Page 41 of Spelling Disaster

“Can you even believe it?” the first hisses out. “He dropped her off at the misfit house. He was, like, touching her. Smiling and shit.”

“I know, it’s such a shame,” the other commiserates. “All that gorgeousness wasted on someone like her. When Helena finds out Theo is slumming it, she is going to flip out!”

“It’s not a shame. It’s absolute BS!” the first insists.

The second snorts dismissively. “How do you know it’s BS?”

“Because someone like himwouldnotbe seen with a girl like her. Let alone actually be interested in her.” Now the first one scoffs, the sound wet and awful. “It’s ridiculous. She is the social equivalent of poison. Anyone seen with her is asking to be isolated.”

It’s none of my business what they’re saying. They’re gossips. I’m prepared to ignore them both until I hear my name.

“Yasmine andTheo?”

My fingers still on a wand of mascara, and I snag a look at her in the mirror overhead, the reflection is of the two blondes bent together. And they’re taking no pains to keep their thoughts to themselves.

“She must have put a hex on him in order to do her will. He’s under her spell and has no choice but to do her bidding, the poor thing.” One of them clucks their tongue. “It’s the only way this makes sense.”

Shit. This is not a consequence I’ve considered, and it makes me even more hesitant to accept his offer ifthisis the immediate reaction of people around us. It isn’t enough for us to have to maintain a ruse of dating. Now we have to prove there’s no magic involved.

I grab the mascara and some kind of lip gloss, probably not cherry flavored, and bolt to the front of the store to pay.

Makeover be damned.

I’ve got to do a lot of thinking this morning and a coat of gloss isn’t going to help me make the right decision.

I told Theo this wouldn’t work, I think to myself on my way back to the dorm. Or if I hadn’t actually said it out loud then I wanted to.

It seems to me there is more to lose than there is to gain but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get a chance to get to know Theo again. Is a potential friendship between us, outside of fake dating, even possible?

If I say no to tutoring him, I’ll never find out.

He’s worth it, though, isn’t he? Having the chance to be around Theo and get to know him has to be worth more than empty words from two unremarkable witches.

Getting to know himandexploring my first real crush. It’s a chance I have to take. Even if I have to face the blowback.

By the time I make it back to the dorm, I’ve already made up my mind to go through with this. I’ll tutor him, and he’ll…fake date me.I guess. It’s a little too late for us to decide on another course of action because tongues are already wagging just from him dropping me off last night.

It makes me feel a little weird inside.

Which means I’ve got to take action to prove a relationship between us is not only possible but happening at this moment. It’s up to me to sell the lie, too, not just Theo.

At least I’ve made it out of the store before the girls see me. Theo hasn’t given me his number, waiting for me to come to him to either agree or back out, so I’ve got to find him based on his schedule. And I totally know his schedule.

What can I say?

He’s my crush.

I stand beside the bushes outside of his dorm waiting for him to leave for his morning class in the astrology building. The lip gloss burns a hole in my pocket and I feel absolutely foolish for thinking it would make any kind of difference in the first place.

If Remi was here, she’d mock me up one side and down the other.

After a few tense seconds, Theo steps through the front doors and I throw a pebble at him. “Psst!” It’s way louder than I thought but the noise does the trick and gets his attention. “Over here.”

He cranes his head to the side, confused, until he sees me and rolls his eyes. “What are you doing in the bushes? Come on, Yas, that’s silly.”

Feeling ridiculous, I straighten and step out. “I’m waiting for you. We need to talk,” I say. “I, ah, have an answer for you.”

“If you know my dorm then you could have just come up to my room. It’s 129. Or you could have called.” He points behind him to a doorbell with one copper colored brow arched. “You push in the room number and it sends a signal up to me.”

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