To Love A Witch

Chapter 10

  

Jake carried bowls of minestrone to the table. One of the serious perks of hanging out with Romy was that Carla seemed to think she was a starving orphan. He could handle a more regular supply of Franco’s cooking.
Romy followed with some hunks of fresh bread. “This smells like heaven. Everyone is bribing me with good food lately; I could get used to that.”
“Carla figured you’d be hungry after playing with fire up on the Rock, so she sent enough for you, me, and ten friends.”
Romy grinned. “Maybe I’ll sneak a loaf of bread into the kids later today. Center food is only a small step up from sawdust.”
Jake had been pondering how to quietly help out with Romy’s kids. “Will they let outside food in if we make a formal request?”
“I doubt anyone’s ever asked.” She frowned. “What do you have in mind?”
He shrugged, not sure how to play this. “I figured some good food at rehearsals might be nice. Franco could make pizza or something.”
He had her entire attention now. “You want to feed my kids? Why?”
“You got something against Franco’s pizza?” She just looked at him. Damn. He’d hoped to just slide this in under the radar, but he needed her help navigating the Center’s paperwork monster.
“Why do you do Delinquent Drama?”
She scowled. “What’s that got to do with pizza?”
He swiped half her slice of bread, dunked it in olive oil, and fed it back to her. He was about to compliment her big time, and he wanted her mouth full enough she wouldn’t interrupt. “I think you do it for two reasons. One, to give them some reason to get through to the next day. I figure you know exactly what it’s like to be marking time in there.”
She just nodded and chewed.
“And two,” he continued, “I think you want them to get some practice pretending to be somebody different than a kid from the hood. Maybe some of it sticks, and they have a chance to step into a different life when they get back outside.”
Now she just stared, cheeks full of bread.
He went in with his final blow. “I think you’re a secret optimist. You mean for some of those kids to make it.”
“It’s just drama.”
Like hell it was. “Yeah, and it’s just pizza.”
Whatever Romy was about to say got interrupted by his computer ringing. That could only mean one thing. Everyone else in his life called his cell. His mother used Skype—she liked to see his face while they talked.
Then the phone in his pocket started to vibrate. Damn. That meant Mom was serious.
“Sorry,” he said, walking over to his laptop. “I’m being paged.”
“Sentinel alert?” Romy asked.
“No. Mom alert.” He held up his vibrating phone. “And a fairly insistent one if she’s using multiple channels.”
Romy laughed. “Take your time—then I won’t have anyone fighting me for the rest of the bread.”
The woman could put away enough food to please even Franco. He clicked on the Skype button to open video chat. “Hi, Mom. What’s the emergency?”
“Hi, sweetheart. Who’s the pretty redhead?”
Like Jolie, his mother could see bits of the future. There were so many ways this could end badly. Jake cursed whatever insanity had made him answer the call and tried to avoid catastrophe. “Just a new friend, Mom.”
“I don’t think so, my son. I saw her kissing you on a big rock, with more than one kind of magic in the air.”
Jake looked over at Romy, apology in his eyes. She was a fascinating mix of embarrassed and horrified.
“Jacob Stanley Hayes, is that girl there right now? Call her over where I can see her.”
He shrugged helplessly and waved Romy over. She looked ready to impale him on her fork, but she came.
“Oh hello, dear,” said his mother. “I’m Deva, Jake’s mother. You are indeed a pretty little thing. Good for you, kissing my son like that. He needs a little excitement in his life.”
“Mom.” Jake growled, but he didn’t expect it to do any good.
“He’s a bit of a daredevil, but I imagine that’s half the fun. He’s also one of the most steady men I know.”
To his amazement, Romy grinned. “Somehow, I don’t think you like your men steady and predictable.”
His mother was delighted. “Indeed I don’t, darling, but I think that maybe you do. I won’t keep you. You go back to eating and contemplating whether you want to kiss him again. Jake, call me soon, so I don’t have to embarrass you again.” With that, she was gone.
Jake badly wanted a bag to pull over his head. “I’m so sorry. My mom can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.”
Romy shook her head. “You have a mom who loves you, Jake. Don’t apologize for that.”
Okay, now he needed a hole big enough to crawl in. “She’s always been this big force in my life, and especially growing up, that could sometimes be really embarrassing. My mom, the fortuneteller.”
“Like a real one?” Romy looked fascinated.
“Yeah. No one sees more than a few bits of the future, but she gets more than most. I always swore growing up that she only got the parts where I was going to get into some kind of trouble. Wreaked havoc with my dating life as a teenager.”
He reached out to tug on Romy’s hair. “Apparently, it still is.”
She went absolutely still, and he was suddenly very unsure of his next move. Nothing moved, not breath, not thought. Just the touch of her hair on his fingers, and a fierce need for more.
“I didn’t thank you for earlier today.”
She wanted to talk? Jake tried to get his verbal brain back in motion. “Thank me for what?”
“I’m actually not entirely sure what you did.” She looked away for a moment, as if trying to remember. “While you were touching my face, there on the rock. I was fighting to tamp my magic down, the way I have my whole life. I’ve never believed I could handle it—but you did.”
He nodded. The memory of her face glowing with hope and power unleashed was shutting down his verbal brain again.
“I could feel some kind of flow coming from you. Was it magic—were you helping me?”
He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes as truth hit. He was such an idiot. His mother hadn’t called about a kiss. She’d called because she’d seen the moment he’d fallen in love.
“No,” he said softly. “It was just me, believing in you.”
Her smile trembled. “Why?”
Words failed. He tugged again on her hair and pulled her in close. The kiss shook his world.
Then he realized his world really was shaking. “Shit.” He cupped Romy’s head under his chin. “Sorry, give me a moment.”
The plates on the table started rattling. He hadn’t lost control of his magic this badly since he was sixteen.
Romy looked up, eyes huge. “We don’t get earthquakes in New Mexico.”
“Nope. That’s me. You spark, I make the ground shake.”
He’d managed to get the shaking down to mild tremors, but the tears that sprung to her eyes set the shaking off again. “Please, don’t be scared. Just give me a minute.”
She shook her head and put her hands up to his face. “Not scared. I thought I was the only one.”
Misbehaving magic made conversations hard to follow. “The only one what?”
“The only one with stupid leaky magic.”
“Heck, no. When I was a teenager, the ground shook every time I kissed a girl. Apparently that’s not as romantic as the books make it seem. Hasn’t happened in a long time, though.”
She grinned. “I bring out your inner teenager?”
No. She flattened him, and he hadn’t let that happen in a very long time.