Page 124 of A Shade Too Far
I was melting, my insides turning to goo. I looked away quickly, only to meet Jude’s eye. She made a crude motion of her finger in and out of a hole and I snorted, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Something caught in my throat,” I said.
Jude stuck her tongue in her cheek like she was giving a blowjob.
“Water,” I croaked out and ran for the kitchen, doubled over, laughing.
The party wrapped up soon after that highlight, but the rest of the two weeks until I could return home crawled by. Nav went out of town on some job and took Laurent with him, so I didn’t get to see him, and since I was still staying with Tatiana, I couldn’t even work out my frustrations with my vibrator, because there was no way I’d do that in her home.
I spent most of my time working with her sorting through a lifetime of material for her memoirs. In the evenings, Tatiana, Emmett, and I played cards or watched movies. I hung out a couple of nights with Sadie, and my family had our first appointment with the Ohrist therapist that Jude had recommended. My life was calm, my House of Bricks steady.
Finally, I woke up one morning and that stupid tattoo was gone. I sent word to Zev that we were on but didn’t tell anyone else. After all the posturing and game-playing of last time, this could be a quick one and done session.
He came that night. Nav’s people had done a good job running off demons, though Eli’s apple tree was trashed and there was a huge crack in my kitchen window.
Unlike the last time, we completed the ward with no trouble or drama. There was a click inside me when it kicked in and a new awareness of our property. It was blissfully anticlimactic.
That night, I slept in my own bed, having the best rest in weeks. The vibrator helped.
Sadie and Eli came home the next day and my daughter immediately came over to stay with me, bringing all her laundry with her. To celebrate our return, I went for takeout at her favorite Italian restaurant.
They were running a bit behind, so I wandered up and down the block to kill time, a flash of color catching my eye. I swiveled, backtracking to the window of a high-end furniture boutique to stare at the beauty in the window.
She was the deep burgundy of a fine wine, the line of her back curving sensuously, and her cushions full and plump. She wasn’t the orange sofa I’d drooled over, she was even better, and I had to have her. But she was a twelve-hundred-dollar velvet impracticality.
Dejected, I walked away, and then stopped. I wanted to be the woman who bought a gorgeous showpiece of a sofa because she deserved beauty and fun.
With that, I strode back and flung open the shop door. Hello, new me.
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