For Love or Magic (29 page)

And someone did.

*   *   *

“You know that dog's not supposed to be in here,” Larry said as he stopped by the corner booth. In the past few weeks, it had become my booth. I would come in and sit there to read or think, order a drink and not drink it, then leave a hell of a tip. I could afford big tips now, and that's why Larry complained about Seamus coming in with me, but never actually threw us out.

“What are you reading?” he asked, leaning against the wall.

“Don't you have to work?”

He motioned toward the bar, where Amber was arguing with a patron. “She's got it under control.”

I closed my book and showed him.

“Witness to My Life.”
He picked it up and read the cover.
“The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir.”

“Yeah,” I said, and went quiet. Desmond, being the guy that he was, had returned his copy before leaving town. Me, being the girl I was, took it out, claimed I lost it, and bought the library a replacement copy while keeping that one.

Larry slapped the book back on the table. “Yeah, I'm more of a Kant guy myself.”

“Larry!” I stared up at him, laughing. “Are you seriously kidding me with this?”

“I went to Brown. Biology major, philosophy minor,” he said, his voice just as gruff as ever. “I was gonna go premed, but my dad passed and left me his bar and well … what are you gonna do, right?”

“No way!” I said, slapping my hand down on the table. “This bar was named for your dad? So it's not ironic, then? There actually
was
a Happy Larry?”

“Eh,” Larry said, and shrugged. “I don't know if I'd go so far as to say
happy
…”

A shaft of light came into the bar as the front door opened. I couldn't see who had come in, but based on Amber's expression, it was Someone. Since the big magical explosion, agency guys had been poking around, trying to get a foothold in the power structure here. Between my RIAS connections and Tobias's ASF ones, we'd managed to keep them out of our hair, but every so often, another one would show up and give it a try. I sighed and pushed up from the booth.

“Time for business,” I said, and then froze.

He looked just as he always had. Tall, lean, clean shaven, well groomed. Shirt, tie, and trousers, all pressed and perfect. I watched as he walked to the bar and ordered. Amber nodded and pulled a beer for him, shooting a quick look at me as she slid it across the bar to Desmond.

He looked over and our eyes locked.

He smiled.

I smiled back.

“Beat it, Larry,” I whispered, and Larry disappeared like a mensch, without another word.

Desmond took his beer from the bar and walked over to me.

“Hello.” He sounded amazing. God, I loved that accent.

“Hi,” I said.

“Do you mind if I join you? I used to come here quite a lot, and this is where I would usually sit.”

“Sure.” I motioned toward the booth. “Take a load off.”

He started to sit when Seamus saw him, stood up and barked, wagging his tail. Desmond put his beer down and ruffled Seamus's neck, looking genuinely joyful to see the stupid mutt. My heart started to race, and as I sat down across from Desmond and watched him love up on my dog, my limbs felt shaky from the hope shooting through my veins. I was too stupid to protect myself from it; if he broke my heart again, fine. But I wasn't going to shut down to the pure happiness it gave me to see him again.

Seamus calmed down and sat by Desmond's side and Desmond looked at me first, then down at the book. When he looked back up at me and met my eye, he smiled warmly and took a sip of his beer.

“I thought you didn't drink during the day,” I said.

“I didn't,” he replied, then added on an amused huff, “I do now.”

I resisted the temptation to follow that up with some kind of snappy repartee. Whatever was going on here, I didn't want it to be snappy. I wasn't going to hide behind clever bullshit anymore. Desmond Lamb wasn't the only one to engage in emotional growth.

“You look well.” He smiled at me. “Beautiful, actually.”

“Thank you. You, too. Really great. You look…” I wasn't sure what word to use. Happy? Peaceful? They seemed like strange things to say, and yet, it was the truth. Which could really only mean one of two things; either he was over me, and I didn't cause him to feel anything anymore, or he'd somehow fixed it, and had returned to win me back.

Under the table, I crossed my fingers, hoping it was the second option.

“Well, I was planning on sitting here for a bit to gather my thoughts before seeing you, but I guess we're both here, so now's the time…” He paused, then laughed a little to himself. “I don't quite know how to start.”

“That's fine,” I said, leaning back. “I'm unemployed. I have loads of time.”

“All right. Well … this is going to sound exceedingly stupid, but … recently, I reactivated my phone number. My phone, like all the rest in town, had of course ceased to function, and I'd just left it behind. I didn't want to be reachable, at first. I felt it was … best.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. You didn't want a bunch of ranty voice mails from your ex bogging you down.”

For the first time since our eyes had met, his smile faltered, and I was okay with that. I was glad to see him and everything, and I still cared about him and would work hard to fix it all if he still wanted me, but he hadn't been the only one to suffer from this whole thing, and I didn't mind making that clear.

“It turned out, my ex hadn't tried to get in touch with me at all,” he said, “which, I'll admit, I found more a disappointment than a relief.”

“She was respecting your space,” I said, a little edge working into my voice. “Honoring your request.”

“I know she was.
You
were. Thank you.” He reached out and touched my hand, meeting my eyes. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” The warmth of his hand on mine was excruciating.
Get to the point, buddy,
I thought,
or you're gonna kill me here.

He pulled his hand back, but kept his eyes locked with mine.

“I did, however, find a number of … to borrow your terminology … ranty voice mails, e-mails, and texts from a mutual friend.”

I smiled with instant knowing. “Stacy Easter.”

He let out a short laugh. “As it turns out, she had a theory about my … well,
problem
 … which, once I sorted through all the profanity and name-calling—”

“Oh, oh!” I bounced a little in my seat. “What was the best one?”

He glanced upward, retrieving the memory. “I think ‘fucking limey shithead bastard' was my personal favorite. What it lacked in eloquence it more than made up for in passion. I saved that voice mail. I can play it for you later, if you'd like.”

“Oh, I'd like that very much,” I said, my heart full of wild love for Stacy Easter.

“Anyway,” Desmond continued, “her theory, to paraphrase, was that I should be a man, strap on a pair, and just … have a good cry.”

His face flushed a bit as he spoke, but he held my gaze.

“So,” he said, “that's what I did.”

He went silent at that point, and I waited as long as I could before saying, “Well? What happened?”

“Oh, it was dismal,” he said. “I was staying in a hotel in Surrey—”

“You went back to England?”

“Yes,” he said. “I had this thought that going home again would be a good idea. It wasn't.”

“A good idea?”

He looked at me. “It wasn't home.”

I felt myself flush, all over, as he looked at me and was grateful when he finally looked away.

“It was a pathetic affair,” he said. “I wept openly for three days straight. My eyes were raw. I was dehydrated. I went through an unconscionable number of tissues.”

“Wait,” I said. “What about the handkerchiefs?”

“Ran out, day one,” he said. “It was a tragic display, and the most alarming discovery came at the end of it. It turned out, against all expectation, Stacy Easter was right.”

I gasped and put my hand to my mouth. “No!”

“Are you making light of my emotional breakdown?” he said, but there was a glint of humor in his eyes.

“Sorry. Carry on.”

He gave me a playful look of admonishment. “Anyway, at the end of it all, I felt better. I felt … free. I felt happy, and nothing hurt. Well, nothing except how horribly I missed … well … you.”

There was a long silence.

“That's it?” I said after a while.

“I'm sorry. Is that not enough?”

“No, it's not enough,” I said. “You have to tell me that you still want me.”

“Oh. Is that how this goes?”

“That's how it goes, you big idiot,” I said. “Look, I'm glad you've worked out your emotional issues and everything, but I'm not just going to jump in your lap because you said you missed me.”

He raised one brow at me. “Oh? And what are the magic words that would get you to jump into my lap?”

I pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Don't get cute with me. You loved me and left me, you can't just waltz back in here and—” I stopped suddenly, realizing what I'd said. “I mean, you didn't … I meant
love
like, you know, had sex with, not—”

“I loved you,” he said, his voice low.

We both went silent, and the funny bit we'd been improvising didn't seem that funny to me anymore.

“You … you … you did?” I said quietly, stammering pathetically, not sure when the moment was that I'd lost control of this ship. My heart was suddenly racing and I felt a little faint, so I grabbed his beer and took a deep drink.

“I thought you didn't drink during the day,” he said, with a teasing tone.

“I do now,” I said, and took another gulp before setting it on the table between us.

“Eliot, you are the best friend … the
only
friend, really … that I've had in a long time. I don't want to come here and make confessions and mess it all up. I don't know how to do this properly, I just know I don't want to lose you.” He raised his eyes to mine. “I never want to do that again.”

“Oh, god. This is just painful.” I shot up out of my seat and moved over to his side, nudging him over, and then I angled my body to face him.

“Let me simple this up for both of us. Just say this: ‘I love you. I need you. I want you.' That's all you have to do, and I'm yours.”

He smiled wider than I'd ever seen him smile.

He reached up and touched my face. “I love you, Eliot Parker.” His eyes shifted up as he moved his fingers through my hair. “I need you.” His gaze dropped down to my lips. “I want you.”

“See?” I said, breathless. “That's all you needed to say.”

His eyes met mine again. “And you?”

I gave him a blank look, teasing. “What about me?”

“Now you're being willfully cruel,” he said, “but it's all right. I deserve it. But now you must tell me. Have I buggered this all beyond repair or do I have a chance to win you back?”

I smiled and nodded, blinking away the tears. “You're a hot mess, Desmond Lamb, but god help me, I love you, too.”

I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him to me, feeling dizzy with how good it was to touch him again. We held each other tight for a moment, and when he pulled back to look down at me, there was a tear at the corner of his eye.

“Holy cow,” I said, wiping it away with my fingertip. “You weren't kidding, were you?”

“Do shut up, Ms. Parker.”

He kissed me then, and everything else in the world disappeared. Even Amber's hooting and hollering from the bar was a distant note from some faraway universe. Desmond was back, and he was mine, and as he kissed me on that Wednesday afternoon in the grungiest dive in upstate New York, I finally knew what it felt like to be truly home.

 

About the Author

Lucy March
lives in magical Syracuse, NY, with her husband and two daughters. Her powers have yet to come in, but she's keeping her fingers crossed. Visit her at
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