Magic Gone Wild (26 page)

Unfortunately, she
knew
what they’d say, so she was keeping it to herself.

“Are you sure you don’t want to visit your parents, Vana?”

Absolutely sure. “It’s no big deal.”

“You could go now. I don’t have a problem with it.” He bit into his hamburger. “Well, after we get home, obviously. I’m sure the health department would have something to say about pink smoke all over the diner.”

He was trying to make her laugh, but she was getting hung up on the image of that word.
Home
. It conjured up images of hearth and home and snuggly big chairs and warm hugs and cookies baking in the kitchen—none of which she’d ever had. Mom and Dad’s idea of home had been a mausoleum filled with sculpture and libraries and works of art. Marble and gold, cool and beautiful. Sterile. Just like her parents.

“Seriously, Vana, you should go see them. Once your family’s gone, they’re gone. You’ll wish you could have spent more time with them.”

His voice was soft and hoarse. He wasn’t talking about
her
family.

“You miss yours, don’t you?”

Zane cleared his throat. “Well, doing this, visiting the house and stirring up old memories… This place, in spite of everything, is where the three of us were a family. Dad taught me to throw a ball in the backyard. He cheered me on when I climbed to the top of the willow by the creek. Then Mom would yell at the two of us for risking my neck.” His voice had gone soft again. “There were a lot of good memories.”

Vana didn’t have any memories like those. Her earliest ones were of books. Hundreds and hundreds of books. In every language imaginable. Now, there was nothing bad about books; but all that mandated reading and memorizing and studying… All she’d wanted to do was learn how to use her magic, but her parents had insisted upon learning the history and ways of the world before she was unleashed in it.

In retrospect, their idea had been valid. But not the execution of it, stifling to a little magical girl unsure of her powers and all that came with them, one who only wanted to test her abilities and find her limitations.

Well, she certainly had.

Just then a young boy walked up to their table with a piece of paper and pen in his hand. “Mr. Harrison, can I have your autograph? You’re my favorite player.”

“Sure thing.” Zane smiled at the boy, slid to the end of the booth, and took the pen and paper. “But call me Zane, okay? What’s your name?”

“Tommy. I mean, Tom.”

“Do you play ball, Tom?” Zane didn’t sign the paper, instead focusing his attention on the boy.

“Yeah. Receiver, just like you. But I’m not as good.”

“I wasn’t good when I was your age. It took a lot of practice and hard work.”

“I’m on three teams. One at school, one for infermertels, and one with my buddies. We play all the time.”

Zane didn’t even crack a smile at the child’s mispronounced word; he talked to Tommy in the same serious tone that Tommy used. A real man-to-man football discussion.

“It sounds like you have the practice thing down. Good job. But you know what else you have to do? You have to keep your grades up so that they’ll let you keep playing in school.”

“I do. I got all As on my report card last time.”

Zane clasped him on the shoulder. “Hey, that’s great. If you keep that up and pay attention to what your coach tells you, you’ll have a good shot at playing for a long time.”

“I want to play pro like you. My dad, he told me he used to be in school with you, and you didn’t even play back then.”

A flicker of something crossed Zane’s face, but he quickly masked it as he set the paper on the table. “That’s right. I didn’t start until I was thirteen. How old are you?”

“I’ll be eleven next week.”

“Well, see? You’re starting even younger than I did. And if I can do it, you can, too.” He quickly wrote something on the paper. “Here you go, Tom. Good luck. I hope you get to play pro ball someday.”

Tommy looked at the paper, his lips moving as he read it. Then he smiled from ear to ear. “Thanks, Mr. Harrison, I mean, Zane! You’re the best!” He took two half-skips, then stopped and turned around. He walked back and stuck out his hand. “And good luck to you, too, next season. I hope this time you get to win the Super Bowl.”

Zane shook his hand but didn’t respond for a few seconds. Then he cleared his throat and nodded. “Thanks, Tom. Me, too.”

They remained like that for a few seconds, Zane with an expression on his face that Vana couldn’t quite figure out, before Tommy ran back to his family, waving Zane’s signature as if it were a winning lottery ticket.

Zane watched him go, then nodded an acknowledgment to Tommy’s father.

“You really love it,” Vana said when he slid back to the middle of the booth.

He cleared his throat again. “I do. All of it. The fans, training camp, off-season workouts, the camaraderie, the rivalry, and, of course, the actual game itself. I love it all. And I’m good at it. Like I told Tommy, I was a late bloomer, but I worked my tail off and earned a scholarship that paid for college. I worked even harder there and was lucky enough to get a shot at the pros. Football is my life. The team, the coaching staff, even our competitors; they’ve all become family to me. It’ll kill me to leave it.”

And again he brought up family. For all his not wanting to be part of Peter’s, he obviously wanted one.

So then why…? “You’re planning to leave football?”

His fiddled with his own fry. “Planning to? Hell, no. Facing the possibility? Yeah.”

She covered one of his hands with hers. “But why, if you love it so much?”

“They’ve got me on second team. I’ll see some playing time, but not like I’m used to. And for all that I’ll still be playing, it won’t be on my terms.” He went on to talk about injuries and age and up-and-comers and stats and a bunch of other things she didn’t fully understand about the game, but beneath it all, she heard the sadness.

“What else will you do if you don’t play?”

“There’s always network commentating.”

“That’s good, right?”

He laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “Let’s just say that sports reporting is where players go to die. Where we fool ourselves into thinking we still have something to contribute to the game, but in reality, we’re merely reliving our glory days. Trying to keep the illusion going that we’re still what we once were.” He folded her fingers into her palm and enveloped her fist in his, his thumb tapping her wrist, his smile bittersweet. “The truth is, ex-jocks are a dime a dozen, and we can be replaced in the booth as easily as we can on the field. This latest contract offer has proved that loud and clear.”

If he could only hear himself. He was looking to belong. To be valued. But he was looking in the wrong place. Like she and Merlin had talked about, coaches left, owners sold teams, things changed. If Zane wanted somewhere to belong, all he had to do was look across the table.

Vana fell back against the padded vinyl behind her, pulling her hand from his.

Oh gods, it was true. He
did
only have to look at her because she wanted to fill that hole in his heart. She wanted to belong to him and wanted him to belong to her and not in a genie-master relationship. She wanted to be his home and his family and that part of himself he was missing. She wanted to love him.

No, she
did
love him.

Zane sat back then, too, and went on to talk about other options: coaching, agenting, teaching. Vana tried to pay attention and comment, but her mind was reeling.

Gods, she
couldn’t
love him. What about getting her magic right and making her parents proud? About proving that she wasn’t the screwup they thought she was?

She barely knew him.

No, that wasn’t true. Time didn’t matter; she knew what was inside his heart. Knew his hopes and dreams and fears. Heard the loneliness in his soul and the lingering pain of Gary’s childhood taunts. She saw the beauty of the person he was inside: his compassion for Fatima, the children, and the rest of them; knew the way he’d handled her magical mistakes without berating or blaming or belittling her; witnessed the kindness with which he’d spoken to Tommy; heard the loving way he spoke of his parents.

And she’d experienced firsthand the way he’d made her feel.

No one had ever made Vana feel like he had, and she wasn’t talking about the sex. She’d been alive for over eight hundred years; she’d had sex with plenty of people. Good sex. Hot sex. But none of it had been like last night. No one’s kisses had ever spread through her with such sweet warmth and light, as if the sun were dawning each time they touched. No look from anyone else had ever made her feel as if she were the only person in the room. No simple touch had ever made her want to stay in that one spot for all eternity so she’d never lose the moment.

She’d never felt this need to be there for anyone. To be something more than a genie granting a wish for her master. All her life, ever since she’d found herself mistakenly locked up in that bottle, that was all she’d wanted to do.

But now, Zane wasn’t her master and she still wanted to give him everything. Make everything right for him. She wanted to conjure up the contract he wanted and kiss away the painful memories of his childhood. She wanted to give him that family he wanted, that sense of belonging. She wanted to be the one to care about him for more than just the next play or season.

“Vana? Are you all right?”

She had absolutely no idea.

“Um, sure.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, then picked up her fork and fiddled with it. She wanted to look at him, but couldn’t. It would only take one word from him, one question, and the words would spill from her lips.

And that could never happen. If it did, she’d fail to master her magic, and that was
exactly
what everyone expected of her. And even if, by some cosmic miracle, she knew he’d say
I
love
you,
too
, she couldn’t give up her magic and prove everyone right.

“Is there anything more I can get you?” Their waitress showed up with perfect timing.

Vana shook her head while Zane asked for the check.

“I was thinking, Vana,” he said as if her world hadn’t been turned upside down, “when we get back, how about building a campfire? My dad and I used to do that. It was fun. What do you think?”

On one hand, she needed no further temptation around him and shouldn’t take him up on his invitation, but on the other, after that trip down memory lane, maybe he didn’t exactly want to be alone. And on the other,
third
hand that she didn’t have but was going to count anyway because this reason would strengthen her overall argument,
she
didn’t want to be alone either.

“It sounds great. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. One of my previous masters was interested in ancient Egypt and we used to go on expeditions. We did a lot of camping at the base of the pyramids.”

“Let me guess. He wanted you to find treasure for him?”

“Sir John? Oh no. You didn’t know him. The only thing he wanted from me was to tell him about what the olden days were like. Unfortunately I wasn’t around during the time of the pharaohs, so it wasn’t much.” And she’d been afraid to try to find out. Conjuring misbehaving gargoyles was one thing; animating a mummy was something else entirely. Those things scared her.

“You weren’t around during the time of the pharaohs.” Zane shook his head. “Man, sometimes I forget what you are.”

She wasn’t a
what
. But the fact that he saw her that way put her in her place as quickly and firmly as Peter had by locking her in her bottle all those years ago.

“Vana. About earlier. When I kissed you.” Zane leaned in and lowered his voice. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Oh gods, her face zoomed to overheated faster than she could say “holy smokes.” “Wrong idea?”

“I wasn’t coming on to you.”

“Of course you weren’t.” Because she was a
what
to him.

She’d always been a
what
to everyone: an untrained, capricious child to be managed; a sister to be protected; a rotten student in the shadow of her genius sister. A genie to make everyone’s wishes come true. She’d been Vana the misfit child. Vana the behavior problem. Vana the incompetent. Never just Vana. Loved and wanted for who she was, instead of put up with for
what
she was.

“It’s just that you said that your magic works better when we kiss, and I needed the house to stop spinning—”

“Only the porch was spinning.” That was a very important detail to her; she’d managed to maintain some element of control amid the chaos. In years past, the whole thing would have gone up into a tornadic funnel cloud, so she was making progress and she was all about celebrating the victories. However small.