Fragile Brilliance (Shifters & Seers) (15 page)

Rosa Hall was eerily quiet on Saturday mornings.

“Do we really have to do this today?” Charlie asked, carrying a giant tub of clay over to the table. “Why can’t this be a Tuesday morning activity?”

“Because we have classes on Tuesdays, and I can’t leave the kiln my first time firing it.” She checked the gauges on the side of the kiln and adjusted the airflow. “I’ve got to stay with it until it’s done.”

“Which will be when exactly?”

Maggie lifted a shoulder and glanced at the clock. “I’ll try to have you home before midnight, princess.”

“Midnight? We’re going to be here all day? Do you understand the concept of a weekend?”

Maggie picked up a bowl someone had left on the shelf, frowning at a nick in its exterior. She ran a thumb over it, making the surface perfect once more.

“Weekend. Also known as Saturday and Sunday. Two days in which a person must try to accomplish the myriad of things they can’t get done Monday through Friday.”

“You realize you might have some sort of pathological workaholic problem, right?”

“I have ambition.” She tilted her head at his feet, which were propped up on a stool. At her lifted eyebrow he raised them, allowing her to pass back over to the other side of worktable. “If you need to look it up on your phone, I understand and will try valiantly not to judge. At least not out loud.”

Charlie glared at her over the top of the copy of Michael K. Vaughn’s
Saga
clenched in his hands.

Input: Someone insults your vocabulary and laziness.

Output: Look annoyed.

Except, Maggie wasn’t fooled by Robot Charlie. He wasn’t annoyed. Annoyance requires unmet expectations and an emotional investment in another human being. Charlie didn’t have expectations or emotional investments of any type, at least not when it came to her.

This morning when she’d gone downstairs to grab a cup of yogurt she’d found herself alone with Charlie in the kitchen. After everything that happened the night before, she’d expected things to be different between the two of them. She wasn’t sure how they would change - maybe things would be awkward due to regret or embarrassment, or maybe things would continue to shift in the direction they’d begun the night before - but either way, she was braced for something, and instead got the same old nothing as always. No inability to make eye contact. No flushed cheeks. No apologies. No secret smiles. No lean-in or accidentally-on-purpose touches. No “we need to talk.” Just the same “good morning” they’d been passing back and forth for a week.

That was when she knew last night hadn’t meant anything to him at all. Well, obviously the night held meaning, but not because of her. It was all about Scout for him, and from what she could infer from everything she’d seen while living with the Alpha Pack, it had always been about Scout for Charlie.

“If I ever found someone to love like that, they would never, ever doubt how I felt about them.”

Maggie felt certain Scout did know. It was in the way she went through her day always expecting him to be there, knowing he would tell her whatever she wanted.

The tiny seed of dislike planted the night before grew a bit at the realization. Scout knew how Charlie felt and took advantage of it, but she obviously didn’t feel the same about him. Anyone could see no matter what their current issues might be, Scout loved Liam with her whole heart. Maggie might not know a ton about Shifters and their customs, but she knew mates were something beyond a normal human relationship. Scout wasn’t going to leave Liam for Charlie, yet she kept him hanging around.

It shouldn’t have mattered to Maggie how the Alpha Pack felt about each other or how they treated one another. However, knowing that didn’t stop the little ball of anger fueled by disappointment to form in her stomach.

What was so damn special about Scout anyway? So what if she was some badass who looked like a supermodel, had access to millions of dollars, and could change into a white wolf in the blink of an eye? Did that make her any better than Maggie?

Unfortunately, Maggie knew it did. And that was the problem. If Scout Donovan was Charlie’s ideal, then there was no way he would ever be convinced to turn his attentions towards Maggie.

Not that I would want his attention,
Maggie lied to herself.
I haven’t got time for some stupid college fling. And even if I did, I like my men to be men, not robots. Who would want to start a relationship with someone incapable of human emotions?

She tried desperately hard to ignore the tiny part of her brain screaming,
“Me!”
but it was nearly impossible. She tried to tell herself the voice just wanted him because she knew she couldn’t have him. When she couldn’t make herself believe that, she tried the only-because-he-touched-you-and-you’re-touch-starved argument. That didn’t work much better. Maggie was well acquainted with things she couldn’t have, and chose instead to focus on the things she could obtain and how she was going to get them. And touch-starved wasn’t ever a phrase she would ascribe to herself. Sure, she needed a hug every now and again as much as anyone else, but human contact wasn’t something she normally craved. Some dirt beneath her feet and a breeze tugging the strands of her hair did more to refresh her soul than any kiss had ever managed.

Maybe that is just because you haven’t kissed Charlie yet.

The mutinous part of her brain was getting louder. To quieten it, she turned her attention to her clay. Her initial intent had been to throw her NCECA piece, but she was too morose at the moment to even consider it. When it came time to throw that piece, it would require all her heart and soul, both of which were a little distracted at the moment. Instead, she forced herself to concentrate on making the mass as square and even and smooth as possible, knowing the result would be so perfect someone would accuse her of trying to pass off mass-produced as handmade. She was just slicing off the final row when a familiar voice broke through the calm and quiet.

“Mags! Yay! You’re here!” Reid came bouncing into the room, her bangs now a pattern of alternating blue and pink stripes. “I was worried I would be so bored all day, but now I get to talk to you.” She slung her arms around Maggie’s frozen body. “God really does love me best of all.”

“Hey, Reid,” Maggie said, tapping the other girl’s back with the very tips of her fingers, hoping Reid wouldn’t have a meltdown when she realized her black D&G shirt now had grayish fingerprints all along the back. “What are you doing here?”

“My boyfriend insists on working today, and I insist on spending the whole weekend with him, thus…” She spread her arms. “Ta-da. Here I am.”

“But you’re not supposed to be in here. At all. This building is off limits to anyone who isn’t an independent study or grad student.”

“So?”

“So you could get Davin in tons of trouble, even kicked out of the program.”

“As if.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you’re one to talk. You’ve got your boy toy here, too.” She shot a pointed look in Charlie direction.

“Charlie is not my boy toy,” she said, refusing to acknowledge the blush spreading across her face. “He’s an independent study student. Drawing.”

To prove the point, and that he was listening, Charlie waved his stylus in the air.

Reid snorted indelicately through her nose and hopped up onto the table, next to Maggie’s clay, which made it impossible for Maggie to actually do any work.

“I thought you needed like charcoal pencils or something to draw,” Reid said, fingering the edge of one of the coasters Maggie had just cut out. Maggie clenched her fists so tightly she could feel her practically nonexistent nails biting into her skin. “He’s playing on the computer.”

“It’s called digital art,” Charlie said, not looking up from his screen. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

Reid flattened the corner of a second coaster and Maggie quickly reviewed the signs of a brain hemorrhage, hoping Charlie would recognize one when she finally succumbed.

“You’re getting dust all over your jeans,” Maggie said through clenched teeth.

Lifting her left butt cheek off the table, Reid examined her jeans, which weren’t just dust-encrusted, but also had a splotch of paint on the pocket. “Oh well,” she said with a shrug. “These are old jeans anyway.”

“They’re from Anthropologie.” And they probably cost over two hundred dollars a pair. Maggie’s own jeans were a pair of Levi’s she’d picked up at the Goodwill for less than five dollars, and she would’ve still be a little panicked over ruining them.

“They’re from last year. I was going to toss them anyway.”

Maggie considered asking Reid if she would just give them to her. There was no way Maggie could wear them, the leg was roughly the length of Maggie’s entire body, but even with the paint stain she could maybe get enough off of them on eBay to make up for the batch of coasters Reid was
completely ruining
.

“Is Davin going to get upset that you’re spending all your time hanging out with us instead of with him?”

As if conjured by Maggie’s question, Boyfriend appeared in the doorway. His hair was pulled up in a knot on the back of his head. Maggie had seen movie stars pulling off the same look in gossip magazines, but on Boyfriend it looked more repressed librarian than relaxed badass. The shirt he wore had both arms cut out, along with most of the sides, and his jeans had holes so large and so high that everyone who saw him knew his blue boxers were fraying along the edge.

Maggie decided she might be more scandalized at this point to see him in a turtleneck and slacks than walking through the middle of town without a stitch of clothing on.

“Hey, babe. What are you doing in here?”

Reid finally hopped off the table and flung herself at her douche of a boyfriend, wrapping her arms around his sweaty body as if he’d just returned from a two-year stint in the Middle East. “I found Maggie!”

Boyfriend’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t realize she was lost.”

“You’re so funny,” Reid giggled, playfully slapping his chest.

Maggie was saved from having to watch the resulting sloppy, visible-tongue kissing by her phone. She was temporarily confused when she saw Charlie’s name pop up on the screen, but then she read the message.

“Isn’t Mr. Comedian ridiculously wealthy? Couldn’t he at least afford an outfit?”

She hid a smile as she texted back.
“And cover that beautiful body? It would be a crime against humanity.”

Her phone beeped again before she could even put it back down.
“When are they going to stop kissing?”

“It could be hours.”

“You are never living with her again. I promise.”

Instead of texting back, Maggie moved her hand from her chin to down in front of her chest in the American Sign Language sign for “thank you”. Charlie responded with a subtle upturn of those dangerously beautiful lips and repeated the gesture.

Freaking Charlie Hagan. Why did he have to go and be so damn cute when she was trying her hardest to not have a crush on him?

Eventually Reid and Boyfriend took their make-out fest down the hall to the metalworking shop, finally leaving Maggie and Charlie to work in peace. With the exception of Reid and Boyfriend returning around noon with a pizza, which might have been the first time Maggie had ever been happy to see the two of them, no one else came into the ceramics studio. A few other students came in and worked in the other studios, but they were amazingly subdued, their presence only marked by the occasional soft-spoken conversation. Yet, despite the lack of external distraction, Maggie found it impossible to concentrate. Her mind kept flying off in different directions, thinking about everything from the ongoing murder investigation to life with Shifters to how nice Charlie looked in his faded Incredible Hulk t-shirt as the sun coming through the window cast him in a natural spotlight. She spent most of the day sketching instead of working with the clay, knowing it would be pointless to attempt anything. It would’ve come out as confused and erratic as her thoughts.

“Too bad we don’t have an x-ray machine,” Maggie said to Charlie not long after lunch. She was adjusting the gas yet again, praying she wasn’t screwing anything up. She’d never worked with a gas kiln before, having only had access to the tiny electric one at the community building growing up.

Charlie looked up from the screen his eyes had been fixed on for hours. “We need an x-ray machine?”

“For the painting,” she explained.

“The painting. Of course.” Charlie sat the computer down on the table. “Maggie, dear, is there a chance you’ve inhaled a few too many fumes today?”

“
The
painting.” Really, how many other paintings could she be talking about? “If we had an x-ray machine we might be able to see whose face was face painted beneath mine.”

“There is a face beneath yours?”

Maggie looked thorough the peepholes, wishing she could manipulate the flames so she could get a clear view of her pieces. She was abnormally uneasy about this firing. She didn’t know if it was because she was using a new kiln for the first time or if all the craziness of the last week was making her feel anxious over every aspect of her life, but she wanted nothing more than for time to fast-forward to tomorrow night when she could get her pieces out and make sure they were okay.