What else was there to say? As she aimlessly flipped through the pictures on her phone, she stopped at the one by the creek behind his ranch. It was from the day he’d built the campfire and given her the soda tab still around her neck.
Calla pulled it from her T-shirt, dangling the necklace in the air. “Do you remember this? You gave it to me the day you asked me to be your girlfriend.”
His tanned brow furrowed. “A tab from a can of soda?” he asked, as though it were preposterous he’d given her a symbol of love fashioned from a soda tab.
Tears stung her eyelids but she bit the inside of her cheek. “Yes. You built a fire and roasted hotdogs, and we ate by the creek and you asked me to be your girlfriend. I joked about whether that proposal came with your high school ring. So you gave me the soda tab…”
“As a gesture of love,” he murmured.
Hope reared its head again. “Yes! Do you remember it?”
“No. I just assumed that’s why I did it.”
More tears threatened to fall, but she was saved by another knock at the door. Daphne strode across the floor, her flowing maxi-dress swirling around her feet as she moved.
She slid the chain and opened it to find her husband Fate outside. Flinging herself at him, Daphne sniffled into his neck. “I’ve never been so glad to see you!”
“What the hell’s going on over here?” he asked, his tone sharp and with a hint of anger and boatloads of authority. “When I got back home from my workout, Travis said you were crying and left in the middle of breakfast come to Calla’s. Something about Nash and his memory? What’s happening here?”
“It’s Nash,” Daphne said, pulling her husband into the apartment, clinging to his hand. “He can’t—”
“Remember who the hell I am,” Calla finished for her, her voice shaky.
His eyes scanned the room, zeroing in on Nash and Calla as he strode across the floor without a word, clamping a hand on each of their shoulders.
His large fingers curled into the flesh around the cap of her shoulder and instantly began to shake as his grip tightened. Calla sat immobile, afraid to move. She didn’t understand magic and its complexity, nor did she understand how Fate kept from warning people about their futures, but she stayed perfectly still in the event he’d discover something she couldn’t.
The room became sort of swirly, the air thick and unmoving, even with the central air blowing steadily from the vents in the ceiling.
Calla gulped as a frisson of electricity sizzled through her, taking an upward climb only to dive-bomb and explode, making her literally tremble.
When Fate let go of them, she would have fell to the floor if not for Nash grabbing her arm to keep her upright.
Daphne was the first to speak, her eyes wide with concern. “Honey?”
Fate looked at them, his handsome face grim, his transfixed eyes on Calla. “One day.” He spat the words as if they hurt.
“What?” everyone chimed in unison.
Daphne swatted at him, waving her hand in front of his eyes. “Don’t be cryptic, big guy. We have a crisis here!”
Fate responded again, this time quieter, calmer. “One. Day.”
“Details?” Calla squeaked.
Daphne suddenly nodded her head as though she understood, her hoop earrings bouncing. “Let me apologize for my husband. You all know him as Chatty Cathy Fate. Strong but certainly not the silent type. Lover of all things party, watermelon-seed-spitting pro, sack-race champion, and limbo king. You know—in general, happy go lucky? But when he gets visions, he loses some of his words due to their power. And as you all know, he’s mostly not allowed to reveal what he’s seen. So whatever he’s seeing must have some kind of glitch attached to it. Something that wasn’t meant to be and will upset the order of things.”
“So whatever’s happening right now wasn’t meant to be?”
Daphne shook her head. “Something like that. It just means that your fates are unnatural, maybe even manmade.”
“Manmade? Meaning a person was possibly involved in this?” But who? Who cared that she and Nash fell in love? Denny? She didn’t have time to dwell on it right now. They had to act if they only had one day to fix this.
Daphne bit her lower lip before replying. “I wish I knew more, lovebug. I just don’t.”
Oh, this was bad. So very bad. Whatever he’d seen was clearly not good.
“So now we have to figure out what ‘one day’ means?” Nash asked, rising from the chair and staring at his friend.
Daphne nodded. This was the part she’d once confided to Calla—that made it hard for them to keep friends as a couple. Fate’s random visions. For the most part he was in control, but every once in a while, a vision was too strong to contain, and once it had broken up a couple they used to bowl with. For the greater good in the end, but not before a lot of anger and resentment, according to Daphne.
Naturally hers would be one that he couldn’t keep in check, making this situation that much more ominous.
Fate remained still, his face slack.