The West Wind by Morgan Douglas Read Free Book Online

caught off guard. “Thank you.”
    They walked along in silence. It seemed to Hero that the quiet
should make her more uncomfortable than it was, so she decided to break it.
“So, what did you want to do?”
    “Talk to you. We didn’t really get a chance the other night.”
    “As I remember, you spoke more than I wanted.”
    “I apologized for that.”
    “And then you dropped me.”
    “You slapped me!” Xander exclaimed.
    “Do you drop all the girls who slap you?” Hero asked, one side of
her mouth quirked up in a teasing smile.
    “Since it’s only happened once, yes.”
    “I was your first, was I?”
    He didn’t miss a beat. “Hopefully my last, too.”
    His words had sincerity behind the playfulness that stopped Hero
in her tracks. She wondered if he ever said anything without multiple meanings
in the words. Xander took a few steps before he realized she wasn’t beside him
anymore and turned to look at her with a question in his eyes.
    “Umm. . . This is me.” Hero gestured toward a power boat tied up
in a slip nearby.
    “Looks cold,” he said with a straight face.
    She laughed. “Don’t be an idiot. I live on the island.”
    “Right, La Casa Loco, or something.”
    “La Hacienda Noblé.” She looked at him suspiciously, a little
worried. “How do you know that?”
    “Your favorite person in the world told me all about you and your
little ‘coven’.” Xander made quotation marks in the air with his index and
middle fingers as he said coven.
    “Coven?” Hero asked indignantly.
    “What, you didn’t know you were a witch?” he laughed. “I made a
joke that you, Leana, and the blonde might be the Wyrd sisters. I’m afraid it
might have stuck.”
    “The Weird Sisters?” Hero looked taken aback.
    “No, no, w-y-r-d. The Wyrd Sisters. They’re the witches from
MacBeth, you know? Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron
bubble and all that jazz. They’re actually meant to represent the Fates.”
    He took a breath to continue, but she started laughing. His
eyebrows scrunched up, and she laughed harder. “What?” he asked, a little
offended.
    “If I had to take more lectures from people who looked like you, I
might pay more attention in class. Or less, perhaps.”
    He leaned his head to one side. “What do you mean?”
    Hero bounced up to him, stood up on her toes and kissed him on the
cheek. “You’re cute. Goodnight, Adonis.” She laughed again.
    “Why do you keep calling me that?” he demanded.
    She hopped in the boat and started it. “Goodnight,” she said as
she started to back out of the slip.
    “Wait, why do you keep calling me Adonis?” he asked again as he
followed the boat as far down the dock as he could.
    “Goodnight,” she said, drawing the second word out into two
syllables.
    “Can I see you again?” he shouted out to her. Her response was
lost in the roar of the engine as she pushed the boat into drive and sailed out
into the bay. Xander shoved his hands into his pockets and headed home.
     
    ----
     
    “Hey, how was your date?” Zach asked when Xander arrived home, his
voice breaking through Xander’s replay of his conversation with Hero, which was
playing over and over in his head.
    “Oh, good. Jessica’s pretty nice.”
    “Pretty nice? Really? Girl like that and that’s all you have to
say?”
    “Yeah. But, hey, I finally got to talk to Hero.”
    His father’s face became serious for a moment. “You’re not gay,
are you? I mean, it’d be Takei, but. . . “ He stopped, taking in the look on
his son’s face.
    “Ah. Hero is NOT a man.”
    Xander shook his head, quite unamused. “No. She’s the girl I
dropped.”
    “I hope you don’t plan to go around introducing her that way.
Hero, this is Grandma. Grandma, this is the girl I dropped.”
    “Come on, Dad,” Xander protested. He laughed. “Jessica’s great, I
guess. She’s gorgeous and fun. But Hero. . . “ He paused, bit his lip and
looked his father in the eye. “I