Page 31 of Big Little Spells
Everyone else is looking at Emerson now. She smiles, a quietly elated smile I’ve never seen on her before and looks at Jacob.
“Emerson and I are getting married,” Jacob says. It’s a simple statement, as if he expects no fanfare.
But, oh, there is fanfare just the same.
Georgie squeals loud enough to draw stares and Ellowyn’s holy shit seems to echo from the rafters. There are hugs. Even a few tears from Georgie and, okay, me too. Zander says something gruff, yet pleased on behalf of our broader family, then busies himself pouring drinks and passing them around.
We toast the happy couple again and again. They look happy and silly, especially when Emerson tries to toast us instead. Ellowyn is wearing a heavy statement ring to go with her whole goth thing tonight, and she raps it against her glass, claiming the couple has to kiss when they hear it even though it’s not their wedding yet. Emerson makes it clear that she intends to deliver speeches about how much she loves her friends every time, kiss or no kiss.
One way or another, we down our beers in no time at all.
I order kamikaze shots for the next round while Ellowyn and Georgie ooh and aah with suitable awe over Emerson’s ring that’s once again visible, then tease Jacob for his impeccable taste.
Even Emerson and Jacob are cajoled into downing the bitter alcohol I order, and I know I should end the drinking here. I already feel too much, whether steel-plated or just joyful. I don’t need alcohol conning me into thinking I should share the things I feel.
I glance at Zander, who hasn’t really said anything, outside of some group cheering. There is something very...tense about him. He says all the right things when we all do, grins at the joking and the teasing, and wallops Jacob on the back a few times. Yet to my eye, he seems even more careful not to look Ellowyn’s way.
Like, at all.
Not even when she’s banging her ring against her glass, which has half the bar staring at her.
Honestly, the fact that ten years hasn’t dulled the force of their mutual dislike has me wondering if Ellowyn really did tell me everything way back when. Because sure, teenage love hits hard and hurts worse, but at some point don’t you evolve? Think back to all those dramatic moments fondly?
But what do I know? I’ve never once fancied myself in love. Not even when I was drawing hearts around names in my high school notebooks. Maybe Ellowyn and Zander’s All Too Well ten-year situation is proof enough that what fades with time isn’t real to begin with.
Or, possibly, that they’re gluttons for punishment, because some people just leave the scene of the crime so as to avoid a decade of your ex in your face, but again. What do I know about it? I didn’t leave here to avoid an ex. I just left.
That’s as close to the truth of things as I care to get tonight, with bad decisions in the form of alcoholic drinks on the table and almost certainly more to come. I sit back and consider catapulting things to the next level in the form of a little Jägerbomb action, elevating this situation out of the realm of piddling little shots with cutesy names and into true mayhem.
I decide this sounds good and even necessary to celebrate my one and only sister’s engagement.
But the heavy outside door thuds open then, and there’s a sudden murmur—a ripple of excitement you can practically see go through the bar.
I turn, and there he is.
Like I conjured him up myself.
10
“NICHOLAS FROST IS AT a bar,” Georgie whispers, but loud enough to be heard back up on Main Street, like he’s a priest walking into a strip club.
I wish I could manage something suitably snarky, but I can’t. I can’t exactly breathe as he walks toward our booth without seeming to look around, as if he knows exactly where we are without having to search for us. I decide I need to invest some time in learning a spell that can ward off my reaction to him—the sort of homework it won’t kill me to do.
I’m sure I can hear him laughing in my head at that, but I ignore it. I tell myself it’s the kamikaze shot I’ve already tossed back, doing its good work inside me.
Everyone in the bar is staring at Nicholas as he strides across the rough floor. I figure I might as well do the same thing. Just to fit in, because that’s me. Known conformist.
He’s wearing pants and a shirt like every other guy in here. No big deal. But it feels like a big deal. It’s the way he’s wearing just...a pair of dark jeans. Boots. A black T-shirt, because naturally he’s impervious to the spring chill outside. There’s no sign of a flowing cloak, a wizard cap, or a raven perched on his shoulder, and I will admit I feel let down by this. He looks like he forgot to shave—I remind myself that would be a glamour on a regular witch and on an immortal it’s an affectation—and his dark hair is just long enough to make every single person in this bar imagine that someone must have been running their fingers through it. Recently.
But really it’s those blue eyes that get me.
And, possibly, that rangy body of his that I just know is no glamour. That’s him. Wide shoulders, narrow hips, lean and muscled everywhere.
If the goddess cared about me at all, she would have made immortality available only to trolls.
He seems to take ten hours to parade across the length of the bar to our booth, then stops before it.
In all his state.