I grimaced and twisted the toe of my shoe onto the sidewalk. “Not exactly.”
She cleared her throat.
I sighed. “Okay, no. I haven’t.”
“Why not?”
I scowled. “Shit, Jill, because I’m scared to death that he’ll say he doesn’t want to be anything more than friends, and then things would be awkward and we wouldn’t even have that.”
She took me by the shoulders. “Yo, woman. It’s not the nineteenth century anymore. You can’t leave it all up to him.” She gave me a shake. “Besides, how do you know he’s not scared about the same thing?”
I regarded her sourly for several seconds. “I hate it when you make sense,” I finally grumbled. “Okay, fine. You’re right. I’m being stupid.” I groaned. “When did I turn into a needy whiny angsty idiot who needed to be swept off her feet?”
She snorted then started running again, forcing me into a brief sprint to catch up. “We’re conditioned from birth,” she said. “I swear to god, if I ever have a daughter I’ll ban all of the Disney princesses from the house. Except Mulan. She kicks ass.”
I laughed, then had to save my breath for running.
I hated to admit it, but the jogging did seem to clear my head a bit. Or maybe it was oxygen deprivation making it difficult for my brain to concentrate on the various things that were stressing me out. Like what I would do if Ryan ever did make some sort of move. Would I have the strength to keep Rhyzkahl at arm’s length if that ever happened? It wasn’t as if I could simply stop seeing him, not as long as I was oathbound to him. And even if I did shift my relationship with Rhyzkahl to a platonic one, I couldn’t see Ryan being willing to endure the fact that I had any contact with the demonic lord.
“I think you know way too much about me,” I complained after we made the turn to head back to the house. “Obviously, I whine about my life too much.”
She chuckled. “Or I’m simply a nosy bitch.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to start doing the nosy bitch routine with you,” I gave her a mock glare. “You keep dropping these little snippets of enticing info.”
“I’m boring,” she insisted.
I rolled my eyes, and tried to resist the urge to actually be a nosy bitch. Jill had once revealed to me that she was a widow, but hadn’t said anything more other than that it had been a short marriage and a long story. I could respect that some memories could be painful, but it shamed me that I knew very little about her in general. What kind of friend was I? Did I spend too much time whining about my own issues?
Yes, I decided glumly. I was overly preoccupied with myself and my own problems.
“Well, are you seeing anyone?” I asked. “Hot dates? Cold dates?”
She shrugged, but there was a small smile on her face. “A date here and there. Nothing much.”
I’d been a detective long enough to know that she was hiding something from me. “Anyone I know?” I pressed.
She kept her eyes on the road and shrugged again. “Um, well it’s a small town, so anything’s possible.” She abruptly veered to the right to take a side street, forcing me to quicken my pace to catch up with her. “Let’s cut through here and run along the lakefront, okay?”
“Sure,” I muttered, fairly sure that the change in direction was an excuse to change the subject as well.
“There’s a five-K race next month,” she said next, confirming my suspicion that she wanted to talk about something else.
Okay, so maybe she’s simply a really private person. Or maybe she thinks I’d be upset if I knew who she’d been dating? The only possible way I’d be upset was if she was dating Ryan, but even though the jealous third grader in me wanted to rear its pigtailed head, I simply couldn’t see the two of them dating. And why would she be encouraging me to make a move on him if that were the case?
Right?
I scowled and slapped my inner third grader down as we finally made the turn to head back to her house. I had enough drama in my life. I didn’t need to fabricate any more.
Chapter 10
I showered and changed into my work clothes at Jill’s house—a far more convenient option than making the thirty-minute drive back to my house to do so, where I would then have to make another thirty-minute drive to get to the station. My cell phone rang as I was toweling off after my shower, but since I recognized Ryan’s ringtone, I finished drying off and getting dressed first. It felt a bit weird to think about talking to him on the phone when I was naked. Yes, I was that stupid.
“I figured you’d have called earlier,” I said after I called him back.
“Don’t you go running in the mornings with Jill now?”
I frowned. Had I told him about that? I couldn’t remember. Not that it was a big secret or anything. “Yeah, my twice weekly dose of ‘let’s hang out with someone who makes me feel like an out-of-shape slob.’”
He laughed. “You’re far from a slob.”
“I notice you didn’t say that I’m far from out of shape,” I pointed out.
“You’re far from a slob,” he repeated.
“Asshole,” I grumbled, but I was smiling.
“Don’t compare yourself to Jill, fer crissakes. She was nearly an Olympian.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you know? She was a hotshot gymnast—expected to nail the trials and go to the Olympics ... um, ten years ago or so. Then she had a bad fall, hit her head, and dropped out of competition.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling oddly hot and cold at the same time. “No, I didn’t know that.” And how do you? I’m supposed to be her best friend, and yet you know these things?
“Find anything in your research?” he asked, pulling me out of my stupid little pity spiral.
My lips twitched. This was his way of asking if I’d found out anything from Rhyzkahl, but I knew he had no intention of mentioning the demonic lord. “Nope. Yesterday was pretty much a bust for getting any sort of useful info.” There. That covered the summoning, without saying it outright.
He muttered a curse. “Which means we’re pretty much at a standstill with this now. Any other cases at work that you can sink your teeth into?”
“Not really. Things are pretty slow right now.” Then I cringed.
There was a pause. “I can’t believe you said that,” Ryan said, voice low and ominous.
I laughed. “Me neither. Holy shit, I just totally jinxed myself.”
“Dork,” he said with a chuckle. “Okay, give me a call later on.”
“I’ll try to squeeze you into my busy schedule,” I promised.
The biggest drawback to starting my shift at ten was a distinct lack of parking places in the detectives’ parking lot. I scowled and circled the small lot twice in the misguided hope that a free space would magically appear, but my arcane powers failed me in spectacular fashion by refusing to vaporize any of the other vehicles in the lot and thus saving me the walk from the side parking lot.
Oh, whoopee. I could summon demons, but I couldn’t get a parking space.
I grudgingly drove around to the side parking lot and walked the extra hundred feet, refusing to feel any sort of shame for being all grudgingly about the walk. I’d gone running that morning. I should be exempt from any sort of additional exertion. Right?
I paused before entering the bureau, my eyes drawn to a blackened patch about fifty feet away, in the detective’s parking lot. That’s where the lightning struck the other day. My fingers prickled, an odd sense of familiarity tugging at me unpleasantly as I started slowly toward the spot. It wasn’t just a storm, the thought whispered through my head. I shifted into othersight as I reached it, even though I had a feeling I already knew what I would see.
I crouched, mouth dry as I looked at the star-shaped scar in the concrete and struggled to understand how my othersight could be showing me what were unmistakably arcane wards.