Page 26 of Wicked Bite
“Oh, I look twenty-three and feel like I’m going on two hundred.” I sighed and took it back. It was true. Life hadn’t been easy for Dice and me. We moved around a lot and barely survived a lot of things. Mentally, it aged a person.
Grayson chuckled. “Me, too.”
“You’re twenty-three?” He didn’t look twenty-three to me. He had an aged look around his eyes. Like he’d been around and seen some shit. It was the same look that Dice and I had after living the way we did.
“Going on two hundred.” He glanced at the waiter. “Bourbon, neat.”
When he walked away, we sat in silence for a moment staring at each other. There was a current between the two of us. He wanted me—that much was clear. And I wanted him. At least that was what my broken picker was telling me.
“So, what’s scarier than ghosts?” I leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs. Two could play the coy cool game.
“Witches, warlocks, monsters, demons.” His lips pulled up in a half smile. “Even vampires.”
“And you believe all these things exist?” I folded my hands in my lap, squeezing them tight enough to pinch myself to maintain focus. Don’t look at his lips, don’t look at his lips.
He motioned around him. “This is Salem. The place where magic exists. Don’t you believe?”
It was a city heavy with a dark history, magic, and legend. Did I believe? How could I not? Dice and I chose this place for a reason. It felt like home. It had an energy so strong, on most days it hung in the atmosphere, surrounding me like a blanket of protection.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
The waiter came back with our drinks. He placed little cocktail napkins on the table in front of us then our drinks. We remained silent through the whole process, just simply staring at each other. When the waiter walked away, Grayson grabbed up his glass and swirled it in his hand. Dark liquid clung to the sides of the glass as it ran down back into place. He raised the glass to his lips, never breaking eye contact with me.
“Here’s to impossible things.” He took a sip.
I raised my glass and took a sip as well. I placed the glass back on the table and sucked in a breath. We could dance around words all night long, or we could get to the heart of the matter. “What are you doing here, Grayson?”
“Earning you.”
An involuntary smile spread on my lips. He was so smooth with me. I didn’t know how to react or what to say. “You flatter me.”
“It’s quite easy with one such as yourself.” He rested his glass on the arm of his chair and spread his fingers over the top of it, holding it in place.
I rolled my eyes. “Breaking out the charm on my behalf.”
“Is it working?”
Completely. My picker was starting not to care that it was broken. “Yet to be determined.”
“Good thing I like a challenge.” The firelight danced in his hair and streamed over his body. His button-down shirt was open at the collar, exposing more of that pale creamy skin. Grayson sat with an easy confidence I didn’t feel but could mimic with the best of them. He rested his ankle over his knee.
“And yet you failed your first one.” Oh, the thrill of making a good point in the middle of a conversation. It was like scoring the winning point in a game that could last a lifetime.
He winced. “Indeed, I did. But one loss will only set me up to gain in the end.”
“How do you figure?” I took another sip, and the alcohol warmed me from the inside out.
He leaned forward. “There are many ways to win a war. Our first night was sublime. Our second a loss. Perhaps we are in the even column, which brings me leeway to take the gold cup, so to speak.”
I chucked. “Well, you’d win the gold cup on creativity hands-down. Now, dependability, I think you’d lose. Just so happens I’d take dependable over creative any day of the week.”
“One can’t make such determinations based on such a small sampling.”
He had a point. “And yet all my warning bells are going off about you.”
“Ah, the notorious broken picker?” He smiled over his glass before taking a sip.
“Without fail.”
