Page 14 of Witches and Wine
“You don’t say,” Dion responded—distant and thoughtful.
With only one eye done up, I leaned from the doorway with a narrowed gaze. “Why did you say it like that?”
Dion appeared in deep thought but snapped to attention and plastered a wide smile. “No reason. Just listening.”
Studying him for a minute longer, I acquiesced and dipped back into the bathroom. “Anyway, something compelled me to take him in, so I adopted him, and the rest is history. He’s been my best bud ever since. Well, besides my sister and Harm.”
Dion guffawed. “Preferring non-animals to be superior friends? How barbaric.”
“Shut up,” I replied through a smile, my voice distorted from applying mascara. “So, who are you introducing me to? I have to say, I’m pretty curious.”
“About that, Red,” Dion said, his voice louder and closer from standing in the bathroom doorway, my ferret still curled within his arm.
After sucking in a quick breath and dropping the make-up wand, I turned and held onto the sink behind me for dear life.
“I want to make you a deal.” Dion’s gaze focused on the curlers in my hair, a warm smile edging his lips.
My grip tightened on the marble from his proximity, but gods help me, I loved every moment of it. “A deal?”
“I’m going to introduce you to a single client to start, and if they agree to sign on, we go on that date early and continue tomorrow.” Dion’s eyes pinned mine, a sort of hopeful plea resonating there.
He was certainly up to something, and it only made me more curious.
“This must be a pretty prestigious client. What do they do?” My shoulders relaxed, and instead of pressing into the sink, I rested on it.
Dion’s jaw tightened, and his gaze turned to the ceiling before landing back on me. “He’s arock star.”
A rock star? That could be huge for me—for my career.
“Amythicalone,” he added, enticing a smile from me that could have put the sun’s brightness to shame.
Hermes was goingto have a fucking field day with this one. Not only was he right about Apollo, but I bit back my pride to do it forher. I’m tempted to avoid him at all costs for the foreseeable future, but that often proved difficult with someone who can run at the speed of light. I knew Apollo would jump at the chance to have a PR manager like Chelsea because she wasn’t human—a small factshewasn’t aware of yet and more of the reason to hurry this shit along. More and more hints about what she was kept piling up, and I knew I needed to tell her as soon as possible.
The sooner she knew, the sooner we could navigate it together. At least, I hoped it would happen that way. Chelsea never seemed the type to have freak-outs, but this was entirely new territory for herandme. The way I figured, it’d go one of two ways. One, she’d be shocked at first but soon settle into curiosity and excitement. Two, she’d call me a liar or something,storm off, and move back to the human world ignoring any of her magical abilities.
I wished with every ounce of my unnatural power for the former possibility.
The way her eyes had glistened at the mention of him being a rock star gave me a peculiar tingling sensation in my chest. Her happiness breathed new life into me, and now all I could think about was continually making that expression appear on her. To make her happy had become a new intoxicating, addictive drug.
Forty minutes had gone by, and she was still locked away in the bathroom. A nagging itch at the base of my spine—the feral variety—made me jealous and protective when I thought about her going to all this trouble for my shit-eating half-brother and notme. But that was the beast in me talking. The other, the more laid-back side of me, recognized the stolen glances and smiles she gave me when she thought I wasn’t looking.
Chelsea’s ferret Riley curled up in a ball in the crook of my arm and slept, the tiniest of snores I’d ever heard escaping his throat. She called him a pet, but I had the gut feeling he was far more than that. I busied myself snooping around the apartment while I waited, a dopey grin plastered on my face from how much every square inch broadcast her personality. But other things, like the several unpacked boxes, surprised me. She’d always seemed so well-kept, down to the way she folded her jacket and neatly placed it on the back of her chair before sitting.
She did, however, take the time to hang a singular item on the wall above her desk—a framed ABBA vinyl record. Specifically, a red heart-shaped one with the band posed together in a photo at the center.
“Do you like ABBA?” Chelsea asked, appearing at my side the way I’d met her the first time—a black designer jacket pressed to perfection and a matching skirt, black pumps that were undoubtedly red on the bottom, and an emerald button-up shirt.Her hair fell in pristine waves over her shoulders, and my gaze dropped to her plump, glossed lips.
Smirking, I offered a still-slumbering Riley to her. “Doesn’t everyone? I don’t recognize this album, though.”
Considering the heart shape, I could’ve made an easy guess what song was on the label on the other side, but I wanted her totellme.
After Chelsea secured Riley in his carpeted tower, she sauntered back to the framed album and, despite it not being crooked, adjusted the corners. She rested her hands on her hips and gave a wistful sigh. “It’s a special Valentine’s edition withLay All Your Love on Meon it.”
I caught myself staring at her profile—the way her nose did an elaborate swoosh from the bridge to the tip. Fucking adorable. “Oh, yeah? That your favorite song of theirs?”
“You have no idea,” she breathed out. She snapped her attention to me, and I forced my gaze away from the exposed cleavage, given the three buttons undone. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah. He said he’d meet us atPrancing Pegasus. It’s a diner. That cool with you?” Slipping my phone from my back pocket, I checked my text message to ensure I had the time correct.
