Tragic Magic 2: Black Magic [boyxboy]

Chapter Ten

Katherine was already waiting for me by my locker when I turned up there after my last class, hugging a couple of books to her chest and staring into the middle distance, chewing roughly on her lower lip

'Hey,' I said, reaching out to touch her mouth with my thumb for a split second. 'You'll chew it off completely if you're not careful.'

'Don't,' she muttered, her cheeks flushing as she turned away from me.

'Sorry,' I said evenly, opening my locker and switching out some of my books, though I wasn't all that sure I was going to get much homework done that evening. As well as everything else, all the drama was having a pretty negative effect on my schoolwork and my parents were gonna blame Tristan and start pulling some crazy stunts like confiscating my electronics if they noticed my grades slipping.

Not that that would help much, since I talk to him inside my head. There are other things we can do inside my head too.

Hey, how come we've never had, like, telepathy sex?

Are we seriously talking about this right now?

I dunno. What are you wearing?

Very funny.

'Come on,' I said out loud to Katherine, shouldering my locker shut and starting to walk towards the main doors of the school. 'Tristan's waiting outside.'

'Right,' she mumbled. 'I forgot he picked you up everyday.'

'You can relax, Kath,' I told her boredly. I was being manipulative as hell; borderline flirting with her and using a nickname nobody ever called her, making her feel special. I needed her to open up to me, be as honest as possible, not feel inclined to hold anything back. And I'd be lying if a little part of me didn't feel slightly vindicated; she'd been messing with me for months, now I was messing back. 'He doesn't bite.' I paused. 'Well. Unless I ask nicely.'

'Jesus, Codes,' she muttered, but I noted she used my nickname back and was also grinning, like she couldn't help herself.

'What?' I teased her, making my way across the lawns towards Tristan's rental car. 'You never played a little rough with Henri?'

'Yeah, maybe if he was real,' she muttered, rolling her eyes.

I slid my glance at her sideways. 'Good girl.'

'Oh my god, Cody!' she exclaimed, laughing and swiping at me. 'Stop it!'

'Stop what?' Tristan asked boredly; reclining in the driver's seat with those sunglasses and that hair and that accent, I took a moment to appreciate how completely disarming he was.

Oh yeah. We're definitely trying telepathy sex later.

Why do that, when we can do the real thing?

I'm not sure. What exactly do you want to do to me? Tell me in detail.

Careful, or I'll drive Katherine straight home.

I slid into the passenger seat while Katherine hopped into the back.

'You two are so weird,' she murmured absently, as Tristan started to pull away from the sidewalk. 'Sometimes I feel like you're having a whole conversation without even looking at one another.'

I glanced at Tristan, wide-eyed, to see if he was assigning the same weight to her observation that I was, and was gratified to see him frowning slightly without taking his eyes off the road.

'That just tends to happen when you're in a relationship for a while,' he told her, deflecting.

'You've been together for like ten minutes,' she reminded us, deadpan. 'And only spent half of that on the same landmass.'