Chapter 25

Theo helped her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her waist to take some of her weight as they walked out to the great room. "Funny, how we've known each other half our lives and yet - "
"Never really talked much," she finished for him. Her voice was a little wistful as she continued. "Maybe we'd have been better off last summer if we'd talked more and spent less time - "
He couldn't resist the pun - it was one of his greatest weaknesses. "Going at it like bunnies?"
That earned him a shout of laughter and a punch in the arm. "Bad Theo. No lame rabbit jokes before dinner."
"Well, I wasn't going to call you lame. Just a bit gimpy."
She slugged him again then sat down across at the big oak table while Theo brought over bowls of soup and a box of saltines then poured coffee and sat down across from her. Watching her nose twitch as she inhaled the aroma of the canned chicken soup reminded him again of her weird transformation.
"So, somehow or another, your whole family is actually magic?" He was still having trouble coming to grips with that idea, though his stomach had stopped churning whenever he thought about it. "But you never knew?"
Star blew on a spoonful of soup and grimaced. "Well, my dad has made comments our entire lives but we never really believed him. Honestly, I'm not convinced I truly believed Noel and Shelby either, not until today."
"Hell, I'm still not sure I believe my own eyes," he admitted. "Watching my ex-girlfriend turn into a rabbit is the freakiest damn thing I've ever seen." Part of him still didn't quite believe it.
"Pretty freaky from my point of view too," she agreed. "I had whiskers for goodness' sake. Thanks for not taking off screaming though. Awkward as this is, it would be scary as hell alone."
Theo drummed his fingers on the table for a moment then decided to go ahead and verbalize the thoughts that had been running around in his mind. "Maybe it doesn't have to be awkward," he offered softly, giving voice to the tendril of hope that had begun to sprout. "Maybe what this presents is a chance for us to talk - discuss some of the things we should have covered when we first started...dating."
Her eyes rolled. "If you want to be honest then drop the euphemisms. We never dated. We fucked. If we'd been actually going out together, we wouldn't have kept it a huge secret."
Theo winced. "Yeah, and that was part of the problem - a big part, on my end at least. I'm too old to play games like that." His refusal to continue as they were had been one of the major contributing factors to their break-up.
Star nibbled on her lower lip, her spoon sitting idle in her soup bowl. "I know. It wasn't fair of me to ask you to keep secrets from your best friend. It's just...if my family knew we were together, they'd have immediately assumed it was serious. And I wasn't ready for them to jump to that conclusion. I just wanted to have fun."
"I know." He'd heard her argument before, but the only sense he could make of it was that he'd been ready for a commitment and she hadn't been. Star had a volatile temper for such a normally sweet woman, and when he'd flat-out insisted on some kind of formalized relationship between them, she'd ripped him to shreds then gone out with another guy. But - he hadn't been completely blameless either. He had pushed, even though he'd known she wasn't ready to take things to the next level. He took a deep breath and said, "You just weren't emotionally invested in our relationship. It took a while, but I guess I've come to grips with that."
Star sighed deeply before shaking her head. "It wasn't that - at least not entirely. I was afraid of being emotionally invested. And I knew if things got serious, then it would be forever weird with my family since you're practically an honorary Holiday. I just couldn't handle it."
"I think I understand," he admitted, though it still hurt. He'd been three-quarters in love with her - had even started thinking about rings before she'd blown him off. "You live in your parents' old carriage house. You work with your entire family. You spend every day surrounded by them. I can understand, I guess, why you want to keep your sex life separate from that. I just couldn't be part of it. It made me feel like your dirty little secret."
"I'm sorry. But don't forget that as the youngest girl, I'm the one they're all hyper-protective of," she added grimly. "They all prefer to believe I don't have a sex life. Even though Val's the baby, I'm the one they think is pure and chaste."
This time it was Theo who rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and you're such a slut. How many guys have there been, sugar? Two? Three, tops? Face it, for a woman who's about to turn thirty, you're still pretty damn innocent."
"Three," she admitted, staring down at her soup. "One in college - that lasted three whole weeks. One guy I dated on and off for about a year right after school. Then you."
"See?" He reached across the table and tipped her chin up so he could meet her gaze. "You don't take it lightly, no matter what you were trying to tell yourself. That's why keeping things secret was such a strain on you."
"No. It wasn't that. It was the feeling that I didn't want to get tied down before I'd ever had a chance to really live."
Her words felt like a slam in his gut. All he could say was, "Oh."
They drifted into a long, tense silence until he got up the courage to look at her again instead of his food. She licked a drop of soup off her lips, and Theo's cock hardened painfully - again. God, he remembered all too well what it felt like to have those lips wrapped around his shaft, sucking...
"Theo?"
"What?" He shook his head. "Sorry. I wandered for a minute."
"Did you call your parents when you called Sam? They're bound to be worried if you don't show up."
He'd forgotten to tell her the phone lines were down. After filling her in, he added, "I'm going to run into town as soon as we're done eating and arrange to have your car towed out of the ditch. I'll also grab your suitcase and make some calls. I'm staying, Star, if that's okay with you. I think I was right earlier when I said this could be an opportunity for us."
"For more rabbit-like sex?" She raised her eyebrow, but he saw the flush on her skin. She wanted more, all right, just as he did.
Still, he managed to shake his head. "To do what we should have done before. Talk."
She grinned ruefully and shook her head. "Sure. Talk. That's what's going to happen."
Theo rubbed his temple. Who was he trying to kid? If he stayed here for the weekend with Star, there was no way he'd be able to keep his hands off her. "Do you want me to ask Sam or Summer to come up instead?"
"No." She flushed bright pink and looked down at her hands again. "I'd rather it was you."