A Magical Bond | 15

Sione had barely been able to change out of his stuffy work clothes and scrape together an acceptable dinner from various containers of leftover takeout when he was startled by an abrupt knock. "Who on earth could that be?" he muttered to Cosmo, who offered only a short, chipper bark in response, his tail already wagging excitedly at the prospect of meeting a new friend to jump and slobber all over. He followed Sione eagerly to the door. "Don't get too excited, my boy," Sione told him, having gotten in the habit by now of talking to Cosmo like he might be an actual human roommate. "You know how the 'rents love their surprise drop-ins."

But the unexpected visitor wasn't his parents at all. Sione stood dumbstruck in the middle of the hall, staring unblinkingly at the last person he expected to see in that moment: Cassie. He couldn't quite believe his eyes. Could she be a mirage conjured up by his subconscious mind? By now, his brain had stopped fixating - by necessity - on incessant thoughts of what could have been if he had only recognized his feelings for her sooner. Of course, he'd never been able to fully shake off all the what ifs, but as his post-grad life had started slowly taking shape, somewhere along the way, he'd stopped expecting her to suddenly drop in out of nowhere. So, naturally, that was exactly what she'd done. Her hair was longer, she had more tattoos, and she was carrying a skittish-looking black and white cat, but, otherwise, she looked exactly how he remembered.

"Are you going to stand there gawking at me all day, or are you actually going to invite me in?" she asked, her wide smile lighting up her face. He cleared his throat and shuffled to the side, motioning vaguely for her to step through the door. He had no idea what to say.

She strolled into his apartment and gave it a quick once-over. Suddenly, he became acutely aware of what a mess it was. Since he rarely had anybody over, he usually didn't put much effort into tidying up. As a result, there was a week's worth of dirty clothes heaped at the foot of his bed and empty cans and bottles scattered across every surface. "I guess you don't earn enough at that fancy job of yours yet to hire a maid," she quipped. "At least the bed's made."

Her tone was light-hearted, but Sione cringed both inwardly and outwardly at his own slovenly ways. Of course, they would come back to bite him at the absolute worst time. "Wait," he said, daring to meet her eyes for a quick moment, though his face burned with embarrassment. "How did you find out about my job? How did you find out where I live?" He realized immediately how stupid the questions were. It wasn't as though he were in witness protection. He wasn't that hard to track down.

"Sorry, I didn't know you were supposed to be untraceable," she replied incredulously. "All it took was a bit of light Simstagram stalking and five or 10 minutes trawling a search engine. The internet is a beautiful and terrifying thing."

Just then, Cosmo started barking, interrupting their conversation. He pawed impatiently at Cassie's feet, tired of waiting his turn to introduce himself to this fascinating new stranger who had entirely commandeered his owner's attention. "Who's this little guy?" Cassie asked in a sing-songy lilt as she crouched down to give him a good, vigorous scratch behind the ears. Cosmo opened his mouth in a long blissful yawn.

"That's Cosmo," Sione said, forcing himself to regain his composure and pretend like he didn't still have a million other burning questions he needed answered immediately. Cautiously, he crept closer to the cat she had brought along, who appeared far less excited than Cosmo to make a new acquaintance. "And yours?"

"Inkblot. She's my familiar."

Sione's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "Your what?" he exclaimed, reflexively recoiling from the cat even though she was only standing there staring at him with big, anxious eyes.

"Oh, yeah. I'm a spellcaster now, like, for real. It's not just in my head this time, I swear." She laughed as if this was the most natural thing in the world. "I guess I never told you that."

"That's why you didn't come back to school?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry for being so cagey back then. I wasn't really sure how much I was allowed to reveal. Besides, you always made fun of me for still being so into the magic thing. I didn't think you'd believe me."

"I probably wouldn't have," he admitted. "Hell, I'm not entirely sure I do now."

An awkward silence fell between them. Sione raked a mildly tremulous hand through his hair, not certain where all this artificially casual small talk was headed. They hadn't seen each other in nearly four years. Surely, she hadn't dropped by just to chit-chat. Even though he was afraid to be let down by her response, he finally blurted out the only question that really mattered. "Cass, why are you here?" Her expression turned immediately guarded, and he added hastily, "Don't get me wrong, it's good to see you. Really good. But I wasn't sure you'd ever want to speak to me again after how things ended last time. I figured I'd be the last person on your mind by now."

"Sione, come on," she said in a low voice. Surprisingly, she looked hurt by his assumption. "You couldn't have really believed that. I mean, considering everything, you think I'd just forget you?"

"That's not..." he sputtered desperately. "I mean, I didn't..."

Unable to watch him struggle for words a second longer, Cassie chose instead to put him out of his misery, grabbing hold of the back of his head and drawing his lips toward her own. He hesitated for only a moment and then leaned into the kiss, pulling her closer against him. It was the first kiss they'd shared since they were teenagers, but this kiss was an entirely different beast than the sloppy, brief one-sided peck Cassie had planted on Sione all those years ago. It was finally reciprocated, both sides equally hungry for one another.

They kissed until they were breathless and Sione, feeling light-headed and giddy, collapsed helplessly into Cassie's arms. She staggered briefly under the weight of him but then readjusted herself and stood solid as a tree trunk, her arms gripping his body with surprising strength. Then again, she was always surprising him, so he shouldn't have been surprised at all.

"That was... incredible," he finally murmured reverently, becoming vaguely aware of the fact that she'd migrated to the bed and he'd been standing there stupefied into stillness for God only knew how long now. Inkblot leapt up onto the mattress beside her, and Sione stared at the cat intensely, suddenly transfixed by the enigmatic shimmer that seemed to accompany the animal's every movement. "Is your cat sparkling?"

"Yep," Cassie replied matter-of-factly, as if there were nothing more to say on the subject: she had an enchanted cat, and that was that. "Now, are you going to take me out on the town or what? I feel like I've forgotten everything I used to know about this place!"

Although Sione could still hardly believe that his most deeply-held fantasy was suddenly playing out in real life, he managed to pull it together enough to suggest they grab a bite to eat from his favorite nearby ramen stand while Cassie reacquainted herself with the city's sights.

But it soon became apparent that the only sight Cassie seemed interested in reacquainting herself with at this particular moment was him. She couldn't seem to peel her eyes away. Every time he risked a glance in her direction, she was grinning at him like a madwoman and could do nothing but giggle and wiggle her eyebrows guiltily when she was caught. He smiled and blushed, also unwilling to break the sanctity of their shared silence. God knew how long they sat there like that, stuck on an endless loop of dumbstruck appreciation for the mere fact of finally being in the same place at the same time again.

Later, as they were walking back to his apartment together hand-in-hand, Sione abruptly stopped and pulled Cassie to the edge of the sidewalk. "What made you change your mind?" he asked, no longer capable of curbing his curiosity. "About me? About us? Why did you decide to come back now, after all this time? I could've been with someone else, you know. I could've moved on."

"But you didn't." The way she said it, this was a statement more than a question, and he ducked his head in silent acknowledgment of its truth. "I spent so long fixated on what you thought of me," she began slowly. "I didn't feel like I had a proper identity. It was important for me to discover who I truly was. A part of me wanted to stay back then, when you finally admitted how you felt, but I had only just started to find myself, and staying seemed like backsliding. I couldn't just settle. I needed to learn what else was out there for me."

"And what did you learn?" he asked sheepishly.

She released a vast, heavy sigh that seemed to contain every single thing she'd experienced in the years they'd been apart. "I learned that the world is full of magic, like I always hoped it would be when I was a kid. It's been everything I could've imagined and more, but the more I learned, the more I realized how empty it all felt without anyone special to share it with. And every time I tried to envision who that person might be, I could only see you."

It struck Sione how closely her words mirrored his own thoughts. He couldn't exactly say he'd uncovered the existence of magic since they'd last spoken, but in his own way he had also charted a path of self-discovery - and similarly discovered that, no matter how much he achieved, there always remained an empty space that it seemed would never be filled... until now? He didn't want to get ahead of himself, but he somehow already felt more complete.

Needless to say, between them both, they carried years' worth of pent-up desire that required immediate release. They spent the rest of the night buried beneath the covers of Sione's bed. After all, they had so much lost time to make up for.

It felt strange for Sione to wake up the next morning with someone else curled up by his side and to get ready for work with someone else rifling through his fridge for leftovers. He was so thrown off balance by this entirely new experience that it took until it was nearly time for him to leave for him to realize Cosmo wasn't acting like his usual energetic self. He was lethargic and feverish and slumped miserably into Sione's arms when he picked him up, his tiny body trembling and hot to the touch. "Ah, shit," Sione murmured, tenderly cradling the dog. "I'm going to have to call in to work. I think this little guy needs to see a vet."

"I can take him," Cassie suggested immediately, eager to show that she could pull her weight as an equally responsible adult cohabiting in his apartment (an unspoken arrangement they'd blurrily agreed on at some point the night before) and not a hopelessly unambitious slacker mooching off of his generosity.

"Are you sure?" he asked uncertainly, clearly nervous about putting the life of his beloved pet into the hands of anyone but himself.  "I mean, you said yourself that you barely remember your way around the city and-"

"Oh, please. I'm hardly going to get lost." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and waved it demonstratively in front of his face. "The beauty of technology, my friend. You of all people should know about that.  You shouldn't take off work if you don't have to. Besides, I'm going to need something to do while you're out bringing home the bacon."

It took 30 minutes to convince Cosmo to let her hold him, but once he finally gave in, too miserable to resist, she plugged the nearest veterinarian's office into her phone's GPS app and headed out. Until she figured out exactly what she was going to do now that she could no longer delay the onset of adulthood for the sake of her magical training, she could at least make herself useful to Sione. She hardly envisioned herself as the full-time stay-at-home housewife type, but she didn't mind playing the part of doting dog mom for now.

Luckily, the vet was able to squeeze Cosmo in for an emergency visit and diagnose the problem right away. It turned out to be a nasty case of Sizzlepaw! He wrote out a prescription for the fever and told her to make sure Cosmo took it easy for the next few days while the medicine worked its way through his system.

On the way back to the apartment, Cassie decided to stop at a produce stand to pick up some fresh seasonal fruits. It'd been a while since she'd baked for anyone but herself, and she imagined Sione would love nothing more than to dig into a slice of fresh berry pie when he got home from work that night.

As the pie baked, it imbued the apartment with its rich, heavenly scent, which immediately had Cassie salivating. Unfortunately, she'd entirely underestimated how long it would take to prepare and still had hours left to go before it could be served. She desperately surveyed the apartment, looking for something else she could do to distract herself from gobbling up the entire pie on her own.

Luckily, it didn't take her long to find another task. She quickly set about sweeping the various crumpled chip bags, wadded-up candy bar wrappers, empty beer bottles, and crushed soda cans that had been carelessly strewn about the apartment into a trash bag and tossing the lot of it into the garbage chute in the hall. Why was it that men always seemed to have so much difficulty cleaning up their own messes?

She hoped Sione wouldn't get used to her doing all the heavy lifting when it came to housework. This was a one-time kindness, born more out of boredom than any true passion for tidiness on her part. At least her magic made the whole process much less labor-intensive than it would be otherwise. A few muttered syllables and a flick of her wrist and the kitchen counters sparkled like they were brand new again.

When the entire apartment was sparkling from floorboard to ceiling, she found that she still somehow had time to kill and decided she might as well prepare a proper dinner to accompany her pie. She was so consumed in perfectly seasoning a package of frozen fish fillets she'd dug out of the freezer that she didn't even hear Sione enter the apartment until he was directly behind her. "Something smells amazing in here," he said, causing her to yelp and flinch away, spilling an entire shaker's worth of paprika all over the freshly-cleaned counter in the process.

Sione flashed a bemused grin at how suddenly flustered she grew in his presence. "Looks like you've got everything under control," he dead-panned as he watched her rush to the stove top to rescue a flaming pan. "I'd better stay out of your hair."

"Yes, it's all going splendidly," she insisted, ineffectively blowing on the pan in an effort to extinguish the rogue flames.

"Good, because when you texted me that you were making dinner, I may or may not have invited my parents over."

"You did what?" she exclaimed, but Sione had already disappeared through the kitchen entryway with another maddening smirk.

Before Cassie knew it, Sione was ushering his parents inside the apartment. They'd both aged noticeably since the last time she saw them, but she supposed she had changed a lot over the last few years, too. Nani swept her gaze across the newly squeaky-clean space, her jaw dropped in exaggerated disbelief. "I don't think I've ever seen this place look so... tidy," she marveled.

"Who's this mystery girl you so urgently wanted to introduce us to?" Noelani asked, barely able to veil their breathless anticipation as they leaned in for a hug.

"Yes, we're dying to meet her!" Nani exclaimed. "She must have you head over heels if you're actually cleaning up after yourself for a change."

Sione chuckled in mild embarrassment. "Mom, please." He locked eyes with Cassie, who was waiting patiently and semi-awkwardly in the kitchen for the perfect opportunity to make her grand entrance. "Anyway, I can't take any credit for that. I'm afraid I'm still an irredeemable slob." He nodded at Cassie over Noelani's shoulder, her cue to step up.

"It was all me," she said, and Sione's parents whirled around upon hearing an unexpectedly familiar voice. "But, don't worry, if all goes according to plan, I'll have him transformed into a perfect little homemaker in no time." She'd wanted to make them laugh, but Nani and Noelani only gaped at her in disbelief. She grinned at them cheekily. "Surprise!"

"Cassie!" Nani gasped, immediately pulling her into a warm embrace. "How are you?" But she barely gave Cassie an opportunity to answer before peppering her with a barrage of follow-up questions. "Where have you been? Why haven't you visited us? You couldn't even find the time to call? You know we've always considered you family!"

Cassie bit her lip guiltily. She didn't really have a good excuse for why she'd lost touch. She'd just been so singularly focused on her magical training - and, until recently, so blindly determined to avoid all roads that might possibly lead to Sione - that she'd let most of her relationships fall by the wayside. "It's a long story," she said vaguely. "I'll have to catch you up over dinner."

Luckily, Noelani swooped in to save her from having to say anything more for now. "Honey, I told you we should have taken bets on these two crazy kids ending up together one day!"

Sione instantly turned a deep shade of red. "Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I invited you over for dinner, not to make sweeping proclamations about what may or may not happen in the future."

They had barely settled in at the table before Nani resumed her incessant line of questioning. Cassie clearly wasn't going to be able to get away with being cagey for long, but she still found herself skirting the truth, uncertain how easily they would take to the idea of her being a spellcaster. "I really haven't been up to anything all that interesting," she insisted. "Honestly, I've been living like a real recluse the past few years, just holed up with my cat in this cramped little cottage with damp ceilings and creaky plumbing, tending to my garden, baking bread, and generally avoiding society."

Sione couldn't stand to hear her lie. He had been too impressed/awestruck by the stories she'd told him over the past couple days to let her maintain this dull, ordinary facade a second longer. "Come on, Cass, quit being modest! She's actually been keeping very busy. She's been learning magic!"

"Magic?" Nani asked, raising a dubious eyebrow. "As in card tricks? Pulling rabbits out of hats? Sawing people in half?"

Cassie laughed. "No, it's not quite that sort of magic."

"Yes, I imagine it's much more complex than all that silliness," Noelani said with a meaningful wink in Cassie's direction. "Don't forget that my own father was a merman. I'm much more open-minded about the existence of forces beyond our understanding than you might think. Why don't you give us a taste of what you can do?"

"Yeah, enough talk!" Sione exclaimed, getting a bit too swept up in the excitement. "Let's see it already!"

Unfortunately, Cassie's nerves got the best of her and what was meant to be a simple spell to turn their plates instantaneously spotless came out as a spell to instantaneously set them ablaze instead. "Crap," she muttered as Sione's parents scrambled away from the lapping flames that had sprung up before them. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

As the flames grew taller, quickly transforming Sione's only good dinnerware into a pile of ashes, Cassie sighed in defeat and sat back down to wait out the inferno. "What are you doing?" Sione shouted, waving his arms at her wildly. "Get away from there! Are you trying to burn yourself to a crisp?"

"Calm down," she said evenly, her voice barely louder than the crackle of the fire. "It's a completely harmless spell. We just have to let it run its course, and then everything will be fine."

She was right. Just a few seconds later, the flames disappeared as suddenly as they had arisen. Sione breathed a sigh of relief. He could hardly be blamed for panicking. He had no idea yet how this magic thing worked! "All right, so that wasn't my finest work," Cassie admitted once the coast was clear. "But I haven't done much casting in front of other people yet. I got stage fright!"

"We believe you," Nani said, trying to maintain her composure as she collected the few dishes that had narrowly avoided incineration, though she was clearly a bit shaken by the experience. "But let's stick to cleaning the rest up the old-fashioned way."

Luckily, Cassie's foible was forgotten the second Nani laid eyes on Inkblot. Having recently lost their own cat, Kit, to old age, she was over the moon at the prospect of having another feline friend in close proximity for her to dote on. "You might not even need to give us any grandchildren," Noelani joked, looking on adoringly as Nani and Inkblot made each other's acquaintance.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sione exclaimed, laughing and cutting his eyes at Cassie nervously. "It's far too early to even be bringing up the idea of grandchildren, let alone assuming it's a foregone conclusion."

"Oh, stop playing coy," Nani chided. "We all knew this was going to happen eventually! Now, when's the wedding?"

"We're not in any kind of rush," Cassie replied firmly. "We have to get to know each other again first. It's been a while. I think we've both probably changed a lot. Who knows? We might find out we can hardly stand each other."

"I very much doubt that'll happen," Noelani said, and they all smiled at each other like they were in on the world's worst-kept secret. Cassie wasn't lying when she'd said she didn't want things to move too fast, but she also couldn't deny that finally having the tangibility of a future with Sione dangled in front of her made her eager to reach out and grab it before it could get away from her.