“ E ric Clapton, Cream , The Doors , Chopin, Shostakovich, Paganini... That’s just the first six!”
I smile and lick my peach swirl ice cream cone as Jared crows over the box of records in their creased jackets with faded corners. “Eclectic collection.”
“Yeah, but I like them all. I wonder who had all these beauties, and in such good condition, too.”
I pass my fingers lightly over the old cardboard box. I get images. Vague. Fuzzy.
“College professor. Music department, here at Antonia College. Big collection. Donated when he died.”
Jared stares at me.
Was that too spooky? “I can’t do it all the time,” I squeak.
“Sometimes not at all. Only if the object had one owner for years, or it was a very personal item. I’m also wrong sometimes.
” It’s true, sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes I miss things, some things I just don’t connect to, like there’s something blocking me from tapping in even if I wanted to.
But there’s no fear on his face. Just awe. When he puts the box down on the roof of the car to retrieve his keys from his pocket, the records tilt forward in the box, and there’s a little sticker on the back of each record’s cover. “Dr. John Rothenstein. Chair of the Department of Music Education.”
“I didn’t read it. I wasn’t playing a prank,” I say quickly, suddenly worried he’ll think that I’m somehow... fake.
Brains are so stupid. First, I worried about him thinking I was really supernatural, and now I’m afraid he’ll think I’m not.
“No, honey, I know. That’s cool. But it must be annoying. Does it happen with everything you pick up?”
I shake my head. “I have to try. I usually don’t. It would be too much to search for the history of every item I encounter, but I often get little glimpses of things that have sentimental value, you know?”
“Amazing. You’re like a supernatural historian. Anthropologist, even.” Jared puts the records in the car along with everything else we’ve acquired that afternoon from the four stops we’ve made. They’ve all been fun—one more fun than the others.
“It’s getting dark.” I look up at the sky over Antonia. It’s darkening, with the first stars in the east and sunset in the west.
“Are you chilly?” Jared snuggles up behind me, and I’m instantly lost in a blanket of his warmth.
“Not now. But I think I’m ready to head home. Do you... Do you want to come over for a late-night snack?”
“I’d love to! I could get to know Marmalade better, too.”
“That’s right. And um... you could run next door and get your things if you wanted to spend the night,” I add, fingers shyly tracing around his watch.
“I’d love to.”
When we’re driving back, he tells me, “I’m not in this just because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and you’re way out of my league, and the sex is amazing.
Those are... I mean, those are good reasons.
Amazing reasons! But I just...” He swallows.
“I feel happy with you. Safe with you. I know that sounds weird when someone looks like they could knock a door down just by walking into it, but when you grow up being the heaviest, smartest kid in your class, there’s always someone who thinks they have to say something to make you smaller—physically or mentally.
I never feel like you’re going to do that.
From the second I heard your song in my head, I knew that.
So, um. I was going somewhere with this,” Jared hums to himself, jaw tight as he drives us along windy roads.
“You never have to think that I ‘expect’ us to sleep together. Or that I expect us to spend the night together until we’re married.
I mean, if!” He grunts, shaking his head as if he’s so irritated with himself.
“This is a lot, right? Me clinging to you like moss on a tree all the time?”
Firstly, I’m moved by what a sweet man he is, to reassure me like that, and to also open up about why he feels like he feels.
Secondly, he’s wrong. “I like this. I know my first impression wouldn’t have convinced anyone of that, but.
.. Look, in the magical community, you grow up with things like fated mates, destined lovers, soul bonds, and yes, betrothal songs.
I’m almost the last one of my friend group to find that.
I’ve been alone in this country for twelve years, and well—no.
I don’t think it’s too much. I can’t wait to go home with you and listen to your records, and to have you come over.
” I put my hand on his thigh and reach across it, delving down.
“I definitely want you to spend the night.”
Jared gulps, then gasps as my hand tightens on the semi-hard bulge forming. “I’m driving.”
“I’m just warming up.”
WE’RE IN PINE RIDGE when I feel it in my stomach. My stomach is grumbling again, even though we stopped and ate a late dinner at a cute pub in Binghamton, but this isn’t a hungry pain. It’s a premonition pain.
My pulse spikes. My hands sweat. Jared’s singing along to something on the radio, and his pleasant voice easily spans the range between tenor and baritone, but it’s suddenly white noise to me.
Something is wrong. Something is bad.
I feel the banshee’s deathly howl welling up in my chest, and I’m relieved when we reach the stop sign on Pine Crest Avenue. “I have to get out,” I screech.
“Huh? Chloe?”
I bolt out of the car and run toward my apartment, hands over my mouth like I can hold in vomit.
I’m running blindly when I smack into something—a white Prius trying to free itself from where it’s jammed nose-first into the alley.
“What the fuck are you thinking, bitch?” the driver leans out of the window and shouts.
The bad feeling in my gut resolves in a way I’ve never felt before. When I look at the car and hear the voice, I just see pain. Agonizing heartbreak. It’s not death or misfortune for her, it’s like... she causes it.
“This isn’t a throughway. This is an alley for residential use,” I gasp, rubbing my hip and glad the lady was only going five miles an hour in a fairly small car.
“I don’t care, I’m reversing in the dark with my lights on! Pedestrians don’t have the right-of-way when cars are reversing! It’s in the New York penal code! Look it up!”
I don’t think it is. I also don’t think it’s worth arguing about. As I try to walk around her, I notice that she’s got one of my recycling bins jammed under her car, and she’s dragging it down the alley with its lid under her front tire. “Go slowly. You’ve got my bin there.” I point.
“You obstructed the alley and ruined the right of way for a private vehicle! That’s a misdemeanor. If my car even has a scratch on it, you’re looking at a hefty fine—maybe jail time! It’s in the New York penal code!”
“Lady, are you out of your mind?” I finally burst.
She glares and swings the car door open directly into the red brick of Mad Hatter Music.
If she tells me that putting a building this close to the alley is a violation of the bloody New York penal code, I will consider performing an entire aria, enough to leave her limp as a dishrag for weeks.
Jared’s car eases to a stop along the street even though there’s parking behind the buildings. “Chloe, are you okay?” he demands, jumping from the car.
“I’m fine, I just—”
“Jared. There you are. Don’t you ever answer your phone?”
My head whips around between the woman in the white car and Jared. His face is ashen, and the spike in my gut is back, a beacon for all of my betrothed’s pain.
“Patsy.” Jared nods jerkily, confirming what I’d already realized.
Patsy wears a chic black dress, too much eyeliner, and has her hair done in deep, vibrant red curls. But the face is hard, and the lips always sneer. I don’t know why she married a soft, lovable man like Jared—I’d be tempted to fix her up with a block of concrete.
“I called you for hours. Thought you might have kicked the bucket. I should be so lucky,” she laughs, her voice as snide as her smirk.
“Witch,” I whisper. Sorry Farrah. Madge. Tessa. I know I just offended everyone in the Pine Ridge Coven, but I hope none of them heard it. This woman makes me think of heartlessness and evil, just in the way she talks and moves, like a poisonous spider spotting a tasty fly.
“Shut up, lady. You’ll get your trashcan back as soon as my dumbass ex signs the papers I’ve tried to fax him three times !”
Jared steps up, and I run to him, putting my arms around him possessively, sighing inside when I feel his arm wrap across my shoulders.
“You tried to fax me three times? To what number?”
“The one you’ve always had!”
“Patsy. That’s the fax machine in the printer, right?”
“Right!”
“The one you kept? The one I said I should have because I actually might use it for looking at field data and reports from remote places, but you said you had to keep it because your uncle gave it to us as a wedding present? That one?” His voice grows stronger the tighter I cling.
Caught in her stupidity, Patsy swallows, then takes in the sight in front of her. “Who’s this?”
“My—”
“I’m Chloe. Jared’s fianceé.”
Her knees actually buckle in shock. Her mouth hangs open like a rusty gate, and the sounds she’s making match, a scratchy squeal of disbelief that comes from the back of her throat.
It’s delicious, and the stab of pain in my middle unspools, some of it dissolving. I paw Jared’s chest, lying my head on his side and not breaking my gaze.
“What the fuck? Are you serious?” Patsy finds her voice, but it’s filled with ugly laughter. “Well! Oh, honey... He doesn’t have any money. Not anymore. Not with my alimony, and the money he sank in that house.”
“I have my own money, thanks. I want him for his heart. For what’s inside,” I say in a warning tone, little bits of my magic escaping in my rage.
“Chloe, careful,” Jared whispers. “Not worth anyone getting hurt and uh... Any follow-up that might cause.”