Too Hexy For Her Hat by Susan Hayes
5
“Oh, uh, that.”Chad gave her a sheepish look. “My Dad is always on about never using the same kind of magic twice. Something about keeping your adversaries on their toes. Have I mentioned he’s a bit, let’s call it odd? And intense.”
“So you have a spell with serpent FX?” She was more interested in the magic for the moment, but she made a note to ask more about his father at some point.
“I created that one for Hissy.” He patted his pocket gently, and a sleepy hiss confirmed his statement.
He was too good to be true. Sexy, smart, and sweet? Violins started to play softly and the lighting around him softened and blurred a little, somehow making him look even more handsome.
She tried not to notice.
As smitten and fluttery as Luna felt, she was fighting the need to buy in to this fantasy. She was all for taking the bull by the horns for a few days or weeks, but she wasn’t convinced this was forever. She wasn’t ready to believe she could actually spend forever happily swooning over Chad Parker, warlock hunk extraordinaire.
In her experience, good things usually came with strings attached to other things that weren’t nearly as enticing as Chad. In fact, they often had tentacles, or a prison record, or subscribed you to things you didn’t want but couldn’t seem to cancel without nuking your credit card from orbit.
He walked beside her, their fingers interlocked, slowing his pace down to match hers. Beaker had flown ahead to scout the way. He was probably still feeling guilty for missing the two assholes in the alley earlier. They’d both gotten complacent and comfortable. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again. Comfortable was dangerous. Especially this close to her birthday.
Tonight had been amazing. Wonderful. And that was dangerous, too. It was all too perfect, and if life had taught her anything, it was to distrust anything that looked too good to be true.
Some of the foster homes she’d been in had been that way. Smiling adults. Cookies baking in the oven… the works. Those were usually the ones she’d hated the most. The best one was the last home she’d been assigned to with weeds in the front yard and a sun-bleached fence leaning like a drunk in search of a wall. Desi hadn’t tried to hug her or make wild promises about how much she was going to like it there. She was firm, focused, and showed Luna to a little room with faded wallpaper, a tiny window, and a simple but comfy bed.
“This is yours. No one else is allowed in here. I serve breakfast at seven, dinner at six, and if you’re going to school, your lunch will be on the counter with your name on it. No school, no lunch. If you break something, fix it. I don’t care if you use your magic, but I draw the line at polymorphing anyone who lives here into anything else. Clear?”
That had been the start of the best time of her life. She’d gone to school almost every day to learn about magic and the world. Desi taught her how to read tarot cards and even helped her find her current job. She was the only person in the world Luna trusted.
They made it to the front doors of her apartment building without incident, and Beaker was sitting on a bike rack nearby. With his feathers fluffed and eyes closed, he was already halfway falling asleep again.
“This is me. Apartment four-oh-three if you’re curious.” She pointed to the doors. The words “Rumbly Manor House” were painted on the glass in faded gold letters.
“Then I guess this is good night.”
She expected Chad to try to get an invitation to come inside. Most guys would have, and after the amount of mouth-to-mouth contact they’d had tonight, he wouldn’t have been out of line. To her surprise, he didn’t.
“Meeting you was the pleasure of a lifetime, Luna Storm. When can I see you again?”
The world hushed, and the stars started to twinkle like tiny disco balls. She ignored them. None of it was really happening. It was all part of the spell Cupid had doused them with. The only thing real about tonight was Chad, the hotter than Hades-in-his-black-leather-phase warlock currently holding her hand.
“Tomorrow? I’m off work for the next few days.” Tricia was attending a psychic fair over on the mainland, and the shop would be shut down while she was gone. Weekdays were always quiet, and Luna had been happy to have some extra downtime. The timing couldn’t be better… Her thought process momentarily derailed. Trogs, trolls, and jelly rolls. Was Fate sticking her pointy snout into Luna’s life again?
“Tomorrow works. I’m in town on family business. So long as I get everything done before the deadline, my schedule is flexible.” He tugged her into his arms and smiled down at her. “I’ve decided getting to know you is a much higher priority.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You’re amazing.” Then he kissed her.
The second his lips touched hers, she made her decision. Screw Fate sideways with a corkscrew. She liked Chad. He liked her. She wasn’t going to run from this just because Fate might be involved. Good things didn’t come her way often. She wanted to enjoy this while it lasted and make sure not to get too attached… because she still expected to wake up and find out Cupid and her tarot cards were wrong.
This time, the fireworks weren’t an illusion. The air shimmered with a blend of red and gold sparks as their magic swirled together for the first time. It tingled in all the best ways.
She wrapped one leg around his calf, tangled her hands in his hair, and kissed him back. They were plastered together like two statues at an erotic arts festival, though this time she was careful not to crush Hissy.
Tongues and limbs twined together as the air around them flickered brightly with fire-fly sparks that danced and flowed around them like liquid light. He groaned something she couldn’t quite make out. Her name? A spell? A prayer to the Goddess? She didn’t know and couldn’t find mental bandwidth to care. All her focus was on him. The strength in his arms, the hard warmth of his body, and the way he kissed her—like he’d never get enough.
It was perfect… until Beaker screeched and shot into the air in a flurry of feathers. “Alert. Alert. Voyeur at the door!”
Chad’s head snapped up. He spun them both around, moving her behind him before turning again to face the door. “Who—what is that?”
She had a good idea what was going on, but she wasn’t eager to look in case it triggered a technicolour digestive rebellion. That was not how she wanted this date to end.
“Why is she slimy?” The horror in Chad’s voice confirmed her suspicions, but she forced herself to peek around and look for herself.
Yep. It was Dotty Frankenfuut, a new tenant who had wasted no time in taking over the role of the building’s biggest gossip. The elderly snail Shifter had her face pressed up against the glass door to stare at them. And everywhere she touched, she left a trail of slime behind.
Ugh.
“That’s one of my neighbours. She’s a snail Shifter. Be careful what you touch, she uh... oozes.
“Thanks for the warning.”
A loud, squishy sucking sound came from inside as Miss Frankenfuut broke contact with the glass, shuffled back a step, and then opened the door. Her expression was somewhere between condemnation and curiosity as she stared at them with eyes made even bigger by her coke-bottle glasses. “It’s past curfew.”
“There’s no curfew,” Luna retorted.
The snail Shifter sniffed. “There should be! I like to live in a quiet building with excellent aesthetics. This place has neither. I really must make another complaint to management.”
“You do that, Miss Frankenfuut. Now, if you’ll kindly shut the door, I’d like to say goodnight to my boyfriend in private.”
Another sniff, this one accompanied by a phlegmy cough. “Shameless. Carrying on in public. My right to peaceful enjoyment is being violated!”
“Then I suggest you go back to your suite. Now.” Chad’s voice held a surprisingly steely edge as he glared down at Frankenfuut.
The Shifter’s huge, water eyes blinked several times in obvious surprise. “Oh. Well. Yes. I suppose.”
Then she straightened to her full height of four-foot-something, tightened the knot on her ratty pink bathrobe, and tucked a strand of her bright-red “I-want-to-speak-to-the-manager,” style wig back into place. “I may be in the minority in this building, but I won’t let the majority overrule me for long! I will have order, peace, quiet, and better aesthetics around here!”
Neither of them spoke until the Shifter let the door close and tottered off at a painfully slow pace, leaving a delicate sheen of snail snot in her wake.
“That was different,” Chad commented once they were alone again.
“She’s new, and we’re all annoyed with her already. Nothing’s ever good enough and she keeps demanding we obey rules that don’t actually exist.” Luna came out from behind him and shrugged. “Welcome to community living in the supernatural world.”
“This is why I want to own my own house someday. Somewhere quiet, away from annoying creatures of all kinds. And believe me, I’m familiar with community living. These days I spend most of my time living in hotels. It’s an ever-changing parade of weirdness.”
“I bet. Which hotel?”
She expected him to name a local motel. Instead, he dropped the name of the most famous hotel in the downtown core. “The Fairmont Empress.”
“Fancy. I hear their spa is something else.”
He blinked. “They have a spa?”
Men. They had no idea what was important in life. “They do. With massage rooms and mineral baths and everything.” She loved a good spa day, and it had been ages since she’d indulged in one.
“Then we’ll have to book massages.” He winked. “Any excuse to see you wrapped in a towel.”
That comment triggered a cascade of X-rated visions of Chad in a towel, Chad covered in massage oil, and Chad covered in oil without a towel. Oh yes. She was all for this plan.
“Towels. Are those a second date or third date sort of thing?” she asked.
His answer made bits of her melt. “I’m really hoping they’re a second date thing. I’ll try to book us spots for tomorrow. I think my little lunatic deserves some TLC.”
“I’m five-eight and not exactly little, but I agree with the rest of your mission statement. You. Me. Massages. Tomorrow.”
They’d already exchanged contact information, so all that was left was to say goodnight.
Both of them stood there, neither of them willing to be the first one to say it. Finally, Beaker broke the silence. “For the love of pink fairies in tutus, will you two just kiss and call it a night already?”
She managed to zap him in the tail feathers with a couple of sparks without taking her eyes off Chad.
“The bird is right. I should let you go inside and get some sleep. You’ve been working long hours this past week.
“I… yeah. I have. But how would you know that?”
Chad waved a hand and shrugged like it was nothing. “You told me what you do for a living. I also know that tourists galore have been downtown, which means long hours for anyone who works in tourism or anything tourism adjacent.”
He sounded so matter of fact she took him at his word… for now. But she filed away that comment for future reference if—or when—the wheels started coming off this handcart to the devil’s hometown.
As if determined to drown out her pessimism, the invisible sax soloist returned and struck up a romantic tune. A warm breeze spun around them, filling the air with the scents of summer as it blew her skirt around her legs.
“I think that’s our cue.” She laughed and then reached for him. He did the same, and then his mouth was on hers and the world spun around them like they were standing in the center of a merry-go-round.
It took her several delightfully distracted seconds to discover that the world wasn’t spinning. They were. They were also half a metre off the ground. “Is that you or the whammy water?”
“A little of both,” he admitted and raised a hand so she could see it. Gold and orange sparks flowed around his fingers and then spun away to swirl beneath their feet.
They whirled, kissed, and laughed for a few more minutes before their feet touched the ground again. The moment they did, the music died away and darkness reclaimed its real estate from the magical moonbeam.
“Good night, Chad. Tonight was unexpected and utterly amazing.”
“Best surprise attack ever,” he agreed. “Sleep well.”
His hand touched her cheek before he turned to go, summoning up a golden portal and walking through it with a backward wave.
Beaker flew to her shoulder. “That’s your one true love? He uses black magic and has more abandonment issues than Bruce Wayne. Hmm. Black magic. Rich. Buff. Charming but secretive. Do you think he is the Bat?”
“I hope not. This day has been weird enough without having to worry if my new boyfriend has a secret identity. Besides, that only happens in fiction.”
“Boyfriend?” Beaker huffed. “Don’t forget about your bird-friend. I was here first.”
“And you will be with me for always.”
“Damn right. That’s my job.” He nibbled at a lock of her hair. “You’re my witch.”
“And you are the best familiar in the world.”
She took two steps toward the door and then stopped. She had no interest in running into Frankenfuut again.
“Hang on. We’re taking a shortcut.” She snapped her fingers and crimson sparks flew as she teleported them both to her apartment. It was time to think, then sleep, and then hopefully dream about Chad Parker, the warlock too good to be true.
