Free Magic Steals by Ilona Andrews Page B

approach, that was all my mother. She saw things clearly, the way I did, and she had more experience.
    My answering machine blinked with red. I pushed a button.
    â€œDali, this is your mother.”
    Like I wouldn’t know.
    â€œKomang called. She says you were there with a man.”
    I leaned against the island.
    â€œShe said the man was very dark and said he was your boyfriend! I want to kno . . .”
    I clicked the next message.
    â€œThis is your aunt Ayu . . .”
    Click.
    â€œDali!” My cousin Ni Wayan. “My mother told me that you have a boyfriend . . .”
    Click.
    â€œBoyfriend? What?”
    Click.
    Click.
    Click.
    â€œDali,” my uncle Aditya said. He was all the way up in North Carolina. The magic has been down for an hour. How did they even get ahold of him this fast? “I am so happy for you.”
    I pressed Delete All and dialed my mother’s number. I didn’t know what was sadder, the fact that my family lived togossip or that all of them were so overjoyed that some male person finally took an interest in me.
    She didn’t pick up.
    I listened to the answering machine come on with a click.
    â€œHi, Mom. Thank you for the food. I found out what’s wrong with Eyang Ida. Please call me back when you get in. I need some advice.”
    I hung up and looked around the kitchen. I felt so alone all of a sudden. Was this what it would be like when Jim and I broke up?
    Sometimes it was best not to get into relationships in the first place. Then you never had to deal with heartache. And we hadn’t even had sex yet.
    Not that sex always improved relationships or somehow magically fixed them. My first sexual experience wasn’t amazing. I was fifteen, my then-boyfriend was sixteen, and it was the first time for both of us. We were both awkward and nervous enough to turn the whole thing into one long fumble. He kept asking me if I liked it and I kept thinking, “If that’s all there is to it, wow, that’s a letdown.” When we finished, he asked me if it was good for me and then he asked if I thought he had a small penis.
    We quietly broke up after that. We never talked about it; we just went our separate ways. I’ve had relationships since. I dated a gorgeous blond guy in college. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. He turned out to be dumb as a board. He was attracted to me because he bought into the whole mystical sexy Asian girl thing. Combined with my turning into a white tiger, he was sold. The sex was great, but eventually we had to talk. He was disappointed I wasn’t Chinese, and I never understood why he thought I would be, because I don’t look Chinese at all. He didn’t know Indonesia was a country. He couldn’t find it on a map even after I showed it to him several times. I told him about Bali and gave him a book with pictures. One night, about two months into our relationship he was laying on the bed next to me and asked me if I would wear a kimono for him like a geisha. And then he asked if we had geishas where I was from. I realized it had to stop.
    There had been a couple of guys since, but I always knewthey weren’t the One. It didn’t make me any better at relationships.
    I sighed. I was brooding. I didn’t like to fail and since my brain ran across a roadblock, it now turned inward in sheer frustration. The One would be here any minute, if the Pack didn’t kidnap him to save the world or resolve some life-shattering crisis. He would be starving. I needed to make him that steak.
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    I had just managed to slide the steak off the pan onto the cutting board when the doorbell rang.
    Jim.
    I ran to open it.
    Jim stood in the doorway. He was wearing black again. Black jeans, black T-shirt, and black boots. The scars on his arms where the hag had sliced him up had healed to narrow light lines. His gaze snagged on me.
    I was