to invite him on this so-called date, he probably wouldn’t be up to sharing what he knew about ghosts. So for now, I’d just have to play along.
“How about a moonlit walk?” I suggested once I emerged from the bathroom, my look now complete. That at least put me in a better mood.
“Pretty eyes,” Drake said with an approving nod. “I like that look on you.”
“You know about makeup?” I squeaked.
“Not much, but I make it my business to know a little bit about a lot of things. Keeps life interesting. And, sure, I could go for a walk.” He grinned and motioned for me to lead the way.
Suddenly I felt nervous.
Drake clearly paid a lot better attention to his surroundings than I previously gave him credit for. Did that mean I’d given off some kind of vibe suggesting I wanted to date him?
Outside, Drake offered me the crook of his arm, and I looped mine through, feeling extra fancy as we strolled through the neighborhood.
“So how’d you get into the bean business?” he asked as he kept his eyes fixed on the distant horizon.
“Putting myself through graduate school,” I answered by rote. His was a question I’d answered often, especially when my professors and fellow students asked why I was distracting myself with this temporary job when I could simply finish my degree and find a much better gig. “How about you?”
“Just following orders.” He flashed me an impish grin.
“What? Whose orders?”
He let out a fatigued sigh.“It’s a condition of my trust fund. I have to keep a steady job to collect. So just to stick it to my old man, I keep the lowliest job possible, doing the exact opposite of what he’d intended for me.”
“So you’re a trust fund baby? That explains a few things,” I said, thinking back to his shiny sports coupe.
“Darling, I’m a trust fund man, and don’t you forget it.” He smiled charmingly, and I couldn’t help but laugh. This was something we had in common, at least. The people in our lives expected more of us—or rather different things. I knew I’d finish my degree eventually, but I still hadno idea what I actually wanted for my life. In truth, I’d chosen Sociology as my field of study because it seemed to be one of the broadest majors available. I’d then signed on to grad school because that’s what you were supposed to do when your bachelor’s degree didn’t offer a clear career path.
I still preferred that life be full of surprises, and settling into a 9-to-5 felt like the exact opposite of that.
“Don’t you get bored, though?” I asked Drake now. “With only working part-time and having no aspirations outside of continuing to collect?” He didn’t need to know that my own aspirations were as of yet undefined.