“Oh, no,” Nonna says. “That needs no help. When you have a foxy lady like me, and a besotted man like your grandfather, it comes naturally.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Then what’s this magic love potion?”
“Exactly that,” she says. “It makes a man fall in love with you. He can’t help but fall once you’ve given him a taste.”
“Of… What?” I ask.
“Your blood,” she says. “You have to put a drop of your blood in his food.”
“Well,” I say. “That’s a little… Crazy.”
“Not just any blood,” Nonna says, giving me a conspiratorial smile. “Yourspecialblood.”
“Your what?” I ask, then wish I hadn’t. I pull my arm away. “Oh, gross! You better not mean what I think you mean.”
Nonna throws her head back and laughs. “I’m afraid I mean exactly that.”
“I’m telling Grandpa.” I cross my arms and try to glare instead of laughing, because really, what else can I do?
“You wouldn’t dare,” she scolds.
“Nonna, please tell me you didn’t really feed Granddad a drop of your period blood.”
“I most certainly did,” she says. “And I’m not sorry. It’s kept our marriage strong for all these years. Your grandfather fell madly in love with me, and to this day, he’d do anything for me. If you want your fellow to do the same for you, to give you the information you want out of him, you’re going to have to follow my example.”
I squinch my eyes shut and try to imagine doing something like that to Devlin. “Maybe back in the seventies, that’s something people did,” I say. “Nowadays? Not so much.”
“Just try it,” Nonna says. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “He could find out, and I could die of shame?”
“Oh, don’t be ashamed,” she says, waving a dismissive hand. “Women have been doing it for thousands of years. Unless you have a better idea, you’d be wise to at least try. It won’t hurt him. I promise. Your grandfather is healthy as an ox.”
“I don’t know…”
I think of last night. Devlin didn’t run screaming when I told him I had my period. He didn’t seem to even care. Nothing about our relationship is normal, or healthy, or conventional. Nothing about it is honest or open, either. If I want to feed him a little extra seasoning in his coffee, what’s he going to do about it? Nothing, that’s what. Even if it doesn’t work, which of course it won’t, it’ll give me the satisfaction of knowing I fed him something disgusting.
“Fine,” I say at last. “But don’t be disappointed if we don’t live happily ever after. I’m only getting him to fall in love with me so I can get information out of him.”
And break his cruel, stone heart into a million pieces. If he even has a heart. At this point, I’d feed him magic beans if I thought it would make him fall in love. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
twenty-four
Crystal
We used to laugh at people who visited psychics, fortune tellers, and palm readers. We scoffed from atop our thrones at the peasants making idols of trinkets, clutching their rabbits feet and four-leaf clovers. How desperate, we said.
Desperate, indeed.
“Here,” I say, sitting down in science with two coffee cups. I shove one at Devlin before scooting in to hide my hands in my lap so he won’t see them shaking.
“Now you’re bringing me coffee?” Devlin asks, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “I didn’t think you were one of those girls.”
“I’m not,” I say. “That’s so maybe you can stay awake all morning and go to fucking sleep tonight instead of keeping me up with your midnight football practice.”
“It’s a game day,” he says. “I won’t be home at midnight.”
I try not to think about what that means. About what girl he’ll go home with after the game, what cheerleader will attach herself to him and coo about his amazing performance, bat her lashes, and ask to see his tattoos.