Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
I yanked off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. My stomach dotted with beads of sweat. We drifted in the middle of a lake with no way to get back to the edge, thanks to my poor attempt at reckless abandon.
It’d happened fast, pressing my lips to hers.
When Rae matched my energy, and the tension in my back finally unwound.
Her body weighed me down in the comforting way sleep may tug you into freshly washed sheets.
I was heavy with the need to touch her. To be with her.
And giving into that had stranded us both.
“Talk about a bad omen,” I muttered under my breath as Rae leaned over the side, finally focused on retrieving one of the barely floating paddles.
“This isn’t a bad omen,” she said through a strained voice as she stretched. Her fingers barely grazed the edge of the paddle, nudging it farther into the vast water.
I clung to the back of her sweater to make sure she didn’t topple in. My frustration wouldn’t allow me to admire the slightest bit of skin revealed above the waistband of her jeans. But I couldn’t ignore the hint of orange underwear peeking out.
“Is that…a pumpkin?” I tilted my head to the side. It was, indeed, a pumpkin, and it was smiling back at me. “Are you wearing themed underwear?”
Rae pulled herself back into the boat. “That’s quite an intimate question for someone who’s only kissed me twice. I like to give out underwear details after I’ve been told I’m someone’s sun and moon at least three times.”
Rae mistook my frown for staunch disapproval of her joking (and not the frantic wondering of how I’d have time to do all that for her and more). She rid herself of her smile, replacing it with the determined look of a lead investigator who was born to problem solve.
“Option one,” she started. “We use our hands as paddles and try to maneuver closer to one paddle.”
I took a breath and looked at the water. “That could work…maybe. And what’s option two?”
“I strip and dive in,” she offered.
“And catch some long-gone plague.” I scoffed at the idea. “I don’t think so.”
“Three: call for backup.” Rae pulled her phone out of her back pocket.
“Now we’re talking. You have Jacob’s number.”
She frowned. “No, why would I?”
I blinked and laughed. “Why wouldn’t you? You basically became his friend overnight.”
“I don’t just go giving my phone number out to anyone, Octavia.” She tsked.
“Fine. Maybe we can wait for someone to come sit on their back porch and see us waving?” I scanned the empty lake and the dark houses that lined it.
“Sure, but it’s Monday, and though I know you country folk are early risers, aren’t you also go-getters?” she asked. “I don’t see anyone interested in lounging by the lake in the morning unless they’re retired.”
I let out a heavy sigh. I could smell her sweet gloss on my breath, and with that trigger came the fresh memory of her hard nipple underneath my thumb.
Rae looked so steady and immovable. Under my touch, she was this delicate thing. Lace that deserved to be handled with the utmost respect and care…and properly folded.
“Calling would be the best move,” I decided. “Which person on your team will give us the least amount of grief?”
“Jonah,” she said without thinking as she pulled up his contact.
In less than a minute, she had her intern sworn to a vow of silence and on his way to borrow a canoe from the Rainwoods and then pick us up.
Rae told him to tell our grocers it was for fishing.
She was getting good at anticipating small-town gossip.
“So, you lied to me,” Rae said after the quiet of the lake and our kiss wrapped itself around us in a hold that was almost too tight.
“Excuse me?” I frowned, flipping through everything I'd said to her this morning. My search slowed down at the memory of her legs entangled with mine.
Rae tugged on the gloves that fit her so perfectly. I’d knitted them years ago when I was going through a crafting phase. They looked better on her.
“You do have things you do for fun,” she said. “Besides riding horses.”
I shook my head, still terribly confused. “I don’t…”
“You were a nerd, through and through,” she repeated. “League of Legends and Magic: The Gather? Those are games, I’m assuming. Video or board?”
I laughed, remembering I had sandwiched those tidbits in a recount of my not-so-great first kiss with a girl. “I didn’t lie to you; I just don’t do those things anymore.”
Gaming had been a pastime my brother had offered to me like well-worn hand-me-downs. I would stay up late watching him bring tiny sprites to justice and get virtual medal after medal.
Like lots of younger siblings, I wanted in on anything he did. And whenever I was old enough, got my account on League. And when I struggled to catch up with Wilson’s skill there, I also worked at catching up to his skill with deck building for Magic.
The games were a constant in the ever-changing weather of movement.
It didn’t matter what town we were in; there would typically be Wi-Fi set up by day three in a new place.
And almost every town had a small game shop filled with people like me who had poor social skills and the proclivity to obsess over one topic.
“When I didn’t have access to riding horses,” I explained, “I played games to fill the gap. But after high school…I don’t know, I just gave it up.”
“Did you lose interest?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just got busy and didn’t want to spend most of my free time surrounded by weird guys who either hit on me, told me I had to have stolen my deck ideas from someone online, or pretended to be my friend to talk down to me.”
“Yeesh.”
“Exactly.” Wading through the murky waters of the gaming world as a woman had gotten exhausting. “I thought of going back once. Consider that maybe being older and wiser would breed better interactions. I’m much better at calling people out now.”
“You’re telling me,” Rae teased with a smile.
I laughed.
“Why haven’t you?”
“Bills started piling up. And long days kept getting longer. And I was too tired to even think about playing a game, let alone getting in my car and interacting with a handful of strangers for hours. It was a card game, by the way. League’s video but Magic’s cards.”
She nodded for me to continue.
“You’ve…never heard of it?”
Rae shook her head, hair falling over her shoulders as she did so. “I don’t speak nerd. Or, rather, my nerd’s a little cooler, being paranormal and all.”
“You can come off as a little stuck-up, you know that?” I joked.
“I’ve learned it makes people want me more,” she confessed. “I want you to teach me to speak nerd. Teach me to play Magic.”
My spine straightened. “I don’t…you’re not going to like it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I opened my mouth, trying to think of how to dissuade her. “There are plenty of ways to get me to slow down and relax. This would be the most involved one. The one with the most hoops to jump through.”
“You make it sound like I’m not able to jump through hoops.”
“It’s just complicated and maybe boring to someone more active and go go go.”
“Are you saying I don’t have the head for it?
” Rae pressed her hand to her chest and folded inward as if someone had just shot her point-blank.
Underneath the offense, her brown eyes danced.
The sun finally found its way through the clouds, bowing itself right in front of the breathtaking woman before me, who had windswept curls and gave me the indescribable urge to offer her everything I had.
It wasn’t much, but maybe it’d be enough for a day or so.
“I’m saying it doesn’t seem like your kind of thing,” I murmured.
“Don’t tell me what my thing is, Octavia. I want to learn how to play Magic: The Gather.”
“Gathering,” I corrected.
“Gathering,” she repeated with a smile. “If you don’t teach me, I’ll ask Wilson to do it.”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“But it’s not something you can learn in an hour or two.”
Rae winked. “Maybe. But I’m much smarter than you think.”
“Okay, okay, slow down.” Rae held her hands up, index finger and thumb held together in the air. “Why do we have this commander again?”
December started talking before I could. “The commander—”
“Not you.” Rae waved her cousin away. “Just Octavia, please. You guys keep saying things that are wrong.”
“I had a slight misunderstanding about how tapping lands worked,” Nico defended under his breath as he flipped through the cards in his deck. “Sue me.”
Yesterday, a very discreet Jonah, who’d told the others he’d been going into town to pick up some doughnuts, had saved us. Today, as a reward for his silence, Rae offered him a spot in my Magic lessons. What started as two pupils were now four.
We’d laid fraying quilts on the floor, layering enough of them to provide enough cushion.
I’d dug through my closet, retrieving deck boxes coated in dust and moving grime.
With each one, I opened unlocked memories of late-night research and playing against the wall until I could barely keep my eyes open.
Sometimes memories of doing solo activities carried an inevitable sadness.
But this time, I’d allowed myself to soak in the memory’s pool.
Those years of loneliness hadn’t all been bad.
“Your commander’s what the deck’s built around. You can only use cards the color of your commander.” I picked up Rae’s sparkling card. All my commanders sported unique sleeves, making them stand out from the rest of the plainer green sleeves. “Like in the standard game—”
“The one with sixty cards,” December chimed in.
“Exactly.” I nodded, and she beamed, wiggling back and forth. “Your commander’s like creatures in that they can attack. But only if you have enough mana.”
“Which comes from tapping land.” Nico turned his lands horizontal.
“See, you’re getting it. Repetition is key,” I encouraged with a bright smile.
“So why couldn’t I use this?” Jonah’s gaze burned down on the battlefield between us. “I tapped my land.”
“You don’t have enough mana.” I pointed to the number on his card. “You need four lands—”
“I have four lands.” He rested his fingers on the lined-up cards.
“Two of them have to be blue.”
His mouth formed an O as he studied the commander more closely. I pushed myself up onto my knees and leaned over to point at the tiny blue circle on his card with the number two.
“And since you don’t have enough manna to cast…” I prompted.
“It’s my turn.” December did a little dance in her seat as she started her upkeep.
A cool breeze from the open window skated across the room, smelling of sun.
The house was brighter since the wards remained stable.
Nico and December had done two sweeps this morning; Rae walked Jonah through two more after lunch.
But even before they confirmed the hold, I knew it was true.
Something in me had settled in a way I thought would only come after I’d opened Elmwood.
“Where does she come from?” Rae waved a creature card in my direction.
I held onto her wrist, trying to keep it still as I read the card. Rae’s skin burned my fingers. An echo of our kisses buzzed through my chest. I almost yanked away, stopping in time to understand if I did, everyone would know something was up.
I cleared my throat. “She’s a legendary creature.”
“Yeah, why’s she in my deck? What’s her story?”
I laughed a little. “What do you mean? She’s in your deck because I put her in the deck.”
“But there’s no backstory?” Rae flipped the card back to herself again, frowning down at it.
“There is, but I don’t know it off the top of my head. They all have lore; it’s just not always deeply explored.”
“Maybe I should make one,” she mused. “Deeply explore it.”
“You’re going to write a fanfic? About a card you just met?” December asked.
“Is it a meeting? Can you meet intimate objects?” Nico flipped through his deck, lingering on his creatures as if considering a formal introduction.
I don’t think my cheeks had ever hurt from smiling this hard.
“Yes, I’m going to write a fanfic.” Rae held the card out to her cousin. “You're telling me this woman doesn’t deserve a whole four-book series?”
December raised a brow when she got a closer look. “Damn, try eight books. Do you need a co-author?”
“Can we get back to it?” Jonah asked with his cards spread out in his hands. “I think I understand how to win now.”
“Uh-oh.” Nico sat up, redirecting his focus. “What have you got, rookie?”
As everyone took their turn, I waited patiently for them to make mistakes before gently nudging them in the right direction.
It was difficult for me to stay still. Not to join in December’s theatrical whoops of victory.
Or squeal in delight when Jonah destroyed half my life in one turn.
I pressed the cards to my mouth, covering my smile as Nico figured out he could use an enchantment to save his favorite card from the graveyard.
Sitting on the floor playing a game that brought me so much joy over a decade ago wasn’t something I’d ever expected could make me want to race around the house.
The team was actually interested in learning, probing about deck making and standard practices.
All my dormant energy broke open, a flood of breathless love for something I’d written off for…
what was it again? Age? Time? Hopelessness?
“You know, this is the loudest you’ve spoken since the convention,” Rae whispered. We’d been killed by December’s ruthless hand and now sat on the sidelines to watch Nico and Jonah’s attempts to neutralize her. “When you were explaining to me you owned a ranch.”
“Oh?” I didn’t take my eyes off the game; my mouth parted in awe and remnants of laughter.
“It’s nice to hear you.”
I tugged my gaze from the battlefield and onto her.
Rae had already been looking at me. I scrunched up my nose, trying to bring lightness to the heavy pressure weighing down my chest. I didn’t want this to end.
The game, the day, the sound of people. I could like people.
Not as much as horses, but the right ones could come in a close second.
I rested my hand over Rae’s for a second, giving it a quick squeeze to let her know that this all felt fun. It all felt real. And that she’d once again proven me wrong.