Dark Heart of Magic
Page 47

Her frown deepened. “Old friend?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s what we are now, right?”
She kept staring at him, as if she couldn’t believe what he’d said—that he’d just put her squarely in the friend zone.
Devon got to his feet. “Lila, Poppy, why don’t we go down to the lake and let Felix and Katia talk in private?”
Poppy and I shot to our feet, along with Felix. We didn’t want to stay and see what was about to happen, but Katia had other ideas. She didn’t want to wait to talk to Felix alone. Instead, she took a step back, slapped her hands on her hips, and glared at him.
“Are you avoiding me?” she asked point-blank.
A guilty blush crept up Felix’s neck. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe the fact that you haven’t called me and that you’ve barely responded to any of my texts while I’ve been in town. Plus, every time I see you, you always run off somewhere else.”
That guilty blush flooded his cheeks, turning his bronze skin as red as a tomato. Felix might be a great flirt, but he was a terrible liar, and he couldn’t even look at her without wincing—a guilty expression if ever there was one.
“Come on, guys,” Devon repeated. “Let’s go down to the lake.”
Katia snapped up her hand, stopping him. “Don’t bother. This won’t take long.”
She kept staring at Felix. He looked back at her for a second, then dropped his gaze and started drawing a line in the grass with the toe of his sneaker.
Katia’s eyes narrowed, and her face hardened with understanding. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? That’s why you stopped calling and texting me a few months ago.”
Felix winced again. “Yeah. I met someone earlier this year. I didn’t plan on it. It just . . . happened.”
“I understand.” But the cold, clipped tone in Katia’s voice said the opposite. “Who is she?”
“Does it really matter?”
Hurt shimmered in her hazel eyes. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
She kept looking at Felix, and he back at her, with Devon, Poppy, and I all shifting uncomfortably on our feet.
“Well, then, I guess there’s nothing else to say,” Katia said in a stiff voice. “I’ll see you guys around.”
“Katia, wait—” Felix called out, but she ignored him.
Katia hurried away from the picnic table. She started toward the trees, but Vance called out to her. Katia looked at Vance, then Felix. After a second, she squared her shoulders and went over to where Vance was sitting with his friends.
Vance got up, pulled off his hat, and swept his cloak out around him, just as smoothly as he had during the tournament. He was the only person on the beach who hadn’t bothered to change out of his ren-faire hat, cloak, and boots. He grabbed Katia’s hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, still playing the whole knight shtick. Then he straightened up, grinned, and started talking. Katia laughed at whatever he said, although the sound seemed brittle and hollow to me.
Devon, Poppy, and I all looked at Felix.
“Way to go, Romeo,” I said. “Way to let her down easy.”
Felix sighed. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. Really, I didn’t.”
“I know,” I said in a softer voice. “But you did anyway.”
He looked at Katia, who had left Vance behind and was heading toward the trees by herself. “Maybe I should go after her. Try to explain.”
Poppy shook her head. “Maybe later . . . a whole lot later. Right now, she probably wants to be alone. I would.”
Felix stared at the trees where Katia had disappeared. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Devon put his hand on Felix’s shoulder. “Let’s go play volleyball or something. Give Katia some time to cool off. I’m sure she’ll come around in a day or two. She might even find someone else that she likes before she leaves town. Vance certainly seems interested in her.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
Felix stared at the trees a few seconds longer before he let Devon steer him away from the picnic table.
 
 
Despite the awkwardness with Katia, the four of us went down to the beach, grabbed a volleyball and an open net, and started a friendly game, with Devon and Felix facing off against Poppy and me.
I leaped up into the air to get the ball that Devon had tried to hit over me, then spiked it back over the net. Felix dove for the ball, but all he got for his trouble was a mouthful of sand.
“Ha!” I said, pumping my fist. “Match point! We win!”
Poppy and I grinned and high-fived each other. Okay, okay, so maybe the game wasn’t entirely friendly. Or maybe I was just that competitive. Yeah, it was definitely that last one.
Felix got up and dusted the white sand off his khaki cargo shorts. “Did you have to spike the ball right in my face?”
“Nope,” I replied. “That was just an added bonus.”
He gave me a sour look, but we all laughed, including Felix.
By the time we finished our second match, which Poppy and I also won, it was after eight, and the sun had started to sink behind the mountains. Pixies zipped along the sand, building bonfires on the beach, and the orange-red flames flickered up into the twilight sky, chasing away the worst of the shadows.
When the pixies were done with the fires, they zipped along the beach a second time, passing out chocolate bars, along with marshmallows and graham crackers so we could all make s’mores. Devon grabbed a couple of metal skewers and threaded marshmallows onto them, while Felix stacked chocolate bars and graham crackers together.
“Not too brown,” Poppy said. “I want to taste the marshmallow, not burned goo.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Devon said, saluting her with the skewer of marshmallows. “Some lightly toasted marshmallows, coming up.”
He held the marshmallows over the fire for a few seconds, and then we all stuffed ourselves with s’mores. Crispy graham crackers, melting chocolate, sticky marshmallows. So good.
Poppy drifted off to talk to some other folks she knew, and Felix tagged along with her. That left Devon and me alone in front of the bonfire. Even though it had been in the eighties today, it was cool down here by the lake, now that the sun had fully set, and I found myself shivering.