CHAPTER EIGHT
I was used to the French Quarter where the lots were so tightly packed most of the buildings rubbed shoulders. Out here in the Garden District, though, the rule was fewer than four lots per block, which allowed for plenty of room for personal gardens complete with fountains, benches, and gazebos.
This was one such house.
The smell of freshly cut grass and wet flowers was thick in the air. A stone path led around the house and toward a fountain with a cherub facade set into the center of the garden. A single jet of water arched up and out of its mouth, only to fall back into the base of the fountain. Around it, a duo of benches had been arranged where couples could sit and talk the night away.
There were people out here—witches enjoying a cigarette with their glass of wine and conversation, lovers strolling hand in hand, acquaintances getting to know each other. This was the place to go for a little privacy. It was around the fountain where I spotted Jared and Jennifer. They were walking along the tiled path together, her doing most of the talking, and he… did he seem a little uninterested?
“Alright, Madison,” I said to myself, “Just go.”
I approached, marching toward them at first, then softening my steps as I got nearer. The blonde witch spotted me, and although I couldn’t recognize her, she must have known who I was, and maybe that was why her gaze seemed more threatening than it should have been. Jared turned then, and smile when he saw me.
“Hey,” I said, “Sorry about earlier, I had guests to greet.”
“It’s alright,” Jared said, “This is your night.”
“No, it’s our night, I’m just facilitating it.”
“Excuse me,” Jennifer said, putting a hand on her hip, “We were talking?”
Excuse me? I thought. “Alright,” I said, “But I need to borrow Jared for a minute; something more important needs his attention.”
“Borrow?” he asked, as if he hadn’t understood the word.
“Yeah, I need your help inside.”
He turned to look at the blonde witch. “I’m… really sorry. I’ll find you later.”
She scowled, but had no choice except to let Jared go, watching as he followed me back up the stone path. I should have been nicer to her, a little less blunt, but the party was in full swing and I needed to be in the thick of things—there was no time for niceties. At least, that was the excuse I gave myself. It didn’t make me feel better.
“What is it you need me for?” Jared asked as we walked. “Has something happened?”
“No,” I said, “Everything’s fine.”
“What is it, then?”
“I just wanted to take you up on that drink you offered earlier...”
“So… this was just a ploy to get me away from that girl?”
I stopped at the door to the house, turned to him, and smiled. “And if it was?”
He seemed to think about it, but he wasn’t smiling. In fact, he looked a little confused; maybe even a little annoyed, too.
Jared moved through the doors ahead of me and went straight to the small bar on the other side of the room where the owner of the Scarlet Cat was preparing Hurricanes—the New Orleans cocktail of choice. I asked for a Hurricane for each of us, and we walked around the room, avoiding the people mingling in the center of the ballroom.
I wasn’t sure where I was going with him, what I planned on doing, or even what I was going to talk about. And the more I wandered, the tighter my stomach twisted into knots. Jared and I hadn’t talked much since we came inside, and I was starting to question whether pulling him away from that girl had been a good idea when—
“Maddy, look, we have to talk about this,” Jared said, and he tugged on my arm, abruptly but gently, pulling me out of the ballroom and into another room on the ground floor.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to keep it cool. “I wanted to try and do this earlier on, but stuff kept coming up. I shouldn’t have interrupted but—”
“But what? Am I not allowed to speak to another woman as long as I’m around you? Am I going to have to start dating in secret?”
“No, I ju—”
“You wanted to be friends, and I’ve given that to you. I have been a great fucking friend to you, and I never expected anything but the same in return. You have given your attention to two different men tonight who both have feelings for you in some way.”
“It’s not like that!”
“The hell it isn’t! I’ve seen the way they look at you.”
My heart was thumping, now. It had gone from zero to sixty so fast my head had gone into a tail spin. A freefall. “But I don’t feel that way about them,” I said, trying to defend my position.
“That’s not the point. If they’re around you, you will always pick them over me. You did it tonight. And honestly, as much as it sucked, I tried to be okay with it because we’re friends. But the moment another girl has my attention, you drag me away for a drink you could have asked me to have later.”
“Okay fine, I got jealous and I have no right to be. I’m sorry. I’m jealous every time you’re out on a date, and I don’t know how to cope with these feeling because I’ve never had them before.”
“Madison, I’m only dating because you said no to me. I fucking hate dating. Every time I meet someone new they’re nothing but a disappointment because none of them are you.”
A beat passed, and I went in to kiss him, quickly, before the moment hung any longer. But he pulled away, as if my touch had been too hot for his skin to handle—or as if I were some monster out to eat him. The moment hung whether I wanted it to or not, and with every second, every millisecond, that passed where he did and said nothing, my ability to breathe evaporated further.
Then he reached for my face, his cold fingertips brushing against my red-hot cheek, sending a shiver down my spine that almost made me quake all over. But I didn’t quake. I held firm, even as his lips crossed the great expanse between us, and when he kissed me, it was as if the ground had cracked around us and the world had fallen into itself, leaving us alone on a platform surrounded by nothing but the stars.
I was hot and cold all at once, dazed and overwhelmed, but my hands found his neck, his hair. And when the kiss broke again, I chased his lips with my own until I found them, returning to the kiss as if breaking apart would have killed me. His thumb smoothed the skin at the nape of my neck, and a soft sigh escaped my mouth, breaking against his like a wave.
When we separated again, I didn’t open my eyes. Instead, I clung to him as my heart hammered against my chest, in my throat, in the palms of my hands. Opening my eyes, I thought, would dispel the fantasy, and I wasn’t ready for it to end. Not yet. Just another minute, another second.
But reality asserted itself around me—the sound of music, the chatter of conversation, the smell of perfume—from behind the closed door. It was then that I opened my eyes, breaking the spell.
Jared was staring back at me, and I wasn’t sure what he could see. Confusion? Want? Excitement? I started to worry he could feel the rapid pulsing of my heart through my hands, so I yanked them away from his neck, startling him. My eyes had gone wide with alarm, or panic, I wasn’t sure, but Jared’s remained steadfast and stern.
“I’ve always been the afterthought in every single relationship I have ever been in,” I said. “I’m so sorry I’ve treated you the same way.”
“Shhhh,” Jared whispered.
Removing my hands from around his neck had caused him to pull his away also, but I felt them again now, his fingertips reaching for my waist as if to draw me nearer. I didn’t stop him.
“If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you overthink things,” he said, “So, maybe just don’t think right now. You don’t even have to speak. Just go out there and dance with me.”
“I want to. Really, I do.”
“Don’t tell me there’s a but…”
“No, there isn’t. There really isn’t. Could you just wait for me at the bar?”
“Okay… where are you going?”
“I just need to go freshen up. I promise, I’ll be right back.”
Jared released me from his soft grip. “Alright,” he said, “But I’ll only be there five minutes.”
I nodded. “Five minutes. I’ll be right back, I swear.”
When he let me go completely, I took the chance to spin around and move as quickly as I could out of the bedroom and down the hall, into the closest bathroom that wasn’t occupied. My heart was racing, my head was throbbing, and my hands were starting to feel clammy and cold. Why had I left? To freshen up? Not even he had believed that, I was sure.
I shut the door, then headed straight for the sink where, gripping either side of it, I stared at my own reflection in the mirror. My cheeks were burning, my lips were quivering, my legs were trembling, and all I could think about was ‘oh how the mighty have fallen’. I had been so quick to wrestle him away from Jennifer, so confident when I gave him the choice of me or her, and then so broken when he didn’t take things as I had wanted him to.
And now here I was, melting into a pool of myself.
This wasn’t at all like the last time we had kissed. The last time we had kissed, really kissed, had been in my own house, but the kiss was wrapped in confusion and vulnerability. It was no way to start anything. But now I was here, trembling and giddy, and Jared was waiting for me outside. I had to get a grip and make a choice, and I had to make it fast or lose my chance.