Page 107 of Mayhem and Minnie

The seconds trickle by and my pulse starts drumming in my ears.

At last, Minnie opens the door.

Big mistake.

She’s wearing a black oversized shirt that I gave her when she first came here, and nothing else.

Her legs are bare, and as she notices my gaze drifting lower and lower, she wiggles her toes. They’re small and dainty. Just like her.

I gulp down.

“Do you need anything?” she asks in a monotone voice.

Do I? I can’t remember why I came here.

As I rack my brain for something to say—something that won’t make me look like the dumbass I already feel—she continues. “If you need me to clean the kitchen, I’ll do that later. I don’t think you have anything against me taking a short nap, do you?”

She narrows her eyes at me. Just how tyrannical does she think I am?

I straighten my back and attempt to infuse some confidence in my stance, though I don’t even know why I’m here other than to ogle her. Although, if I’m honest, she’s rather nice to ogle and that in itself makes the visit worth it.

Fuck. I must be losing my fucking mind because there’s no way I’d entertain that train of thought unless there was something clearly wrong with me. Something like…magic.

This girl… What if she has bewitched me? Because under no circumstances would I have eaten more sugar in the span of a few minutes than I have in my entire life.

My stomach rumbles in approval, and I can feel the sugar high poking its head to the surface, which for someone with already bad ADHD, that can only mean one thing.

Chaos.

Unless I have been possessed by a sugar ghost, there’s absolutely no way I would have willingly engaged in that. Nor would I have been standing here, watching Minnie as if I’ve never seen a woman before in my life. Which, granted, I’ve never seen someone like her before, but maybe that’s the issue.

She must have done something to me, something that logic cannot explain.

She wormed her way into my house, and that wasn’t enough, so she concocted to invade my mind too.

What if it’s her food? What if she’s been feeding me something that altered my brain chemistry in such a way that I’ve become addicted to her presence?

“Marlowe? Are you going to stand there all day and brood?”

“I wasn’t brooding,” I lie.

She places her hands on her hips and tilts her head to the side.

“What do you want?” she asks with a sigh. “I really want to nap.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask, can I join you? But that would be low, even for me. So instead, I end up muttering something worse.

“Did you put a spell on me?”

The words are out of my mouth before I can think them through.

Her eyes widen slightly. “What?”

“You heard me. Did you put a spell on me?” I ask, watching her with narrowed eyes.

A faint blush appears on her cheeks. Suspicious.

“Where would you have gotten that idea from?” she mumbles, but she averts her eyes.

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