Page 63 of Truly Madly Magically

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THERE IS SOMETHING about going to visit my father’s side of the family that always fills me with dread. That something is dealing with Bill, obviously, but add the overly, desperately cheerful Stephanie always trying to smooth things over so we can be one big happy family, and I’d rather just stay the hell away.

Tragically, I enjoy my sisters. Who are also cursed through our father’s bloodline thanks to my mother—though they, as full humans, know nothing of witches or magic or curses. Everyone calls them forthright. Direct. Stephanie despairs of their lack of tact no matter how she tries to teach them the polite benefit of a little white lie or two.

Only I know they can’t lie.

I’ll admit this brings me more enjoyment than it should.

Stephanie tries to convince me to meet at the house before the football game. Dinner! Drinks! Anything to get me into her over-perfumed but well-meaning orbit.

I tell her I’ll meet them at the game. I should probably warn them I’m bringing Zander...but I don’t. This might or might not have something to do with the fact that I’m in Zander’s truck, like we really are sixteen all over again, fielding these texts from my stepmother.

“Don’t you want to tell them before the game?” he asks in what is, for him, a neutral tone of voice.

“No. Brynleigh should have her moment. She loves the spotlight.”

He spares me a glance, all gray amusement that I pretend I can’t feel inside me like heat. “Coward.”

I could argue. Maybe I try. But okay, I’m a coward.

Obviously that means I have no choice but to turn it around on him. “You didn’t bring your letterman jacket out of storage? You and Bill could talk glory days. How many touchdowns did you make in a single game?”

“He doesn’t still tell those stories,” Zander says as he maneuvers his truck through the human high school parking lot.

I make sure I’m looking right at him as I say, “Of course he does. All the time.”

Not a single lie to be found.

Zander shakes his head as he finds us a prime parking place in the overcrowded lot in what the humans would call another example of his ridiculous good luck, but we both know is a quickly muttered spell.

Truth be told, my dad loved Zander back in the day. Adored him. In fairness, that’s a pretty common reaction. Zander has always been talented at being well-liked just about everywhere he goes.

You could try being nice, you know, he would tell me, back when I did my best to ignore Stephanie to her face. And Bill, but more rudely.

I can’t lie, I would reply. Smugly.

They might actually have mourned harder than I did when we broke up.

Zander buys us our tickets, and we file toward the stands. I didn’t do a glamour, but I’m wearing something uncharacteristically loose so no one can tell I’ve got a bump unless they really look. A little human-level subterfuge. Hidden, but not hidden once I drop the bomb.

I scan the crowd looking for all that blond that will be the Wallace clan. Well, the women anyway. Bill’s gone bald, which brings my mother endless joy.

Stephanie starts waving maniacally once my gaze lands on her. It’s possible if Zander wasn’t there with his hand on my back to herd me along I would turn around and walk right back out. Promises be damned.

But we’re moving through the crowd despite my misgivings. We climb up the uncomfortable bleachers to the little Wallace contingent. The four of my sisters who are not down on the field cheering sit in a row with Stephanie on the end. I don’t see Bill.

I decide that’s better.

“Hey,” I offer by way of greeting.

Stephanie tries to hug me, but with the crowded bleachers and the girls between us, she settles for kind of reaching out and missing touching me entirely. I might also have leaned away, pretending to scan the field for Brynleigh, who I finally spot in the huddle of cheerleaders down at the edge of the field.

“Doesn’t she look pretty?” Stephanie is always good at a pivot, making it seem like what she wanted to do in the first place was discuss Brynleigh, not attempt to have a moment with her grumpy stepdaughter. “We spent two hours getting her hair just right.” She finally seems to realize Zander is with me and turns toward him. “Who’s your... Oh! Zander!”

I tense, waiting to see what the reception is like. Zander, meanwhile, has never worried about his reception in his life. He just grins like he belongs here.

Stephanie blinks, then smiles broadly. “It’s been too long! Sit. Sit.” She makes shooing motions at the hard bleacher bench. “Girls, you remember Zander.”

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