Kat had been out of town for more than a month, so the look on her face when she saw Miranda wasn’t entirely surprising.
“Holy Christ on a tortilla,” the blonde said. “You look awesome!”
Miranda laughed and fell into step beside her. “Welcome back. How was Beaumont?”
“Hell, of course. I hate Houston. Even in the middle of January the place feels like a swamp, and I got stared at from the minute I got off the plane. Dreads and tattoos aren’t the norm over there, did you know?”
“No kidding.”
“Seriously, you look great—have you been working out?”
“Yeah. A lot. I got a personal trainer.”
“Damn, girl. I said you should take a self-defense class, not turn yourself into Linda Hamilton from Terminator 2.”
Miranda made a face. “I don’t look anything like that. It’s been a month, Kat. I haven’t changed that much.”
As she said the words, though, Miranda wondered if that was true. She had gained back all the weight she’d lost when she started drowning in her gift, but at least some of that was muscle—she was working out almost every day and all her spare time was devoted to music. She ate like a horse, but to avoid Sophie’s wrath, she avoided most of the junk that she’d stuffed in her mouth the first month back in Austin. She was feeling remarkably well. It was possible that Kat was reacting to her aura more than her physical appearance. That, she knew, was very different than a few months ago.
They walked up the sidewalk toward Kerbey Lane Café, one of their old haunts from college and a popular all-night eatery for the entire city. Miranda had eaten her way through a thousand plates of scrambled eggs and pancakes in the battered green booths of Kerbey and downed about a million cups of coffee during finals. Kat had been with her for many of those cups.
“Okay,” Kat said, pulling her to a halt before they reached the building. “Um . . . please don’t be mad.”
Dread. “God, Kat, what did you do?”
“Well, remember that guy I was telling you about, Drew? The teacher?”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
Kat grimaced. “We were working together on starting the center in Beaumont, and I told him how great you are, and he really wanted to meet you, so I kind of invited him.”
Miranda punched her lightly on the arm—well, she thought it was lightly, but Kat said “Ow!” and flinched. “Kat, I can’t believe you! You know why I don’t want to date anybody right now!”
“So don’t date,” Kat insisted. “Just be friends. Nobody’s going to force you to hop in bed with the guy. I just think you need to get out more for stuff that’s not playing guitar or lifting weights. I just . . . I worry about you, sugarbean. You get all obsessed about things and you . . . get weird and disappear.”
The caring in Kat’s voice eased Miranda’s aggravation somewhat, and she relented enough to say, “Okay, okay. I won’t run screaming. I’ll meet the guy. But I’m not dating him. And if he ends up having a swastika tattoo like that guy you tried to fix me up with two years ago—”
“I had no idea! I just thought he was prematurely bald!”
“—I am going to kill you,” she finished. “Come on.”
Miranda steeled herself as she saw the figure waiting for them outside the café. She rolled her eyes inwardly—anyone with brains would have gone inside, where it wasn’t fifty below.
“Hey!” Kat was saying. “What are you doing out here? You should have gone inside!”
The guy turned around, and Miranda froze. For just a breath, she thought she was looking at David.
He had black hair, and was slender, and wore a black jacket, but as soon as he moved, the similarity ended. There was no preternatural grace, no nobility; just the slightly awkward posture of a man who was nervous about meeting a woman. His features were more angular, too, and his eyes, though blue, were pale and had a gray undertone.
Miranda’s heart still hammered. She had been ready to believe that split-second impression . . . she had wanted to believe.
“Hi,” he said, offering a hand. “I’m Drew. You must be Miranda.”
Miranda shook his hand firmly. “Guilty as charged.”
She made up her mind to be friendly, and over the course of dinner and dessert, she decided to approve of him, at least conditionally. He was well mannered and well spoken, thoughtful, and definitely handsome; he knew music and was enthusiastic about it, avidly listening to her talk about performing. He even had a decent sense of humor.
Kat kept the conversation light, steering around anything potentially hazardous like Miranda’s entire history, her family, or where she’d been last summer. It wasn’t too difficult; since the interview in the Chronicle, she’d been recognized in public once or twice, and anyone remotely interested in the Austin scene had at least heard her name by now.
Drew paid for dinner and insisted on walking Miranda home when Kat begged off—Kat’s old heap of a car was in the shop again and she had to hurry to catch the bus or she’d be stranded on South Lamar.
Drew, it turned out, rode a bike everywhere, but in the ghastly late-winter weather he’d taken the bus. She added that to the approval list: no gas-guzzling car, but he was a licensed driver, which was always handy.
“Look, I’m sorry Kat’s been trying to throw me at you,” Drew said, walking alongside her.
“It’s okay,” Miranda replied. “She just wants me to be happy, and she’s really fond of you. She’s played match-maker as long as I’ve known her. She loves seeing people fall in love.”
“Well, that’s just it. I mean, I just got out of a long-term relationship with April, my last girlfriend, and I’m not . . . I mean, I think you’re beautiful, and you seem like a really fascinating person, but I don’t know if I want to go there yet, you know? And Kat said you’d had some stuff a long time ago and you aren’t much into guys, so I thought it might be safe to get to know each other, be friends. Then someday maybe more, but no pressure.”
Miranda looked at him, marveling. “Are you sure you’re straight?”
“One hundred percent.”
She nodded. “Okay, Drew, I’ll tell you this, then. What Kat’s talking about . . . it wasn’t that long ago. I got hurt, and it left scars.”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“Both.” She paused in her walking and lifted the hair off her forehead, showing him the white line.
“You’re shivering,” Drew said. “Here, take my scarf.”
She started to protest, but he seemed genuinely concerned with no ulterior motive, so she took the proffered garment. It was hand-knitted and warm, and even one of her favorite colors, dark red. “Thanks. This is nice—where’d you get it?”
“My grandmother made it for me. She lives in Florida and she’s always worried about me being cold.”
Miranda smiled. “Must be nice.”
Drew grinned. “Yeah, it is. I miss her a lot.”
They reached Miranda’s complex, which was conveniently close to Kerbey, and she said, rather than inviting him in, “So . . . in the spirit of being friends, how about you come to my show tomorrow night? I’ll get them to comp both you and Kat at the door.”
Drew smiled and nodded, suddenly clumsy in his excitement. “That would be great. Mel’s, right? Eight o’clock? I’ll see you then.”
Miranda let herself into her apartment, sighing out of her outerwear, hanging Drew’s scarf on the hook under her coat. She’d have to return it to him tomorrow. It was best not to lead him on, even subtly. Friends was fine . . . friends was, in fact, very nice. It had been years since she’d had someone to talk music with, and even longer than that since the friend had been male. She needed to relearn how to relate to the opposite sex even on a purely social level instead of arguing with herself whether to cower in fear.
Drew was sweet, charming, and touchingly human. Totally harmless to her inner senses, and easy on her eyes.
He was also safe. She would never get that close to him, never be afraid of his groping hands, because she would never let him get that far with her. She wouldn’t have to worry about him hurting her, as long as she was honest and forthright. She wouldn’t lure him into a false paradise with promises of apples. If he wanted to admire the trees, that was fine.
She also knew just from sizing him up tonight that if push came to shove, she could kill him bare-handed.
It was a disturbingly comforting thought.
Yes, Drew was safe. Drew was safe because he was human, and because she had already decided no human man would ever touch her again. The doors to her body and her heart were already closed and locked, and she would give the key to only one man, perhaps someday . . . perhaps never . . . but all the same, she didn’t care about falling in love, or getting married, or any of that, anymore. It was too late for mortal men to stake any sort of claim to her affections. If she grew old and died alone, it would be in full possession of her heart.
And if she ever gave it, she would give it eternally, and without regret.