Page 4 of Sunsets & Other Dangerous Things

Esther blinked at her. “Florida.”

“Oh.” Well, there went that option.

“Anyway.” There—a slight tug at the corner of Esther’s mouth as she turned her face away, her secret smile. “Professor Jenkins paired up the class to do the ethnographies while you were gone. We’re uneven, so I offered to work with the odd student.” She shrugged before shoving a fistful of pens at Ashley. “Hey, odd student, I guess you’re stuck with me.”

Sweet baby Jesus, Ashley didn’t know whether to thank her mom or curse her for putting her in the path of this marvelous temptation. Her fingers brushed Esther’s as she fumbled with the pens. She wanted to live in this awkward moment with Esther for a century at least. This was definitely a bad idea.

The back of her throat tingled, and she coughed it away. “Cool.”

“Right.” Esther nodded, as though that settled things. “We should exchange numbers to plan when to meet.”

When to meet. As in, with another student, outside of class, on purpose. Did this break rule three? It was for class after all. Sure, she’d failed her list twice already, but she’d grown. She was totally in control and ready for a one-on-one with a person she was not obsessing over.

The tingling in her throat increased, and she coughed again, trying to clear out the agitation. “Cool.”

She would need a better vocabulary the next time they met.

Again, Esther shoved something into Ashley’s unprepared hands. Her phone this time.

“Just put it in, and I’ll text you so you have my number.” Esther shifted her weight to one side, tapping the toe of her loud boot in a hurried beat while Ashley weighed the pros and cons.

There was a light knock on the door.

“Hey, Esther.” A bushy-browed, long-haired behemoth filled the doorway. “I was hoping to catch you. Oh. Still busy?” He spotted Ashley and stilled, blocking the exit.

Ashley’s throat now tingled like she’d swallowed an entire bag of Pop Rocks.

That’s when she remembered what that tingling meant.

Ashley plugged in her number and returned the phone without considering any further Family-related complications. But she kept focus on the man in the doorway. He’d just made her life exponentially more difficult.

Esther fumbled the phone Ashley shoved at her. “I’m just wrapping up with class stuff. What did you need?”

“Just checking if you’re coming over tomorrow.” His eyes continued to flick back to Ashley. “There’s something I wanted to talk about.”

“Of course.” Esther waved away his concern, rings flashing in the overhead light, and adjusted the strap of her cross bag. “I’ll see you then, August.”

Ashley’s shoulders stiffened. The name was ringing some sort of bell but that didn’t matter right now because Esther knew him. And not in a casual “hi, fellow classmate” way but an “of course I’ll be at the place where you live and we regularly meet” way. Just another reason Ashley should be avoiding Esther. Maybe they were destined to be enemies to lovers after all.

“Ashley,” Esther said.

Ashley pasted on her everything-is-fine smile before tearing her eyes away from the man and turning to Esther.

“I’ll text you,” Esther said, “and we can coordinate a time to meet up. Maybe this weekend?”

“Sure. Sounds great.”Please leave. She didn’t need the stranger in the doorway saying anything suspicious in front of Esther.

Esther nodded and strolled to the door. “You leaving too, August?”

“I just have to check a thing.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder indicating farther into the building before giving Ashley another side-eye. “You go on ahead.”

Esther shrugged and clomped down the corridor, disappearing from view.

Ashley returned her full attention to the man dripping with the tingling spark of magic before dropping her fangs. “What are you doing here, witch?”

2

Ashley

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