Authors: Debora Geary
That and hiding in the coffee shop until midnight.
However, it didn’t take a psych degree to know that Elsie
singing at 6 a.m. was another dare.
The old version of her roommate had been pretty easy to get around.
The new model had guts and brains and
eyes that got all sad and made it difficult to be an obnoxious brat.
Crap.
Lizard
reached for an old hoodie.
It
matched her disreputable mood.
Time to get the inevitable over with—she probably wasn’t the only
one still supremely pissed about her dare.
They could fight over breakfast, assuming whatever Elsie was
making was edible.
If it was burnt
waffles again, she was moving to San Diego.
Hoodie on and mind barriers up, Lizard headed for the
kitchen.
It wasn’t until she was
halfway down the stairs that the obvious sunk in.
Elsie’s aria wasn’t the mad, fighting kind—or even the
slightly pissed kind.
It was all
pretty and giggly and hopeful.
At 6 a.m.?
Lizard walked slowly into the kitchen, wary now.
Nobody should be that happy at the
crack of dawn.
Her roommate stood
at the counter, making grand, sweeping gestures—at a carton of eggs.
Oooh, boy.
“That’s probably the hard way to crack them.”
Elsie spun around, pulling headphones out of her ears.
“What?”
“Why are you singing to the eggs?”
Lizard’s brain was waking up enough to realize that was a
fairly dumb question.
“It looks
like they’re your audience or something.”
Elsie looked dismayed.
“Oh, no—was I singing out loud again?”
Yes.
At 6 a.m.
Lizard figured her scowl would convey
that information just fine.
“What
are you making?”
“I’m not sure.”
Elsie grinned and held up her phone.
“I was reading about these egg soufflé things, but they
sound kind of complicated.”
Lizard didn’t have time for French egg experiments.
She reached for a frying pan.
“I have to be at work in an hour, so
how about good old scrambled eggs?”
“On Saturday?”
Her
roommate looked disappointed.
It was the freaking weekend?
Lizard peered at the clock on the stove, ready to share some
pithy thoughts on early wake-up calls on the two days a week she got to sleep
in a little.
And realized it was
10 a.m., not the crack of dawn.
Elsie touched her hand.
“I was hoping we could have breakfast together.
I wanted to have a chance to talk, to
thank you for what you did for me.”
And she totally meant it—her mind was swimming in
sincerity.
Which was insane.
“I dared you to hold on to a skinny
little piece of metal and fling yourself into the sky.”
“Yes.”
Elsie’s face
glowed with the memory.
“And I’m
going back to do it again on Tuesday.
You should come try it.”
When hell was manned by cute, mohawk-wearing Bean
lookalikes.
“I’m pretty fond of
keeping my feet on the ground, thanks.”
“I thought I was, too.”
The leaking mental gratitude was back.
“It was a life-changing gift.
You picked exactly the right thing, and you got me up
there.
Honestly, I don’t know how
you did either one, but I want you to know how much it means to me.”
Frack.
Lizard
shelved her need to get mad and rampage all over Elsie’s skull.
It wasn’t in her to rant at those
eyes.
She’d find a target for all
the pissy stuff inside her head later.
“You need to separate the eggs for soufflés.
I’ll show you how.”
~ ~ ~
Elsie smiled, well aware she’d just won a major victory.
Lizard had done a pretty good
disappearing act for two days.
The
old Elsie would have let her keep doing it.
The new Elsie had cracked opened her roommate’s door before
heading down the stairs to make a joyous and purposeful racket.
She reached for a couple members of her egg audience.
Cracking their heads open seemed a
little sacrilegious, but she was hungry.
“The recipe says one egg per person.”
Lizard snickered.
“That’s for non-witches.
Double it at least.
More if
you’re hungry or we’re expecting company.”
Elsie was beginning to understand that in Witch Central, company
was always a possibility.
She
picked up six more eggs.
“If they
turn out okay, I’m sure we can find someone to eat the leftovers.”
“They’ll turn out.”
Lizard squatted down and started pulling out bowls and mixers.
“But soufflés don’t last.
They’re egg perfection for about
fifteen minutes, and then they’re cold rubber with air bubbles.”
Elsie stared at her roommate’s back as a niggling intuition
blossomed.
That’s why Lizard
cooked.
And why her poems never
got written down.
Food
disappeared—and then there was nothing around to remind her she was
brilliant.
Lizard’s back stiffened—and Elsie remembered, all too
late, that her roommate read minds.
Oh, God.
So much for the
attempt to bond over breakfast.
She turned quietly and started returning eggs to their carton.
“I’m sorry.
It’s an occupational hazard—I’m always analyzing
people and things, even when it’s none of my business.”
“You’re not a therapist anymore.”
The words were biting, angry.
Elsie settled the last of the eggs gently in the carton and
turned to face the music, even as hurt pierced her heart—she’d been a
therapist most of her adult life.
“I don’t know what I am.
That’s what I need to figure out next.”
And the emptiness tore at her, but she could worry about
that later.
Right now, she had
things to say, and a roommate who was finally out of hiding.
And before Elsie ran to hug a blankie,
she planned to say her piece.
“But
I know you have insane talent.
I
heard your words—and even if I don’t know anything at all about poetry, I
know what it feels like to hear something achingly right.”
Lizard just stared, bowl in one hand, beaters in the other.
Elsie dug for the right words, the ones to convince a poet of
her worth.
“You do what Vero does
when she sings, or what Jennie does when she takes pictures.”
She could feel the common thread, but
she couldn’t name it.
Frustration spiked—and
then she had it.
She squatted down
on the floor in front of Lizard and reached for the bowl.
“You unveil truth.”
“They’re just words.”
Lizard spoke in barely a whisper.
“I’m no Jennie.”
“Sure you are.”
Elsie knew every therapy textbook in the world was screaming at
her—and she didn’t care.
Her
gut knew this was what she needed to do.
When friends cared, they earned the right to meddle.
“You’re a mind witch—when you
read your poetry, what did you sense from your audience?”
“But those were just a bunch of witches.”
“What, now you’re a snob?”
Elsie grabbed two eggs and held them out.
Change of plans—she wasn’t running for her blankie
until this was all over.
“Show me
how to separate these.”
She hid a
grin as Lizard automatically reached out.
“Half your poetry class was there, and the people who usually come to
Poetry Slam.
Did
they
think you sucked?”
An egg cracked onto the side of the bowl with way more force
than seemed necessary.
“It was
just one poem.”
Elsie laughed in sheer wonder at the compass in her head that
knew exactly where to go.
“So do
it again.
Go back and read another
poem, and see if that one sucks.”
She was pretty sure the two eggs landing in the bowl, shells
still on, weren’t properly separated.
And the gobsmacked look on her roommate’s face was… completely awesome.
~ ~ ~
Lauren stared at the emailed photos from Jennie.
And the message.
From one meddling witch to
another—well done, and good luck with the fallout.
There were several pictures of
Freddie and the gathered crowd, a few of their rebel poet—and one of the
sexy young man in the corner.
Yeah.
Even with a
continent of miles between them, Lauren could hear the unspoken message.
Time to ‘fess up.
Inviting Josh to Lizard’s poetry slam
had been a carefully considered move—and she’d known there would be hell
to pay later.
Apparently “later”
had arrived.
Her pendant vibrated lightly.
Great.
Even the
rock agreed.
It was no surprise to see Lizard wave through the main office
window a few moments later.
First,
they had a client coming in to see a house, and second—karma tended to
land with both feet.
The small dish in Lizard’s hands was less expected, however,
especially when she slammed it down on Lauren’s desk, along with a fork.
“Eat fast.
Elsie put some kind of warming spell on it, but she said it
probably won’t last long, and cold soufflé tastes like glue.”
It was some sort of puffy concoction topped with browned cheese
and smelling of eggy goodness.
Lauren didn’t need to be told twice.
Three bites in, some of what Lizard had said started to
process.
“You and Elsie cooked
breakfast together?”
Her assistant shrugged.
“Is it still breakfast at eleven o’clock?”
Emboldened by the lack of crankiness in that answer, Lauren
forged ahead.
“You made
soufflés?
I thought you didn’t
like food with fancy names.”
There
had been a bit of a rant the previous week about Elsie’s weekly menu and words
in foreign languages.
“Eggs are cheap, even in French.”
Lizard pointed at the dish.
“Seriously, finish it.
It took about fifteen tries before Elsie got the hang of folding egg
whites gently, so appreciate it while it’s warm.”
Lauren was smart enough not to ask how you folded an egg.
Or to call her assistant a
chef—and clearly one in a good mood, if she was giving Elsie cooking
lessons.
Which made owning up to
meddling an even less happy thing to be doing, but Jennie was right.
It was time.
She shoveled in the last bites of yummy soufflé and swung the
computer monitor around.
“Jennie
sent pictures from your Poetry Slam.”
Lizard looked at the screen like it was green, glowing
Kryptonite.
“Am I going to hate
them?”
Lauren didn’t speak—she just clicked her mouse.
Her feisty assistant’s eyes softened as she looked at the solid,
fiercely proud face of Freddie Grenadine.
“He drove his bus right off his route for me.
I hope he doesn’t get in trouble.”
He wouldn’t.
Lauren
had spent a busy hour on the phone making very sure of it.
“He loves you.”
“Yeah.”
Lizard
waved her hand in a vague “keep going” motion.
Lauren handed over the mouse and resisted the urge to run for
cover.
She watched the emotions
rolling across her assistant’s face—even Jennie’s funny pictures were
evocative and made demands of their audience.
And then Lizard got to Josh.
Young and handsome, sitting in a dark corner, eyes fixed on
something out of camera range.
It
didn’t take a genius to know what he was looking at.
And if you were being honest, it didn’t take a mind witch to
know what was pooling behind those intent eyes.