“You were trying to impress me,” I said, only realizing after I’d heard the words that I’d said them out loud. I was never going to drink on a date ever again.
“Yeah, maybe a little bit, since I don’t think I impressed you so much on the first date.”
“Why can’t I have a normal date, one where magic isn’t involved? Did I ever tell you about the frog guy?”
“No, you didn’t. Maybe later. But wouldn’t normal be boring?”
“That’s what I used to think. Now it might be nice.”
“Well, you can never claim there’s no magic to our relationship,” he said with a soft laugh. “I can’t believe we still haven’t managed a magic-free evening. You’re sure they were using magic?”
“Yep. I could feel it. There’s a little tingle. Besides, did any of that look normal to you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been to some law firm parties that looked a lot like that.”
I must have drifted off to sleep, for next thing I knew I felt cold air on my face. I opened my eyes and realized that Ethan was carrying me from the cab to the front door. I then closed my eyes because the movement made me dizzy.
Ethan pressed the buzzer, then Marcia’s voice said over the speaker, “What?”
“It’s Ethan, bringing Katie home. She’s a little, um, incapacitated.”
“Come on up.”
Ethan gave me a little shake. “Katie? Wake up.”
I forced my eyes open again. “Huh?”
“If you lived on the second floor, I might be able to carry you up, but I’m afraid the third floor is beyond me. Can you walk?”
“Yeah, sure. Put me down.”
He put me on my feet, keeping one arm around me to steady me while he opened the front door with his other hand. We made our way slowly up the stairs, with him supporting most of my weight. I must have been really heavy to him, for I felt like I weighed a ton. I could feel the gravity pulling me toward earth. “Just a few more steps,” he urged.
Marcia was waiting with the apartment door open and a disapproving scowl on her face. Ethan would have been better off facing my father. “You got her drunk?” she snapped.
“I took her to a wine dinner. I didn’t realize she didn’t have a lot of experience with wine.”
“I liked the sweet one, the one they make from moldy grapes,” I put in helpfully.
“If my intentions weren’t honorable, I wouldn’t have brought her straight home,” he pointed out.
Marcia had to see the logic in that, even if she wasn’t overly fond of Ethan. “Well, let’s get our little drunk inside,” she said. The two of them walked me to the sofa, then got me settled onto it.
Ethan knelt in front of me, and I struggled to bring his face into focus. “We’ll have to drink that bottle of wine I got some other time,” he said. Then he stood up and told Marcia, “I’d better go. The cab’s waiting.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked Marcia as soon as the door shut behind him. “He wants to see me again.”
“And why wouldn’t he? You seem to be a pretty cheap date.”
“Not cheap. I think this was expensive.”
“You’d better start drinking water or you’ll regret it in the morning.” She disappeared for a moment, then I heard her voice coming from the kitchen. “Argh. Gemma forgot to buy water again.” I heard water running from the tap, then she pressed a glass into my hand. “Drink up,” she ordered.
I managed to get the whole glass of water down. My head was already clearing, though I still felt sleepy. “I didn’t drink that much, really,” I told her. “Only five little glasses of wine, and I only finished one of them. Most of them I just sipped. And that was with food, over several hours.”
“You really are a lightweight, aren’t you? Now, off to bed with you.”
Before I fell asleep, I pondered which was worse, getting so drunk on a few glasses of wine and making a fool out of myself in front of Ethan, or having magic make yet another unwelcome appearance on a date. I’d once been the most normal person on the face of the earth, but almost everything in my life had become weird.
It said something about how my weekend had gone that I was ridiculously happy when Monday morning rolled around. Sunday was characterized by a nasty headache, grillings from nosy roommates about my date, and a depressing phone call from my mother, who remained convinced that I must be terribly homesick living in the big city. Going to work allowed me to escape all that. It was a relief going to a place where the weird was perfectly ordinary.