Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate (8 page)

By the wolf of Egypt, Zeki needed to shut up. He was basically talking to himself, about magical theory of all things. As if Theo cared about Zeki’s passions. Zeki put his hand down.

“Why would I be offended?” Theo’s voice was low and hesitant and wonderful.

Zeki perked up at getting him to speak. “Werewolves don’t like magic,” he explained matter-of-factly. “I spent most of my teen years being reminded of that every time I tried to talk about it.” He could not believe he’d brought up his awkward teenage experience in front of Theo Greenleaf, or that he’d given him a lecture about magic. It was like words kept spilling out of him. Theo had a tiny frown. Zeki took a breath to center himself and stared into Theo’s eyes. “I mean, werewolves don’t use magic, as a rule. Or you can’t, I’m not sure which. Maybe the discipline required while working spells doesn’t fit well with the average were’s need to follow their instincts. Except….” Zeki faded to silence, puzzle pieces locking together in his mind. “But you use magic, don’t you? You use it like a human would.”

He instantly wanted to call the words back. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mr. Elliot freeze a little too obviously. Theo’s eyes went wide. He shook his head once but continued to stare at Zeki in astonishment.

“I’m sorry,” Zeki whispered. “I hope I’m not, well, insulting you. I don’t think it’s an insult. I think it’s incredible. But—” He opened the paper bag and broke off a piece of cookie. He popped it in his mouth and groaned quietly. Theo’s eyes went wider, the pupils big and dark. “That’s magic.” Once again Zeki found it difficult not to keep eating. “Magic.” It was no wonder he’d chosen that cookie yesterday when he could have had anything else. He hadn’t even come in for anything but coffee. “Small but there, like an extra flavor. Like the best sugars, but it’s not sugar giving it that edge. That’s whatever you channeled into them.”

“What?” Theo shook his head again. “No, I wouldn’t even know how.”

“Natural talent is very real.” Zeki was almost breathless. “You are baking with magic, or you were when you made these and those crescent moon cookies.” He looked up at the soft shock on Theo’s face. “Problem solving, mysteries like this, are kind of my area.” Theo probably didn’t care, but Zeki wished he did. It would be nice if someone in this town cared to know what Zeki was capable of, especially if that person was Theo. “I can determine how spells were cast and who cast them, even what was used. I also do some removals and healing. I studied anything and everything I could, and if I had the money I’d still be learning.” That was the painful truth. “Every practitioner has different ways of focusing, and they’re all fascinating. Charms, potions, glyphs, formulas, blood magic, sex magic. Fascinating,” he repeated so firmly Theo blinked. “Mediums are like a signature. I don’t cast much myself. Helping is more what I want to do. It’s my dream job really, being a consulting cunning man. It’s more democratic than keeping all the knowledge for myself the way some practitioners do…. I’m babbling.” Once again, Zeki was talking too much. Maybe it was the steady, careful way Theo watched him as he spoke, like he was committing everything to memory. Zeki stepped back. “Anyway, trust me. Whether you meant it or not, what you put into these made them wonderful.”

Theo angled his head to the side before glancing at Zeki. “You really like them?”

His sweet, measured tones were nearly enough to make Zeki’s toes curl. He’d never have guessed that, of all topics,
magic
would get Theo to talk to him.

“I’ve never tried cooking or baking, unless you count potions, but this.” Zeki decided another bite wouldn’t hurt. “This is how a sugar cookie should be,” he said around a tasty mouthful. “This cookie
wants
me to eat it.” His own choice of words made him pause again, his thoughts whirling. Theo continued to study him, perhaps waiting for him to explain some more. Zeki considered him, thrown for a moment when Theo broke eye contact first. “The cookie yesterday, the moon, gave me the sensation of longing for more before I’d even finished it. This one… the panda design is cute, but this cookie… it’s impossible to ignore this cookie. It only took one bite to hook me. It wants to be noticed.”

He was so intent on the conclusion he almost missed how Theo flinched at his last words. He looked horrified.

“That is definitely magic,” Zeki pronounced, a little horrified too as he realized exactly what was happening when Theo baked. “It’s more than you wanting to make good cookies, Theo. Those cookies invoke those specific feelings. Was that… was that what you were feeling when you baked them?” Zeki put a hand to his chest. Theo twitched uncomfortably. “It was, wasn’t it? You wanted someone to see you?” Zeki hadn’t meant to reveal any of this. He’d just wanted to talk. Damn, he hadn’t even lowered his voice. “Theo?”

He didn’t think Theo normally spoke much, and Zeki typically wouldn’t have asked it of him if he was uncomfortable, but this needed an answer.

Theo kept his gaze down, not on the floor, but on Zeki’s hands of all things. Zeki raised them until Theo was looking at
him
again.

Zeki kept his voice as low as he could. “You push what you’re feeling into your baking.” Cookies filled with longing and a desire to be loved. Zeki was the worst person in the world for pointing this out. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He reached for Theo, then realized what he was doing, and pulled himself away. Theo was still.

“Theo?” Zeki pressed when the silence went on.

Theo raised his head. “No one else noticed.” His expression was somewhere between amazed and resigned.

Zeki didn’t care about being amazing or different or special. He darted out his hand and briefly pressed his palm flat to the bare skin of Theo’s arm. He heard Theo’s breath catch. “They were wonderful.” Zeki needed Theo to know that before he went on. “You can keep doing it. But you have to keep some for you too. Even the terrible feelings you hide from other people. You can’t push away everything.” Zeki was utterly serious. “You can’t bury all your feelings in your magic. If you do… if you do, it won’t end well for you.”

Zeki kept his hands to himself this time, but at his final words, Theo reared back, and this time Zeki understood the flash in his eyes. It was anger, panicked, surprised anger.

“My feelings aren’t your business!” Theo’s growl held anger too, anger covering fear and probably pain that Zeki itched to heal. Zeki didn’t often feel rage, but the idea that someone had turned gentle Theo Greenleaf into someone afraid to feel made him want to cast vicious hexes of vengeance after them. He didn’t know what Theo would have grown up to be if he hadn’t been rejected by his mate at sixteen, but this wasn’t right. Not the baking, not the firefighting, but this, this Theo who expressed himself solely through passive means, who was so startled at being seen that he was panicking.

“I’m sorry.” Zeki hadn’t meant to give him another lecture. But the danger of Theo going numb was very real. There had to be more for him than the magic or the baking. Theo wasn’t going to seek that out with Zeki, that was clear, but he had to talk with someone. How had not a single person in this town felt the messages in those cookies? Zeki exhaled roughly. “I’m sorry, but I noticed.”

“Of course you did.” Theo shook his head. “I have to go.” He came close long enough to shove the wrinkled invoice on the counter, then turned and fled.

Zeki didn’t chase him. He felt awful enough already.

After a few moments of staring at the arch where Theo used to be, Zeki finally squared his shoulders and accepted how completely he had blown it. He turned to Mr. Elliot. “That could have gone better.”

His joke was a little flat, judging from how Mr. Elliot frowned at him. “Zeki Janowitz,” he said at last.

“What?” Turning the rest of the way gave Zeki a good view of the rest of the coffee shop and the numerous customers regarding him with the same frozen expressions. “Why does everyone keep saying my name in that tone?” he demanded, not really expecting an answer.

“I’ve never seen him react like that.” Mr. Elliot was stunned. “He was
angry
.”

Angry didn’t begin to cover it. Theo had never flashed wolf’s eyes at anyone in school, even with puberty and hormones as the perfect excuse. Anger, Zeki had learned from studies of spells meant to affect feelings, was a secondary emotion. Zeki had hurt Theo by bringing up his suppressed feelings, then left him to panic. And his only outlet was cookies. Or, to Theo, it must feel that way.

“Great.” Zeki sighed. Now everyone was going to hate him even more. Now Theo would hate him too, and he’d only been indifferent before. Zeki put his bag of cookies down. “Am I being cursed? Curses are usually not spoken of, I know, like so many things, but what?” With all the secret magic going on, it was fair to ask. “Why does everyone in town know my name now, first of all? And secondly,
what
? Why do you all say it like that? Like you can’t believe me and the crap I’ve pulled, when as far as I know, I have not pulled any crap. Unless you count what happened a few minutes ago, which was an accident, a terrible, terrible accident.”

“Did you mean it, about what Theo has been doing with his baked goods?” Mr. Elliot did not seem happy. He tapped his finger on the counter, over the cookies. “I knew they were good, but I didn’t think he was… doing that. Is it as bad as you said?”

Zeki thinned his mouth as he considered how long Theo Greenleaf could have been channeling his feelings into his baked goods, and how long people had let him. He didn’t know what was worse, that Theo’s feelings were so desperately sad, or that he felt he had to hide them. Werewolves had those damn senses. They were supposed to notice things. This was like the entire town had been willfully blind to Theo’s pain.

Which was probably exactly the case. They clearly didn’t like to think about Rejection with a capital
R
. They probably hadn’t known what to do with a “broken” werewolf among them. They’d wanted to assume that Theo was doing better, even if they knew he wasn’t.

Zeki recalled the gossip yesterday with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Guilt. Zeki finally recognized what had Mr. Elliot so upset. It turned his stomach too.

“I didn’t realize.” Mr. Elliot looked to Zeki as if he owed Zeki an explanation.

Zeki wasn’t owed anything, but he wasn’t feeling especially forgiving. He lifted an eyebrow, at Mr. Elliot, at everyone else in the coffee shop. “No one did, apparently.” Everyone had been sure to mention how Theo had no life, how he didn’t date, but they hadn’t thought in terms of magic.

This really couldn’t have gone worse. Zeki had hurt the one person in town aside from his father he’d truly wanted to talk to, and he definitely wasn’t getting hired at the coffee shop. Maybe he could sell charms over the Internet and become one of those witches who sold love potions and other vile things. He could leave Wolf’s Paw and never come back and finally get over his stupid high school infatuation.

He sighed. “Does he always do his own deliveries? I owe him another apology.” Not for saying it, but in how he’d said it. Zeki believed in using his magic to make things better, and he couldn’t let Theo waste away. He’d had to know what he was doing. But Zeki had outed him as a magic user in front of other werewolves while prodding at a bad wound.

Theo hadn’t gotten over anything. He’d just learned to hide it. “Clearly, I have no hope there,” Zeki went on, trying to sound less dejected than he was. He’d never really expected a chance with Theo, but for a moment there he’d let himself imagine one. “But it would have been nice to talk to him. Get to know him like I didn’t dare to before.”

Mr. Elliot glanced over at the shop and then at Zeki. “Zeki,” he began slowly, “you
want
to be here when Theo comes in? That wouldn’t be… awkward for you?”

“I’m not a teenager anymore.” Zeki straightened to remind them all how true that was. “I can deal with awkward. I only regret making it awkward for him. This is going to be all over town soon, isn’t it? He’s going to resent me, quite rightfully.” That in itself would have been bearable if it meant Theo wasn’t hiding his feelings. Nonetheless, Zeki stared down at his hands for a while. No shame in confessing the obvious to werewolves who knew it anyway. As a kid Zeki had been in a constant state of nerves and arousal around Theo. He had broadcasted his erections and his tripping heart. “He used to not know who I was. Now he probably hates me. So, instead of being that human kid he didn’t see in the halls, I’ll be that interfering wizard who hurt him. Yeah, that could have gone a lot better. I don’t know what happened.”

There was another strange silence in the coffee shop.

“You really don’t, do you?” Mr. Elliot clucked his tongue, bringing Zeki’s attention to him.

Zeki must have missed something. “What?”

Mr. Elliot looked at the others in the shop again before considering Zeki. “If you still want the job, come in tomorrow,” he offered, as though some silent agreement had been reached with the others. Then he pushed the bag of cookies toward Zeki.

Chapter 4