By Your Side. (Sequel to Art Girl and Wolf Boy)

By Your Side. (11)

 Phoebe's POV:

"When do you usually time travel?" The old woman asked. We were in some sort office, with huge windows, slightly cracked, flowery wall paper that made the room seem as old as the hills, but surprsingly comfie. Most surprising of all, we were sitting on mats. Deep purple. plush mats, the kind that you might see in a fortune teller's room. I fingered the gold frills.

"Those are real gold, you know." I looked up at Nora (I had learned her name while Archer was in the house) in shock, snatching my hand back. "Seriously? I guess I'd better stop touching it then; everything I touch seems to get messed up." I glanced at Archer, who was trying to get himself situated. He looked comfortable, even though he nearly dwerfed the pillow he was sitting on. "Even humans," I said a bit sadly.

"But he's not human."

"Fine. Even supernatural creatures," I snapped a little, then calmed down. "Sorry."

"Back to the question, child," she said gently.

"Yeah, Phoebe. Tell the lady when you last time traveled." Archer said, grinning but not huge enough to make me want to punch him. I gave him a look then furroweed my eyebrows. "I've only done it twice."

"Tell me what happened each time."

"Okay. Well, um, the first time I was with Archer." I looked over at my best friend for a minute than back at the black woman. "We were swimming and he was trying something..."

"What'd he try?"

I blushed down to my roots, remembering and my voice came out kind of squeaky. "He was rubbing his nose on my face."

"She liked it," Archer said cheekily. I gave him another wack upside the head. "Shut up," I snapped. "Because when my mate comes along he'll be angry if he finds out what you were doing, so you might as well practice keeping this between us three, got it?"

Archer and Nora stared at me like I had just said ketchup was my favorite drink. Their expressions were unreadable as they looked at each other, had a silent conversation, then turned to me.

And then they burst into laughter. Archer was holding his stomach, choking on laughter while Nora just lost all composure and grace and was smacking the ground on all fours, tears pouring down her face. They looked at each other and burst into another fit of laughter.

After several minutes of being laughed at, I got up, walking over to the door. "When you guys are in the condition to speak, you'll be able to find me with Jackson."

Faster than I could blink, Archer was in front of me, his eyes slightly darker as we stared each other down. I was massively confused. He bowed his head. "Go sit back down, please, Phob."

I folded my arms. "First I think you have somehting to say."

He mumbled something. I grinned, leaning in closer to his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that, you know, with my pathetic almost-human ears. Could you repeat that?"

"Sorry," he practically growled. I grinned. "That's okay...if you tell me what was so funny."

He looked up quickly, his eyes widening in...panic? He looked from Nora, who had this huge smirk on her face, back to me, then rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm sorry Phob, but that's something that's going to have to wait." He said, looking majorly guilty for something.

I pouted. "Why?"

"I promised myself I'd wait until you were a little older. You still have another few years to shift-"

"You don't know that," I said, feeling hurt. "Hannah shifted when she was super young."

"Hannah's special."

"And I'm not? Archer, look at us. We're in freaking 2009!"

He grimaced. "I know."

"Then why won't you tell me!?!"

"Because...because..."

"Because what?"

"I'm afraid of your reaction. I'm trying to see if you'd be happy, or sad, or angry at me for something I cant help. Besides, this really isn't the setting for the kind of thing I don't want to tell you." His voice softened. "Please understand, Phob."

Damn him. I sighed. "Are you sure you don't want to tell me now?"