CHAPTER 25

Dex and I spent the rest of the afternoon playing video games. I’d never done that before, but it turned out all those years of training paid off in wicked hand-eye coordination. So while I couldn’t beat Dex at Dragon Slayer IV, I didn’t get totally embarrassed either. Once we’d slain dragons, we ate with Nana. Like her cookies, her spaghetti recipe clearly came from heaven, and by the time we left for the cave, I felt happier—and fuller—than I had in weeks.

Okay, so maybe Dex’s Nana seemed a little overly protective. But Dex was her only grandkid and all the family she had. That was probably normal. And Dex was normal, I reminded myself as we drove to the outskirts of town. In the dim blue lights of the dash, I studied his profile. Normal. I’d never thought that word could sound so appealing.

The cave was easier to find than I’d thought it would be. There were signs and everything. Granted, they didn’t mention Mary Evans or ghosts, but according to the legend, this had been where Mary and Jasper—the teacher—had met, and done…whatever. And, more important, where Mary had died.

Once we got there, Dex opened my door for me, holding out his hand. “Milady.”

The night was cold enough that I wished I’d brought a heavier jacket. Dex was decked out in a new purple jacket, a thick green scarf knotted at his throat. He looked warm and cozy, and I wondered if his jacket was as soft as it seemed.

Dex must’ve picked up on my longing, because he went to unbutton his coat. “Cold? You can have it.”

“No,” I said quickly. “It’s just…purple suits you. Which is good since you wear so much of it.”

Preening, Dex raised his head and pushed his shoulders back. “It brings out the color of my eyes.”

I didn’t giggle this time, but I did give him a playful shove as I moved past him and into the cave. Once we were inside, we turned our flashlights on.

“Well, this is…”

“Creepy,” I finished.

“I was actually going to go with ‘pants-wettingly terrifying,’ but, sure.”

“You really think Mary and Jasper used this place to get all…romantic?” Running a hand over the damp walls of the cave, I shuddered a little. “Because seriously, I wouldn’t even take my hat off in here.”

“Their relationship was already pretty gross. Maybe they were going for some kind of grossness record.”

“Lovely,” I muttered, walking farther back into the cave. As I did, I had to crouch slightly. Dex had to practically fold in half. “Whoever used to hang out here, they must have been pretty tiny,” I joked.

Dex turned his flashlight on me. “Um, Iz, pretty sure they weren’t standing up,” he said, and I blushed.

“Right,” I said, trying to sound extra brusque so that he wouldn’t notice my discomfort. “Okay, so. Proof of the supernatural. Let’s find some.”

Kneeling down, Dex yanked a melted candle off a little shelf carved in the rock. “You think this was supposed to be sexy or spooky?”

I was never going to stop blushing. I was actually going to die of blood loss because there wasn’t any left to pump through my heart. It was all in my face.

“Nothing in this place is sexy,” I told him, and he laughed.

“Oh, come on, Izzy. Even you, Miss Anti-Romance, can admit there’s something just a little bit appealing about making out in a candlelit cave.”

“Bats live in caves,” I reminded him. “And where there are bats, there’s bat poop. Lots of it. Did you know there’s a cave in Mexico where they have a whole mountain made of guano?”

Dex leveled a fake-sultry gaze at me. “Are you coming on to me?”

I shined my flashlight at him, making him throw up a hand to guard his eyes. “Hey, watch it! You want me to actually see the ghost stuff, right?’

“Just…start looking, okay?”

“Fine,” he grumbled, and we made our way deeper into the cave. The ceiling got lower and we both had to drop to our knees and crawl.

“Salting graves, crawling underground…you really are the most fun date ever,” Dex mused. I bumped him with my shoulder and kept crawling. After a few feet, the cave opened up again, the ceiling soaring at least twelve feet overhead. Dex stood up and stretched with a happy groan, but all I could focus on was the magic bouncing off the rocks, filling the air, making my hair nearly stand on end. “This is it.”

Frowning, Dex spun in a circle. “What, this? This is where the ghost stuff went down? How can you tell?”

“I just…can.” It was maybe not the greatest answer ever, but I couldn’t think of any other way to explain to Dex how I could sense magic.

Luckily, he didn’t question it. “Whoa!” he cried.

“What?” Had he felt it? Was it just a delayed reaction? But Dex wasn’t exclaiming over all the magic radiating inside the cave. He was walking forward to another little alcove carved in the rock.

“Aha,” he said, poking around on the ground. “You’re right, this is it.”

I knelt next to him, turning my beam of light onto the cave floor. There was another melty candle and a few scraps of charred paper. Rooting around a little more, he uncovered a tiny golden charm. I leaned in closer as he laid it in his palm and shined the flashlight on it.

“A heart,” he murmured.

I was suddenly aware that our heads were very close together, and took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth. “That’s both sexy and spooky, don’t you think?”

“Depends on how you look at it, I guess,” I said.

Now I was watching his mouth. Like his hands and eyes, Dex’s lips were pretty. Beautiful, even. And suddenly I wanted them on mine more than I had ever wanted anything. Even as we moved closer together, some tiny part of my brain that was still a Brannick and not a silly girl losing her head over a cute boy registered what the magic in this cave must be. No ordinary spell had happened here. This was different. This was a love spell.

And now here Dex and I were, soaking in all this love spell energy. That was why he was staring at me like he wanted to devour me. Why I wanted him to devour me. It was residual energy from the spell, nothing else. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to get to my feet and back away from him.

Clearing my throat, I started shining my flashlight around the rest of the cave. “There might be more stuff. I mean, that’s definitely magiclike, and—”

“I’ve never kissed anyone in a cave,” Dex mused. When I turned around, he was still on his knees, watching me. “Or in any kind of underground structure, really. Cave, bomb shelter, secret government bunker…” His light was on me again. “What about you? You seem like the kind of girl whose romantic life is full of thrills and danger.”

My “romantic life” consisted of watching cheesy teen soaps and sneaking the occasional drugstore romance novel, but wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to share.

And I definitely wasn’t telling him that I’d never kissed anyone anywhere before. “Lots,” I told him, going for breezy. “There was a secret tunnel connecting my school to the boys’ school down the road. So it was all underground making out all the time.”

“I knew it,” he said, making me laugh. “So these boys you were sneaking off to meet in tunnels. Was there a…special one?”

Since there hadn’t actually been any boy, much less a special one, I wasn’t sure what to say. Finally I settled on, “I didn’t have a boyfriend, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I was trying not to be that tacky about it, but yes, I was asking if you had…or if you have a boyfriend.”

My heart was pounding fast now. This time I couldn’t tell myself he was being friendly, or that this was “just Dex.” Boys don’t ask if you have a boyfriend unless they are interested in you.

And then something else occurred to me. I could tell him I did. Invent some long-distance guy, someone I e-mailed and Skyped with. And that would be that. Dex and I could be friends, nothing more. He might feel a little disappointed, and maybe he’d pull back a little.

Just the thought of that hurt. I hadn’t known Dex very long, but I liked him. Genuinely. Hanging out with Romy was fun, but it wasn’t the same as the time I spent with Dex.

I’d been quiet too long. “So that’s a yes, then?” he asked, his voice every bit as light as mine had been moments ago. But I heard the hurt creeping around the edges.

Tell him yes. Tell him yes.

Turning around, I let the beam of my flashlight fall on the floor. “No. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

I thought I’d seen every one of Dex’s smiles. The goofy one, the ironic one, the delighted one. But the grin that broke across his face was a whole new specimen: the sexy one.

“Oh, thank God,” he breathed, and then he was crossing the cave and pulling me to him.