Trevor

I was sitting on the sofa with Mr. Whiskers, watching television after finishing our pizza. I’d also needed to search for his breath freshening treats before cuddling with him on the sofa. Since the first time I’d met him, I’ve been amazed at how easy it was to bond with Mr. Whiskers. A California condor is a somewhat intimidating bird, and I’m not a bird person to begin with. None of that seemed to matter, and I’d ended up petting him and chatting with him that first day. Sure, I couldn’t understand him, but he could clearly understand me.

“After I convince Melina to marry me and go through with a bonding ceremony, I’ll be able to understand what you’re saying better,” I told him, rubbing the soft feathers on his back.

Mr. Whiskers’ head bobbed up and down excitedly, and he jumped off the sofa to do a little dance, proving how much he loved me. Now, if I could get our witch to love me this much, we’d be doing great.

When my phone buzzed, I figured it was Melina calling to tell me she was stuck at work. Having seen her there several times in the past, I knew how devoted she was to her job. The show and her familiar, who was currently fighting with a throw pillow, were her babies. Looking at the screen, I didn’t recognize the number, so I sent the call to voicemail. If it was important, I’d call them back later.

My lips twitched when a bit of stuffing from the pillow hit me in the face. The pillow was definitely losing the fight.

“I feel the same about those pillows, but my sister, Jessa, is going to be pissed the next time she visits me.” Mr. Whiskers looked at me, cocking his head to the side to study me. I figured he was wondering why anyone would care that much about a pillow. This time I was guessing. He might have been wondering who Jessa was.

“You live with a witch, so you must understand throw pillows.” Then I realized I hadn’t seen a single throw pillow in Melina’s condo. “Okay, Melina might be the perfect witch and not believe in these things, but my sister bought these pillows for me because she truly believes my house needs them. I can tell you from experience she takes them very seriously.”

Mr. Whiskers climbed up on the sofa with me, looking for more of an explanation.

“It’s not really a long story,” I began, smiling at the memory. “Jessa said I needed these throw pillows, and I waited until she turned away from me to toss one at the back of her head. She wasn’t at all amused. I thought it was funny as hell since they call them throw pillows, but Jessa got pissed at me. When Jessa gets pissed, she spends a long time coming up with evil ways to get back to me, and that’s why I now have probably a hundred throw pillows, most so ugly I cringe when I look at them. When I threatened to toss them out, she cried. I fucking hate it when my little sisters cry, and I’m still not sure if that was an act to get me to keep the damn pillows, or if I’d really hurt her feelings.”

I chuckled at the perplexed way the condor was studying me.

“Okay, it’s more than the crying, although, that does bother me. Jessa also makes the best cookies, and she never brings me any when she’s mad at me.”

I had three baby sisters—Julia, Jessa, and Jolie. They were all technically adults, but I still had trouble accepting that most days. To the best of my knowledge, my sisters were still fairly innocent when it came to men. Dylan had accused me of being delusional about my sisters more than once, but I was fine with that. It was probably best if I never heard about any of my sisters dating. It made it much less likely I’d try to get Melina to cast one of her impotence spells on every unattached warlock, possibly some of the attached ones, as well.

My phone buzzed, and I saw that it was Dylan calling this time, which came as a surprise since I hadn’t expected to hear from him for the next couple of weeks.

“Hey, Dylan,” I answered.

“Hey, Trev,” Dylan said by way of greeting.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?” I asked my best friend and business partner.

“Damn! I knew I’d forgotten something.” There was no missing the sarcasm in Dylan’s voice.

“So, why are you calling?” I asked.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Dylan sounded amused. I hadn’t mentioned my bet with Melina, but it seemed he thought I was up to something interesting.

“Just watching television,” I told him.

“I was wondering if you’d hooked up with one of your exes at the wedding,” he remarked.

“Why would you think that?” I asked.

“You were acting strange at the reception,” Dylan explained. “Allie figured you’d managed to corner Mel and convince her to give you a chance, but I told her that couldn’t be the case or you would have been all over Mel for the rest of the evening.”

“Wouldn’t I have been hanging around one of my exes if I’d hooked up with them at the reception?” I asked Dylan.

He snorted. “Nah, you’d have been doing your best to make sure I didn’t know about that so I couldn’t tease you when you remembered why things hadn’t worked out.”

“For the record, I had no trouble resisting the temptation to hook up with one of the witches from my past,” I assured him. “Do you honestly think I’d have been humping Melina’s leg the whole reception if I’d tracked her down to talk?”

“No one has forgotten how obsessed you were six months ago. I suppose it’s possible you cornered Mel, and she turned your ass down again, but it looked like you were about to get lucky. You went from brooding to smug.” I decided it was crazy to argue with Dylan since he’d known me long enough to make that call. “So, is it a new witch you met at the wedding?”

Dylan wasn’t going to let this go easily, and normally, I’d just tell him, but if Melina hadn’t told Allie, I didn’t want to be the one to do it. It was a little early in this agreement for me to piss Melina off, so I decided to give a vague answer in the hopes of dissuading Dylan from pushing.

“I’ll introduce you to her when you get back,” I assured Dylan. “She’s definitely something special.” That response seemed good. I hadn’t technically lied, unless you wanted to consider it a lie by omission.

“I’m glad you’re finally moving on from Mel. We’ve all been concerned about how fixated you’ve been on her,” Dylan admitted, sounding like I’d alleviated some huge worry. “I was about ready to beg her to go out with you for a couple of weeks so you could get her out of your system.”

“That wouldn’t have been humiliating,” was my dry response.

“Humiliating or not, I was getting desperate,” Dylan admitted. “I’m glad you’ve accepted that Mel isn’t the witch for you.”

If I kept talking to Dylan about this, I’d end up telling him all about my bet with Melina or arguing that she was the only witch for me, so I decided to change the subject. “Did you call to talk about my love life?”

“Nah,” he said. “I got a call from Demetrius Talbot.”

Demetrius Talbot was Allie’s uncle, and he was also sort of related to Melina. He’d been married to Melina’s mom until she’d gotten tired of him fucking every witch willing to spread her legs. The Talbot men had a history of fucking around, and it had been one of the reasons Allie had been so reluctant to trust Dylan. I suspected it was part of the reason Melina had avoided getting involved with warlocks until now, even if she hadn’t said as much.

“What did he want?” I asked.

“I don’t have any idea, but he insisted it was urgent,” Dylan explained. “When I suggested he call the office tomorrow, he told me he’d just stop by your home.”

“Arrogant bastard,” I grumbled, and I might be tempted to refuse to meet with him tomorrow if I didn’t know he’d show up at my home, which could create problems with Melina. I’d feed his ego to protect my witch. “When is the meeting?”

“I had Sage set up an appointment for him at nine tomorrow.”

“Nine in the morning? Why so early?” I asked.

“I already know you rescheduled all of your early morning appointments for the week, and Demetrius was anxious to meet with one of us,” Dylan explained. “The fact that you’d rescheduled the early appointments is how I knew you had a witch staying with you.”

I bit my tongue. “Fine, I’ll go in at nine.”

“Thanks, Trev,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll get to meet this new witch when I get back.”

His meaning was clear; he wasn’t sure I’d still be dating this witch when he got back. Given my history, I couldn’t fault him for his assumption.

We made a little small talk before finally ending the call. As I was about to set my phone on the coffee table, it buzzed with an incoming message.

 

MELINA: I know you’re going to think I’m doing this to avoid you, but I have to do some work here before I come back to your place. Things are a mess.

ME: I understand.

 

I didn’t understand, but that was because I felt like a selfish ass who wanted Melina to only think about me. It was easy to justify that when this was our first night together, but I got that she hadn’t asked for an emergency to come up with the show.

 

MELINA: One of the actresses was murdered.

 

That, I hadn’t expected. I’d figured it was an actor not showing up for rehearsal or last minute rewrites because something didn’t look right in rehearsals.

 

ME: I’m sorry, honey. Was it related to the show?

MELINA: Maybe. I can’t talk about it. I need to do some rewrites and get new scripts out to the actors before we film tomorrow.

 

I knew enough about Melina to know she’d be doing her best to appear strong and unaffected by all of this, which made me want to be there for her even more. Granted, there was a very real possibility she would push me away, but I still had to try.

 

ME: How about if I bring dinner?

 

That seemed like an innocent enough offer. I expected her to turn me down, but I figured it was worth a shot. The long hesitation on her part made me think it was even more likely she was either going to turn me down or pretend she hadn’t gotten my message. I could picture her trying to come up with a reason I couldn’t go down there that I wouldn’t argue with. I’d already decided that if she turned me down, I was going to accept it. I’d pushed my witch enough in the last couple of days.

 

MELINA: That would be great. Don’t bring Mr. Whiskers. There might still be a human police detective here. The last thing I want to do is explain why I’m in possession of an endangered species. He’ll be okay on his own for a couple of hours.

ME: What should I bring?

MELINA: I don’t care, as long as it’s not a salad. Surprise me.

 

I grinned, happy that I was going to get to bring my witch dinner. Maybe I was getting somewhere with her. I sent a quick message to Dylan’s mom, asking if she could watch Mr. Whiskers for a few hours so I wouldn’t have to leave Melina as quickly. The reason I picked her instead of my own mother was simple; Dylan’s mom was the only person who knew I’d tracked Melina down at the reception, and she probably wouldn’t be surprised that Melina was staying with me. It wasn’t that I didn’t plan to tell my own family, but telling them would delay me. My mom would definitely have questions.