24. Cary

24

Cary

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Al put me on the spot regarding sharing the cottage with Evan. I was a loner and always had been. She must’ve assumed I wouldn’t want him there with me. With anyone else, she would’ve been right. But Evan was different.

I’d spent more time with him in the past few days than I had with anyone else, other than maybe Deke, in a very long time. Sure, I was attracted to him, but more than that, I liked Evan as a person. He was smart, funny, and quick on his feet, and my world, crazy as it must seem to outsiders, didn’t seem to weird him out completely. Well, not since he’d come to accept everything as real.

Had he been like most nongifted people, he’d have needed someone like Christie to calm him, or he’d have run off and published his account on some gossipy internet site. I could just see the clickbait title now: Ghost attacked me when entering ancestral home. Witches come to the rescue…

Not that it mattered much. People didn’t really take those claims seriously, but still, it was best not to draw too much attention to ourselves.

Evan followed me up the stairs to the top floor. When we reached what would be his room, I was surprised to see a smile on his face. “You like it?” I asked.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s dusty, and I can tell it’s been neglected for a long time, but it’s a great space. Are you sure you don’t mind my staying here?”

I shook my head. “No, and if you’re for real, I have some paint in the basement from when I did the last renovations. It’s not that old, and it’s pretty neutral. I can help you paint the walls today, then we can move the bed up from the guest room. I bought a new mattress for it when I moved in, but didn’t do much more than that. So, besides Deke, no one’s slept on it and not even him more than a handful of times.”

“Yeah, that’s awesome. Cary, thanks. I really appreciate this.”

“No problem,” I said and winked at him. “I’ll grab a bucket and a couple of sponges. We can have this painted fairly quickly, and I don’t think we’ll need Al’s help.”

Evan nodded eagerly, and I dashed down the stairs to get the supplies.

I knew my cream paint would be beautiful against the wood. I’d thought about turning this into my crafting room on more than one occasion, but then again, I liked my solarium. The windows, the big wooden table I’d inherited from my grandmother, and all the quaint little cabinets where I kept my herbs and spice jars were exactly to my liking.

I filled a bucket with warm soapy water and grabbed the sponge I kept with it in my cleaning closet. Not that I used it that often, but when several of my spells had gone awry, my mom and Al had ganged up on me and told me a messy house caused messy spells, so I’d worked hard to improve my living space since then.

Evan had found an old broom and was sweeping down the cobwebs and dirty walls when I returned. Of course, dust was flying everywhere. I rushed to the windows and pushed them open. The wind immediately swept in and created a breeze.

“Damn, this is an amazing space!” Evan said as he watched the dust flow out of the room through the open windows. “I wonder if I can find some cheap see-through sheers because I want to see the breeze flow through them up here. Like—” His smile wavered. “Damn, I almost said like ghosts. Scratch that, I don’t want any more ghosts in my life.”

I winked at him and left him to it, that cute smile full of optimism and excitement. I needed to get out of the room quickly, or I’d do something stupid like kiss him. And my kiss would not be the chaste kind he’d given me last night. I had a feeling that if I ever started kissing him, I wouldn’t stop until—

The thought of what I wanted to do to him had me stifling a moan. It’d been a long time since I’d wanted a man as much as I wanted Evan. I didn’t have an issue with the occasional hookup, but when I truly liked someone, my desire for them could be intense.

That’d only happened to me a couple of times. Once in high school, when Deke was the object of my desire. Of course, a few kisses behind his grandpa’s barn had cooled that off. Thankfully, we both quickly realized we were better off as friends.

The second time had been Pedro, a Bolivian God in his own right. He was a self-appointed priest to the Goddess, although I didn’t learn until much later that he’d lied about that. In reality, he was a conservative Catholic boy who was still in the closet. Needless to say, after him, I’d put some serious boundaries around my dating life.

Correction, three times. I’d felt an intense desire three times in my life. Deke, Pedro, and now Evan. Only now, I didn’t know quite what do to with my attraction for my quasi boss turned housemate. Had we actually gone on a date last night? I’d offered to consider it one if he’d wanted, but he hadn’t brought up the subject again, and neither had I.

I found the paint, and my drill and paint mixer, pleased that the five-gallon bucket was still almost full, and the paint mixed back up beautifully. It seemed like it was meant to be since I was almost sure there would be more than enough to give the attic room at least two coats with some left over.

I washed off my paint mixer, grabbed the paint supplies, and headed back up. I walked into the room just in time to hear Evan singing something about coming home, some old folksy tune not unlike what Drew and his band sang last night. I guess this guy really was a big fan of that kind of music.

I didn’t go in right away. Instead, I stood outside and listened as his beautiful tenor voice carried around the room. He wasn’t just a good-looking man, he had the voice of a freaking angel too.

I felt my knees go a little weak as he hit a particularly high note and held it. Damn, I was in trouble, and by trouble, I meant I knew for a fact I was powerless against falling head over heels for Evan Garland.