Underwater – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

The crowd finally thinned as they got near the octopus tanks, and Jessie felt something tight inside her uncurl for the first time since they’d arrived at the Seahaven Aquarium. She hadn’t realized it would be this crowded, but she should have, she guessed. The place was lousy with families trying to entertain kids who, like her, were out of school for the holiday week.

She desperately wished she had chosen somewhere quieter, maybe the art museum, or hell, what was wrong with an old-fashioned movie, except that her date preferred to watch at home where he could turn on the closed captioning.

Her date. That was new. Date. The word sounded odd in her head. At the same time exciting, exotic, and silly. But that’s what this was. A date. Her first date, actually. She wasn’t sure she was doing it right.

She was pretty sure that dates were supposed to be fun, but so far, she was miserable. The crowds were making her nervous, something that she’d never experienced before, but Winter had told her she might have some weird anxiety after —

She flinched away from those thoughts. From remembering. From reliving. PTS-frickin-D. That’s what Winter was calling it. The nightmares. The flashbacks. This fun new anxiety.

Her pulse sped to a breakneck pace and she felt dizzy and like there suddenly wasn’t enough oxygen in the building. She pressed her head against the cool glass and started counting. Counting her breaths. In and out. In for three, out for three. Over and over until the urge to bolt passed, or at least stopped for the moment. It never seemed to go away.

A heavy weight crashed into her side as two little boys jostled to the tank, and her hard-won control flew out the window. A sound somewhere between a squeak and a shriek escaped her lips, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

Fitz stepped between her and the kids. “Oy! Ankle-biters! There are other octopi right over there. Check them out. Now.” He gestured across the room far from Jessie, and the kids, cowed by being talked to by a strange man, went with little fuss.

“You all right, love?” He watched her closely, concern writ large across his handsome face.

Jessie gave the barest of nods and lowered her hand.

Fitz shook his head, and he carefully gathered her into a gentle hug, long, strong arms wrapped protectively around her shoulders. “No, you’re not. But you will be.”

Jessie sank into his embrace, her nose wrinkling a bit at the scent of cigarettes on his jacket but craving his warmth and strength. She hadn’t felt safe since the vineyard except when she was with Fitz.

She wasn’t normally a hugger, or really much of a toucher at all, but she never minded when it was Fitz. His arms around her had become her sanctuary and her shield.

Now that was a corny thought, but it was true all the same. She knew Winter wasn’t thrilled that she’d taken up with the deaf wizard, but Jessie wasn’t sure she would have made it through the last few days without him.

“You want to go home?”

Jessie felt tears well up in her eyes. Her first date and she definitely wasn’t doing it right. “But you wanted to see the aquarium.” Her voice sounded small in her ears and she hated herself for it.

Fitz checked his phone’s talk-to-text app since Jessie wasn’t angled so that he could read her lips, then laid a gentle kiss on her head. “I wanted to spend the day with you. The aquarium was mostly a pretext. I would be just as happy to spend time with you out at the House. We could pick up some carryout, slip into something more leisure-oriented, and while away the day talking and depleting Winter’s rather extraordinary wine collection. What do you say? No more crowds today?”

Jessie wasn’t sure she’d ever heard a better plan. She raised her head and nodded. “Are you sure that’s okay?”

Fitz beamed a rakish smile at her. “I never pass up good food, good booze, or time spent with a beautiful woman. This way, I get all three.”

Jessie smiled despite herself. And there it was. Fitz’s superpower. Even when she was scared, his charm and his kindness could break through and make her feel safe and happy. She leaned up on her toes and kissed his stubbled cheek. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

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Social Climbing – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

Jessie set two overly full fountain drinks on the small table and flopped down into the empty chair. “Rock climbing is thirsty work.”

Cat Chen, her new friend from Seahaven Academy of the Arts, smiled around her straw and took a long drink as she adjusted her harness. “Fun though.”

Jessie took several long swallows and nodded. “I’m glad we did this today. It’s been a rough month, and like half my house is in mourning. I feel bad for them and everything, it’s just…”

“A little much sometimes?”

“Yeah, a lot much sometimes. It’s good to get out of the house someplace that’s not school or the store.”

Cat grinned at her over her enormous Styrofoam cup. “I love the store. I can’t believe I’ve been going shopping in the Historical District my whole life and never noticed it before. Winter makes the best stuff.”

Jessie took another sip to figure out how to react. Cat had never noticed Curiosity’s because without a magical spark, she wasn’t supposed to notice it. Jessie could actually get into some trouble with the Servants of the Eldest for letting Cat in on any of the thousands of secrets Seahaven’s preternatural community hid from the humans all around them, but it wasn’t fair. Cat was her friend, and Jessie didn’t want to hold her at arm’s length. Winter had given her cautious permission to let Cat in on some of their lives. She’d been to Curiosity’s last week, and they were planning for her to come out to the house next weekend. If she took the moving woodwork and obvious bits of magic okay, and Jessie was pretty sure she would, then she would become a human in the know, under Winter’s supervision and protection. If she freaked out, then Winter would have to use her forgetting potion, and Jessie would have to keep Cat away. But she couldn’t tell Cat any of this just yet, so instead she sucked down a generous amount of her drink and waved at Cian, who was back down on the ground and looking around for them.

His return smile had enough wattage to make it seem like the rest of the climbing gym dimmed in comparison, but he didn’t mean anything by it. He smiled at all of his friends that way. It wasn’t his fault he had a smile that could stop traffic. He was gone on Winter and Etienne and maybe Alerich, too? Jessie had noticed that those two were spending an awful lot of time together reading at night, but she hadn’t asked Cian about it, yet. Then again, she’d been pretty busy herself with Rick’s friend, Fitz. Thinking about Fitz made her lips turn up and things low in her body move.

Cat grinned at her from the other side of the table. “Is that he’s-so-sexy smile for Cian or someone else?”

Jessie blinked. “Cian? No, we don’t see each other that way. He’s more like a brother than anything.”

Cat’s grin widened, and she looked over to where Cian and Brian were getting notes on their last climb and advice for their next one. “Someone else over there, then?” She bit her lip and wiggled her dark eyebrows in suggestion.

“Stop it. You know I’m dating Fitz.”

Cat’s face fell into something a little more glum. “I don’t see why, when that amazing boy,” and here she gestured across the food court to Brian’s muscular back, “is right here.”

Jessie scowled. It wasn’t the first time Cat had mentioned her preference of Brian over Fitz for Jessie’s romantic dance card. Not even the first time today. “There’s nothing wrong with Fitz.”

Cat snorted. “You mean besides the alcoholism, the snark, and the him being almost thirty?”

Jessie shifted a little in her chair and her expression turned mulish. “He’s twenty-eight, not thirty, and I’m snarky, too.”

“Oh yes, ‘cus that particular two years makes all the difference when you’re seventeen.” Cat’s eyes practically rolled out of her head. “It just seems a little creeptastic to me.”

“So, you’ve said. A number of times. Fitz makes me happy.”

Cat narrowed one eye and tilted her head. “Does he, though? Just last night, you told me he was driving you crazy, picking at what he thinks of as your ‘faults.’” Her fingers made air quotes to emphasize the word. “I don’t see how a guy who is trying to drink himself into an early grave has the right to criticize anyone else.”

Jessie felt her face redden. “You don’t know him. You don’t know what life has been like for him. What his father was like. Fitz drinks because he’s in pain.”

Cat looked at Jessie with something like pity in her eyes. “And now, so do you.”

Jessie slammed her palm down on the table, making their drinks and other patrons jump. Brian and Cian looked their way and Jessie waved them off. “You don’t know everything about me, either. You don’t know what I’ve been through.” She could hear herself screaming while that red-headed freak tortured her over and over. She shuttered her eyes over the tears that threatened to escape. “You don’t know.”

Cat took Jessie’s hand and held it carefully, her voice quiet and soothing. “I know enough to know that drowning whatever happened to you is only going to cause problems, especially with what you’ve told me about your parents. Jessie, if Fitz cared about you, he wouldn’t want you drinking yourself stupid every night.”

Jessie snatched her hand away and glared at Cat. “I don’t drink myself stupid. I can handle it. Fitz loves me.”

Cat sighed and leaned against the back of her chair. “Does he, though?”

Jessie cut off whatever Cat was going to ask. “Yes, he does. Can we please have a new topic?”

Cat nodded, but Jessie knew this would not be the last time her friend questioned her relationship with the deaf wizard. Cat and Winter, hell even Cian had said he was surprised by her choice. They would all be happier if she dumped Fitz for Brian. But she wasn’t good enough for Brian, and none of them could see that. Brian was special. He was a Hero for god’s sake — strength of ten men because his heart was pure and all that. And she was just…
Damaged. She was damaged in a way Brian wouldn’t understand but Fitz did. Fitz didn’t ask her what was wrong when she woke up screaming in the night. He didn’t have to. He had been through similar things himself. His and hers traumas. Jessie wasn’t sure if that thought made her want to laugh or cry. Maybe both. She took another long sip from her drink. “Let’s go climb again, okay?”

Cat looked like she wanted to say something, but instead she just nodded. “Sure. Let’s climb.”

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