A Little Bite of Magic (Little Magic) (9 page)

They couldn’t stop touching each other, even when they’d gotten to the restaurant and (allegedly) started working. For a long time, work was mainly the two of them kissing and laughing. Even after he really, really had to start making some food before his customers showed up to an empty restaurant, there still wasn’t a minute that didn’t go by without a touch, a kiss, Addison tasting the sensitive skin behind his ear.

God, that drives me insane
. Frankie realized he'd have to be careful what he let Addison do while he had his spoon in his hand, or his customers would end up having sex with each other on the floor of his restaurant.

Frankie dreamily put down his bowl of salad dressing and floated over to pull the big casserole dish of spinach and chicken enchiladas out of the oven—with his bare hand.

“
Merde
!”

He dropped the glass dish. Yet before it could hit the stone floor and splatter into a huge mess, Frankie reached out and froze it, suspending the pan in the air. The second he did, he realized that wasn’t the best choice he could have made.

Addison stared openmouthed and wide-eyed. “Frankie? What the hell?”

Oh, shit.

Chapter Seven

“Do I even want to know?” Addison asked warily. He looked pissed. Frankie supposed he would be too if he was a regular guy and his new boyfriend managed to freeze-frame a fifteen-pound dish of enchiladas in midair.

“I guess the real question is, now that you just saw that, is it possible for you not to know?”

“True. So then, what? What are you?”

Yikes. No hostility there.

Frankie paused for a long time. He didn't want to say it and watch the accusatory look on Addison's face get worse. “I'm a witch.”

A lot of reactions would’ve seemed likely: derision, disdain, laughter. Anger wasn’t what Frankie expected.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Addison’s pretty blue eyes were narrowed to slits.

“Do you think I’m lying?” Frankie countered. “You aren’t blind. I know you saw what I just did.”

“It was a trick. It had to be a trick.” Addison clenched his fists. His knuckles turned white. “There's no such thing as witches.”

“Clearly there are.”
Damn. I have to do it
. “Here. Just hold on for a sec.”

“Mother, can you come here?”

Frankie wasn’t as good at communicating as the rest of his family. Perhaps it would’ve been good to pay more attention to his lessons when he was a kid instead of planning future dishes.

There was a long pause. He thought it might not have worked

Only moments later, though, Frankie felt the telltale jolt, and his mother was standing in L’Osteria’s kitchen, wearing yoga pants and a big scowl.

Addison shouted and jumped back.

“I was in the middle of Pilates, Francois. I hope this is an emergency.”

“It’s not, but you pop in all the time when it’s inconvenient. Today, I needed you to do it when it was convenient for me for once. Addison saw something. He needs to know I’m not making it up.”

“Well, here I am,” she huffed.

“Yes. Addison, my mother, Brigitte Vallerand. Mom, this is Addison.”

The eye roll she gave Addison was worthy of every teenaged girl Frankie had ever seen.
Very mature, Mother
. “Yes, he’s the food critic who panned your restaurant because he doesn’t have the stones to stand up to his boss.”

“Mom!” Wait a second. “What?”

She shrugged. “It’s true.”

Addison covered his face with his hands. Frankie stared at him. He didn’t know what to process first. Addison was a food critic? The food critic who pann—Addison was The Phantom? It didn’t make any sense.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you didn’t know?” She rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Frankie. You do know Laurent is still single, love, if you’re done with this…” She made a hand gesture and a disdainful face in Addison’s direction.

“Mother. Laurent is a pretentious ass.”

“He’s a highborn witch with fey blood. You could do far worse.” She gestured at Addison. “Case in point.”

“Okay, demonstration over. Thank you, Mother. You can go back to your Pilates.”

There was a distinct popping noise, and then his mother was gone, leaving only the faintest hint of Chanel and condescension behind.

“I can’t believe you wrote that article!”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me what…species you are.”

“You lied to me.”

“You lied to me too!”

“That’s different,” Frankie said heatedly.

“How is it different? We both chose not to tell each other something major about ourselves.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t choose to be a witch.”

“Well, I didn’t choose to write that article about your restaurant either.”

Frankie was about to yell back when he realized what Addison had said. He paused. “Wait. Then why did you?”

“Does it matter?” Addison looked at him warily.

“Yes, it matters!” Frankie sputtered.

“I wrote it because I’d have been fired if I didn’t. I loved it here that day when I came. I still love it here. Listen, I have the original article if you want to see what I really meant to say. I had to change the whole thing.”

Frankie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Wait, so your editor makes you be a big prick?”

Addison flinched. “No, usually that’s all me. In your case, though, yeah, he did.”

“Why do you do it?” Frankie couldn’t imagine a life spent spewing sarcasm and bad feeling.

Addison shrugged tiredly. “It was a real writing career. There aren't very many out there. I’d been doing odd jobs, painting, lawn mowing. I wanted to be a writer.”

“But that’s not being a writer; it’s being an asshole who spreads meanness.”

Addison sighed. “I guess I'll just leave.”

Addison turned to leave, and Frankie’s stomach cramped.
Shit
. “Don’t go.”

“You’re still going to talk to me?”

Frankie sighed. “I’d be a big hypocrite if I didn’t. Listen, I don’t like what you do, but—”

“It’s not me. It’s just a job, not who I am.” Addison looked hopeful. Frankie wished that hope wouldn't end up breaking his heart.

“I guess that’s what I was going for.”

“So you can be a, well, whatever you are, and I can be a food critic, and everything is okay for the moment…maybe?”

“Addison, I’m a witch. You’re going to have to believe that if we have any future.”

“We have a future?” Addison made a distressed face.

“I think so, but I’m serious about this. I stopped a dish in midair. My mother’s a total pain in the ass, but she
apparated
right in front of you. She was in Louisiana. She came here. She’s back there now in the middle of her Pilates lesson like she was before. I’m a witch. Not a ‘whatever you are.’ A witch.”

Addison stood there, staring at the floor, as if the old worn stones had some sort of answer. “You’re a witch,” he muttered.

“Then do you believe me?”

Addison looked up. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice. Were you ever going to tell me?”

Frankie raised his eyes, and Addison flinched. “Point taken.”

“I would have told you eventually. If we got serious enough.”

“Last night wasn’t serious enough for you?”

“I meant like forever-after serious. I’m not supposed to tell anybody. Ever. That’s the only exception.” Frankie slouched against his butcher-block island and ground the heels of his hands into his temples.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be with anyone else. It might not be ‘forever-after serious’ yet for you, but that’s where this was going for me.” Addison’s voice was small and hurt, but the expression on his face made Frankie’s belly melt.

“It is for me too, Addie. It just hasn’t been very long. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like us to last.”

“See? And now I know your secret, so you can’t get rid of me.” Addison smiled. It was hesitant, but it was there.

“I don’t want to. Hey, Addie, um, while we’re confessing, there’s a bit more.” Frankie couldn’t help but wince. Addison wasn’t going to like the rest of it at all.

Addison huffed out a tired laugh. “Lay it on me. I owe you lots of retribution for that review.”

“Yeah, you do. So, um, I’ll just say it. I charm the food sometimes.”

Addison gasped, clearly horrified.

“No no no. Nothing harmful ever. I just put good feelings in it, happiness, laughter… Well, that one was an accident.” Frankie smiled. “You tickled me.”

“Wait, what do you mean? You’re going to have to spell this out slowly.”

Frankie picked up his spoon. “This is my wand. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’m a bit of a failure as a witch. One day a customer was crying, and I wished that she could be happy. My wish went through this spoon and into her food. The spoon and I bonded, and now it’s my wand, and when I want people to feel good, I can use it to charm their food.”

“And have I ever been charmed?”

Frankie could feel his face heating. He winced again. “Um, yeah.”

“When?”

“Well, when you eat the main restaurant dishes, they usually have a light touch of happiness, and that dipping sauce, the one I was stirring when you tickled me, my laughter transferred itself into that…and the first night.”

“What about the first night?”

“I might have made that custard feel a bit sexy.”

“Might have?”

“Okay. I did.”

“Are you saying I kissed you because of some pudding?” Addison looked ready to pop.

Shit. Not going well
. Frankie thought of something. “Did you want to kiss me at the bar when we first met?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“And do you want to kiss me right now?”

“Not at this exact moment, but in general, yes.”

“Then you didn’t kiss me because of the custard. You kissed me because you wanted to. That custard just added a bit of extra feeling. And I was just as affected that night as you were, you know. I’m not immune to my own charms.”

Addison guffawed. “You might want to rephrase that one, Narcissus.”

Frankie snorted, relieved. If Addison could joke, he wasn’t that angry. “You know what I mean. We wanted each other. The custard just made it…nice.”

“So what have you done to these enchiladas?” Addison smiled slyly. Frankie could see practical jokes blooming in his eyes.

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just baked them.”

“What
can
we do?”

“Addison…”

Addison rolled his eyes. “With great power comes great responsibility, I know.”

“I’m not Spider-Man.” Frankie snorted. “I just don’t want to mess with people. Make them happy, yes. Make fools of them, no.”

“And the lovefest that was going on that day when I walked in here to find you? Don’t give me that date-lunch BS.”

“No, that was an accident.”

“I’ve heard that word an awful lot.”

“It happens an awful lot. I told you, I’m not a very accomplished witch.” Frankie sighed. “I couldn’t bring myself to toss the custard we’d eaten the night you were here. It was sitting in my fridge right near the custard I’d made to fill those beignets. Dom was here helping, and he got the wrong custard out. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Does Dom know?”

“He does, but Owen and Bethany don’t. My servers can’t find out, okay?”

Addison shrugged. “Why?”

“Because no one’s supposed to know. No one. Dom doesn’t get that either.”

“How come he gets to know?”

“Um." Frankie blushed. "It was an accident?”

Addison burst into laughter and reached out for Frankie’s hand. He pulled him in for a tight hug.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“No, I guess not. I got the food critic secret, and you get this. Just tell me before you charm me again. I don’t mind it, as long as it's just for fun. I just want to know.”

“Deal.”

Addison looked at Frankie’s spoon. “So what happens if I touch it?”

Frankie picked the spoon up. He was so ridiculously protective of the thing. “Nothing. Just don’t, okay?”

Addison smiled, that familiar comfortable smile he’d only seen pass between other couples. “Okay. Hey, Frankie?”

“Yeah?”

“Are we all right?” He looked hopeful but unsure.

“Yeah.” Frankie smiled. “We are.”

Chapter Eight

The night was warm and humid, Addison’s favorite kind of weather. The sky had filled with dark clouds a few hours before, but the air felt soft, gentle almost. Not even a tiny bite. Perfect. If it rained, that would be even better. He rolled down his window and stuck his hand out to catch the breeze.

“I love that you like to do that,” Frankie murmured.

“Why?”

“It’s another witch thing.”

He sounded almost apologetic. Addison found that since he knew, he didn’t mind hearing about it at all; quite the opposite, in fact. He was fascinated with the unique things Frankie could do.

“What about it?”

“We’re not very good with enclosed spaces. Always have to have a window open. Barefoot on natural earth of some sort is the best.”

“I wouldn’t think that would matter.”

Frankie shrugged. “I forget why. I guess it’s because we’re an old species. Have to stay near the earth.”

“Is that why you were so happy at the movie in the park?” Frankie blushed again. Addison could see it in the rapidly darkening evening. “Spit it out. Is there more?”

“Well, mostly I was happy because I was with you, and yeah, because I was near the earth too. But the wine we drank? It wasn’t charmed, but it wasn’t human wine either. It packs more of a punch, you could say.”

“If humans didn’t make it, then who did?”

Frankie laughed softly and shook his head. He said something that Addison couldn’t hear.

“What did you say?”

“I said fairies made it. It was fairy wine. Well, fey. They don't really like to be called fairies.”

Addison burst out laughing.
Fairy wine? Jesus
. “Of course it was. Did trolls make the crackers we had with it?”

Frankie chuckled. “Everybody knows there’s no such thing as trolls.” He rolled his eyes as if to say
puhlease.

Addison reached over for Frankie’s hand. As always, he couldn’t stand not touching him for very long. He liked that it had nothing to do with a charm and everything to do with real magic.