Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Would you just give him the box, Quincey, love?” my grandfather said, giving me an all too knowing look that simply said, ‘You have nothing to prove.’
“Grandpa!” I rolled my eyes as I continued to manoeuvre the box–the one far too large for me to carry–toward the moving van. “It is the twenty-first century. I don’t need anyone to carry my boxes for me.”
“Of course you don’t, pet. But he has more muscles than any sane person should be allowed to have.
He might as well put them to good use.” Thallor’s laugh reverberated through the space at my grandfather’s words.
I just rolled my eyes and then rolled them again.
But me being hidden behind the large box of kitchen utensils meant the desired impact was met with unseeing eyes.
Despite my protests, Thallor had already taken the box from me.
I felt my balance return with a vigour as the trembling in my knees ceased.
Thallor just grinned at me, the warm smile cutting across his face as he cocked his head to the side.
How is it possible to be this attractive and this infuriating?
“He’s right, you know. What else are these muscles for?”
Kissing, Touching. Pinning me against a wall.
As if led astray by my own salacious thoughts, a burning heat ignited within my body.
Thallor’s eyes darkened immediately as he caught the flicker of desire crossing my mind.
In fact, knowing him, he probably knew exactly what I was thinking. It was as maddening as it was enticing.
Thallor knew the effect he had on me. And I knew the effect I had on him.
And that was how we'd spent much of the last week, tangled up in each other’s arms, now that I didn't have any university lectures or work to distract me.
We had barely been able to tear away from each other; it had been wonderful and euphoric, but I was paying the price for it now.
My body was sore in places I didn't know it was possible to feel sore, and the first signs of delirium from lack of sleep were starting to settle in.
It felt bittersweet to be leaving the place I'd come to love.
Although I had lived here for most of the time I'd attended Aldercrest University, it had never really felt like home until this last year.
Originally, it had been the clanging pipes and the lack of hot water that made me hate the place.
I'd tried to make up for it with an endless array of plants as well as wall paintings designed to block out the hideous grey walls beneath.
But something about my apartment had always been missing.
I just didn't know that something was, in fact, someone.
Someone with fiery red hair, freckles, and a penchant for stealing hearts. Because that was exactly what Thallor had done. And so, I had come to love this apartment, not for the things in it but for the memories that it held.
But I was ready to leave. My grandfather had put on a strong front, but I knew my grandmother's passing was eating away at him. He was stoic and proud, the best grandfather a person could ask for, but he was still human. And even he struggled on the bad days. We’d taken Mortimer over a few days prior, with a litter box and a box filled with toys.
He now wore an adorable leopard print collar with a little silver tag hanging from the neck.
Although he seldom ever looked at me with anything other than a disgruntled look on his face, I knew that cat was as happy as I was to make our relationship official.
My grandfather, although a little reluctant at first, had offered Thallor and me the largest guest room on the ground floor of the house.
He might have been old-fashioned, protective, and not overly thrilled about Thallor and me living under one roof.
But I think he could see from the way Thallor and I looked at each other that our relationship was serious–was one that meant a great deal to us both–so he’d acquiesced quickly in favour of having permanent company.
Especially in the form of a little black cat, he could spoil.
Thallor had done wonders to get in my grandfather’s good graces by offering to take up the upkeep of Maura’s garden.
Although my grandpa had been a little sceptical at first, flashing one too many ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ glances in Thallor’s direction, the idea of keeping my grandmother’s garden alive had been just enough to win him over.
“How the fuck did you fit so much stuff into one tiny apartment?” Esme groaned as she loaded yet another cardboard box into the removal truck we’d hired for the day.
Her deep sigh bounced off the walls of the vehicle, which did little to protect me from her clear annoyance.
“And why do you have like seven different jars of jam in this box?”
There was simply no explaining the jam. I fought the smile tugging at the corner of my lips. “It’s just stuff I’ve collected over the years. I could get better at throwing things out, though.”
“Too fucking right,” Esme drawled as she hopped down from the truck to grab another box from the pavement. “This feels like an episode of Hoarders.”
“All this bending over is doing a number on my back.” My grandfather mused as he ambled over to the truck with a large lamp, the wires trailing behind it. “It’s not just me, is it?” he said, smiling up at my best friend as he handed her the lamp.
“Mr Sterling, are you sure this is all going to fit in your house?” she asked in mock outrage, placing her hands on her hips as she surveyed the mountain of boxes that lined the van walls, as well as the ones that still obstructed the pavement at the bottom of my building stairs.
In the war of ‘who had the most stuff?’ Esme would win every time.
Where I had grown attached to my absurd collection of oddities, Esme matched my belongings tenfold with dresses, shoes, and a flurry of timeless handbags.
I’d told her a million times, but the girl was this decade’s Cher Horowitz, with twice the beauty and four times the brains.
“Just remember how much you complained when we had to move your wardrobe of shoes,” I rolled my eyes at her.
A smile tore across her face. “What’s that age-old adage? ‘Good shoes take you to good places.’” Not with the heels she had a penchant for collecting. More like they take you to the ER with a broken ankle and a foot covered in blisters.
“Any nice plans for the summer?” my grandfather called out as he picked up another box. I loved the man—I really did—but he moved with the grace of an overstarched pair of jeans as I moved to take the box from him.
“You know that road trip that we always talked about?” Esme started.
It was a trip that Esme, Isaac and I had planned for years.
We wanted to drive down to California, stopping off to see the best tourist attractions along the way.
From Wailing Springs, West Virginia, to The Lost World Caverns in Missouri, to The World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Kansas, there was an endless list of ridiculous attractions that we had all been desperate to see.
“Well, I figured I’d just go by myself.”
“I’m going to visit all the places we added to the list when we were like sixteen, and I’m taking a page right out of Quincey’s book and trying to find some creepier places to visit, too.
Like the Toriithan Forest in Oregon…Oh, and there’s this UFO Watchtower in Colorado, I’d like to see too.
I think I’ll do that instead of…” Instead of the lakehouse. Isaac’s parents’ lakehouse.
I could hear everything she wasn't saying behind her cheerful tone and well-rehearsed monologue.
I don't think she was trying to convince me but more herself, that she could still have a good time on the trip we planned with Isaac so many years before.
This thing, this road trip was meant to be ours, one last final hurrah before we entered adulthood.
It was clear she didn't want to address the oversized elephant in the van, so I chose not to notice everything that she didn't say.
“I am trying to convince Quincey and Red, here, to come along for at least a bit of the trip. I'm counting on you to convince them, Mr. Sterling.”
I let my fingers trace along the embossed lettering on the front cover of the leather-bound book.
The Malediction Codex.
For Everyday Curses and Hexes.
Use at your own risk.
At your own risk, indeed. I stood looking down at the book that had turned my life upside down.
There had been a time, not too long ago, when I was so comfortable in the mundane.
Morning spent sipping coffee, one too many weekends pouring drinks at The Bootmaker, and evenings spent with my head between one textbook or another.
But like the teal colouring, all the mundanities had faded from my life.
I placed the book at the top of an open box.
At the same time, Thallor sauntered up behind me, noticing my temporary enthralment with the little book that had set us both on a collision course with each other.
I knew he hated the book. I knew what it had done to his life.
But I couldn't help but feel grateful that it brought us together.
“It's difficult to explain what being tethered to that book felt like before.
I felt like I was always waiting, waiting to be freed as I simply existed from day to day.
I felt like nothing ever really mattered in my ageless life, and yet I still felt like I was wasting away.
Being summoned always felt hard because I felt trapped all over again.
And as much as I hate that book, as much as I hate what my life became as a result of it, I wouldn't trade any of it, I wouldn't trade any of that suffering because at the end of it all, it brought me to you.” I silently watched him as he opened up to me.
There was a vulnerability in his voice; I still wasn't quite used to hearing it. One that made him sound human.
I'm sorry, I wanted to say. But the words didn't come.
I wasn't really sure what to say. But he smiled at me softly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear and making my heart flutter the way it always seemed to do when he was close.
“And when I think of that book now, I think of slices of pineapple pizza, you falling asleep when you promised you could make it to the end of the film, and a ridiculous cock-shaped candle.”
A small laugh escaped my lips as I looked up at him.
“When I look at that book now, Sterling, I see home.” He said it so simply, as if it were the easiest thing to convey in the world.
“I see us. I see you. You are woven into every good memory that I have in my life. Every beautiful memory. The centuries of being trapped were worth it when the prize was you.”
A breath caught in my throat. The centuries of being trapped were worth it when the prize was you.
I didn't even think. I just rose to my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck like I had done every time since we watched Dirty Dancing on my sofa.
I memorised him and the feel of his body as my fingers curled over the strong slope of his shoulders.
Our lips found each other immediately. He smelt like the bonfire smoke on the 4th of July, a scent I'd come to love like nothing else.
And when I thought about him and us, I realised that, unlike the movies had me believing, you didn’t find love in the epic declarations or grand displays of affection. It just turned up at your door when you least expected it. In a blaze of red hair and piercing eyes.
Thallor’s smile broke against my mouth, lazy and warm. “Come on,” he said softly. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can get back to my favourite pastime.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
He chuckled, low and deep, then tilted my face up, running his thumb across my cheek like I was something precious. “You.”