“I warned you.” He blared the horn and cursed the traffic. “I told you not to mess around with Ace.”
“I didn’t mess around with him.” I flushed under the daemon’s stare. “There was no messing around.”
“Ace is complicated, Rue.” Clay’s breath filled my ear. “So are you.”
“Huh.” I pretended to ponder that. “I would never have put that together if you hadn’t told me.”
A low growl pumped through the eavesdropping daemon’s chest. “Rue mine.”
On that note, this bracelet was gone the instant I got a free hand and a pair of scissors.
“This right here,” Clay informed me, “is what comes from swapping spit muffins with Ace.”
Spit muffins.
“That was wrong on so many levels.” I cringed from the accurate descriptor. “Like, all of them.”
“Dammit, Rue, this is serious.”
“What do you want me to say? I didn’t invite him over. I wasn’t expecting him. I didn’t know you were in town. No one told me.” I noticed the daemon wince and eased my grip on his hair. “Why didn’t he call?”
“If I had to guess,” Clay said with a long-suffering sigh, “I would say he wanted to surprise you.”
Aww.
That was sweet.
Crazy inconvenient, given his daemon side had jumped the gun, but I didn’t hate Asa’s thoughtfulness.
Voices drew my attention toward the front of the shop, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“Oh crap.” I passed the daemon back his hair to free up my other hand. “Hold on, Clay.”
Quickly, I checked my messages, and sure enough, I’d missed a text from Arden naming a time and place for dinner with her, Camber, and Nolan. This must be them come to fetch me. From the shop. Which I had promised to leave twenty minutes after they ended their shifts. Hours ago.
“I have to get that.” I turned on the daemon. “Stay put.” I tapped his nose. “Don’t let anyone see you.”
With one final warning glare at the daemon, I loped to the front of the shop, cracked open the door, and wedged my foot behind it to prevent the girls from pushing inside to fuss at me.
Nolan, his strip of hair twisted into a messy man bun, stood with his hands in his pockets. “Hey.”
The girls, their arms linked, stared me down over his shoulder, clearly unimpressed with my appearance.
“I lost track of the time.” I shoved damp hair off my forehead. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go out like this.”
Their twin glares made it plain I had disappointed them, but I couldn’t leave the daemon unsupervised.
“You’re grounded.” Camber thinned her lips. “No breakfast smoothies for a week.”
“Two weeks,” Arden countered. “She must be held accountable, or she won’t learn from her mistakes.”
The number of people bold enough to threaten me could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But the girls had no fear of me. They trusted me, loved me, and times like this, I felt humbled to be seen. Not as a black witch or a white witch, but as the person I wanted to be when all was said and done.
I wasn’t her, not yet, but I was working toward it with every practiced smile, scripted kind word, and planned show of kindness that one day I hoped would come naturally to me rather than require so much effort and study to make it appear as effortless as the people I had chosen to emulate.
“Maybe some other time?” Nolan scuffed his boot. “When you’re not grounded?”
“Sure.” I hurried to agree to win the girls’ forgiveness. “We can all do lunch one day.”