“Okay, you’ve got a point. That was a dreamy thing to say.” I just wished he hadn’t had so much practice in saying them. It was hard to know how many of his lines were off the cuff—he really did have a silver tongue—and how many were taken from his well-worn playbook. “I hope he wasn’t in the mood for steak and lobster.”
After hours spent hunched over a table with a pen in my hand, I wasn’t in the mood to be restricted again. Not in how I dressed or in how I ate. Casual suited me just fine. I did give a nod to the fact it was a datelike thing by wearing a swishy navy sundress with moons and stars embroidered on the hem. I kept my shoes flat and my hair down, and I skipped the makeup since I would make a hot mess of it without professional help.
Boaz took longer with his primping than any woman I had ever known, so I decided to wait for him on the porch to enjoy the cool night air. I plopped down on the slatted bench seat and kicked off the planks, setting the chains jangling until they fell in sync. I tipped my head back at the same time I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
Turning my head, I spotted Linus strolling across the lawn, heading for the curb like he had a ride to catch. The urge to apologize for Boaz pushed me upright, and I smoothed a hand down my dress, pressing all the wrinkles flat. By the time I looked up with a hello in my throat, he was gone.
Seven
A shrill whistle let me know my date had arrived. Considering motorcycles didn’t have horns, I figured this was the equivalent of Boaz parking outside my house and honking. I wasn’t sure if I ought to be offended I didn’t rate a pickup at the door or relieved that he really was treating this like any of a thousand other dates he’d been on. As much as I didn’t want to be lumped in with all the others, there was a certain thrill in finally living what I had fantasized about for half my life.
I took the path leading toward the garage and stumbled at the sight of Boaz. He always had cleaned up nice. His tan cargo pants had been pressed, and his mossy green button-down shirt brought out the warmth of his eyes. With his milk-chocolate irises striated with lighter bands, they always reminded me of swirled caramel. As appealing as he was with his lips quirked up in one half of a knee-melting grin, it was what squirmed in his arms that held me transfixed.
“Kittens?” I couldn’t stop myself from rushing over or snatching the miniature orange tabby crawling up his shoulder. “Where did you find them?”
“They swarmed me when I opened the garage.” His gaze raked down me, and he moistened his lips. “You look good enough to eat.”
“Thank you, Mr. Big Bad.” I curtseyed. “Is this the part where you ask if my grandmother is home?”
“Sorry I didn’t pick you up at the door. I meant to but…” He lifted his hands, a kitten in each. “I wasn’t sure what to do with all this.”
A flutter behind my breastbone announced his lumping me in with past girls was forgiven and forgotten, as if that had ever been in question.
“Have you seen the momma cat?” I peered around him into the garage where Jolene and Willie stood together companionably in chromed silence. “We should probably leave the kittens how you found them.”
In this neighborhood, with so many Society residents sprinkled throughout, there was always the possibility the momma cat was someone’s familiar. If that was the case, the kittens were hereditary familiars and would mature into more powerful foci than their parents. Most likely, the fuzzballs were slated for kids waiting to begin the bonding process.
All High Society darlings were raised alongside their animals. All budding practitioners were expected to bond with their familiar, the true first test of their potential. That connection, once cemented, used a trickle of the child’s life force to slow the animal’s aging process.
Keet and I hadn’t bonded before he died. There hadn’t been time.
The upside of having a psychopomp was while other necromancers worried their familiars might die from accidents as mundane as getting backed over in the driveway, mine was already dead. Undead. Whatever. I would never have to part with him as long as I was around to revive him.
“There’s a box in the back.” Boaz aimed a kitten’s pink nose in that direction when he lifted his arm. “Can you get it down? We’ll dump the little guys in there then make our escape.”
“It depends.” I handed him the kitten back and sidled between the bikes to the back wall. “What’s in there? Knowing my luck, it’ll be your weights left over from high school. Or your football gear. Or your baseball gear. Or your soccer gear. Or—”
“I get it,” he grumbled. “I took over your garage.”
Among other things. Boaz had been taking over small corners of my life for as long as I could remember.
“I let you do it.” I grasped the box and gave it an experimental wiggle. “I could have stopped you if I didn’t want your junk all over the place.”
A curious note spiked his tone. “Why didn’t you?”
I liked having a part of him with me. I liked sneaking out here smelling jerseys that carried his scent, sleeping in them when I could get away with it. I liked knowing he would have to come back, if not to see me, then to dig through his stuff.
“Here goes nothing.” I pointedly ignored the question. “Oh, hey. This isn’t so bad.”
The box was large, but not so big the momma cat couldn’t retrieve her babies. Nothing rattled inside, and it weighed much less than expected. It must be an empty waiting to be refilled.
Years ago, I found an outfit from his toddler days used to wipe up an oil spill. Another time I’d found his lion costume from an elementary school play used as an animal skin rug. And once, I found a onesie with his name embroidered on it used to coddle a greasy carburetor.
Odd bits of his life had a way of ending up here, part of my collection, making me the curator of his personal history. I was the world’s foremost expert on Boaz Pritchard.
I set the box on the concrete and folded open the flaps. A worn sketchbook held together with rubber bands sat in the bottom. When I lifted it out, I saw there were more pieces of paper stuck to the back. The brand was familiar. Maud had used it. I did too. But we never let them degrade to this ragged state. She was meticulous about keeping her supplies in good repair, and I had learned to retire sketchbooks before they fell apart too.
Flipping it front to back, I spotted no name or signature to identify the owner.
“Have you seen this before?” I held it up in one hand while I carried the box to Boaz with the other. “It looks like one of ours. Maybe Maud left it out here.”
It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities that it could be from when I was younger, something I doodled in for practice. She kept my art, my stories, my scribbles, all locked away in her library. I had blamed sentimentality, but I was beginning to grasp the truth, thanks to Linus.
“Yeah.” He nuzzled a kitten and avoided eye contact. “I know who it belongs to.”
This couldn’t be good news, and I had a sinking feeling I could guess the owner.
“I found Linus up that old oak in our backyard once. He was staring in your window.” He toyed with the jellybean pads on one fluffy paw. “I yanked him down so fast he saw stars.”
“You’re telling me Linus climbed a tree?” Try as I might, I couldn’t picture him communing with nature by choice. Or committing willful acts of athleticism. “How do you know he was looking in my window?”
“He was sketching you,” Boaz answered flatly. “He didn’t even try to defend himself.”
“Me?” There must be more to the story, like a homework assignment or maybe a gift he’d been working on for Maud.
“I was so pissed I stole his sketchbook. I would have burned it, but his mother being who she was, I figured it was smarter holding on to it until she made me give it back.” His lip curled at the yellowed papers. “He never demanded to know what I did with it, and he never asked for it back. His mother never called either. I must have forgotten about it and tossed it in with some of my junk at some point.”
Well, that explained why the temperature dropped around Linus when Boaz was in the same room.