Page 56 of The Hunting Moon
She has to swallow before she can choke out, “Yes?” Her heart isreallypounding now.
“If I kissed you right now, you wouldn’t like that, right?”
Her breath snags in her lungs. Her eyes bulge to bursting. And against her greatest wish, she summons a ready-made image of her and Jay kissing in the forest, kissing in the old museum stairwell, kissing on a cold rooftop…
“No?” she blurts. Then louder, “No?” Except for some reason, both times she insists this, the words come out like questions. So she tries again: “No? No, I wouldn’t like it if you kissed me?”
She’s only making it worse. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she would also think she’s trying to lie right now—which she isn’t. Because of course she doesn’t want to kiss Jay. At least, not right now. Not like this.
Which is like what?her brain helpfully asks.What would you prefer?
She has no answer for that question—and the answer doesn’t ultimately matter, because Jay takes Winnie at her word. “I guess it’s a good thing then,” he says, “that I have no plans to kiss you.”
“Oh,” Winnie breathes. “Right.” She watches as he twists away to pad toward his bedroom door, no signs of stiffness in his muscles after a night spent on the floor. The door opens. The door closes.
And only then does Winnie move again. She flings herself onto his bed,burrows under the still-warm covers, and wills the magic of a melusine to sparkle once more inside her veins.
The magic obeys.
In fact, it’s as if the brief burst of not-kissed adrenaline somehow spikes the melusine power to greater heights, and by the time Jay drives Winnie to her house thirty minutes later, she has become a font of nonstop talking. She can’t seem to help it. She has fourteen thousand things happening in her brain, and she needs to express them all. Right now. Simultaneously.
It honestly feels amazing. All that awkwardness with Jay might as well have never happened. She has banished it from her brain and will never think of it again!
“Which reminds me,” Winnie says as Jay turns Mathilda onto her street, “where did you get a whole vial of melusine blood? Or was it Grayson’s? Where didheget it?”
Jay, who has not uttered a single word since they got into the Wagoneer, gives Winnie a tired side-eye. His lips part to answer. The blinker tick-tick-ticks…
“Oh!” Winnie cries. “We’re almost to my house!” That means she is almost out of time to get ready. In a burst of speed that makes all her muscles feel alive and elated, she yanks off her seat belt and starts shimmying out of her pants.
Jay hits the brakes. His side-eye has turned into a fully horrified gape. “What is happening right now? Please put your clothes back on.”
“No, no, no. You know you love it.” Winnie shimmies and shakes and shimmies some more until her joggers—now missing half a leg—are down to her ankles and her purple running shorts are on full display. “If it’s cool with you, I’ll just get out here, okay?” She slides the joggers over her feet. Then shoves them onto Jay’s lap. “And you can dispose of these, thank you. Except! Oh wait. Silly me.” She scrabbles to him and rummages around in the joggers, searching for her pocket.Where is it, where is it…
The pants, of course, are still resting atop Jay’s lap, and he is very slowly,very stiffly putting the Wagoneer into park. They are in the middle of the road. He closes his eyes as Winnie continues rummaging. “May I help you with that, Winnie?”
“Nope!” She finally finds the pocket she needs—and more importantly the neoprene cord for her glasses. She yanks it free and dangles it in front of his face. “Got what I came for! We can meet later and figure out what to do next.Boop!” She taps his nose, offering her widest, smiliest grin, before scrabbling back over the seat and out of the Wagoneer.
This time, she actually does shout “Thank you!” behind her before slamming shut the door and kicking into a jog. So much spring in her step! And no pain at all! Do melusine just swim around in a constant state of ecstasy? If so, she wants to become one. Like immediately.
Jay rumbles alongside her for several seconds before finally revving the engine and hurrying on, leaving behind a noxious cloud that would make a forest wyrm proud. Soon Winnie reaches her family’s back door and shoves inside. She has worked up a slight pant.
Mom is at the kitchen counter in her robe and nursing a cup of coffee. Her cheeks bunch up at the sight of Winnie. “Were you out running? I thought you were still in your room.”
“EarlyChrysomya megacephalacatches the corpse!” Winnie declares, pointing a finger toward the ceiling.
“I don’t know what that means.” Steam rises off Mom’s coffee, coiling in front of her face. “But whatever you’re on, I would like some.”
“Melusine blood.” Winnie gives her a big wink. “And I can’t share it.”
Mom laughs, assuming of course that Winnie is joking. And Winnie laughs too because the joke is that it’s not a joke! She is so hilarious!
“I’m going to shower,” she cries before twisting toward the living room.
“Wait.” Mom takes two steps after her. “Darian called a few minutes ago. He says he can’t give you a ride this morning. He’s, uh, really sorry. Um…” Her face screws sideways as if she’s trying to remember what else her son might have said. “He… will try to catch you tonight at clan dinner.” Mom nods. “Yes, that was all of it. Now”—she gestures with her cup toward Winnie—“do you needmeto give you a ride to school?”
“Nope,” Winnie says, relieved to find she isn’t upset at all over Darian’s failure to meet her—or worried about what that might mean in her pursuitof Dad-related clues. Everything will work out just fine! “I will take the bike, Mother, and arrive speedily at my destination.”
“Okay.” Mom frowns. “That… sounds like a good idea,Daughter.Jeez,” she adds under her breath, twisting away to refill her coffee. “I need to get back into running.”
