Page 65 of Bewitching Her Monsters
“No. I’m not okay,” I sigh. “But Maxum’s right. Jade should be told what’s really going on.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes, brother,” Flint says. He only calls me that when I need to be reminded that we’re a family—a pack.
I dress in my cheap, tear-away clothes, which are pretty much all I have anymore. It’s probably for the best. I have a terrible feeling that I will go into full beast mode and run off when she rejects me.
Flint pulls up in the Rambler. I chuckle every time I see him in a car. He always looks too big to fit inside properly.
Checking down the street, both ways, I put my nose in the air and there’s no scent of anyone unfamiliar in the neighborhood.
Sliding into the passenger seat, I grimace at my gargoyle friend.
Flint gives me an empathetic nod. “You should all listen to me. Relationships aren’t worth the grief.”
I don’t argue, because I don’t want to get into it with him.
He has his reasons for feeling that way. For myself, I was hoping Jade would be different. That she would be the one who turned my lousy luck around. I hoped, even though she’s a witch, we could have moved past that hurdle.
But that was the impulsive part of me that doesn’t think things through. To be fair, that is pretty much my whole personality.
Maxum calls me foolish. Osen used to call me reckless. I’d say I’m spontaneous.
We’re all correct.
Flint is pulling up behind Jade’s green vintage Mustang much faster than I’m ready for. It’s later than polite to drop by—nine-thirty at night.
“You sure?” Flint asks. “If she is tricking us and you call out her witchy nature, she might hex you. Or worse.”
“If she does, I deserve it. I tricked her into thinking I was a dog. I shouldn’t have let the ruse go on like that.”
“The problem is you had intimate relations with her before telling her what you are,” he reminds me.
I turn my head so I can roll my eyes. This guy and his awkwardness toward sex. But he’s called out my unacceptable behavior. “Yeah. I fucked up, and now I’m about to pay for it.”
“Should I go inside with you?” Flint asks, his large hand on the door handle, ready to jump out instantly—to follow me into the witch’s lair.
“No. It might make her more nervous, having someone there she doesn’t know at all.”
He nods, but looks a bit disappointed. Is he interested in Jade, too?
Nah, impossible.
Not with his history.
His stubbornness.
Not the 400-year-old virgin.
Maybe he just wants to help me through this.
I knock on her door, but no one answers.
Now that I’m closer, I can peek past the blackout curtains to see that the lights in her house are off. Fuck. I will just have to fret until I come back in the morning. I won’t be sleeping much tonight.
Then the curtains pull back briefly as someone checks who is out here. There isn’t much light on the porch, so I’m surprised when her door opens without the porch light coming on.
This alone puts me on edge. I don’t know Jade very well, but this doesn’t seem like a move she would make. Not with her ex allegedly stalking her. Not with how freaked out she’s been.
Unless she has her gun pointed at my heart right now.
