Page 32 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

Collin

To Collin’s surprise, the coven—still hard to believe he used that word in everyday conversation—was still gathered when they showed up at ten thirty on a weeknight.

“Isn’t it a school night?” he asked as they approached the well-lit house.

“Yeah, we’ve tried keeping the kids out of ghostly matters on school nights and it only blows up in our faces later,” Alice said. “Sometimes literally.”

It was still a bit of a shock to see ghosts lounging around in the parlor with Alice’s friends.

Ben and Caroline were tucked into the corner of the sofa, arguing over a very ugly copper candleholder thing on the coffee table.

Edison and Riley were making notes on a large rolling dry-erase board while Natalie “the kitchen ghost” stood nearby, wringing her hands over their penmanship.

Josh was sprawled on a nearby chair, shoveling jelly beans into his mouth.

“Alice!” Mina bounded up from the parlor sofa and threw herself at Alice, dragging her away. “I knew you couldn’t resist the text chain after we added Collin!”

“You added me as bait?” Collin asked, feeling oddly hurt.

He glanced toward Plover the butler ghost, who was looking down his long ghostly nose at Collin after he’d greeted Alice warmly.

Collin was getting definite, “You’re not good enough for my little girl” vibes from him, which was a new experience.

“Not entirely,” Josh told him, even while Caroline tried to move the jelly beans away and nudge a bag of almonds toward him. “You’re in on the secret, so you might as well help. Also, Riley has the best snack pantry in town. These jelly beans are imported.”

“I am not going to be held responsible for him eating that much sugar at this hour,” Caroline told Ben.

“It’s not like it’s going to stunt his growth,” Ben said, gesturing at Josh’s long legs.

“You’re a medical doctor!” Caroline exclaimed.

“Right now, I’m a tired dad who just got off a fifteen-hour shift involving a norovirus outbreak,” Ben told her, taking the jelly beans out of Josh’s reach. He handed him the almonds. “Son, eat some protein.”

“Is there a reason for the meeting?” Alice asked. “Did you find another lock? Did you figure out what the candelabra does?”

The “without me” hung in the air between them, unspoken.

“No,” Riley assured her. “We just haven’t had the chance to get together recently, what with the kids starting school, Edison being shorthanded at the library, and Ben handling the island’s various medical crises. And we wanted you here with us.”

“What do you think the hideous candle thing does?” Collin asked, before seeing Alice nod shakily. She blew out a breath. Her pale cheeks had gone well past pink into red, and her eyes were growing shiny and wet.

Josh sat up, suddenly very serious. “Alice, you OK?”

“You’re going to want to take the kids back home,” Collin told Ben.

Mina rose to take Alice’s hand. “Anything Alice can say to the coven, she can say in front of us.”

Alice blinked rapidly and tears coursed down her cheeks. “It’s about my sex life, Josh.”

“ And I’m out,” Josh said, standing quickly. “Alice, I love you and respect your sexual autonomy, but you’re basically one of my aunts. I don’t want to picture whatever you and Collin have been doing in the bedroom. I’m going to the music room.”

Collin frowned, watching Josh practically hurl himself down the hall.

“The kids went to private school back in Arizona,” Ben told him. “They basically speak like underage college faculty.”

“What about Miss Alice’s sexual life has upset her so?

” Plover asked, crossing to a small table by the door and picking up a silver mail tray.

Alice had mentioned that ghosts could interact with their attachment objects…

which explained why Plover appeared to be brandishing his in a threatening manner.

“It’s not Collin who upset me, Plover,” Alice said loudly. “Put the mail tray down before someone gets hurt.”

Plover, still glaring, carefully put the tray on the coffee table, where it was still in reach. He pointed two ghostly fingers at his eyes and then pointed them at Collin.

Caroline scooched closer to Alice on the couch, rubbing her back. “If it’s not Collin upsetting you, can you tell us what is?”

“Does it have something to do with why you’ve been avoiding us lately?” Riley asked.

Behind her back, Edison made a sort of head-jerking motion to Ben and Collin.

Ben casually rose from the couch and edged toward the atrium room.

Collin shook his head. He had hopes that Caroline and Riley would receive this news gracefully, but he wanted to be close, just in case.

Ben made a more emphatic gesture. Collin shook his head.

Finally, Plover pointed toward the atrium and gave Collin a stern look.

Collin rolled his eyes and crept toward the atrium.

Honestly, it was like dating a high-school principal’s daughter…if the principal also happened to be a ghost.

“It’s really better to let the ladies sort this kind of thing out themselves,” Edison told him quietly. “We’re support staff, not magical. We may love them, but we’re never going to fully understand the bond.”

A waterlogged lady ghost burbled from the fountain in agreement.

Ben agreed. “Josh gets it a little more, but he has some magical sensitivity. I also think that has to do with young people being a little more in touch with their emotions these days.”

“Well, I’m not going to get so far away that Alice thinks I’ve left her,” Collin insisted.

He waited just inside the door to the atrium, so he could still monitor the situation.

Now that he wasn’t in a complete panic and had a moment to take in the details, he could see that Shaddow House…

was a little overdone. Polished hardwood floors, bronze wall sconces, a long ornate red rug that ran from the entryway to the dignified parlor.

The walls were real plaster as opposed to drywall, painted a pale yellow that would have given the space a sunny feel in the daylight.

The real element of “eye confusion” was the amount of bric-a-brac on every surface.

So many colors and media and time periods.

He hadn’t spent enough time with Alice to know what he was looking at, but he knew there was no theme and no continuity.

Of course, when all your objets d’art were haunted, he supposed that matching was less of a concern.

Alice took a deep breath and in a strong, calm voice announced, “I had a sexual relationship with Clark.”

“Oh,” Mina said, grimacing. “Oh, that’s not good.”

Caroline nodded. “OK.”

“Like, recently?” Riley asked. “As in, before I came to the island or after?”

“Before and after, but not for very long after,” Alice said, relaxing slightly.

It redeemed Collin’s faith in Alice’s friends that they hadn’t flown off the handle at her immediately.

He took a step back into what was apparently the designated boyfriend corner.

“But it started way before. It wasn’t so much a relationship as an arrangement . ”

Alice cast a guilty look at Mina, who scoffed. “Am I supposed to clutch my pearls here? My generation invented ‘friends with benefits.’”

“No, you didn’t,” Ben called from the next room. “And please never let me hear that phrase from your lips again.”

Mina shrugged.

“Obviously, at the time, Clark had no idea you and I would end up so close. It’s just an awful coincidence that I happened to end up in your coven,” Alice said.

“Not a huge surprise given the limited dating pool,” Caroline admitted.

“But it’s over?” Riley clarified.

“I spent less and less time with him, after meeting you. As soon as we found the letterhead fragment in the fireplace, I ended it,” Alice told them.

“I wasn’t sure before that, but once I knew, I refused to ‘see’ him again.

I couldn’t put you two in danger, and then the kids got pulled into the coven and I wouldn’t even talk to him. ”

“OK,” Caroline said, taking a deep breath. “I’m not mad. I’ve made some poor sex-based decisions myself over the years. I just need to understand why you didn’t tell us. Did you think we wouldn’t get that you had a prior relationship with someone who just happened to be working against the coven?”

“Because I lied.” Alice’s voice cracked in a way that made Collin’s heart feel like it was cracking in two. He moved to comfort her, but Edison caught his arm and shook his head. “So many times.”

“By omission,” Riley agreed. “And that’s not great.

Don’t get me wrong. It really sucks and I’m not happy about it.

And we’re going to have to talk about that eventually.

But more than anything, we were worried about you, Alice.

We are worried about you. Because Clark is a horrible, horrible person and I don’t like the idea of you being that close to someone who is bad for you. ”

“I was afraid,” Alice said a voice that made Collin want to rush through the door to comfort her.

But he simply hovered, feeling an odd mix of helpless and hopeful.

“I didn’t want to lose the first real friends I’d had…

ever. And then he started asking me to spy on you, give him information.

But I wouldn’t do it. And I was so ashamed of the lying. I’m so sorry about the lying.”

“And you pulled yourself away from us out of some sort of misguided sense of guilt and because somehow, you thought that would hurt us less ,” Mina guessed.

Alice nodded. “That was pretty self-defeating, because it hurt us and it hurt you too. We missed you, we were scared, and it just made everything worse. So really…kind of a fail.”

Collin’s brow rose. He hadn’t spent much time with teenagers recently. Had they always been so in touch with their emotions or was this another recent generational development?

Standing nearby, Ben saw Collin’s confusion and told him, “They’re smarter than me. I tried fighting it. Gave up.”