The Legend of the Eight: The Wicked (Book 2)

14: Hello My Old Heart (It's Been a While)

FOURTEEN: HELLO MY OLD HEART (IT'S BEEN A WHILE)
MARCH 24
WIL DIAMOND

LUKE HEART HAD MANY RULES and he insisted that Wil follow all of them. He bought a burner phone for her and insisted she keep it on her at all times (her own iPhone wasn't the most reliable in the new Realm). He required her to check in when she was out. He set a curfew of eleven o'clock every night. And he forced her to eat something resembling breakfast before she left in the morning.

As a person who grew up expecting exactly none of those things, Wil had a difficult time adjusting.

On Thursday, after shoving a piece of multigrain toast in her mouth and washing it down with a glass of orange juice, Wil set off into the city. She scribbled a list of coffee shops on a piece of paper after Luke helped her become more familiar with Apple Maps and set out in hopes that she might find Damon in one of them.

She knew the day would be nothing but dead ends. That's how they all had been. She would stop into a dozen different coffee shops, drink a dozen different lattes, and strike out a dozen different times in her search for Damon. She was running out of time and if she didn't find Damon soon, Luke would send her on her way. Then she'd be picked up by her parents or Darks—she wasn't sure which was worse.

Sometime after noon, Wil reached the fifth coffee shop on her list and decided to take a break there. She'd been out for hours and the Tory Burch riding boots she wore were not kind to her toes. So she settled into the café and joined the line for a drink.

The café was busy but she didn't mind the wait. She liked watching mortals. She was fascinated by them, actually. They seemed so fulfilled in their mundane, magic-free lives—like there was nothing more exciting than office deadlines and home renovations and waffle irons. She didn't understand the waffle irons, though. Every mortal seemed to own one.

After waiting in line, Wil reached the register and placed her order which the cashier was happy to pass onto the barista behind her. The barista kept his back to Wil and even though she didn't see his face, she couldn't ignore how much he looked like Damon.

It was a game she'd been playing ever since she arrived in the Mortal World. She would study faces as they passed her, searching for things that reminded her of him. Some sported the same five o'clock shadow. Some had the same structured jaw. Some even had those deep brown eyes and dark hair to match.

The barista working on her coffee had Damon's shoulders. Broad, muscular, and sturdy. The veins in his forearms popped out like Damon's used to and he even carried the mugs the same way that Damon would've—with his thumb looped through the handle. On his wrist was a leather strap similar to the bracelet she once wore and if she stared hard enough, she swore she could make out a small scar in his right cheek shaped like a dimple.

Out of habit, Wil reached for her camera which hung from her shoulder (she figured if today was going to be another day of strikeouts, she might as well get a few good shots out of it). She snapped a few pictures of the barista hard at work, capturing the flex of his back muscles through his shirt and the beads of sweat collecting along the top of his collar, under the black hat he wore with the shop's logo on it. She must have snapped about a hundred pictures of him, watching through the lens as he prepared her drink. He popped a lid on and added a straw with an inch of paper at the end before turning to put the cup on the counter. He called out her order (skinny vanilla latte with oat milk) and lifted his head just slightly, meeting her eyes.

That's when she dropped her camera. It collided against her hip, swinging by the strap around her shoulder, but she ignored the throbbing where a bruise would eventually form.