The Carver's Magic (6 page)

I shudder, “This is a job application for the Amber Line.” I peer over at Cory, wondering what exactly she is thinking.

"I want a job at The Amber Line," she said, thumbing small circles on the lid of her coffee.

“You already have a job,” I fold up the paper slowly and toss it back at her. The paper hits the window with a thunk before it drops into her lap. “A good job in fact, at the National Laboratory for Safety and Prevention, where you are paid a good deal of money to work on that micro stuff you actually studied in school!” My temper was rising and I knew I shouldn’t be yelling but I couldn’t help it. “So tell me Cory, tell me why you want to toss that good job out the fucking door to work at a sleazy bar for a quarter of what you bring how home now? Huh? Tell me Cory!”

If she really wants to work at that piece of shit bar I was going to actually shake her until her brain reset. I would slap her so hard she was going to fast-forward to next week. I would think of
something
to do to her to convince her how bad this idea was.

Hell, I spent hours with her while she used me to quiz her for her tests. She graduated high school early and was already attending Pomona University when I found her, after I left my parents. I moved in to her one-room apartment that day and said a few words in my blood language to become a new student. We both got Master’s degrees. I got a job at Nat Lab while Cory started her doctorate in microbiology, specifically with research concentrating on carcinogens. My degree is in business management. When she graduated I had already lined up her job with the National Laboratory for Safety and Prevention, but we just call it Nat Lab.

Nat Lab is a good job with great pay and I get to work with my sister. But right now she was thinking of ruining all of that. I know it’s not because she wants to change jobs. I know the driving force is none other than that rat bastard Shane, the Amber Line’s bartender.

Not that I am against her dating, but there is something about him that doesn't feel right. I don't know what it is about him that rubs me the wrong way, but I knew there was something wrong with him the moment I saw him. Adding to the fact that her interest in him is pushing her away from her real job makes me dislike him even further.

Going to the bar just to watch him was borderline creepy, but this, this! I wasn’t going to let this slide. This was stupid and this was so beneath her that I refuse to even think of it.

"You know Cory, if you want to get to know the bartender it would be a hell of a lot easier to just ask for his number. You do realize that, don’t you?"

Cory's face turns cherry red. "No. I just want to work at the bar on the weekends. I could use the extra cash."

I eye her suspiciously. "You don’t need the money, Cory." I said it, hoping it was true. I am not sure if she needs the cash but I was banking on my theory that it was all about the bartender.

"I do need the cash, my experiments are expensive." She tilted her head at me with a don’t-doubt-me face.

She's lying. She has to be.

“What the hell are you experimenting with? Uranium?” As soon as I said it, I prayed she wasn’t messing around with radioactive shit in the house. I could slap myself for letting this whole experimentation thing get out of hand. If she was gushing money on experiments then I should have noticed, right? There would be equipment and beakers and whatever else scientists used. Oh, lasers! There would definitely be a laser or something, I was sure of it.

Settled with the fact that she was fibbing about the experiments, I was one hundred percent not ready to entertain her little birthday wish to get her a part time job with her crush. Then again, maybe she needed to learn a lesson.

"Are you telling me you want to apply, or…" I raise an eyebrow to see if she wants me to use my magic to get her the job.

She chews on her bottom lip and I try not to roll my eyes. But then her cheeks get a little pink and I am amused with her shyness once more.

I wouldn’t expect Cory to date like normal people, not when she was so socially clueless. I mean, she was actually cute and smart and had a good job. By all means she was a bloody catch!

"I want us both to work at The Amber Line on the weekends. I saw an ad and they're looking for waitresses and bartenders."

Everything paused for a moment. "You want me to give up my weekends? To work at a bar?"

Unbelievable. My sister must be drinking one of her concoctions.

Cory fumbles with the coffee lid again for a moment before she answers with more resolve than I ever have heard from the little trickster, "Yes."

My jaw drops slightly, “No. Hell no!”

Cory holds up her index finger as she raises her eyebrows. I know whatever comes after
that look
is going to be so bad I may end up taking her voice away for a week. “I did some research while you were out running last night. And I am pretty sure that my information is worth working a few weekends with me.”

I lean back against the door and cross my arms over my chest, “Mmhhm?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I know what I’m doing. I even know why Dar is in town. And I know that you will want to know.” The charlatan took a small sip of the coffee, making a loud sucking noise on purpose. “In fact, I would say that you will-”

My nose flares as I get a clear mental picture of her vocal cords, and silence them.

“Nope. Nope. No. Not going to happen Cory,” I say with my eyebrows raised in a perfect horizontal line. Cory touches her throat and I could hear heavy breaths rushing out of her mouth as if she was trying to yell, but no other sounds could be heard.

I had to take away her voice. I had to. She pushed me too far this time.

With lips tightly smashed on top of one another, turning them white as ivory, Cory puts her coffee down and starts fumbling through her purse. A second later she pulls out a small 3x5 notepad and pen. She holds up the pen and shakes it at me, as if she is threatening me.

I wiggle back on the door and close my eyes, longingly, “I don’t care what you researched. I don’t care what you found. And even if I were the tiniest bit interested, I wouldn’t ask, so if this is your way of getting me to work on the weekends at a bar, you have crossed into delusional city.”

I can hear her writing but I keep my eyes closed. I am breathing slow and even, so that she can’t tell how much I am on edge here.

I hear the pad of paper whizzing through the air. The mini note pad hits the window with a loud clank, and then falls down the side in between the seat and door. I huff at my sister and reach down to see what she wrote.

You have three seconds!

I turned to her and I saw her holding out her index finger. Then added her middle finger.

“You don’t scare me,” I mocked.

She held up her phone, typed a message and pushed send, and then smiled maliciously.

“What did you do?” I swallow hard.
What could she do?

Cory started appraising her nails and I could feel my stomach begin to squeeze with uncertainty. I gave back her voice and then waved my hand at her throat.

“Cory?” My voice was steady even though my insides were not.

“Are you going to get us jobs at the Amber line?” She said sweetly, as if she were not blackmailing me.

Carefully I answered her “I will get you the job at Amber Line. And I promise to be there every weekend, but I don’t need the job. Now,” I pause, waiting for her to look at me, “what did you do?”

Cory bites the inside of her lip and studies me for a moment before tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll tell you what I did if you work for a month, with me, on the weekends, and then you can quit. I just need a month.” I opened my mouth to interject, but she cuts me off. “Wait. If you agree to work for a month and get us jobs, I will tell you what I did. And then I will promise that this is my last birthday wish for today. And, I will tell you what I found out for free.”

I slap my hand on the steering wheel. “Why would I care to hear about someone who doesn’t even know I exist?” I push back and rest my head against the headrest. “Why the hell would I care? He’s nothing to me. He’s just some guy I knew in school who I crossed paths with at a bar. It’s nothing. It means nothing. He means nothing.” I closed my eyes tight, begging for my words to come true, but the hollow feeling in my chest was still there like it has been since I was seventeen. “If you want to work at Amber Line, fine. But don’t wrap me into your crazy schemes.”

“You’re wrong,” Cory said lightly, as if she could make the words hurt less if she said them softly. “He does know who you are. I checked.”

The knot in my throat would not let me talk with a straight voice, so I remained quiet not willing to show that kind of weakness.

“I’m sorry I pushed,” she whispered. I felt her hand on my arm and I wanted to snatch my hand back, but the warmth in her firm squeeze made me feel connected. It made some of the rigidness ease. “I didn’t know.”

Then I heard the click clack of Cory on her phone. I peer over and watch her vigorously typing on her phone.

“What are you doing now?”

Her maleficent smile was creeping up her face. “Confirming with Sal that we can start tonight. And you can bet that he will be there tonight and I promise to make him pay for all the pain he has caused you.”

“Who do you think you are, Lex Luther? You can’t plot out my revenge. That’s not fair,” I said half-heartedly, amused and half grateful to her because I knew she meant it. And I knew that even though I was going to hate working every weekend for a month, someone has to look out for her.

“You’re not going to kill him are you?” I ask while pulling the car into reverse.

With a light chuckle Cory answers, “Nope, it will be even better.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SHANE

It's mid-day on Saturday when I walk into work. I like to arrive a little early before my shift so I can stock up on as much alcohol as I can. Saturday nights are busy and I don’t like having to restock during my shift if we get slammed.

Danny, one of Amber Line's waiters, is wiping down a table when a soft female voice calls out, "Danny, I can do that. It's my area anyway."

Curious about a voice I don’t know, I turn to see the shy blonde from last night. Intrigued, I watch her completely ignore me as she walks by and pats Danny on the shoulder, then wipes down the table as if Danny didn’t just do that. Cory, that’s the name she gave the douche last night, but her driver's license read Charlene. I didn’t register her error until later that night when I was driving home.

Danny cleared his throat. He gives me the chin lift acknowledging that he approves of the new girl and her slim figure, with a petite waist, perfect legs, bending over the table. Her black button-up blouse was snuggly tucked into tight black jeans and she is wearing grey flats. Somehow the flats made her feet look so itty bitty that I swear it reminded me of a fairy. Noticing her lightness of foot, and the flittering way she walks to another table, almost has me flashing back to a fairy I dated several years ago. Cory even had a small dusting of freckles.

Inwardly I groaned.

Everything about her was calling to me and begging me to take notice. I did take notice. But I am not going to do anything. I won’t. I have rules. No humans – ever. I couldn’t even fathom more than a friendship with the few guys I knew, but I couldn’t be friends with someone like Cory. It just wouldn’t work. I would expose myself magically. I couldn’t ever be myself around her. There was no point in getting into a relationship with anyone if I already knew it wouldn’t work out.

That’s why I only dated fairies. They were magical, and the only ones I could deal with that had the least amount of character flaws. Werewolves were far too rude and edgy. Vampires are too sensitive and have a tendency to wallow. Witches, ugh, don’t get me started. I could spend all day listing what I hate about witches, starting with how they are pretty much humans that can do a few parlor tricks. They’re not even immortal. They are like humans in the way in which they fall in love to marry, start a family, and die.

Fairies were polite and didn’t ask too many personal questions. They do have a bad habit of keeping secrets and plotting your demise with a big smile on their face, but I can work with that. I mean come on, like I would date a person who didn’t go out of their way to be my nemesis.

Also, fairies were smart and vegetarian. I am a vegetarian and so it just… works. Humans? Don’t. Cory… wouldn’t work out. And just because my body is hot for her doesn’t mean I can give in.

I don’t want to have to break it off later, after I grew tired of her. And I would, because after a while all the excitement of getting to know her would diminish. Eventually I would find that she really wasn’t that interesting, and I would find something I couldn’t stand about her. There is always something that I can’t stand with everyone I meet. And Cory would only be a passing thing, but in the end it wouldn’t be worth it.

I have seen it all; working at a bar really gives insight into how humans hook up and break up. So no, I am not interested in Cory. Not even a little bit.

      
I scan the room for Sal, the owner. Usually he is in the office or talking to the cooks about his new ideas for an appetizer, but when there is a pretty girl around, he can always be found near her, giving her the “I’ll take care of you” talk.

I see him walking my way with the brunette beside him.

Oh hell.

I should have known. It’s not like one thing in my life could possible go my way.

I rub my temple and watch as impassively as possible as Sal pulls the brunette forward, with his hand on her back and one hand extended to me. "And this is Shane. You'll be working with him tonight," he smiles up at me and adds, "this is Beth, our new, beautiful bartender. She will be working weekends to help out."

I hold out my hand to Beth, Cory’s sister, "Hi."

She responds in the same unenthusiastic tone, "Hey."

I peer down at Sal and ask rhetorically “Want me to show her the bar? I can show her what to prep and the list of drinks.” He nods and drops his hand from her back, telling her that if she has any questions to ask me.