But it’s there. Smoldering. And I know better than to give it any air. Because even though that is what I want, it’ll never really happen. Not if Evie is as smart as I think she is.
“At my age, I can’t get very far ahead of myself before I find myself in the ground,” Grandma Q mutters, and then, as though to punctuate this morbid statement, she coughs again.
I frown. “You feeling okay today, Grandma?”
She waves me away without meeting my gaze. “Happens every year when they burn the cane. It’s just a tickle in my throat.”
I’m tempted to point out that it sounded like more than a tickle, but that would just annoy her.
I take a seat across the table. “You need any help with that stuff?”
She eyeballs me over her glasses. “Does it look like I need help paying the same bills I’ve been paying for the last fifty-odd years?”
I swallow a laugh. “Is there anything I can do for you today?”
Grandma Q makes a huffing sound. “You can fix that car that’s taking up all the space in my garage.”
Well, okay then.
“I’ll get right on that, Grandma,” I say, biting back my grin and getting to my feet. But I press a kiss to the top of her head before moving to the door.
“I’m making smothered pork chops for dinner—” Grandma says with a strange lilt in her voice, “if you’d like to ask Evie to join us.
I pause with my hand on the doorknob and glance back at her. “I’ll see if she’s free.”
I walk out watching my grandmother trying to swallow her own smile before I close the door behind me. But then as soon as I do, I hear her coughing again.
Might need to get that checked out.
I cross the yard and step into the garage, and although everything is exactly where I left it last night when I led Evie upstairs, the place is completely transformed.
At least, it feels nothing like it did before.
The Supra is still here. And it’s still Anthony’s. And there’s still that ache of familiarity and longing for him when I look at it, as though he might be behind the wheel or checking under the hood if I just walked in at the right time.
But the wrecking ball of despair that would hit me at the sight of it —the one that would make it almost impossible just to touch the car at first — is nowhere in sight.
Maybe it’s just waiting. Biding its time for an opportunity when I’m not so distracted. But I welcome the difference. Even if it’s only short-lived.
Yet I don’t think it’s temporary. Evie has been here. I kissed her for the first time right here. I made her come on the hood of that car. Her cries of desire filled this space. She’s blessed this place.
Before meeting Evie, I would have laughed at the idea of anyone having the power to change the energy in a place. Or banish ghosts. But if Evie’s climax wasn’t a kind of magic, then I don’t know what is.
And that wasn’t the first time she has transformed the world around me. Her presence had the same effect on my apartment. What’s the point in doubting her powers? The woman is a sorceress. And she’s mine.
For now, anyway.
She’s stronger than her family gives her credit for. Than even I gave her credit for. I have no doubt her parents and her sister will do anything they can to convince her to stop seeing me. She won’t do it just to please them. Yet their points against me might be enough to seed doubts.
And as much as I know she should have doubts and she should listen to them, the thought of losing her now summons a new kind of pain.
The pain I carry for Anthony and all I’ve done and all those I’ve hurt — that pain is worn smooth. Sanded down by time and familiarity. It still hurts like hell, and I still suffer. But it has become a part of me, walking every step with me for what seems like a lifetime. And I earned it. Welcomed it. Almost like an old friend. I can’t imagine myself without it.
But this? Having Evie only to lose her?
The thought alone is sharp. Jagged. Lethal. I have no defenses against it. And if it comes, I will have no refuge. I know with every cell in my body I will long for her until I die.
The temptation to leave in search of her now is so potent, my groan fills the empty garage.