Page 10 of The Trouble With Spells
At least for the two years before he had graduated. I’d been a sophomore when he and Daphne had been seniors, though they hadn’t run in the same circle of friends. Michael was a complete jock. Theitguy. The one everyone wanted to be, or at least be around.
Every single time I had passed him in the hallways my body had reacted much the way it was doing now.
He hadn’t even known I’d existed then, but oh how I had daydreamed about our eyes meeting, that smile of his lighting up his face, and he wouldseeme. Of course, we would be together happily-ever-after, the perfect couple.
I snorted out loud at my own ridiculous fantasies and hoped he hadn’t heard me over the storm outside.
He’d been so fucking beautiful it had hurt to look at him. Sandy brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, a dick-hardening smile. He had been sheer perfection in my adolescent eyes. Good looking and great at every single thing he did. Football? Star quarterback. Basketball? He could land athree pointer every time. Track? That mile didn’t even make him winded.
Unlike what happened to my lungs anytime my green eyes landed on him, when I couldn’t remember how to properly breathe. Or speak. Or think. Which had been often, because I seemed to always have an uncanny ability to pick Michael out in any crowded hallway, between passing periods. His aura had always drawn my eyes immediately to him.
Michael Endicott had fueled many of my teenage hormone driven dreams–and even a few grown up ones, to be honest.
He had left Salem after graduation, off to Boston and law school. He’d been a prosecuting attorney in the city for the last few years, his smiling face showing up across the front page of the papers more than once. It was the only reason I subscribed to the online editions. I could honestly care less what was happening in Boston, but every once in a while, I would log in and there would be Michael’s face staring back at me, blue eyes shining. Announcing another victory, another win, another criminal he had put behind bars.
Pushing my glasses up my nose, I straightened to my full height, which at six-foot-one was only about an inch or two shorter than Michael.
His wide, slightly frantic eyes darted around the shop. Like he wasn’t sure how the fuck he had landed in thisstrange place, filled with all kinds of witchy type things, before he visibly shook himself.
His lips moved silently, and I wondered if he was giving himself a pep talk of some kind, while I waited with bated breath to see what he was going to do next.
And why on earth he was standing in The Witch’s Brew.
Chapter Six
Callum
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you’d think I’d never had a customer in the shop before.
Get a grip, Callum, just act cool.
Who the fuck was I kidding? I’d never been cool a day in my life.
Words. I should use my words. Ask him if I could help him find something.
Like I did with any other customer who wandered in off the street. I knew how to do this. He was no different than anyone else.
He puts his pants on the same way you do, Gran’s voice rang in my head, and I shook her words away.
Because Michael’s pants probably cost ten times what mine did, and I didn’t think I had everowned a pair that cradled my ass like his did. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be single now.
I opened my mouth, and my tongue just deserted me. Completely forgot how to make words. Nothing–absolutely nothing–not one sound came out of my mouth. Clamping my lips tightly together before I made some kind of undignified sound, we just stared at each other for a full minute. Michael silently saying…a prayer, maybe, and me staring like I had seen a ghost.
Finally, Michael visibly shook himself and took a step closer to where I waited silently behind the counter. Then another and another. His face broke into that smile of his, so bright it was like the sun was shining on me through the gloom of the day.
Words. What were words? Who needed them anyway?
Blinking behind my glasses, I shoved them back up my nose and watched him move closer.
My breath caught in my chest, my pulse pounded so loud I could hear it in my ears, and my palms grew damp.
Then he veered to the left, towards the candles on display.
Uhh, what just happened?
Swallowing hard, I watched as he scanned the row, then picked one up. He sniffed it, wrinkled his nose, and put it back.
Running my damp palms down my jeans, I finally tried to speak. “Can–”
