Dateless and Deadly

Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

After my fight with Sam, I spent the rest of the day alone in my room, reading every word ever written about energy manipulation. I stayed up most of the night only to discover what I’d already known.

Basically, energy manipulation was the rarest form of magic and one of the most powerful. Also, only a handful of people had shown any sort of skill at wielding the magic in the past 100 years. Most had died by unwittingly draining their life forces too much while testing the limits of their powers.

Considering my little display in the rec room earlier, I was headed down the same path.

Not to mention, very few people had bothered to write down any of their experiences with the magic because generally speaking, energy manipulators tended be decidedly dark magic and their interests were rarely scholarly.

It was almost two in the morning when I realized that I was just flipping through a book without actually reading a word so I flipped it closed and went to sleep.

The next morning, I stumbled my way into the kitchen and by the time I realized who was in there with me, it was too late to retreat. James sat at the table with a bowl of cereal in front of him and when I caught his eye, he looked away quickly.

My heart stopped for a second before jumping into overdrive. Of course, it would have to be James I would stumble upon in my half-asleep stupor.

“Hey,” I said, my voice coming out way higher pitched than usual. I winced inwardly wanting to sound super cool and sophisticated after our incredibly hot make-out session yesterday. I wanted to flip my hair and wink at him and say, “Thanks, babe,” before walking out, shaking my ass for effect. I also wanted to seem totally unaffected, like that sort of thing happened to me all the time. You know, guys are always way into me and it was just a kiss, right?

Instead, I get one word out and it’s at a decibel only dogs can hear.

So much for cool and unaffected.

“Hey,” James said, sounding cool and unaffected. I wanted to punch him.

I poured myself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch and sat down across from him.

We ate in silence for a while. I was trying to eat slowly so it didn’t seem like I was in a rush to leave but really, I wanted to shovel the food into my mouth and bolt.

“We should talk about yesterday,” he said.

A piece of cereal lodged in my throat and my eyes started to water while I tried to choke without making a noise. I managed to work the cereal down by taking a big gulp of water and I silently congratulated myself when I only made one small strangling noise.

He sighed, clearly taking some meaning from my silence. “I know it’s sort of weird…”

Weird? What was weird? That kiss that shook the whole foundation of my being? He thought that was weird?

Asshole.

“…but we can’t just give each other the silent treatment forever. I mean, we work together, we live in the same place it would be strange─”

“You’re right,” I cut him off not wanting to hear another synonym for weird. “We do need to talk about this.” Resolutely, I met his eyes steadily, half surprised that I’d even managed that when I was seething inside. “Basically, that kiss was a mistake.” For a second, I thought I saw hurt flash across his expression but it was gone so quickly that I doubted it had ever been there.

His eyes were totally flat when he said, “I agree.”

Ignoring the pain in my chest that his words caused, I nodded. “I mean, just look what happened. Every defense I had in place came crashing down and Caine and Dillon almost got inside.” I shrugged. “Obviously, that can’t happen again.” Even if we wanted it to. Even if, right now, I was shooting looks at his lips trying to remember exactly how they’d felt against mine and finding my memory in need of some refreshing.