Page 93 of The Confidant

Then a text comes in on my phone. And another right after. Then another.

Those chills now have chills on them.

“Hang on,” I mutter with a lot of dread.

I open the messages, and they all say the same thing.

“Addie. Family meeting. Tonight. Five o’clock at Le Chique,” I read aloud. Several more texts come in as I’m speaking, all saying the same thing.

Damon is silent for several minutes, and so am I.

“What the hell?” I ask, unable to come up with anything else to say.

The alert for my email goes off and starts repeating the same message.

“Good Lord! I get it already!” I shout in horror.

“I’m getting off the phone,” Damon freaks right along with me. “You burn that one and make Poe buy you another. I don’t want whatever’s infecting yours to hit mine.”

“Youcalledme,asshole!” I yelp, but he’s already hung up.

It gets so bad that I have to silence my phone. It keeps happening every hour, like a countdown. Silence, and then my phone practically vibrates itself onto the floor with messages and emails. By the time Poe gets home, I’m ready to douse the thing in holy water.

“It’s possessed. Make it stop,” I beg him with a scowl.

Poe looks from the phone to me in concern.

“Oh. Welcome home, husband,” I chuckle a little. How can I not? I have a cursed phone and a bewildered spouse who thought today was normal. Joke’s on him.

“I’m going to need some context,” he admits with a tilted smile. “Oh. Good to see you, wife.”

Crazy man.

After I explain it, and another round of insane phone vibrations happens right in front of him, he checks the time.

“We have about twenty minutes to decide if we’re going.”

I raise a brow and gesture to the phone. “We’re following the hoodoo now? To meet anyone frommyfamily? This sounds like an ok night for you?”

His eyes slide to me, a sly smirk starting on his lips. “If they piss me off, I’ll take care of it and we can finish the night knocking over trash cans.”

“Poe,” I give him a scoffing laugh.

“Adelaide,” he returns with a grin. “A public place? Everyone there? Me as backup? It couldn’t get any better for you. If there’s the same bullshit, you can give me a signal, and I’ll beat the shit out of them all.”

“Poe Allan Richards,” I scowl at him.

“What?” He raises his hands as if anyone would believe he’s innocent.

“I may be on the outs with everyone, but I can’t sit back and watch you go wild on them. Those fools would have you arrested in seconds.”

He leans back on the couch, tossing his arm over my shoulders to drag me with him.

“Then you can leave. We can walk away with our middle fingers in the air. I think that having everyone together is a recipe for chaos, but no one can hide, either. Especially if you start asking questions and perfecting youryou can’t faze mestare.”

“This one?” I raise a brow and leave the rest of my face in an awkward, stern expression.

“Yup,” he agrees with a sigh. “I hate that you need it, but they’ve proven to be insanely unreasonable.”

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