Chapter 10
10
A s soon as I step into Devlin’s home and the reality of this situation sinks in, I have one thought— I am going to kill my grandmother.
Even though she swears that she had nothing to do with this whole Freaky Friday situation, I don’t believe her. The woman had her face pressed up to the glass and was staring at us, for goodness’ sake.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he says as I walk into his house, my bag slung over my shoulder like I’m a hobo about to jump on the next freight train straight out of town.
Boy, that is tempting.
Devlin’s home is clean, and it smells like cotton sheets and Febreze. Like, it smells really good. And there are little knickknacks sitting on shelves. No, not knickknacks, I realize on closer inspection.
“This is the pocket cauldron.”
He steps back into the living room. His tie’s now completely undone, and he’s unbuttoned his collar by one, no, two buttons. He looks sex-rumpled. Like he jumped out of bed and straight into an underwear commercial.
It’s unnaturally sexy.
So I look away.
But now he’s standing right next to me, and his scent is filling my nose. It’s all over this place. I can’t escape it.
He picks up the miniature cauldron and turns it over before handing it to me, which I suppose that I’ll just have to take since he’s offering.
It’s the tiniest little bowl and honestly looks like a kid’s toy except that when you push a button, it explodes into something much, much bigger.
“The invention that changed my life,” he murmurs.
“Not just yours. Every witch and wizards, too. You no longer had to stow a life-size cauldron in a bottomless bag. Those can get so heavy.”
“I know. That’s why I invented this. It’s great for whipping up a potion anywhere, anytime,” he adds, a spark in his eyes.
There’s something about the way that he mentions the potion making that makes my heart pulse. The pocket cauldron came out soon after we graduated from high school, and I remember that I always complained to him about having to drag a big cauldron with me to competitions.
Then he created this.
There can’t be a connection. No, I refuse to believe it.
“Do you have one?” he asks.
“Of these?” I try to give it back to him, but his hands are now in his pockets and he’s leaning against the wall. “No. I never needed one, at least not after high school. No more potion making for me, remember?”
He frowns. “That’s a shame. You always liked potions. I wasn’t lying when I said what I did back at your house. I do need your help. I could use you ”—he blinks, shakes his head—“I mean, your help, on my project.”
It doesn’t take a brainiac to know what Devlin was going to say. Obviously the implication that he would use me had a sexual connotation. Duh. This is Devlin we’re talking about.
Thanks to his little slip of the tongue, a million very naughty images are flicking unsolicited in my head. My cheeks burn. So that he doesn’t notice, I look down.
“You press a button to get this to open, right?”
“That’s right,” he says quickly. “It’s on the side.”
He points and I wave his hand off. “I can find it. I have eyes.”
“You do? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Very funny.”
I press the button, and the cauldron immediately jumps to life, opening in a series of clicks and whirls, growing quickly, so quickly that I barely have time to put the thing on the floor before it explodes into a full-sized potion-making machine.
I laugh in spite of myself, because before me sits a huge cast-iron bowl just ripe for spell creation.
“That is very coo—argh!”
I jump back because out from behind the wall appears a set of disembodied hands. Hands clad in white gloves and nothing else. Not that they could have anything else on, as they are, um, hands .
Devlin slides in front of me, a frantic look on his face. He pats the air and says calmly, “Blair, I know what this looks like.”
“Yeah, it looks like you murdered someone, stole their hands and enslaved them to do your bidding.”
“That’s not what this is. Hands, meet Blair Thornrose. Blair, this is Hands. Hands lives with me, and yes, he does help with my inventions.”
The hands creep along the floor slowly, moving like Lefty, the Hamburger Helper mascot. Only Lefty had a face. These hands do not, which I’m thankful for. I don’t think that I could take one more surprise today—first Nana, then the magic swap, and now Hands. Hands . Like, I just can’t even with this day anymore.
The hands, both of them, bow over like they’re greeting me. As much as I can’t stand Devlin, I don’t actually have a bone against the hands, or Hands , I suppose, so I say, “How do you do? Oh, sorry. You can’t answer, unless there’s a speaker in one of your fingers.”
Hands shakes.
“No, no speaker, I guess. Sorry, of course not.” Wow. This is just getting worse and worse. Time for me to shut up. “Well, nice to meet you, Hands.”
He moves a few of his fingers, and Devlin says, “He said that it’s nice to meet you as well.”
My jaw drops. “You can understand it?”
Devlin nods to me. “Yes, and unlike another famous appendage, Hands is a him , so that you know his pronouns.”
“Okay, got it.”
Devlin rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well, I suppose that I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
“Yeah.” The sooner I put this day behind me, the better. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and find that this was all a dream.
I follow Devlin through the house. The cotton scent changes into citrus and vanilla, very homey, very welcoming. And it’s neat. Everything is tidy and in its place. I’d forgotten how organized Devlin is. I wonder if the women he beds appreciate a man who likes order? I doubt they’re ever around long enough to think about it. I also doubt they have the brain cells to consider it.
I once overheard a date that he brought to a dance commenting on how the ballroom smelled like flowers, but she couldn’t figure out why.
The why was that the room was filled with bouquets—they were literally sprinkled on every table. The woman was standing right next to one, and she still couldn’t figure it out.
Okay, maybe I’m being too harsh. Perhaps she was blind in one eye. Or both.
But anyway, I follow Devlin up the glossy wooden stairs to a second-floor bedroom. It’s painted a light blue and looks lived in—what with books on the nightstand and a clothes hamper in a corner.
My gaze locks on Devlin’s, and it hits me where he’s brought me.
This is his room. No way. No how. No no no. See? This is all a ploy to get me into bed.
“I’m not staying in your room,” I snap. “There’s no telling what kind of stains a forensics black light would find on your sheets.”
I spin on my heel and walk right on out.
I head down the hall, all the way to the end, and push open the door. What do you know, but it’s another bedroom. This giant mansion is probably full of them. I bet if I started walking, I’d begin tripping over bedrooms without any problem at all.
I throw my bag on the mattress as Devlin enters, eyes narrowed, scowling. “You’re not sleeping in here.”
“I’m not sleeping in your love chamber. I don’t even want to think what’s on those sheets.”
His jaw ticks. “They were just changed this morning.”
“By whom?”
“Me.”
I cock my head and stare at him. “You do things like change your own sheets.”
He sighs. “Yes, and before you ask why I changed them, what foreign substance was on them, there wasn’t anything. I haven’t had anyone over in months.”
“Oh, deciding your reputation has gotten the best of you? Wanting to fool us all into thinking that you might pivot in your ways and instead of bedding two women at a time, you’re going to bed three now?”
He slowly curls his hands into fists. “Not that it’s any of your business, but there are things that are more important to me than getting laid.”
I bark a laugh. “No way. Impossible.”
Devlin exhales a long, low breath. “Have you ever considered that maybe I don’t sleep with those women? The ones I take out?”
“Nope. Not for a moment. They look at you with too much lovey-dovey stuff in their eyes.” I wave my hand around for emphasis on the lovey-dovey . “Even if you’re not sleeping with them, they’re expecting it.”
He leans against the doorframe of my room. My room. That’s right. I’m not budging. And to prove my point, I start fluffing the bed pillows, showing that I’ve already claimed my territory. I feel like a lioness.
Or a puppy begging for scraps. Yeah, more like the puppy. Will not let Devlin know.
“I don’t sleep with them.”
I bark a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“Do you really think I sleep with two women at a time?”
Is that a trick question? “Isn’t that every man’s fantasy?”
He crosses one ankle over the other, looking way too comfortable in my room. “Maybe. But not mine. I don’t want those women. There’s only ever been one woman I really wanted.”
His gaze is laser focused on me. The air in the room thickens, crackles with energy, and the edges of my vision blacken as everything else slips away except for Devlin.
It’s just him and me right now, and I don’t particularly like his tone.
“What are you talking about?” I say in a sorry attempt to diffuse the air.
“I’ve just told you. There’s only ever been one woman for me.”
Oh gods. The way he’s saying it makes me think that he means…nope. Not me. There’s no way.
But good grief, why is his voice so rumbly, and the light’s hitting his back just right, showing off his wide shoulders, and why is my mouth dry?
Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!
Right. Devlin dumped me. He cheated on me. If he’d loved me, he wouldn’t have done that.
I click my tongue. “Well, that’s nice.”
It’s a terrible comeback, but it’s all I’ve got.
But Devlin does not seem deterred. My lioness prowess must not be working. Perhaps ignoring him will work. So I open the bag and start pulling out clothes.
There’s really not much to put away—some panties, jeans, a couple of sweaters. But I make it look very interesting, as if it has all my attention.
And yet Devlin steps into the room, completely oblivious to how busy I clearly am. “I need you to sleep in my bedroom.”
“No. Way. In. Hell.”
I look up from the bag, and he’s got his arms crossed, a beautiful scowl on his face. Nope, not beautiful. Dangerous. No! Dangerous suggests he’s hot. It’s not dangerous, either. It’s just a scowl, a really small twitch of his lips and hardening of his sculpted jaw that makes him look ALL THE THINGS ALL AT ONCE ALL THE TIME.
He sighs and sits on my bed. I glare at him, and he then lays back and puts his arms behind his head.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting comfortable. If this is where you’re going to sleep, it’s where I’m sleeping, too.”
I’ve got to get him out of here. “I fart. A lot. At night. It smells very bad. You won’t want to be in here.”
Now he looks amused. It makes him look even prettier. It’s just sickening that from every angle he looks gorgeous. Why am I cursed with having to spend time with him?
Oh, right. Thanks, Nana. You’re in deep shit next time I see you.
“I’ll create a force field so that the smell stays on your side.”
“Argh! Will you just get out of here? I’m sleeping under your roof; isn’t that enough? There’s no telling what I’ll be subject to see, much less hear, in the next couple of days, or however long it takes for this to go away. Can’t you just give me this one thing?”
“No.”
I want to pull every single hair out of my head one at a time. This is already torture. Why is he making this so much worse?
“Blair—”
It’s so sexy when my name rumbles from his mouth. Stop it, Blair!
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have to.”
“I doubt that.”
“I wouldn’t. You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you to have to be here, but what I’m attempting to build is important, and to make sure that I have the vision, we have to be together twenty-four seven.”
“Why?” I ask while folding a T-shirt into a piece of origami. It just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
“By us spending all our time together, that will make sure that I’m the subject of your vision.”
“It’s all about you, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not at all me.” He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Forget it. If you want our powers to be switched for the rest of our lives, go for it. But I can promise that you won’t like mine very much.”
Oh, the bitterness is palpable from this one. So much so that I put my T-shirt giraffe down and say, “Why not?”
He closes his eyes. “I could have saved my parents if I’d known about my power.”
My heart instantly drops. In that moment I forget all about my Asian artwork and the fact that I hate Devlin. I quietly sit on the edge of the bed. “What?”
He pauses for a long moment, and I wonder if he’s going to shut down the conversation. And surprisingly, I find myself not wanting him to stop talking. I want to hear this, know this. The great Devlin Ross can feel pain? Hurt? Regret? He has a human heart?
It takes a long moment before he starts talking, and when he does, I’m holding my breath. “It was the first time that my power ever came in.” His eyes remain closed, and he’s so still that I don’t want to move and disturb him. “They were going on a trip across country. My father wasn’t a wizard, so they often used human means of travel, so this wasn’t strange. But what was strange was that the night before they left, I had a vision of them boarding the plane and of it exploding after takeoff. I was only five, and I didn’t know what to make of it, so I didn’t tell anyone. I just thought it was a dream.
“My grandmother and I took them to the airport and said goodbye. Then we went to the observation deck to watch the plane leave.” He opens his eyes and lifts his arm like his hand is riding an air current. “The plane lifted into the air, and right before our eyes, it exploded, just like in my vision. I could have told them, Blair. I could have stopped it.”
During the speech I obviously suffered some sort of brain damage because I’m now stretched out across the bed, facing him, feeling my heart breaking for him. I know, I know. The brain damage is worse than originally thought.
I lick my lips. “I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because I’ve never told anyone. Well, Hands knows.”
“But it’s not like Hands is going to spill the tea.”
He turns his head to me. Our gazes latch and we each laugh. Why am I laughing with him?
I don’t know, but it feels good.
When the laughter dies down, we glance at one another again, and the air between us has changed. It’s no longer crackling with anger. It’s simmering with something else.
He speaks first, quietly, as if talking too loud will shatter whatever this is between us. “I was going to tell you when we were in high school, but the time was never right.”
“It’s okay,” I murmur. “I understand why you didn’t.”
He just nods, still keeping those hazel eyes on me. I don’t think there’s any air in my lungs anymore, but strangely they keep right on working.
“I wanted to,” he confesses. “But then…the time just wasn’t right, and I blamed myself for what happened to them.”
Without thinking, I grab his hand and squeeze. His fingers are warm, and they squeeze back.
And now I’m stuck holding his hand. How am I going to get out of this?
Best to pivot. “You were only a child when it happened, and it was the first time that your power ever showed itself. You didn’t know what was going on.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He’s still holding on to my hand.
His fingers send pulses of heat wrapping around my forearm and tightening on my elbow. I can barely think. We’re facing each other. We’re touching. We’re talking about something intimate.
And then he shifts toward me, still holding my hand. And I shift toward him. Involuntarily, obviously, because the bed dipped when he moved.
And we’re still touching.
“I gave myself a lot of grief for that. A lot of blame.”
“But you were just a child.”
He nods. “I know that now, but I didn’t then.”
It hits me why he’s telling me this. “And the vision that you want me to see, it’s important?”
His eyes brighten. They’re already bright, like gold and emerald stars, but now they’re shining. “This is the most important thing I’ve ever made, and as long as I can keep it under wraps and no one gets wind of it, it will change the world.”
“More than the pocket cauldron?”
He smiles. “More than that. A lot more.”
We’re both quiet for a moment until I say, “That’s why you need me.”
“That’s why I need you,” he murmurs.
Our glances catch again, and he’s studying me openly, his smug smirk gone, and emotion flits through his eyes. Too much emotion.
It’s the kind of emotion that happens before two people kiss, before they start telling each other that they’ve always loved one another and that they never stopped pining for each other and oh, why did they ever break up in the first place?
My heart, which had been soaring, crash lands back on planet Earth.
Devlin cheated on me, and then his rumor ruined me. It also ruined me for love. I don’t want love. I don’t need love. I just need someone to marry—and it’s not Devlin Ross.
Keep telling yourself that, Blair. Stay strong.
I clear my throat and pull my hand away. “And you think that by me sleeping in a different bedroom, we won’t be in each other’s orbit well enough.”
“I think the vision will come faster if we’re in the same room, yes.”
Why am I doing this, again? I exhale a resigned sigh. “Fine. You can sleep in here. On the floor.”
He smirks. “My bed is bigger.”
“On. The. Floor.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” he jokes. Then he jumps up. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he’s gone, I pull off my dress, jump into jammies, brush my teeth and get under the covers.
A couple of minutes later Devlin knocks.
“Come in.”
He enters in low-slung cotton jammy pants, the lined muscles of his hips openly being flaunted and so sexy that I look away. “I’m making a palette,” he tells me.
“Have fun.”
He makes said palette at the foot of the bed and sighs before he slinks under the covers. I assume that’s what he’s doing. I don’t look. Not interested.
After he settles in, I expect him to say good night, but instead he says, “Tell me about the first time you got your power.”
I turn onto my side and slide a hand under the pillow. “Oh, are we sharing tonight?”
“ I told you .”
“So it’s only fair?”
“I like to live life fairly and dangerously.”
We laugh, and when it stops, I say, “Since it’s only fair.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he remarks flirtatiously, which I ignore.
I clear my throat because all good stories begin with a solid throat clearing. “It all began a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”
From the foot of the bed, a pillow is launched at me and hits my hip. “I’m being serious.”
I toss it back to him. “Fine. Okay.” I sigh. “The first time my power came in, I was a teenager. I was thirteen with acne, braces and glasses.”
“You wear glasses?”
“Used to. Magic fixed that problem. But I still had to go through braces and zits.”
“I’m sure you were beautiful just the same.”
Being called beautiful makes my heart jump, even if it does come from my nemesis. “Anyway, Chatty Cathy was a terror even when we were thirteen. For some reason that year she decided that I would be the target for her evil. So every chance she got, she taunted me, telling me that I’d wake up with braces growing into my gums, or that I’d have a zit on my face so big that when I popped it, my face would explode.”
“Jesus.”
“Yep, you know, just the usual kid bullying. But when magic’s involved, bullying takes on a whole new meaning.”
Over the years I’ve tried not to think about how awful Cathy was back then, and for the most part it’s been easy to put out of my mind.
“Until one day,” Devlin says in his velvet voice, “you had enough.”
I bark a laugh because it’s true. “One day I did have enough. The words she said to me were so filthy that I thought she should put something filthy back into her mouth to make it even. We were outside the school. I was walking home, and she was just going on and on about how stupid I was, all of it. I saw a pile of dirt and just thought how much I wanted her to eat it. Next thing I knew, something took over my body, a force that I’d never experienced, and she had stopped talking. I looked at her, and Cathy was kneeling on the ground, digging into the earth. She shoveled a handful into her mouth like it was nothing. Some kids were horrified. Some laughed at her. I was scared because I felt that desire inside of me. It terrified me so much that the spell broke and my power fell away. Cathy was humiliated and ran home, crying.
“She later realized that she’d been influenced by magic and put two and two together, that it had been me who made her eat dirt. After that, she eased up for a while, but she’s never truly left me alone. Even still, I made a promise to myself never to use my power to harm ever again.”
Slow clapping comes from the foot of the bed. Devlin laughs. “Bravo, Blair! There are only a few people I can think of who are more deserving.”
“Like whom?”
“Nobody in particular,” he says pensively.
I sit up. “Nope. No way. You can’t just say something like that and not tell me.”
I peer over the bed to see him lying on his back, his hands tucked under his head. His gaze darts up to me and he smiles. “There are some things that should be left to mystery.”
I drop a pillow on him. He catches it with one hand and tosses it back onto the bed. “If you want a pillow fight, I’ll give you a pillow fight.”
My body lights up from the inside. Pillow fights lead to arms and legs getting tangled. Tangled limbs lead to kissing. Kissing leads to other things.
“Nope, that’s okay,” I chirp.
I fall back down on the bed and for a moment feel guilt that I’m making Devlin sleep on the floor. Not that much guilt, but a bit.
“Blair?” he says, sounding tired.
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you made Cathy eat dirt.”
I laugh. “I’m glad that you shared your story with me, too.”
“You’re welcome.” He sighs. “Good night.”
I flip off the lamp. “Good night.”
I thought that I wouldn’t sleep a wink with him in the room, but when I wake up the next morning, I’ve slept like a baby.
The water’s on in the bathroom, which means Devlin must’ve gotten up and decided to use my bathroom. Pretty sure we need some ground rules here about who gets to use whose toilet.
The water turns off; the door opens. I open my mouth to say good morning, but then Devlin walks out, completely naked, his pecs popping, his abs looking like a stone wall, his cock looking all…glorious.
I clamp my eyes shut and yell, “What are you doing? Why are you naked?”
There is literally not one smidgen of regret in his voice as he replies, “I always sleep naked.”
“Why are you sleeping naked now? While I’m here?”
“It helps me solve problems when I sleep.”
“What kind of problems—never mind. I don’t want to know. Can you…just put on clothes?”
“I don’t know… can I? ” he says, making a completely inappropriate grammar joke.
“I’m going to kill you. This is not the time for an English lesson. Just do it!”
“As you wish.” A moment later he says, “There, you can look.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise,” he murmurs.
I open my eyes, and he’s standing in his pants. He rubs his hands together and winks. “Hurry up and get ready. Hands will have breakfast for us, and after that, you’ve got some wooing to do.”