20. Greg
CHAPTER 20
GREG
I hadn’t intended to interrupt Cal’s evening out with his friends. Hell, I hadn’t even known he was having an evening out with them. It’s not like we were a couple or anything.
But an hour ago I’d texted Craig and Malcolm and suggested we go to Henry’s. I’d needed the company, and even if I couldn’t discuss magic or fog monsters when Malcolm and Foster were present, I could absolutely whine about how I’d fucked things up with Cal.
I’d already told them I’d taken Cal to meet my mother, inferring that the visit concerned Cal’s psychic abilities, which was partially true.
I’d wait until we sat down with some alcohol before going into my romantic woes.
Romance. I’d finally allowed myself to start thinking about Cal in terms of feelings . Falling in love maybe. I could see it happening. I admired him already, and hell knew I was attracted to him.
After stopping by my new house to get some measurements for Ruben, I met up with the guys at Craig and Foster’s place, and Malcolm drove us to Henry’s in his gigantic convertible. This was exactly what I needed. A regular night out, with no talk of magic or Wonders. Just shooting the shit with my friends.
It wasn’t until we were heading up the sidewalk to the restaurant that I realized I was getting closer to Cal.
And there he was. As soon as we walked in, my entire body was drawn to him.
From the doorway I could only see the back of Cal’s head. Felix was sitting opposite him and that must’ve been Steve next to him, kissing his temple.
I couldn’t have stopped myself from walking over there if I’d tried. But I didn’t try. It didn’t even occur to me. Vaguely I registered Foster asking the hostess for a table, and Malcolm, who’d probably seen Felix, was following me.
When I reached their table, Steve had his arm around Cal. I’m not sure if he was trying to make me jealous, but it wasn’t Steve Cal was staring at.
“Hey.” I never said I had a way with words.
“Hey. Um, obviously you know Felix here. Have you met Steve?”
I nodded at Steve. “We met at Malcolm and Felix’s place a few years ago.”
Malcolm leaned over to kiss Felix.
I wished I was here with Cal alone. I wished I was brave enough to tell him I’d missed him in the hours we’d been apart.
But I only said, “Uh, would you be interested in going with me to a friend’s house for dinner Friday night? Nothing fancy, but I need to go for, uh, work.” I darted a glance at Steve’s over-interested face before looking back to Cal, whose expression was blank. All I was getting through our connection was tension. Sweat broke out across my entire back. “Um, and afterwards we could go for dessert or a drink by ourselves. If that’s okay with you?” Fuck, had I lost all of my self-confidence? This was torture.
Cal’s face eased into a small smile. “Sure, Greg. Sounds fun. I’d love to go.”
My whole body relaxed. There was less tension coming through our connection, but I could also feel a tiny bit of amusement. Fuck me.
“Great. I’ll text you the details. Um, good to see you, Felix, Steve. Have a good night.”
I wished I could kiss Cal like Steve had done earlier. At least touch him.
Instead I kept my head high and my steps even as I walked through the restaurant to where Craig and Foster were sitting.
I slid into the booth across from them, scooting over to make room for Malcolm, who was right behind me.
The server materialized with water glasses for all four of us.
Malcolm pointed at me and said, “He’ll have a whiskey sour with two shots of bourbon on the side. I’ll have a Shiner Bock.”
Craig and Foster placed their own orders. As soon as the server left, they looked between me and Malcolm.
“What the hell happened?” Foster asked.
I put my elbows on the table and let my face fall into my hands. “Shoot me now.”
Malcolm patted my shoulder. “You know in the movies when the barely pubescent nerdy kid asks out the super-cool popular girl, and you just cringe inside at how awkward it is?”
Craig hissed between his teeth.
Foster said, “You asked Cal out? Crap, did he say no?”
Without looking up I shook my head.
“No, against all odds, our Greg somehow managed to get Cal to agree to go out with him Friday night. To dinner at somebody else’s house. Greg, is that really where you want to take Cal on your first real date?”
“No,” I whined, shaking my head again.
A new voice said, “Well, I was going to ask who the bourbon shots were for, but I think I can guess.”
I looked up. Our server had been replaced by one of her coworkers, a motherly type with poofy blond hair. She set the shot glasses and my whiskey sour in front of me, then distributed everyone else’s drinks.
“Thank you.”
“Y’all want anything to eat?”
We came here all the time, so I didn’t need to look at the menu. We placed our orders.
Once she was gone, I downed my first shot. “Good call,” I told Malcolm.
He bumped his shoulder into mine. “You poor bastard. You’ve got it bad.”
“Yeah,” I said glumly. I threw back the second shot.
Thursday I went to work for most of the day, but things were quiet so I left a little early to look through the books from TWIST. I doubted I’d find anything, but at least it’d be an excuse to reach out to Cal.
To my surprise, I struck gold with the first book I picked up. I called Aileen to verify my suspicions, then I texted Cal.
Can I call you? I found something in one of the books.
He called me within a minute.
“Hey.”
“Hey, what did you find?”
I had to remind myself that we were trying to save lives, and I couldn’t expect Cal to ask me how my day had been or anything.
“This is the last entry in the diary of a Sorcha Erskine. That’s Aileen’s last name too, so I called her. Sorcha was one of Aileen’s relatives.”
“You mean she was a Wonder?”
“Yes. A brownie. Aileen says Sorcha went back to the Elf dimension. She left the diary behind along with most of her belongings.”
“Okay. So what does the diary say?”
“Right, sorry. This entry is from June 7, 1741.”
“Wow, that’s a long time ago. Got it. Go ahead. 1741.”
I read the entry.
This morn Cameron told me the troll under the bridge down by Dunfermline has disappeared. His dog, a constant companion, was left in his cottage without food or water. Those who were friendly with him say he’d never have done that if he’d left of his own accord. He now be the third of our folk in the area to vanish in as many weeks. Cameron and I are of a mind to return to the saoghal breith at least for a time. I sent a message to Airdsgainne in London, but the post is slow, and there may be naught they can do.
“Wow,” Cal said. “Three Wonders disappearing over three weeks. That’s awfully similar to what’s been happening here.”
“Agreed. There weren’t any District Monitors back then, so if they didn’t have a Seer locally, lots of Wonders could’ve gone missing and no one would’ve ever known what’d happened to them.”
“Shit. These fuckers have been around for a long time.”
“Or their kind has. But if they prey on Wonders, how come the Wonders don’t know what they are?”
Cal sighed. “Probably because you’ve only asked the Wonders in Texas and the surrounding states, Greg. If these guys were in Scotland in the 1700s, they may not have gotten around to targeting the US before now.”
I sucked in a breath. Dammit, Cal was right. We’d been narrowly focused for decades, and we’d mostly stopped communicating with the other magic carriers and Wonders outside our own areas.
“Fuck me. I’ll send you an invite to the Discord server with a list of all the Texas DMs. Some of them have contacts in neighboring states they can share with you. I’ll also ask Dominic if he knows any magic carriers or Wonders outside of Texas.”
“Thanks. I’ll try to keep as much of the scary discussions out of the public forum as I can, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.”