“No, I was expecting to eat more, but something about my brother tends to kill my appetite. Please tell me you kept some of those tamales back and didn’t send all the leftovers for the potluck.”
“Of course I did.” I reached over and brushed a lock of heavy black hair off his forehead. Having a mind of their own, the offending strands fell forward once again. “You know what we should do?”
He reached for his own underwear. “I thought we just did that.”
I gave him an eye roll, and he laughed. “No,” I said severely. “I don’t mean that. I think we should go downstairs in our jammies and eat leftovers and watch that cable station that plays A Christmas Story over and over again in a continuous loop. You know, something normal people would do on Christmas.”
“Deal.” He paused, then added, “Well, as long as we can sneak a viewing of Scrooged in there somewhere.”
I happened to love Scrooged, so that was no hardship. “Deal,” I agreed.
And that’s exactly what we did. Ate, and laughed, and leaned against each other, basking in the warmth of the other person and the glow from the fireplace. No more talk of Damon Wilcox and his plots, no tragedies, no spells or hexes or curses from beyond the grave. Only Connor and me, and the comfort of one another’s company. I didn’t know what was coming next, but at least I would have these few golden hours with him.
* * *
The next morning after we’d gotten up and showered — another long, slow, delicious shower, where we took turns scrubbing one another down and which ended with me up against the wall once more as Connor drove into me with hard, deliberate strokes until I cried out in ecstasy — he came downstairs holding his laptop open, an amused expression on his face.
“I think you’re being paged,” he said. “I was catching up on my email, and the Facetime app kept going off. Your friend Sydney, I think.”
Oops. “Sorry about that,” I said, taking the computer from him. “You’d think she’d have the sense to wait until I got back to her.”
“Judging by how many times she pinged me, I have a feeling patience isn’t her strong suit.”
I couldn’t help chuckling. “Well, that’s true.”
He wandered off to the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee. “Want some?” he asked, lifting the pot in my direction.
“Yes, please,” I replied. I’d had fun with my Keurig coffeemaker back in Jerome, but Connor was hardcore about his coffee — used a French press and everything. That stuff was amazing.
After setting a mug down in front of me on the coffee table, he said, “I’m going over to my studio. Just come across the hall when you’re done.”
I’d been itching to see inside that place ever since he’d mentioned it, so I was feeling a little impatient when I clicked on the Facetime icon and launched the app. With any luck, this wouldn’t take too long.
Sydney picked up right away. “Holy crap, I’ve been trying to get you for ages!”
“Well, this isn’t exactly my computer, you know.”
“Oh, right.” She paused, then seemed to bring her phone closer to her face so she could get a better look at me. “Wow. You look like a girl who’s been well and truly fucked.”
“Sydney!”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?”
My hand went up to the marks Connor had left on my throat. Since it was now safely after Christmas, I was going to make him take me to the mall or the drugstore or something so I could invest in some spackle. This was getting ridiculous.
“Well…yes.”
“I knew it! So you took my advice.”
“I — ” There was a lot more to it than just that, but I figured I’d make her happy. “Yes. And it’s — it’s great. So thanks for that.”
She couldn’t exactly clap her hands together, since she was holding her phone in one of them, but she did bounce a little. Behind her I could see pale blue walls, so I knew she was in her bedroom. “So when do I get to meet him?”
“You’ve already met him, remember?”
A lift of her shoulders. “That doesn’t count. We said, like, two sentences to each other. I mean, really meet him. Get together and go out.”
As fun as that sounded…hypothetically…I wasn’t sure how we could possibly make it work. “Well….”
“I wasn’t saying come down here,” she said. “Obviously. Will Connor get zapped on sight if he shows up in Jerome?”
Good question. “I don’t know. Not that it’s really an option. I don’t see us leaving Flagstaff anytime soon.” As I said this, though, I felt a wave of homesickness pass over me. Yes, I loved being with Connor. Being with him in Jerome would be even better, though. How exactly I would make that work, I had no idea.